Jared Diamond on Leaders, Luck, and Irreplaceability
Is leadership overrated? That's one simple reading of what Jared Diamond argues in his new book. Asked by Tyler to name the least replaceable leader in human history, Jared declines to name one — not ...
9 Sep 52min
Michael Moritz on Origin Stories, Exile, and Obsessive Curiosity
Michael Moritz has written books through every phase of his life: the first history of Apple and an account of Chrysler's near-death while he was a journalist at Time, a study of Alex Ferguson's Manch...
2 Sep 41min
Luke Burgis on Mimetic Desire, Catholicism, and the Age of Social Contagion
Luke Burgis left Wall Street after two years, founded a few successful companies in his twenties, then walked away to spend three years in a Roman seminary on the path to the priesthood. He now runs t...
19 Aug 52min
Daron Acemoglu on Liberalism, Automation, and the Educated Elite
Daron Acemoglu returns for his second appearance with a new book, What Happened to Liberal Democracy?, which Tyler reads as an attempt to redefine and revitalize liberalism for our times. Where Daron'...
12 Aug 55min
Julia Ioffe on Russian Women, Missing Men, and the Roots of Autocracy
Julia Ioffe left the USSR as a child and came back as an adult journalist to find that the confident, credentialed women she remembered from her Soviet childhood had largely been supplanted by those c...
5 Aug 55min
Andrew Graham-Dixon on Vermeer, a Forgotten Sect, and Underrated Artists
Andrew Graham-Dixon's new book, Vermeer: A Life Lost and Found, rests on the conviction that you cannot understand what's in a painting without knowing what its maker was thinking about. In Vermeer's ...
22 Jul 56min
Chase Koch on Principles, Music, and Overcoming Entropy
Chase Koch grew up receiving Sunday philosophy lessons from his father Charles and, by his own account, spent most of them half asleep while his sister supplied the answers. The principles didn't land...
15 Jul 54min
Joel Mokyr on Clans, Corporations, and a Culture of Growth
Joel Mokyr co-won the 2025 economics Nobel for exploring the question that traces back to the beginning of economics: how did sustained economic growth suddenly become normal? For nearly all of human ...
8 Jul 46min
