Week of July 22
Week of July 15
Week of July 8
Week of July 1
Week of June 24
Week of June 17
Week of June 10
Week of June 3
Week of May 27
Week of May 20
Week of May 13
Week of July 22
Jamie Foxx (@iamjamiefoxx) is an Oscar-, BAFTA-, and Golden Globe Award-winning actor, a Grammy Award-winning musician, a standup and improv comedian, and the owner of BSB ultra-smooth flavored whiskey. He is also one of the most consummate performers and entertainers that I have ever met. This conversation was voted Podcast of the Year in 2015. Jamie stars in the upcoming major motion picture Tin Soldier and Netflix’s Back in Action, both due out at the end of this year.
Jacqueline Novogratz (@jnovogratz) is the founder and CEO of Acumen. In 2001, Jacqueline started Acumen with the idea of investing philanthropic patient capital in entrepreneurs seeking to solve the toughest issues of poverty. As a pioneer of impact investing, Acumen and its investments have brought critical services like healthcare, education, and clean energy to hundreds of millions of low-income people.
After supporting hundreds of entrepreneurs, Jacqueline and her team recognized character as the crucial ingredient for success. In 2020, they launched Acumen Academy to instruct others in global social change. Under Jacqueline’s leadership, Acumen has also launched several for-profit impact funds designed to invest at the intersection of poverty and climate change and has spun off 60 Decibels, founded on the principle that serving all stakeholders is as important as enriching shareholders.
Jacqueline is the New York Times bestselling author of The Blue Sweater and Manifesto for a Moral Revolution: Practices to Build a Better World. She has been named one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers by Foreign Policy, one of the 25 Smartest People of the Decade by The Daily Beast, and one of the world’s 100 Greatest Living Business Minds by Forbes, which also honored her with the Forbes 400 Lifetime Achievement Award for Social Entrepreneurship. She has received eight honorary doctorates and holds an MBA from Stanford University and a BA in Economics/International Relations from the University of Virginia.
Matthew McConaughey (@McConaughey) is a Texas native, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Greenlights, and one of Hollywood’s most sought-after leading men. A chance meeting in Austin with casting director and producer Don Phillips led him to director Richard Linklater, who launched the actor’s career in the cult classic Dazed and Confused. Since then, he has won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Ron Woodroof in Dallas Buyers Club, appeared in more than 40 feature films that have grossed more than $1 billion, and has become a producer, director, author, businessman, and philanthropist—with his Just Keep Livin Foundation—all the while sticking to his Texas roots and “jk livin’” philosophy.
McConaughey and his wife Camila launched their award-winning line of super premium organic tequila, Pantalones, this year. McConaughey also serves as the minister of culture for the University of Texas Athletic Department and the Austin FC Soccer Club, where he is part owner. He currently resides with his family in Austin, Texas, and teaches at the University of Texas at Austin.
Aisha Tyler (@aishatyler) is an award-winning director, actor, comedian, bestselling author, and activist. She is a star of the hit television show Criminal Minds, now in its 15th season, for which she has also directed, and she continues to host the CW’s top-rated improv show Whose Line Is It Anyway?. Aisha voiced superspy Lana Kane for all 14 seasons of F/X’s Emmy-winning animated comedy series Archer, which also won four back-to-back Critics’ Choice Television Awards. She was a co-host for seven seasons of CBS’s Emmy-winning daytime show The Talk, and she was the first African-American to have a long-standing role on the show Friends. Her feature film AXIS won the Outstanding Achievement in Feature Filmmaking award at the 2017 Newport Beach Film Festival. An avid gamer and passionate advocate (and occasional adversary) of the gaming community, Aisha’s voice can be heard in the video games Halo: Reach, Gears of War 3, and Watch Dogs. She recently launched her new margarita Losophē, now available for preorder.
Week of July 15
Anne Lamott (@AnneLamott) is an international bestselling author, a teacher, a Guggenheim Fellow, and an inductee of the California Hall of Fame. In each of her beloved books, which have sold millions of copies worldwide and include Operating Instructions (an account of her son’s first year), Bird by Bird (her classic book on writing), and Help, Thanks, Wow (a celebration of prayer), she uses honesty, empathy, and humor to write about our world and delve into what both unites us and makes us human: birth and death, parenthood and family, faith and doubt, love and loss, forgiveness and hope. Her new book, Somehow, explores the transformative power of love.
Josh Waitzkin is the author of The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance, an eight-time national chess champion, a two-time world champion in Tai Chi Chuan Push Hands, and the first Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt under nine-time world champion Marcelo Garcia. For more than 15 years, Josh has been channeling his passion for the outer limits of the learning process toward training elite mental performers in business and finance and to revolutionizing the education system.
Hugh Jackman (@TheHughJackman) is an Academy Award-nominated and Golden Globe- and Tony Award-winning performer, whose roles include Professor Harold Hill in Broadway’s revival of The Music Man, Jean Valjean in 2013’s major motion picture adaptation of Les Misérables, and Wolverine in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films, a role which he will reprise in the upcoming Deadpool & Wolverine.
Esther Perel (@EstherPerel) is recognized as one of today’s most insightful and original voices on modern relationships. She is a New York City-based psychotherapist, the New York Times bestselling author of Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic and The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity, host of her top-rated podcast Where Should We Begin?, and a popular TED speaker, whose talks have garnered more than 43 million views.
Week of July 8
Arnold Schwarzenegger (@schwarzenegger) is an Austrian-born bodybuilder; the star of Total Recall, True Lies, Twins, and the Terminator films (and many others); a businessman; the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life; and the thirty-eighth governor of California. His daily email newsletter Pump Club has more than half a million subscribers and continues to grow as a positive corner of the Internet.
Schwarzenegger is also a philanthropist who has made it his mission to give back. Since his time in the governor’s house, he’s been working diligently to combat climate change and anti-semitism, ensure fair voting practices, help youth, support Veterans, and inspire healthy living.
Ann Miura-Ko (@annimaniac) is a co-founding partner at Floodgate venture capital firm, a repeat member of both the Forbes Midas List and the New York Times Top 20 Venture Capitalists Worldwide, one of Forbes’ Most Powerful Women in Startups, and a Stanford lecturer and member of the board of trustees of Yale University. Ann is well-known in Silicon Valley as a pioneer investor in highly technical companies because of her background as a PhD in math modeling of infosec at Stanford. Ann has also made significant investments in consumer (commerce, curation) marketplaces and software for SMBs and solopreneurs. Some of Ann’s investments include Lyft, Studio (formerly Monthly), Popshoplive, Emotive, and Refinery29. Ann is a co-founding member of All Raise, a nonprofit committed to improving diversity in funders and founders.
Derek Sivers (sive.rs) is a former musician, programmer, TED speaker, and circus clown, who sold his first company, CDBaby, for $22 million (and gave all the money to charity). He is the author of books on philosophy and entrepreneurship, including How to Live, Hell Yeah or No, Anything You Want, and Useful Not True. You can find all of Derek’s books and much more at his website sive.rs.
Kevin Kelly (@kevin2kelly) is the founding executive editor of Wired magazine, the former editor and publisher of the Whole Earth Review, and a bestselling author of books on technology and culture, including Excellent Advice for Living, The Inevitable, What Technology Wants, and Vanishing Asia, his three-volume photo book-set capturing West, Central, and East Asia. Kelly is the author of the popular essay “1000 True Fans.” His TED Talk, “The future will be shaped by optimists,” has been viewed more than 2.5 million times.
Week of July 1
Terry Crews (@terrycrews) is a former NFL football player; film and television star of The Expendables, Everybody Hates Chris, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine; host of NBC’s America’s Got Talent franchise; and the bestselling author of six books, including his memoir Tough: My Journey to True Power and Stronger Together, which he co-wrote with his wife Rebecca King Crews. A lifelong artist, Terry released his furniture collection with Bernhardt Designs in 2017, which premiered at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York and was awarded the prestigious “Best of NeoCon 2017.” He is the illustrator of a first-of-its-kind augmented reality book, Come Find Me, and Terry’s Crew, his children’s literature graphic novel.
Richard Koch (@RichardKoch8020) is an investor and the author of numerous books on business and personal success, including The 80/20 Principle—which has sold more than a million copies in roughly 40 languages and which was named by GQ as one of the top 25 business books of all time; Unreasonable Success and How to Achieve It; Simplify: How the Best Businesses in the World Succeed (with Greg Lockwood); The Star Principle: How It Can Make You Rich; and his latest, 80/20 Daily: Your Day-by-Day Guide to Happier, Healthier, and More Successful Living Using the 8020 Principle, which will be released October 2024 and is available now for preorder. Richard’s investments have grown at 22 percent compounded annually over 37 years and have included Filofax, Plymouth Gin, Belgo, Betfair, FanDuel, and Auto1. He has worked for Boston Consulting Group and was a partner at Bain & Co. before joining Jim Lawrence and Iain Evans to start LEK, which expanded from three to 350 professionals during the six years Richard was there.
Elizabeth Gilbert (@GilbertLiz) is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Big Magic and Eat, Pray, Love—which together have sold more than 25 million copies—as well as several other internationally bestselling books. She has been a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the PEN/Hemingway Award. In 2015, she published Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear—a book that encapsulates the joyful spirit of adventure and permission that Elizabeth has always brought to her work and to her life. Her latest novel is City of Girls, a rollicking, sexy tale of the New York City theater world during the 1940s, which was named an instant New York Times best seller.
Jack Kornfield (@JackKornfield) trained as a Buddhist monk in the monasteries of Thailand, India, and Burma. He has taught meditation internationally since 1974 and is one of the key teachers to have introduced Buddhist mindfulness practice to the West. Jack is a co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, and Spirit Rock Center in Woodacre, California. His books have been translated into 22 languages and sold more than 2 million copies. They include The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology; A Path with Heart; After the Ecstasy, the Laundry; Buddha’s Little Instruction Book; The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace; Bringing Home the Dharma; and his most recent book, No Time Like the Present: Finding Freedom, Love, and Joy Right Where You Are.
Jack is also co-founder of Cloud Sangha, which offers a free, quick mindfulness test to gauge your mindfulness levels. Cloud Sangha is a conscious online community that brings people together to create meaningful human connections and integrate mindfulness into everyday life.
Week of June 24
Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) is the bestselling author and creator of books, graphic novels, short stories, film, and television for all ages, including Neverwhere, Coraline, The Graveyard Book, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, The View from the Cheap Seats and the Sandman series of graphic novels. His fiction has received Newbery and Carnegie Medals, and Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, Bram Stoker, and Will Eisner Awards, among many other awards and honors. He is also a professor of the arts at Bard College.
Gaiman has written or co-written all episodes of, and has been the showrunner for, the BBC/Amazon Prime mini-series adaptation of Good Omens, based on the beloved 1990 book he co-wrote with Terry Pratchett. Film adaptations include Stardust (starring Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer), Coraline (an Academy Award nominee and the BAFTA winner for Best Animated Film), and How to Talk to Girls at Parties, a movie based on Gaiman’s short story. The television series Lucifer is based on characters created by Gaiman in Sandman. His 2001 novel, American Gods, became a critically acclaimed, Emmy-nominated TV series.
Debbie Millman (@debbiemillman) has been named one of the most creative people in business by Fast Company and one of the most influential designers working today by Graphic Design USA. She is the host of Design Matters—a great show and one of the world’s longest-running podcasts. She is also chair of the Masters in Branding Program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, editorial director of Print magazine, a Harvard Business School Case Study, and a member of the board of directors at the Joyful Heart Foundation.
Michael Lewis is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than 15 books, including Liar’s Poker, Flash Boys, The Undoing Project, and The Fifth Risk. Three of his books—Moneyball, The Blind Side, and The Big Short, were made into major motion pictures, with Moneyball and The Blind Side garnering Academy Award nominations.
Michael’s most recent book is Going Infinite, which delves into the rise and fall of FTX and its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried—a topic Michael also explores in depth in his critically acclaimed podcast Against the Rules, now in its fourth season.
Dr. Martine Rothblatt is the chairperson and CEO of United Therapeutics, a biotechnology company she founded in 1996 to save the life of one of her daughters. The company offers FDA-approved medicines for pulmonary hypertension and neuroblastoma and is working on manufacturing an unlimited supply of transplantable organs. Dr. Rothblatt previously created and led Sirius XM as its chairperson and CEO and launched other satellite systems for navigation and international television broadcasting.
Dr. Rothblatt has led efforts of the transgender community to establish their own health law standards and of the International Bar Association to protect autonomy rights in genetic information via an international treaty. She has bachelor’s degree (communications studies, summa cum laude), JD (Order of the Coif), and MBA degrees from UCLA, which in 2018 awarded her its highest recognition, the UCLA Medal. She holds a PhD in medical ethics from the Royal London School of Medicine and Dentistry, and she is a member of the International Institute of Space Law.
Dr. Rothblatt is the author of seven books, including Your Life or Mine, on xenotransplantation; From Transgender to Transhuman, on gender identity; Virtually Human, on cyberethics; and her latest, Principles of Geoethics, on the applications of moral philosophy to technology. She occasionally posts on Instagram at @transbinary and Twitter at @skybiome.
Week of June 17
Seth Godin (seths.blog) is an entrepreneur, bestselling author, and speaker. He has written 21 international bestsellers that have been translated into 39 languages and changed the way people think about work. They include The Dip, Purple Cow, Linchpin, Tribes, This Is Marketing, and What To Do When It’s Your Turn (And It’s Always Your Turn). Seth writes one of the most popular marketing blogs in the world, and two of his TED talks are among the most popular of all time. He is the founder of the altMBA, the social media pioneer Squidoo, and Yoyodyne, one of the first internet companies, bought by Yahoo! in 1998.
Seth’s new books are The Song of Significance: A New Manifesto for Teams and The Practice: Shipping Creative Work. He is an inductee of both the Direct Marketing Hall of Fame and the Marketing Hall of Fame.
Dr. Sue Johnson (@Dr_SueJohnson) was a leading innovator in the fields of couples therapy and adult attachment and the primary developer of Emotionally Focused Couples and Family Therapy (EFT), which has demonstrated its effectiveness in over 30 years of peer-reviewed clinical research. Dr. Sue received numerous honors and awards in recognition of her development of EFT, including “Family Psychologist of the Year” from Division 43 (family division) of the American Psychological Association, “Outstanding Contribution to the Field of Couple and Family Therapy” from the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, and the Order of Canada.
As the founding director of the International Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy (ICEEFT), Dr. Sue trained counselors in EFT worldwide and provided guidance to 80 affiliated centers. Her book Hold Me Tight—which has sold more than one million copies and is the basis of the Hold Me Tight Online relationship enhancement program—has taught countless couples how to enhance and repair their love relationships. Her most recent book for clinicians, Attachment Theory in Practice, delineates the promise of attachment science for understanding and repairing relationships.
Sadly, Dr. Sue passed away in April of this year. I feel incredibly fortunate to have known her and to have had the chance to sit down with her in conversation. She helped me to understand myself and my relationships better, and I’m certain she’ll do the same for you.
Pavel Tsatsouline is the founder and CEO of StrongFirst and the trainer credited with bringing the Russian kettlebell to the West, kickstarting the kettlebell revolution.
A former Soviet Special Forces physical training instructor, Pavel became a subject-matter expert to the elite of the US military and law enforcement, including the Marine Corps, the Secret Service, and the Navy SEALs. Pavel founded StrongFirst, the “school of strength,” to bring “low tech/high concept” methods of achieving high performance and resilience to men and women from all walks of life, not just elite warriors and athletes.
Pavel earned a sports science degree in the former Soviet Union and has authored or co-authored many books on physical performance and training, including the bestselling Kettlebell Simple & Sinister, his definitive guide to kettlebell training.
Christopher Sommer (@christophersommer1) is a former US National Team gymnastics coach and the founder of the GymnasticBodies training system. As a world-renowned gymnastics coach, Sommer is known for building his students into some of the strongest, most powerful athletes in the world.
During his extensive 40-year coaching career, Coach Sommer took meticulous notes on his training techniques—his wins and failures—so that he could translate the best elements into a superior exercise system for both high-level and beginner athletes. His four decades of careful observation led to the birth of Gymnastics Strength Training™ (or GST).
Week of June 10
Jerry Seinfeld (@jerryseinfeld) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and producer. In 1989, he teamed up with fellow comedian Larry David to create what was to become the most successful comedy series in the history of television: Seinfeld. The show ran on NBC for nine seasons, winning Emmy, Golden Globe, and People’s Choice awards, and was named the greatest television show of all time in 2009 by TV Guide and in 2012 was identified as the best sitcom ever in a 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll.
Seinfeld made his Netflix debut with the original stand-up special Jerry Before Seinfeld, along with his Emmy-nominated and critically acclaimed web series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, which has garnered over 100 million views and which The New York Times describes as “impressively complex and artful” and Variety calls “a game-changer.” His most recent stand-up special is 23 Hours To Kill, also on Netflix, and his latest book is Is This Anything?, which features his best work across five decades in comedy.
***
Maria Popova (@brainpicker) is the creator of The Marginalian (long ago named Brain Pickings), which is included in the Library of Congress’ permanent web archive of culturally valuable materials. The Marginalian is Maria’s one-woman labor of love—an inquiry into how to live and what it means to lead a good life. From Mark Twain to Oscar Wilde and everyone in between, Maria finds the hidden gems. She is prolific and consistent—The Marginalian was created on October 23, 2006, and it has been running strong for 17+ years.
Rick Rubin (@RickRubin) is a nine-time Grammy-winning producer, one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, and the most successful producer in any genre, according to Rolling Stone. He has collaborated with artists from Tom Petty to Adele, Johnny Cash to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Beastie Boys to Slayer, Kanye West to the Strokes, and System of a Down to Jay-Z. His debut book is The Creative Act: A Way of Being.
Mary Karr (@marykarrlit) is the author of three award-winning, bestselling memoirs: The Liars’ Club, Cherry, and Lit. She is also the author of The Art of Memoir, which lays bare her own process as she breaks down the craft of memoir, and Tropic of Squalor, her latest volume of poetry.
A Guggenheim fellow in poetry, Karr has won Pushcart Prizes for both verse and essays. Other grants include the Whiting Award, PEN/Martha Albrand Award, and a Radcliffe/Bunting Institute Fellowship. Karr is also the Peck Professor of Literature at Syracuse University and a regular contributor to The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Poetry magazine.
Week of June 3
Jocko Willink (@jockwillink) is a retired U.S. Navy SEAL officer, bestselling author, host of the top-rated Jocko Podcast, and co-founder of premier leadership consulting company Echelon Front, where he serves as Chief Executive Officer, leadership instructor, speaker, and strategic advisor. Jocko spent 20 years in the SEAL Teams, starting as an enlisted SEAL and rising through the ranks to become an officer. As commander of SEAL Team Three’s Task Unit Bruiser during the battle of Ramadi, he orchestrated SEAL operations that helped the “Ready First” Brigade of the U.S. Army’s First Armored Division bring stability to the violent, war-torn city. Task Unit Bruiser became the most highly decorated Special Operations Unit of the Iraq War.
He is the recipient of the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, and numerous other personal and unit awards and the author or coauthor of 10 books, including the #1 New York Times bestseller Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win, The Dichotomy of Leadership, and Way of the Warrior Kid.
Sebastian Junger (@sebastianjunger) is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Perfect Storm, Fire, A Death in Belmont, War, Tribe, Freedom, and his new book, In My Time of Dying. As an award-winning journalist, a contributing editor to Vanity Fair, and a special correspondent at ABC News, he has covered major international news stories around the world and has received both a National Magazine Award and a Peabody Award.
Junger is also a documentary filmmaker, whose films include Which Way Is the Front Line from Here? and The Last Patrol, both of which premiered on HBO; Korengal, which tries to answer the eternal question of why young men miss war; and Academy Award-nominated Restrepo (co-directed with Tim Hetherington), winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.Sebastian Junger is the founder and director of Vets Town Hall, where veterans of any era, who served in any capacity, have the right to stand before their community and speak for up to ten minutes about what it was like to serve their country.
Dr. Jane Goodall (@JaneGoodallInst) is an English primatologist and anthropologist who is considered the world’s foremost expert on chimpanzees. Her discovery in 1960 that chimpanzees make and use tools sent shockwaves through the scientific community and redefined the relationship between humans and animals.
A tireless conservationist and animal welfare activist, she is the founder of both the Jane Goodall Institute and the Roots & Shoots program, a board member of the Nonhuman Rights Project, a United Nations Messenger of Peace, and an honorary member of the World Future Council. Dr. Goodall’s work through the Jane Goodall Institute is advanced through the generous support of people like you and me. To show your support, visit janegoodall.org/tim.
Cal Fussman (@calfussman) is a New York Times bestselling author, writer-at-large at Esquire, international speaker, and host of the Big Questions with Cal Fussman podcast.
Cal has transformed oral history into an art form, conducting probing interviews with the icons who’ve shaped the last 50 years of world history: Mikhail Gorbachev, Jimmy Carter, Ted Kennedy, Simone Biles, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, Jack Welch, Robert DeNiro, Clint Eastwood, Bruce Springsteen, Dr. Dre, Quincy Jones, Woody Allen, Barbara Walters, Pelé, Yao Ming, Serena Williams, John Wooden, Muhammad Ali, and countless others.
Week of May 27
Tony Robbins (@TonyRobbins) is an entrepreneur, bestselling author, philanthropist, and the nation’s #1 life and business strategist. He has empowered more than 50 million people from 100 countries around the world through his audio programs, educational videos, and live seminars. He is the author of six international bestsellers, including the #1 New York Times financial bestseller Money: Master the Game and Unshakeable: Your Financial Freedom Playbook. His latest book is Life Force: How New Breakthroughs in Precision Medicine Can Transform the Quality of Your Life and Those You Love.
His philanthropic activities include the 1 Billion Meals Challenge, through which Tony, in partnership with Feeding America, has provided over 850 million meals in the last 7 years with a target of 1 billion meals by 2025.
Jerry Colonna (@jerrycolonna) is the CEO and co-founder of Reboot.io, an executive coaching and leadership development firm dedicated to the notion that better humans make better leaders. For nearly 20 years, Jerry has used the knowledge he gained as an investor, executive, and board member for more than 100 organizations to help entrepreneurs and others lead with humanity, resilience, and equanimity. He is the author of Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up and Reunion: Leadership and the Longing to Belong.
Jim Collins (jimcollins.com) is a student and teacher of what makes great companies tick and a Socratic advisor to leaders in the business and social sectors. Having invested more than 25 years in rigorous research, he has authored or coauthored a series of books that have sold more than 10 million copies worldwide. They include Good to Great, the #1 bestseller that examines why some companies make the leap and others don’t (as well as its companion works Turning the Flywheel and Good to Great and the Social Sectors); Built to Last, the enduring classic that reveals why some companies remain visionary for generations; How the Mighty Fall, which delves into how once-great companies can self-destruct; and Great by Choice, which uncovers the leadership behaviors for thriving in chaos and uncertainty.
Jim’s most recent publication is BE 2.0 (Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0), an ambitious upgrade of his very first book, which returns Jim to his original focus on small, entrepreneurial companies and honors his coauthor and mentor, Bill Lazier.
Ed Zschau is an educator, entrepreneur, former member of the US House of Representatives, and a 17-year veteran of the tech industry. He founded System Industries in Palo Alto, California, in 1969, and led it to a successful IPO in 1980 as its CEO. In the 1990s, he was the general manager of the IBM Storage Systems Division headquartered in San Jose, California. Ed taught for 10 years as a professor in the graduate business schools of Stanford University and Harvard University, and he has taught high-tech entrepreneurship courses in the engineering schools at Princeton University, Caltech, and the University of Nevada, Reno.
WEEK OF MAY 20
Dr. Brené Brown (brenebrown.com) is a research professor at the University of Houston, where she holds the Huffington Foundation–Brené Brown Endowed Chair. She is also a visiting professor in management at the University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business.
Brené has spent the past two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy and is the author of six #1 New York Times bestsellers: The Gifts of Imperfection, Daring Greatly, Rising Strong, Braving the Wilderness, Dare to Lead, and Atlas of the Heart. Brené hosts the Unlocking Us and Dare to Lead podcasts, and her TED talk The Power of Vulnerability is one of the top five most viewed TED talks in the world, with over 65 million views.
Edward O. Thorp (@EdwardOThorp) is a legendary blackjack player, mathematics professor, and hedge-fund manager, whose hedge funds were profitable every year for 29 years. He is the author of Beat the Dealer, a New York Times bestseller that transformed the game of blackjack, and A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market. He is a coauthor (with Sheen T. Kassouf) of Beat the Market, which influenced securities markets around the globe.
Greg McKeown (@GregoryMcKeown) is the author of two New York Times bestsellers, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less and Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most. Together they have sold more than two million copies in 37 languages. He is also a speaker, host of The Greg McKeown Podcast, and founder of The Essentialism Academy, with students from 96 countries. More than 175,000 people have signed up for his 1-Minute Wednesday newsletter.
Greg earned his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and he is currently conducting doctoral research at the University of Cambridge.
Diana Chapman is a co-founder of the Conscious Leadership Group and a co-author of The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership. Her passion is helping organizational leaders and their teams eliminate drama in the workplace and beyond. She has worked with more than 1,000 CEOs and is a facilitator for the Young Presidents Organization (YPO), working with their forums and chapters worldwide. She has been a speaker at TEDx, Mindful Leadership Summit, Wisdom 2.0, Stanford Graduate School of Business, and more.
WEEK OF MAY 13
For more Naval-plus-Tim, check out my wildly popular interview with him from 2015 (nominated for “Podcast of the Year”) and our conversation from 2020. Naval also co-piloted the interviews with Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin and famed investor Chris Dixon.
Nick Kokonas (IG: @nkokonas, TW: @NickKokonas) is the co-owner and co-founder of The Alinea Group, comprising restaurants Alinea, Next, The Aviary, Roister, and St. Clair Supper Club and design firm Crucial Detail.
Alinea is one of only 13 restaurants in the US that has been awarded three Michelin stars. In 2016, it received the James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurant and was named Best Restaurant in America and tenth best restaurant in the world by Trip Advisor.
Nick has been featured in Businessweek, Fast Company, The New York Times, and Forbes, among other publications. He is also the founder of Tock, a reservations and CRM system for restaurants, which he sold to Squarespace in 2021 for $400 million.
Dr. Gabor Maté (@DrGaborMate) is a speaker and bestselling author, highly sought after for his expertise on a range of topics that includes addiction, stress, and childhood development. He has written several bestselling books, including the award-winning In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, When the Body Says No, Scattered Minds, and The Myth of Normal. He has also coauthored Hold On to Your Kids. His next book, Hello Again: A Fresh Start for Parents and Their Adult Children is expected in 2025.
Gabor is a member of the Order of Canada and the creator of a psychotherapeutic approach, Compassionate Inquiry, now studied by thousands of therapists, physicians, counselors, and others in over 80 countries.
Dr. BJ Miller is a hospice and palliative care physician, author, and speaker, whose TED Talk “What really matters at the end of life” has been viewed more than 17 million times. BJ is a co-founder of Mettle Health, which provides support and guidance for individuals and families to live well in the face of health challenges. Prior to his work at Mettle Health, BJ served as assistant professor of medicine at UCSF, as a palliative care physician at UCSF Health, and as executive director of Zen Hospice Project. He is a coauthor of A Beginner’s Guide to the End: Practical Advice for Living Life and Facing Death.
The Tim Ferriss Show is one of the most popular podcasts in the world with more than one billion downloads. It has been selected for "Best of Apple Podcasts" three times, it is often the #1 interview podcast across all of Apple Podcasts, and it's been ranked #1 out of 400,000+ podcasts on many occasions. To listen to any of the past episodes for free, check out this page.