The Next Big Idea

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 Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness” by Jonathan Haidt. Now in its seventh month on the New York Times bestseller list, the book shows how the mass adoption of smartphones and social media has led to record rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide among teens. 2️⃣ The second part of Rufus’s interview with Jonathan will be out on Thursday. If you can’t wait to hear it, you can listen to the whole thing right now by subscribing to our Substack: bookoftheday.nextbigideaclub.com

“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 rules are built into us and that silently directs our thoughts, beliefs and actions. This game is inside us. It is us. We can’t help but play.” So begins The Status Game by acclaimed science writer Will Storr. He continues: “We play for status, if only subtly, with every social interaction, every contribution we make to work, love or family life and every internet post. We play with how we dress, how we speak and what we believe. … Life is not a journey towards a perfect destination. It’s a game that never ends. And it’s the very worst of us.” Does it have to be? We may not be able to quit the status game, but Will says we can learn to play it better. In this episode, he explains how. (This conversation first aired in October 2022.)

Twenty-five years ago, Malcolm Gladwell was not Malcolm Gladwell. Well, sure, ontologically speaking he was, but he would not have registered on the Celeb-O-Meter the way he does today. So what happened? What changed? What did he do to become a household name? He wrote “The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference.” A quarter century later, Malcolm sat down to update the book that made his name — only he realized that he had a lot of new things to say about social contagion. Cut to this week. On Tuesday, he published “Revenge of the Tipping Point,” a sequel in which he explores the “dark side of contagious phenomena.” He got together with Rufus for a wide-ranging conversation about the new book, because wide-ranging conversations are Malcolm Gladwell's specialty. They discussed social media, Medicare fraud, white flight, the Holocaust, and the ways Malcolm has changed over the past few decades. 🎟️ We’re hosting a live taping of this show with Daniel Pink and Adam Moss in New York City on Oct. 10. To learn more and grab tickets, visit nextbigideaclub.com/events

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 Social Engineering." In anticipation of that conversation, we're revisiting our 2021 interview with Malcolm about "The Bomber Mafia" — the story of a group of pilots who met on a muggy airbase in central Alabama and hatched a plan to revolutionize warfare. 🎟️ We're hosting a live taping on Oct. 10. Daniel Pink will chat with Adam Moss, former editor of New York magazine, about his recent book "The Work of Art: How Something Comes From Nothing." Learn more and grab tickets at nextbigideaclub.com/events

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 conversation with historian and mega-bestselling author Yuval Noah Harari. 1️⃣ If you missed part one of this conversation, listen now on Apple Podcasts or Spotify 📕 Yuval’s new book, Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI, is out now 📩 Want the latest insights from the world’s top thinkers delivered to your inbox every morning? Sign up for our new Substack at bookoftheday.nextbigideaclub.com 🎉 We're hosting another live taping on Oct. 10, featuring Daniel Pink in conversation with Adam Moss, former editor of New York magazine and author of "The Work of Art." Learn more at nextbigideaclub.com/events

Yuval Noah Harari published an essay in the New York Times the other day. “Large-scale democracies,” he wrote, “became feasible only after the rise of modern information technologies like the newspaper, the telegraph and the radio. The fact that modern democracy has been built on top of modern information technologies means that any major change in the underlying technology is likely to result in a political upheaval.” Well, we’re witnessing a major change in the underlying technology right now. Artificial intelligence is here, and if its proponents are to be believed, it will fundamentally transform how we consume information and communicate with each other. What this means for the future of democracy — and society as we know it — is the subject of Harari’s new book Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI. Host: Rufus Griscom Guest: Yuval Noah Harari 🎤 This conversation was recorded in front of a live audience in New York City last week. To learn more about our upcoming events, visit nextbigideaclub.com/events 2️⃣ Part two of this interview will be available on Thursday. If you can’t wait until then, you can listen now by downloading the The Next Big Idea app 📥 We launched a Substack! Subscribe now at bookoftheday.nextbigideaclub.com

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 you could eradicate extreme poverty by just giving people cash? That’s what Rory Stewart believes. He’s the former UK Secretary of State for International Development and now a senior advisor to GiveDirectly, a non-profit that has distributed $800 million — in cash — to 1.6 million people around the world, including right here in the US. Today on the show, Rory charts his evolution from cash transfer skeptic to evangelist, shares what he wishes philanthropists like Bill Gates would do with their billions, and explains why he thinks it’s possible to end extreme poverty in our lifetimes. 🎙️ Check out Rory's previous appearance on this show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify 💸 Learn more about GiveDirectly at www.givedirectly.org 🎬 Watch Rory’s new TED Talk, “To End Extreme Poverty, Give Cash — Not Advice” 🎁 Get 20% off a Next Big Idea Club membership when you use code PODCAST at nextbigideaclub.com

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 people saw it as just punishment for a two-faced poser who had spouted a lot of rot about altruism just to mask the rank odor of his relentless greed. Michael Lewis, the famed author of Moneyball and The Big Short, was not one of those people. Through his eyes, Sam didn’t look like a con man. He looked like an awkward but well-meaning kid who meant what he said about wanting to save the world and was undone not by avarice but by his “pathological ability to foist risk upon other people without asking their permission.” Michael is in a unique position to draw these conclusions. He spent the months leading up to and immediately following Sam’s downfall hovering over his shoulder, watching him operate, learning how he thought. Michael wrote a book about it, Going Infinite, published last fall, right as the crypto wunderkind-turned-pariah began his trial. Now that it’s out in paperback and the dust has settled, we invited Michael onto the show to talk about why he was drawn to Sam in the first place, what he thinks of the critics who say he was too soft on him, and how we should reconcile our primal desire for simple narratives with the complexity of real life. 🎟️ Join us for a live taping of this show on Sept. 11 with Yuval Noah Harari. More details at https://nextbigideaclub.com/events 🏛️ Check out “The Canary,” Michael’s installment in the Washington Post’s new series “Who is government?” 🎁 Get 25% off a Next Big Idea Club subscription when you use the code PODCAST at https://nextbigideaclub.com/

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 sound like science fiction fantasies, but our guest today, Jamie Metzl, says they are real — they’re in development right now. How these and other biotechnologies will transform our lives, work, and the world is the subject of Jamie’s new book “Superconvergence.” 🎟️ We’re hosting a live taping of this show in New York City on Sept. 11, featuring Yuval Noah Harari. Learn more at https://nextbigideaclub.com/events/ 💿 Did you enjoy this episode? Check out Rufus’s conversations with Azeem Azhar and Amanda Little

What are some words you would use to describe a leader? Bold, driven, steadfast. How about … anxious? You may not equate leadership with anxiety, but Morra Aarons-Mele — a writer, podcaster, and self-proclaimed anxious achiever — says that’s a mistake. Because anxiety is not a professional defect or character flaw. It’s not something to be ashamed of or something you have to hide. Instead, in Morra’s view, it’s an asset, a resource, a motivator that can bring out your best work. The hard part is figuring out how to master it so that it helps rather than hinders. If you’ve ever struggled with anxiety, that may sound like a tall order, maybe even impossible, but in this episode, Morra, with help from a pen, a banana, and reams of cutting-edge research, will teach you how to do it. 🎙️ Check out Morra's podcast, The Anxious Achiever 📕 Grab a copy of her book here 📩 Subscribe to Rufus's newsletter 🎁 Use code PODCAST to get 20% off a Next Big Idea Club book box subscription at https://nextbigideaclub.com/

Today, Nate Silver explains why most people should take bigger risks, reveals the big thing everyone misunderstands about Sam Bankman-Fried, and makes the case that there’s anywhere from a 2 to 20 percent chance that AI will take over the world. 🎙️ This is the second episode in our two-part series with Nate Silver. To hear Part 1, click here

You probably know Nate Silver, the founder of FiveThirtyEight, as the statistician with an uncanny knack for predicting election results. What you may not know is that Nate has never been comfortable inside the Beltway. Before his election models made him famous, he made his living playing poker, and it's in that world that he feels most at home. Recently, Nate has been reflecting on his poker-playing pals, and he realized many of them are part of a broader community of analytically-minded, ultra-competitive, not-afraid-to-bet-the-house individuals that he now calls "the River." Members of the River are everywhere. They're tech titans, Masters of the Universe — increasingly, it feels like they run the world. How the River rose to power and what that means for the rest of us is the subject of Nate's sprawling new book, "On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything.” 🎁 Get 20% off a Next Big Idea Club membership when you use the code PODCAST at nextbigideaclub.com

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 — has gotten a bad rap lately due to its association with Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced crypto wunderkind who was once hailed as the movement's poster child. But is the bad press fair? Today, we explore that question by revisiting our conversation with Will MacAskill, Oxford professor of philosophy, leading figure in the movement, and author of "What We Owe the Future." (This episode first aired in October 2022.) 🎁 Get 20% off a Next Big Idea Club membership when you use code PODCAST at https://nextbigideaclub.com/ 📩 Sign up for Rufus's weekly newsletter here

Today, social psychologist Devon Price makes the intriguing and ultimately hopeful case that laziness is a myth, a lie, a pernicious trap with no other purpose than to make us feel lousy for not doing more. Host: Rufus Griscom Guest: Devon Price (This episode first aired in October 2021.) 🎁 Get 20% off a Next Big Idea Club subscription when you use code PODCAST at https://nextbigideaclub.com/ 📩 We recently launched a daily Substack! Sign up today at https://bookoftheday.nextbigideaclub.com/

Humans have been imbibing for thousands of years. What has drinking contributed to society? What is it doing to our health? Guests: Edward Slingerland (”Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization”) and Susan Dominus (”Is That Drink Worth It to You?”) 🎙️ Check out Edward’s previous appearance on the show here 📱 Download the Next Big Idea Club app and use code PODCAST to get 20% off: https://nextbigideaclub.com/app/

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 pain. Is it really that easy? To answer that question, we turn to Emily Austin, a professor of philosophy at Wake Forest and author of “Living for Pleasure: An Epicurean Guide to Life.” (This episode first aired in January 2023.)

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 figure out how likely something is to happen based on what you already know. It changed the world. Today, pollsters use it to forecast election results and bookies to predict Super Bowl scores. For neuroscientists, it explains how our brains work; for computer scientists, it's the principle behind artificial intelligence. In this episode, we explore the modern-day applications of this game-changing theorem with the help of Tom Chivers, author of the new book "Everything Is Predictable: How Bayesian Statistics Explain Our World." 🎙️ Follow The Next Big Idea Daily on Apple Podcasts or Spotify 🎁 Get 20% off a Next Big Idea Club membership when you use code PODCAST at nextbigideaclub.com

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 author of the #1 New York Times bestseller “Good Energy” — shares the science-backed dietary guide you need. 💿 Ready for more interviews that will supercharge your health? Check out our Spotify playlist 📱 Listeners of this show get 20% off a Next Big Idea Club membership. Learn more at https://nextbigideaclub.com/app/

Bad news: 93% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy. Their bodies struggle to convert food into the energy their cells need. And this fuel shortage underlies all sorts of conditions, from diabetes and cancer to insomnia and erectile dysfunction. Good news: Simple changes to how we eat and exercise can dramatically improve our metabolic health. This is the thesis of “Good Energy: The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Health” by Casey Means. A Stanford-trained physician, Casey grew disillusioned with conventional healthcare when she realized that many doctors are great at prescribing pills and performing surgeries but hopeless when it comes to addressing root causes. This led her to leave traditional medicine and focus on combating metabolic dysfunction, which she believes is at the heart of America’s health crisis. Today on the show, she tells Rufus about her journey, explains why she thinks the medical system fails patients, and shares the simple biomarkers that you should check to see if you’re at risk for a deadly disease. 📱 This is part one of our interview with Casey. Part two will be available here on Thursday. But if you can't wait that long, you can listen right now on the Next Big Idea app: https://nextbigideaclub.com/app/

Publisher, scientist, humorist, diplomat — Benjamin Franklin was America's first polymath. Today, with help from Eric Weiner, we revisit Franklin's life, searching for tips about how to be healthy, wealthy, and wise. 📱 If you love the show, the best way to let us know is by becoming a Next Big Idea Club member. Learn more at https://nextbigideaclub.com/ and use code PODCAST to get 20% off your subscription