Episodes
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Renowned computer scientist Neil Lawrence visits Google to discuss his book "The Atomic Human: What Makes Us Unique in the Age of AI."
What does Artificial Intelligence mean for our identity? Our fascination with AI stems from the perceived uniqueness of human intelligence. We believe it's what differentiates us. Fears of AI not only concern how it invades our digital lives, but also the implied threat of an intelligence that displaces us from our position at the center of the world.
Neil D. Lawrence's book shows why these fears may be misplaced. Atomism, proposed by Democritus, suggested it was impossible to continue dividing matter down into ever smaller components: eventually we reach a point where a cut cannot be made. In the same way, by slicing away at the facets of human intelligence that can be replaced by machines, AI uncovers what is left: an indivisible core that is the essence of humanity.
Human intelligence has evolved across hundreds of thousands of years. Due to our physical and cognitive constraints over that time, it is social and highly embodied. By contrasting our capabilities with machine intelligence, The Atomic Human reveals the technical origins, capabilities and limitations of AI systems, and how they should be wielded. Not just by the experts, but ordinary people. Understanding this will enable readers to choose the future we want – either one where AI is a tool for us, or where we become a tool of AI – and how to counteract the digital oligarchy to maintain the fabric of an open, fair and democratic society.
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Tero Isokauppila visits Google to discuss his book Healing Mushrooms: A Practical and Culinary Guide to Using Mushrooms for Whole Body Health.
Adaptogenic mushrooms are one of today's buzziest superfoods, known for their ability to restore skin's youthful glow, increase energy levels, reduce brain fog, keep your hormone levels in check, and so much more. In this book, you’ll learn about the ten most powerful mushrooms you can add to your daily diet to maximize your health gains. Though some of these mushrooms, like Tremella, Cordyceps, and Reishi will sound exotic, they're all easy to source online in extract form and easier to use in recipes. Even more familiar mushrooms, like Shiitake, Oyster, and Enoki, are full of healing potential--you just have to know how to use them. Packed with practical information, fun illustrations, and 50 mushroom-boosted recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and even dessert, Healing Mushrooms unlocks the vast potential of this often-overlooked superfood category and will be the go-to resource for adding mushrooms to your health and wellness regimen.
Tero Isokauppila is the founder of Four Sigmatic, a nature-centric company specializing in functional mushrooms, superfoods, and adaptogens. He is a subject matter expert on all things mushrooms and natural health and was selected as one of the TOP 50 Food Activists by the Academy of Culinary Nutrition.
Originally published in March of 2019.
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Elizabeth L. Block visits Google to discuss her book “Beyond Vanity: The History and Power of Hairdressing” where she explores the diverse history of women’s hair.
In the nineteenth century, the complex cultural meaning of hair was not only significant, but it could also impact one's place in society. After the Civil War, hairdressing was also a growing profession and the hair industry a mainstay of local, national, and international commerce. In Beyond Vanity, Elizabeth Block expands the nascent field of hair studies by restoring women's hair as a cultural site of meaning in the early United States. With a special focus on the places and spaces in which the hair industry operated, Block argues that the importance of hair has been overlooked as well as its misguided association with frivolity and triviality. As Block clarifies, hairdressing was anything but frivolous.
Using methods of visual and material culture studies informed by concepts of cultural geography, Block identifies multiple substantive categories of place and space within which hair acted. These include the preparatory places of the bedroom and hair salon, as well as the presentation places of parties, fairs, stages, and workplaces. Here are also the untold stories of business owners, many of whom were women of color, and the creators of trendsetting styles like the pompadour and Gibson Girl bouffant. Block's ground-breaking study examines how race and racism affected those who participated in the presentation and business of hair, and according to which standards. The result of looking closely at the places and spaces of hair is a reconfiguration that allows a new understanding of the cultural power of hair in the nineteenth century.
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Stephen Pearcy, lead singer and frontman of the rock band RATT, visits Google to discuss his book "Sex, Drugs, RATT and Roll: My Life in Rock."
Women. Spandex. Drugs. Hair spray.
Welcome to heavy metal rock ’n’ roll, circa 1980, when all you needed was the right look, burning ambition, and a chance. Cranking out metal just as metal got hot, RATT was the perfect band at the perfect time, and their hit single “Round and Round” became a top-selling anthem. The bigger RATT got, the more excessive lead singer Stephen Pearcy and his bandmates became. There was nothing these guys wouldn’t snort, drink, bed, or break. But as RATT scrambled up a wall of fame and wealth, they then experienced a gut-wrenching free fall. Pearcy’s stunningly honest rock ’n’ roll confessional, by turns incredible, hilarious, and lyrical, is more than a story of survival—it’s a search for the things that matter most.
Originally published in July of 2013.
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Renowned wildlife ecologist Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant visits Google to discuss her book “Wild Life: Finding My Purpose in an Untamed World,” where she explores the ever-shifting relationship between humans, animals, and the Earth.
Growing up in the diverse and bustling California Bay Area, renowned wildlife ecologist Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant always felt worlds away from the white male adventurers she watched explore the wilderness on TV. She dreamed of a future where she could spend sleepless nights under the crowded canopies of the Amazon and the starry skies of the savanna. But as Rae set off on her own expeditions in the wild, she saw nature’s delicate balance in a new light.
Wild Life follows Rae on her adventures and explorations in some of the world’s most remote locales. Hers is a story about a nearly twenty-year career in the wild—carving a niche as one of very few Black female scientists—and the challenges she had to overcome, expectations she had to leave behind, and the many lessons she learned along the way. An incredible journey spanning the Great Plains of North America to the rainforests of Madagascar, Wild Life sheds light on our pivotal relationship and responsibility to the natural world and the relatives—both human and otherwise—that we share it with.
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Pat Dorsey visits Google to discuss his book “The Little Book that Builds Wealth”.
Over time, most businesses with high returns on capital attract competition that forces down profitability. However, a small minority of companies are able to defy the laws of economic gravity by creating competitive advantages, or “economic moats” that insulate them from competition and allow them to maintain high returns on capital. After spending fifteen years analyzing thousands of companies, Pat has identified a handful of structural characteristics that create competitive advantage. In this Talk, he discusses these characteristics, how management teams can create and destroy competitive advantage, and how he applies competitive analysis in managing institutional capital at his firm Dorsey Asset Management.
Pat is the founder of Dorsey Asset Management, which manages concentrated global portfolios for institutional investors. Prior to starting Dorsey Asset, Pat was Director of Research for Sanibel Captiva Trust, an independent trust company with approximately $1 billion in assets under management serving high net worth clients. He has also served as the Director of Equity Research for Morningstar, where he led the growth of Morningstar’s equity research group from 10 to over 100 analysts. Pat developed Morningstar’s economic moat ratings, as well as the methodology behind Morningstar's framework for analyzing competitive advantage.
Originally published in January of 2015.
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Top Olympic swimmer Missy Franklin, ice hockey gold medalist Angela Ruggiero, and two-time track and field gold medalist Ashton Eaton join us for a panel to discuss mindset, goal setting, and resilience in sports and life.
Missy Franklin was raised in Centennial, Colorado, began swimming competitively at the age of 5, and competed in her first international event in 2009 at the age of 14. At the 2012 Olympic Games in London, Missy won 4 Gold Medals and 1 Bronze Medal. Missy’s performance in the 200-meter backstroke broke the world record in the event and also marked the first time that an American had won the event in 40 years. Missy brought home her final Gold Medal from the 2016 Rio Olympics for her performance in the 4 x 200 relay.
Angela Ruggiero is a leading figure in the global sports world, having served as an elite athlete, business leader, investor, and advisor. Angela is a four-time Olympian and Gold Medalist for Team USA ice hockey, and is a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame. She has been named to Sports Business Journal's 40 Under 40 List, Forbes’ Top 25 Most Powerful Women in Sport, and is a Member of the US Olympic & Paralympic Committees and the International Ice Hockey Federation’s Hall of Fame.
Ashton Eaton is a two-time Olympic gold medalist in the decathlon from London 2012 and Rio 2016. He is also an innovation engineer at Nike. Prior to Nike he worked at Intel’s Olympic technology Group on 3D motion capture using computer vision and AI for sport performance analysis.
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The Venerable Pomnyun visits Google to discuss secular compassion and social justice.
Venerable Pomnyun Sunim is the chairman of The Peace Foundation in Seoul, which supports policy research and analysis aimed at Korean unification and humanitarian issues in North Korea. He concurrently serves as the chairman of Good Friends for Peace, Human Rights, and Refugee Issues, whose weekly publication “North Korea Today” provides detailed, up-to-date information about conditions on the ground in North Korea.
Venerable Pomnyun is also chairman of the Join Together Society, an international relief agency with offices worldwide, including in North Korea. He has worked extensively to supply humanitarian aid to famine victims in North Korea and defend the human rights of North Korean refugees in China. A respected buddhist monk, he is also a Zen master with the Seoul-based JungTo Society, which he originally established in 1988 to facilitate self-improvement through volunteerism.
Originally published in November of 2014.
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Jay Ellis visits Google to discuss his book "Did Everyone Have an Imaginary Friend (or Just Me)?"
What do you do when you’re the perpetual new kid, only child, and military brat hustling school to school each year and everyone’s looking to you for answers? Make stuff up, of course! And a young Jay Ellis does just that, with help from his imaginary friend, Mikey.
A testament to the importance of invention, trusting oneself, and making space for creativity, "Did Everyone Have an Imaginary Friend (or Just Me)?" is a memoir of a kid who confided in his imaginary sidekick to navigate parallel pop culture universes to a lifetime of birthday disappointment and basketball dreams gone bad. Mikey also guides Ellis through tragedies, like losing his teenage cousin in a mistaken-target drive-by and the shame and fear of being pulled over by cops almost a dozen times the year he got his driver’s license.
As his imaginary friend morphs into adult consciousness, Ellis charts an unforgettable story of looking inward to solve some of life’s biggest (and smallest) challenges. Now an accomplished actor, philanthropist, and entrepreneur, Jay is best known for his role as Lawrence on HBO’s Insecure, for which he won an NAACP Image Award.
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John Ousterhout, Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, visits Google to discuss the complex techniques that can help you to become a more confident coder. John is excited to announce that he just published the first edition of a new book on software design, based on material from a software design class he has been teaching at Stanford for the last several years.
Prior to joining Stanford, John spent 14 years in industry where he founded two companies, preceded by another 14 years as a professor at Berkeley. Over the course of his career, Professor Ousterhout has built a number of influential coding systems and has taught several courses on software design. In this talk, he synthesizes these experiences into an insightful and provocative discussion on how to (and how not to) design software.
Originally published in August of 2018.
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Olympic skier Gus Kenworthy and Olympic diver Greg Louganis visit Google to discuss what it’s like to thrive as an athlete on the world's biggest sporting stage, how things have evolved for LGBTQ+ competitors, and what work remains in the quest to create a more inclusive world for future generations of rising queer athletes.
Gus Kenworthy is known as one of the best all-around park skiers of all time and is one of the only athletes to have podium finishes across all three disciplines: slopestyle, halfpipe, and big air. In 2014, Gus won a silver medal for Team USA at the inaugural slopestyle of the Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia. At the 2018 Olympics, Gus made history by becoming the first openly gay man to compete for the U.S. in a Winter Olympics. In 2015, Gus came out on the cover of ESPN Magazine, becoming the first openly gay professional athlete in any action sport.
Greg Louganis is considered one of the greatest divers in history. With a total of 5 Olympic medals, 5 World Championship titles, 6 Pan American titles and 47 national titles, his records remain unbroken. Greg is the only male to win gold medals on both 3 meter springboard and 10 meter platform in consecutive Olympic Games. Today he is a coach, speaker, author, actor, activist and humanitarian as he continues his tradition of excellence.
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Robert Greene visits Google to discuss his latest book, "Mastery."
What did Charles Darwin, a middling schoolboy and underachieving second son, do to become one of the earliest and greatest naturalists the world has known? What were the similar choices made by Mozart and by Caesar Rodriguez, the U.S. Air Force's last ace fighter pilot? In Mastery, Robert Greene's fifth book, he mines the biographies of great historical figures for clues about gaining control over our own lives and destinies. Greene culls years of research and original interviews to blend historical anecdote and psychological insight, distilling the universal ingredients of the world's masters.
Temple Grandin, Martha Graham, Henry Ford, Buckminster Fuller—all have lessons to offer about how the love for doing one thing exceptionally well can lead to mastery. Yet the secret, Greene writes, is already in our heads. Debunking long-held cultural myths, he demonstrates just how we, as humans, are hardwired for achievement.
Originally published in April of 2013.
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Laurel Harris and Alexandra Socha, who respectively play Elphaba and Glinda in Broadway’s Wicked, visit Google to celebrate 20 years of the hit musical.
Wicked looks at what happened in the land of Oz…but from a different angle. Long before Dorothy arrives, there is a young woman, born with emerald-green skin – smart, fiery, misunderstood and possessing an extraordinary talent. When she meets a bubbly blonde who is exceptionally popular, their initial rivalry turns into the unlikeliest of friendships – until the world decides to call one “Good” and the other “Wicked.”
Laurel Harris is thrilled to rejoin Wicked Broadway after just completing 9 months on the Wicked tour. Beginning her Wicked journey 13 years ago, she’s proudest of playing Elphaba 10 years ago full-time on tour.
Alexandra Socha’s Broadway credits include Head Over Heels, Brighton Beach Memoirs, and Spring Awakening. On television, she is known for her role as Skye on Amazon's "Red Oaks" and has also appeared in "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel," "Evil," "The Big C,” and many more.
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Author Mary Pilon visits Google to discuss her book, "The Monopolists". The book reveals the unknown story of how the classic board game Monopoly came into existence, the reinvention of its history by Parker Brothers and multiple media outlets, the lost female originator of the game, and one man's lifelong obsession to tell the true story about the game's questionable origins.
Most people think Monopoly was invented by an unemployed Pennsylvanian who sold his game to Parker Brothers during the Great Depression in 1935 and lived happily--and richly--ever after. That story, however, is not exactly true. Ralph Anspach, a professor fighting to sell his Anti-Monopoly board game decades later, unearthed the real story, which traces back to Abraham Lincoln, the Quakers, and a forgotten feminist named Lizzie Magie who invented her nearly identical Landlord's Game more than thirty years before Parker Brothers sold their version of Monopoly. Her game--underpinned by morals that were the exact opposite of what Monopoly represents today--was embraced by a constellation of left-wingers from the Progressive Era through the Great Depression, including members of Franklin Roosevelt's famed Brain Trust.
A fascinating social history of corporate greed that illuminates the cutthroat nature of American business over the last century, "The Monopolists" reads like the best detective fiction, told through Monopoly's real-life winners and losers.
Originally published in April of 2015.
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Acclaimed science writer Ferris Jabr visits Google to discuss his book "Becoming Earth: How our Planet Came to Life."
One of humanity’s oldest beliefs is that our world is alive. Though once ridiculed by some scientists, the idea of Earth as a vast interconnected living system has gained acceptance in recent decades. We, and all living things, are more than inhabitants of Earth—we are Earth, an outgrowth of its structure and an engine of its evolution. Life and its environment have coevolved for billions of years, transforming a lump of orbiting rock into a cosmic oasis—a planet that breathes, metabolizes, and regulates its climate.
Acclaimed science writer Ferris Jabr reveals a radical new vision of Earth where lush forests spew water, pollen, and bacteria to summon rain; giant animals engineer the very landscapes they roam; microbes chew rock to shape continents; and microscopic plankton, some as glittering as carved jewels, remake the air and sea.
Humans are one of the most extreme examples of life transforming Earth. Through fossil fuel consumption, agriculture, and pollution, we have altered more layers of the planet in less time than any other species, pushing Earth into a crisis. But we are also uniquely able to understand and protect the planet’s wondrous ecology and self-stabilizing processes. Jabr introduces us to a diverse cast of fascinating people who have devoted themselves to this vital work.
Becoming Earth is an exhilarating journey through the hidden workings of our planetary symphony—its players, its instruments, and the music of life that emerges—and an invitation to reexamine our place in it. How well we play our part will determine what kind of Earth our descendants inherit for millennia to come.
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Professor Adrienne Mayor of Stanford visits Google to discuss her book, "The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women Across the Ancient World". This book is the first comprehensive account of warrior women in myth and history across the ancient world, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Great Wall of China.
Amazons―fierce warrior women dwelling on the fringes of the known world―were the mythic archenemies of the ancient Greeks. Heracles and Achilles displayed their valor in duels with Amazon queens, and the Athenians reveled in their victory over a powerful Amazon army. In historical times, Cyrus of Persia, Alexander the Great, and the Roman general Pompey tangled with Amazons.
But just who were these bold barbarian archers on horseback who gloried in fighting, hunting, and sexual freedom? Were Amazons real?
Mayor tells how amazing new archaeological discoveries of battle-scarred female skeletons buried with their weapons prove that women warriors were not merely figments of the Greek imagination. Combining classical myth and art, nomad traditions, and scientific archaeology, she reveals intimate, surprising details and original insights about the lives and legends of the women known as Amazons. The Greeks were not the only people enchanted by Amazons―Mayor shows that warlike women of nomadic cultures inspired exciting tales in ancient Egypt, Persia, India, Central Asia, and China.
Driven by a detective's curiosity, Mayor unearths long-buried evidence and sifts fact from fiction to show how flesh-and-blood women of the Eurasian steppes were mythologized as Amazons, the equals of men.
Originally published in December of 2014.
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Ecological engineer Dr. Nadina Galle visits Google to discuss her book “The Nature of our Cities: Harnessing the Power of the Natural World to Survive a Changing Planet.” The book describes her journey to show how scientists and citizens from around the world are harnessing emerging technologies to unlock the power of the natural world to save their cities, a phenomenon Dr. Nadina calls the “Internet of Nature.” Traveling the globe, Nadina examines how urban nature points the way toward a more sustainable future.
Dr. Nadina Galle is a Dutch-Canadian ecological engineer, technologist, and podcast host, at the forefront of the growing movement to fuse nature and technology for urban resilience, and celebrated for her pioneering work on what she calls the 'Internet of Nature.' Her contributions have been showcased in documentaries by BBC Earth and featured in publications such as National Geographic and Newsweek. She was honored as one of Forbes’ “30 under 30” and recently designated a 2024 National Geographic Explorer.
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Professor Alexander Meyer visits Google to share the ways ancient Greeks and Romans kept time and their reasons for doing so. He discusses various time-keeping artifacts and works of literature to show that the manner in which time was kept and tracked reflected and continues to reflect much broader cultural issues, including imperialism, commercialism, religion, and law.
This Talk analyzes ancient Greek and Roman calendrical systems, highlighting their diverse cultural expression and the challenges they faced in reconciling different calendars, with a focus on the calendar reforms made by Julius Caesar and Emperor Augustus. For example, in 46 BCE Julius Caesar implemented calendar reforms to correct the discrepancies caused by the lunar calendar's inaccuracy, and Augustus further refined the calendar system to ensure that leap years occurred every four years, as intended.
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Master Certified life coach Kara Loewentheil visits Google to discuss her book “Take Back Your Brain: How A Sexist Society Gets in Your Head – and How to Get It Out,” Her book weaves cognitive psychology and feminist theory with practical thought-work exercises to awaken new possibilities for all.
Kara Lowentheil is a founder of The School of New Feminist Thought, and host of the internationally top-ranked podcast “UnF*ck Your Brain: Feminist Self-Help for Everyone”, which has 50+ million downloads. A graduate of Yale College and Harvard Law School, Kara transitioned from being an Ivy League lawyer to a life coach. Eight years after she stepped down as director of a think tank at Columbia Law School, she created multiple-seven-figure businesses, taught millions of women how to identify the ways that sexist socialization impacts their brains, and helped women all over the world rewire their thought patterns to liberate themselves from the inside out.
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Author Robert Frank visits Google to discuss his book "The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas".
Why do the keypads on drive-up cash machines have Braille dots? Why are round-trip fares from Orlando to Kansas City higher than those from Kansas City to Orlando? For decades, Robert Frank has been asking his economics students to pose and answer questions like these as a way of learning how economic principles operate in the real world - which they do everywhere, all the time.
Once you learn to think like an economist, all kinds of puzzling observations start to make sense. Drive-up ATM keypads have Braille dots because it's cheaper to make the same machine for both drive-up and walk-up locations. Travelers from Kansas City to Orlando pay less because they are usually price-sensitive tourists with many choices of destination, whereas travelers originating from Orlando typically choose Kansas City for specific family or business reasons. The Economic Naturalist employs basic economic principles to answer scores of intriguing questions from everyday life, and along the way, introduces key ideas such as the cost-benefit principle, the "no cash on the table" principle, and the law of one price. This is as delightful and painless a way to learn fundamental economics as there is!
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