Twitter: @tylercowen (followed by 126 philosophers)
Site: conversationswithtyler.com
184 episodes
2015 to present
Average episode: 62 minutes
Open in Apple Podcasts • RSS
Categories: Interview-Style • Philosophy+/Philosophyish/Ideas/Etc.
Podcaster's summary: Tyler Cowen engages today’s deepest thinkers in wide-ranging explorations of their work, the world, and everything in between. New conversations every other Wednesday. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
| Episodes |
| 2023-Mar-22 • 53 minutes Tom Holland on History, Christianity, and the Value of the Countryside Any why Herodotus is underrated. |
| 2023-Mar-08 • 54 minutes Yasheng Huang on the Development of the Chinese State Yasheng Huang has written two of Tyler’s favorite books on China: , which contrasts an entrepreneurial rural China and a state-controlled urban China, and , which argues that Keju—China’s civil service exam system—played a key role in the... |
| 2023-Feb-22 • 47 minutes Brad DeLong on Intellectual and Technical Progress Why 1870 - 2010 were such extraordinary years. |
| 2023-Feb-08 • 48 minutes Glenn Loury on the Cover Story and the Real Story The real reason he “jumped ship” from the Harvard Economics Department. |
| 2023-Jan-25 • 46 minutes Paul Salopek on Walking the World Paul Salopek is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and National Geographic fellow who, at the age of 50, set out on foot to retrace the steps of the first human migrations out of Africa. The project, dubbed the “Out of Eden Walk,” began in... |
| 2023-Jan-18 • 55 minutes Rick Rubin on Listening, Taste, and the Act of Noticing The acclaimed music producer lays out his approach to creative collaboration. |
| 2023-Jan-11 • 54 minutes Katherine Rundell on the Art of Words Katherine Rundell is, in a word, enthusiastic. She’s enthusiastic about John Donne. She’s enthusiastic about walking along rooftops. She’s enthusiastic about words, and stories, and food. She has often started her morning with a cartwheel and is... |
| 2022-Dec-28 • 53 minutes Conversations with Tyler 2022 Retrospective On this special year-in-review episode, Tyler and producer Jeff Holmes talk about the past year on the show, including which guests he’d like to have on in 2023, what stands out to him now about his conversation with Sam Bankman-Fried in light of... |
| 2022-Dec-14 • 46 minutes John Adams on Composing and Creative Freedom Is classical music dying? For John Adams the answer is an emphatic no. Considered by Tyler to be America’s greatest living composer, he may well be one of the people responsible for keeping it alive. John’s contemporary classical music is some of... |
| 2022-Nov-30 • 40 minutes Jeremy Grantham on Investing in Green Tech VC is an underrated weapon in the fight against climate change. |
| 2022-Nov-16 • 53 minutes Ken Burns on the Complications of History And how to listen to a photograph. |
| 2022-Nov-02 • 46 minutes Mary Gaitskill on Subjects That Are Vexing Everybody Mary Gaitskill’s knack for writing about the social and physical world with unapologetic clarity has led to her style being described both as ".” Tyler considers her works , , and to be some of the best and most insightful American fiction in... |
| 2022-Oct-19 • 53 minutes Reza Aslan on Martyrdom, Islam, and Revolution Reza Aslan doesn’t mind being called a pantheist. In his own “roundabout spiritual journey” and study of the world’s religions, which has led him to write books on , the , , and most recently , he has come to believe the Sufi notion that... |
| 2022-Oct-05 • 52 minutes Walter Russell Mead on the Past and Future of American Foreign Policy A leading expert in foreign policy, Walter Russell Mead believes his lack of a PhD—and interest in actually going places—has helped him avoid academic silos and institutional groupthink that’s rendered the field ineffective for decades. , which... |
| 2022-Sep-21 • 54 minutes Byron Auguste On Rewiring the U.S. Labor Market Why do so many employers rely on shallow signals of applicant quality? |
| 2022-Sep-07 • 50 minutes Vaughn Smith on Life as a Hyperpolyglot He dreams in 10 languages—how about you? |
| 2022-Sep-01 • 68 minutes Shruti Rajagopalan talks to Daniel Gross and Tyler about Identifying and Predicting Talent What characteristics indicate human creativity and capacity? |
| 2022-Aug-24 • 45 minutes Cynthia L. Haven on René Girard, Czeslaw Milosz, and Joseph Brodsky Her biography of Girard drew critical praise — why did it have to be written outside academia? |
| 2022-Aug-10 • 51 minutes William MacAskill on Effective Altruism, Moral Progress, and Cultural Innovation If moral philosophy is a train to crazy town, at what stop should we disembark? |
| 2022-Jul-27 • 49 minutes Leopoldo López on Activism Under Autocratic Regimes What Venezuela teaches us about democratic collapse. |
| 2022-Jul-13 • 56 minutes Matthew Ball on the Metaverse and Gaming Why reintroducing the third dimension is crucial to building out technology. |
| 2022-Jun-29 • 52 minutes Barkha Dutt on the Nuances of Indian Life Why a more peaceful India requires its people to become more like khichri than a thali. |
| 2022-Jun-15 • 51 minutes Marc Andreessen on Learning to Love the Humanities The real challenge to building on the frontier? Figuring out human behavior. |
| 2022-Jun-01 • 48 minutes Jamal Greene on Reconceiving Rights Negotiating liberty, justice, and obligation in the context of pluralism. |
| 2022-May-18 • 49 minutes Tyler and Daniel Gross Talk Talent Plus, the user guide to working with Tyler. |
| 2022-May-04 • 48 minutes Chris Blattman on War and Centralized Power The underrated threats that lurk in institutions, rather than psychology. |
| 2022-Apr-20 • 53 minutes Thomas Piketty on the Politics of Equality “The history of equality or inequality cannot just be an economic history. It has to be a political history.” |
| 2022-Apr-06 • 59 minutes Roy Foster on Ireland’s Many Unmade Futures History is the story of those making a future that never came to pass. |
| 2022-Mar-23 • 41 minutes Lydia Davis on Language and Literature The renowned writer and translator describes life as a passionate polyglot. |
| 2022-Mar-09 • 50 minutes Sam Bankman-Fried on Arbitrage and Altruism Coordinators are that which is scarce. |
| 2022-Feb-23 • 75 minutes Chuck Klosterman on Writing the Past and Relishing the Present Plus, the slow cancellation of the future. |
| 2022-Feb-09 • 56 minutes Sebastian Mallaby on Venture Capital Venture capital powered the tech revolution, but what powers venture capital? |
| 2022-Jan-26 • 57 minutes Stewart Brand on Starting Things and Staying Curious At 83, Stewart Brand has been first in a multitude of movements—and he’s not slowing down. |
| 2022-Jan-19 • 59 minutes Russ Roberts on Israel and Life as an Immigrant Tyler asks Russ all the easy questions about Israeli life. |
| 2022-Jan-12 • 45 minutes Ana Vidović on Prodigies, Performance, and Perseverance A child prodigy explains why natural talent is overrated. |
| 2021-Dec-29 • 56 minutes Conversations with Tyler 2021 Retrospective After being featured on Ancient Aliens, where does the show go from here? |
| 2021-Dec-15 • 59 minutes Ray Dalio on Investing, Management, and the Changing World Order Plus, the value of disagreeableness. |
| 2021-Dec-01 • 51 minutes Ruth Scurr on the Art of Biography How do you find the form to tell a life? |
| 2021-Nov-17 • 56 minutes David Rubenstein on Private Equity, Public Art, and Philanthropy And why lawyers are usually lousy entrepreneurs. |
| 2021-Nov-03 • 47 minutes David Salle on the Experience of Art Why, the artist wonders, can’t we just have more fun with it? |
| 2021-Oct-20 • 54 minutes Stanley McChrystal on the Military, Leadership, and Risk Why it’s crucial to take a long view of history. |
| 2021-Oct-06 • 49 minutes Claudia Goldin on the Economics of Inequality How to model social progress. |
| 2021-Sep-22 • 65 minutes Amia Srinivasan on Utopian Feminism Does anyone have a right to sex? |
| 2021-Sep-08 • 79 minutes David Cutler and Ed Glaeser on the Health and Wealth of Cities Doing battle with the demons that come with density. |
| 2021-Aug-25 • 66 minutes Zeynep Tufekci on the Sociology of The Moment (Live) The problems COVID-19 revealed in our institutions—and how to fix them. |
| 2021-Aug-11 • 55 minutes Andrew Sullivan on Braving New Intellectual Journeys Why are so few intellectuals comfortable with life out on a limb? |
| 2021-Jul-28 • 54 minutes Niall Ferguson on Why We Study History We don’t study the past for its own sake. |
| 2021-Jul-14 • 45 minutes Alexander the Grate on Life as an NFA Why none of us can escape shelter insecurity. |
| 2021-Jun-30 • 50 minutes Richard Prum on Birds, Beauty, and Finding Your Own Way How ecology and selection drive avian evolution. |
| 2021-Jun-16 • 68 minutes Elijah Millgram on the Philosophical Life Why personal experience is underrated. |
| 2021-Jun-02 • 61 minutes David Deutsch on Multiple Worlds and Our Place in Them Plus, the defining human attribute visible from galaxies far, far away. |
| 2021-May-26 • 55 minutes Mark Carney on Central Banking and Shared Values How shared objectives can flip risks into value creation. |
| 2021-May-19 • 56 minutes Pierpaolo Barbieri on Latin American FinTech Meet the startup founder disrupting the banking industry in Argentina and Mexico |
| 2021-May-05 • 68 minutes Daniel Carpenter on Smart Regulation The leading expert on the FDA discusses policy in the time of COVID-19. |
| 2021-Apr-21 • 60 minutes Shadi Bartsch on the Classics and China Art, politics, and the enduring lessons of the ancient world. |
| 2021-Apr-07 • 78 minutes Dana Gioia on Becoming an Information Billionaire How the internationally acclaimed poet became the only guest who can answer all of Tyler’s questions. |
| 2021-Mar-24 • 64 minutes Sarah Parcak on Archaeology from Space What can new technology tell us about our ancient past? |
| 2021-Mar-10 • 59 minutes John Cochrane on Economic Puzzles and Habits of Mind What unites John Cochrane the econ blogger with John Cochrane the accomplished glider pilot? |
| 2021-Feb-24 • 58 minutes Patricia Fara on Newton, Scientific Progress, and the Benefits of Unhistoric Acts Is scientific progress best characterized by discrete leaps or incremental improvement? |
| 2021-Feb-10 • 55 minutes Brian Armstrong on the Crypto Economy The CEO of Coinbase on how he manages the dual arts of innovating in technology and regulation |
| 2021-Jan-27 • 67 minutes Benjamin Friedman on the Origins of Economic Belief How religion explains where economic ideas came from |
| 2021-Jan-13 • 56 minutes Noubar Afeyan on the Permission to Leap How Moderna’s overnight vaccine success was 33 years in the making |
| 2020-Dec-30 • 54 minutes Conversations with Tyler 2020 Retrospective Tyler looks back on a new year of conversations |
| 2020-Dec-16 • 58 minutes John O. Brennan on Life in the CIA What working in intelligence has taught him about human nature. |
| 2020-Dec-02 • 55 minutes Zach Carter on the Life and Legacy of John Maynard Keynes How Keynes became so influential—despite being so hard to pin down. |
| 2020-Nov-18 • 57 minutes Jimmy Wales on Systems and Incentives The Wikipedia founder explains how the online encyclopedia will maintain objectivity in polarizing times |
| 2020-Nov-04 • 52 minutes Edwidge Danticat on Haitian Art and Literature Plus, the enduring wisdom of Haitian proverbs. |
| 2020-Oct-21 • 50 minutes Michael Kremer on Economists as Founders Why economists should build more than a body of research. |
| 2020-Oct-07 • 53 minutes Audrey Tang on the Technology of Democracy How [lessons from] programming can improve our politics. |
| 2020-Sep-22 • 61 minutes Alex Ross on Music, Culture, and Criticism Plus, the occult power of conductors. |
| 2020-Sep-09 • 66 minutes Matt Yglesias on Why the Population is Too Damn Low How more people would solve (some of) America’s problems. |
| 2020-Aug-26 • 61 minutes Jason Furman on Productivity, Competition, and Growth How do we balance human rights with technological and economic progress? |
| 2020-Aug-12 • 64 minutes Nicholas Bloom on Management, Productivity, and Scientific Progress And why periodicals and podcasts trump books. |
| 2020-Jul-29 • 62 minutes Nathan Nunn on the Paths to Development What historical factors predict future wealth? |
| 2020-Jul-15 • 63 minutes Melissa Dell on the Significance of Persistence The surprising ways historical events and institutions still shape our modern world. |
| 2020-Jul-01 • 55 minutes Annie Duke on Poker, Probabilities, and How We Make Decisions How do gamblers stay rational and happy? |
| 2020-Jun-17 • 58 minutes Rachel Harmon on Policing While there’s no silver bullet, real reforms are possible. |
| 2020-Jun-03 • 62 minutes Ashley Mears on Status and Beauty How many academics can claim to have modeled on the side? |
| 2020-May-20 • 60 minutes Paul Romer on a Culture of Science and Working Hard From charter cities to mass testing for COVID-19, Paul Romer doesn’t always think his ideas are good—they’re just better than the alternatives. |
| 2020-May-06 • 66 minutes Adam Tooze on our Financial Past and Future What economic history can tell us about navigating the current crisis. |
| 2020-Apr-29 • 56 minutes Glen Weyl on Fighting COVID-19 and the Role of the Academic Expert His ambitious strategy to return to (something like) normal. |
| 2020-Apr-22 • 54 minutes Philip E. Tetlock on Forecasting and Foraging as a Fox Is accuracy really what we want from forecasters? |
| 2020-Apr-08 • 56 minutes Emily St. John Mandel on Fact, Fiction, and the Familiar How film and literature can help us navigate reality. |
| 2020-Mar-25 • 67 minutes Ross Douthat on Decadence and Dynamism What social forces are trending toward stagnation—and how can we stop them? |
| 2020-Mar-19 • 79 minutes Russ Roberts and Tyler on COVID-19 Tyler and Russ Roberts joined forces for a special livestreamed conversation on COVID-19. How are they both adjusting to social isolation? |
| 2020-Mar-11 • 79 minutes John McWhorter on Linguistics, Music, and Race (Live at Mason) Who can you ask about the Great American Songbook, the finer Jell-O flavors, and peculiar languages like Saramaccan all while expecting the same kind of fast, thoughtful, and energetic response? Listeners of Lexicon Valley know the answer. |
| 2020-Feb-26 • 56 minutes Garett Jones on Democracy (More or Less) And, as always, what can we learn from Singapore? |
| 2020-Feb-12 • 59 minutes Tim Harford on Persuasion and Popular Economics Why storytelling is still underrated. |
| 2020-Jan-29 • 70 minutes Ezra Klein on Why We’re Polarized In his second appearance, Ezra talks about what we get wrong when we talk about politics. |
| 2020-Jan-15 • 61 minutes Reid Hoffman on Systems, Levers, and Quixotic Quests Have someone named “Quixotic” on your network? It might be Reid Hoffman. |
| 2020-Jan-08 • 87 minutes Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism Why not leave the label behind and join Tyler at a Singapore food stall? |
| 2019-Dec-30 • 62 minutes Abhijit Banerjee on Theory, Practice, and India Tyler’s former grad school classmate has made quite a name for himself. |
| 2019-Dec-23 • 53 minutes Tyler Looks Back on 2019 (BONUS) Take a peek behind the scenes of #cowenconvos |
| 2019-Dec-18 • 62 minutes Esther Duflo on Management, Growth, and Research in Action How Duflo found her calling in the midst of revolution. |
| 2019-Dec-04 • 55 minutes Daron Acemoglu on the Struggle Between State and Society How institutions shape the fate of nations. |
| 2019-Nov-27 • 68 minutes Mark Zuckerberg Interviews Patrick Collison and Tyler Cowen on the Nature and Causes of Progress (Bonus) Patrick and Tyler are obsessed with progress—and they think you should be too. |
| 2019-Nov-20 • 60 minutes Shaka Senghor on Incarceration, Identity, and the Gift of Literacy How do you survive seven years in solitary? Escape into books. |
| 2019-Nov-13 • 77 minutes Lunch with Fuchsia Dunlop at Mama Chang (Bonus) Three years after her first appearance, Chinese food expert Fuchsia Dunlop joins Tyler for a delicious homestyle Chinese meal. |
| 2019-Nov-06 • 63 minutes Ted Gioia on Music as Cultural Cloud Storage With music, forget about “high brow” versus “low brow.” The real distinction is between the innovative and the formulaic. |
| 2019-Oct-23 • 71 minutes Henry Farrell on Weaponized Interdependence, Big Tech, and Playing with Ideas The one concept most valuable for understanding the news today might be Henry Farrell's theory of weaponized interdependence. |
| 2019-Oct-09 • 61 minutes Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap Does it matter that Hasbro owns Death Row Records? |
| 2019-Sep-25 • 80 minutes Alain Bertaud on Cities, Markets, and People The Indiana Jones of urban planning shares what he's learned. |
| 2019-Sep-11 • 67 minutes Samantha Power on Learning How to Make a Difference Power's chronicled genocide, but the memoir may have been the hardest thing she's had to write. |
| 2019-Aug-28 • 50 minutes Hollis Robbins on 19th Century Life and Literature And why aren't there more operas about tech founders? |
| 2019-Aug-14 • 68 minutes Masha Gessen on the Ins and Outs of Russia And what did The Americans get right that Chernobyl missed? |
| 2019-Jul-31 • 62 minutes Kwame Anthony Appiah on Pictures of the World What can one learn from farming sheep in New Jersey? |
| 2019-Jul-17 • 55 minutes Neal Stephenson on Depictions of Reality If you want to speculate on the development of tech, no one has a better brain to pick than Neal Stephenson. |
| 2019-Jul-03 • 56 minutes Eric Kaufmann on Immigration, Identity, and the Limits of Individualism Is now a good time to buy property in Northern Ireland? |
| 2019-Jun-19 • 57 minutes Hal Varian on Taking the Academic Approach to Business And why kale is the key to understanding Google's inner workings. |
| 2019-Jun-05 • 61 minutes Russ Roberts on Life as an Economics Educator The OG econ podcaster tries out the guest chair. |
| 2019-May-22 • 62 minutes Ezekiel Emanuel on the Practice of Medicine, Policy, and Life He's worked at the highest levels of medicine, policy and academia. But the intense interest in jam and chocolate might be most impressive. |
| 2019-May-08 • 60 minutes Karl Ove Knausgård on Literary Freedom Knausgård's real struggle is answering all of Tyler's questions. |
| 2019-Apr-24 • 75 minutes Margaret Atwood on Canada, Writing, and Invention (Live at Mason) Turns out, Canada is really big. |
| 2019-Apr-10 • 62 minutes Ed Boyden on Minding your Brain Ed Boyden builds the tools and technologies that help us think about the brain, an organ we still know surprisingly little about. |
| 2019-Mar-27 • 56 minutes Emily Wilson on Translations and Language The literary translator's toolkit must include pen, paper, various dictionaries, a big desk, and a huge orange cat. |
| 2019-Mar-13 • 56 minutes Raghuram Rajan on Understanding Community Would online education work better if teachers could text insults to students? |
| 2019-Feb-27 • 68 minutes Sam Altman on Loving Community, Hating Coworking, and the Hunt for Talent He's renowned for assessing talent - so would he fund Peter Parker? How about Bruce Wayne? |
| 2019-Feb-13 • 53 minutes Jordan Peterson on Mythology, Fame, and Reading People And what the Intellectual Dark Web gets wrong. |
| 2019-Jan-30 • 76 minutes Noel Johnson and Mark Koyama on *Persecution and Toleration* How did religious freedom emerge - and why did it arrive so late? |
| 2019-Jan-16 • 60 minutes Larissa MacFarquhar on Getting Inside Someone's Head One of the best profile writers working today shares what motivates her work. |
| 2019-Jan-02 • 61 minutes Rebecca Kukla on Moving through and Responding to the World Philosophers and comedians have almost the same job. |
| 2018-Dec-19 • 69 minutes Daniel Kahneman on Cutting Through the Noise You might be surprised by what occupies Daniel Kahneman's thoughts these days. |
| 2018-Dec-05 • 53 minutes Paul Romer on the Unrivaled Joy of Scholarship Warning: there are 185 "ands" present in this conversation. |
| 2018-Nov-21 • 59 minutes John Nye on Revisionist Economic History and Having Too Many Hobbies Is John Nye the finest polymath in the George Mason economics department? |
| 2018-Nov-07 • 55 minutes Eric Schmidt on the Life-Changing Magic of Systematizing, Scaling, and Saying "Thanks" (Live) "There's no simple formula for success. But it is well understood that if you yell at people enough, they will quit." |
| 2018-Oct-24 • 60 minutes Ben Thompson on Business and Tech And why Taiwanese breakfast is the best breakfast. |
| 2018-Oct-16 • 150 minutes Rob Wiblin interviews Tyler on *Stubborn Attachments* Finally we find out what Tyler — and Tyrone — really believes. |
| 2018-Oct-10 • 53 minutes Paul Krugman on Politics, Inequality, and Following Your Curiosity “Be interested in a lot of things, but when you find something that really grabs your attention, work at it seriously. Figure stuff out.” |
| 2018-Sep-26 • 58 minutes Bruno Maçães on the Spirit of Adventure He’s built a career teaching, advising, writing, and talking to people across the globe. Just don’t ask him about Canada. |
| 2018-Sep-12 • 56 minutes Michele Gelfand on Tight and Loose Cultures Where is Tyler most at risk of getting shot at a bar? |
| 2018-Aug-29 • 47 minutes Claire Lehmann on Speaking Freely This Aussie thinks Americans are too afraid to speak their mind. |
| 2018-Aug-15 • 59 minutes Michael Pollan on the Science and Sublimity of Psychedelics Plus, his latest thoughts of food production, GMOs, and writing well. |
| 2018-Aug-01 • 54 minutes Michelle Dawson on Autism and Atypicality No one in the world more appreciates the challenges facing a better understanding of autism than Michelle Dawson. |
| 2018-Jul-18 • 53 minutes Vitalik Buterin on Cryptoeconomics and Markets in Everything Is he secretly the best young economist today? |
| 2018-Jul-03 • 61 minutes Juan Pablo Villarino on Travel and Trust The world's best hitchhiker shares the tricks of the trade. |
| 2018-Jun-20 • 54 minutes Elisa New on Poetry in America and Beyond Anyone can have a blast reading a poem. Even you! |
| 2018-Jun-06 • 83 minutes David Brooks on Youth, Morality, and Loneliness (Live at Mason) "This is the most intimidating interview I've ever sat down for because (a) you know me, and (b) you actually read my stuff." |
| 2018-May-23 • 97 minutes Nassim Nicholas Taleb on Self-Education and Doing the Math (Plus special guest Bryan Caplan) The best thing to do on an airplane? Twitter fight! |
| 2018-May-09 • 72 minutes Bryan Caplan on Learning across Disciplines (Live at Mason Econ) "For me, the main value of a colleague is lunch." |
| 2018-Apr-25 • 55 minutes Balaji Srinivasan on the Power and Promise of the Blockchain The new CTO of Coinbase shares his excitement for a world where finding financing is as easy as sending a tweet. |
| 2018-Apr-11 • 60 minutes Agnes Callard on the Theory of Everything Is parenting undertheorized? Should we fear death? And if granted immortality, would we bore of bodily pleasures? Tyler wants to know. |
| 2018-Mar-28 • 66 minutes Martina Navratilova on Shaping Herself (Live at Mason) “Tyler, you need to drink more water. You’re not hydrating at all.” |
| 2018-Mar-14 • 61 minutes Chris Blattman on Development, Conflict, and Doing What’s Interesting Chris Blattman’s made his career as a development economist by finding a place he likes and finding a reason to live there. |
| 2018-Feb-28 • 66 minutes Robin Hanson on Signaling and Self-Deception (Live at Mason Econ) Listening to this podcast says a lot about you. |
| 2018-Feb-14 • 66 minutes Matt Levine Live at Bloomberg HQ Weird is just a synonym for interesting. |
| 2018-Jan-31 • 56 minutes Charles C. Mann on Shaping Tomorrow’s World and the Limits to Growth And he doesn’t do meetings. |
| 2018-Jan-17 • 85 minutes Ross Douthat on Narrative and Religion (Live at Mason) Has Ross succeeded in convincing Tyler to believe in God — or at least go to church more? |
| 2017-Dec-20 • 53 minutes Andy Weir on the Economics of Sci-Fi and Space The author of The Martian and Artemis joins Tyler Cowen to talk about his unique blending of economics and engineering into hard sci-fi. |
| 2017-Nov-29 • 57 minutes Doug Irwin on US Trade Policy “I prefer the sprawling mess.” |
| 2017-Nov-15 • 63 minutes Sujatha Gidla on being an Ant amongst the Elephants (Live) “My main thing is to be free and intellectually free and free to pursue culture.” |
| 2017-Nov-01 • 53 minutes Steve Teles and Brink Lindsey on *The Captured Economy* “We originally had the idea that this podcast was gonna be called Prisoner’s Dilemma.” |
| 2017-Oct-18 • 76 minutes Mary Roach on Disgust, Death, and Danger (Live at Mason) “I’m just balls out with my curiosity.” |
| 2017-Sep-20 • 74 minutes Larry Summers on Macroeconomics, Mentorship, and Avoiding Complacency (Live) “Working in the White House, that was fine, but being interviewed by Tyler Cowen, that meant I had really arrived.” |
| 2017-Aug-16 • 58 minutes Dave Barry on Humor, Writing, and Life as a Florida Man And why aren't there joke books anymore? |
| 2017-Aug-02 • 33 minutes Dave Rubin on Digital Media, Crowdfunding, and Comedy (Live) Today many YouTube channels have more influence than traditional TV shows. This fact is not lost on Dave Rubin, who started his talk show career in traditional media, but soon decided to strike out on his own. He now hosts The Rubin Report, which has... |
| 2017-Jul-19 • 58 minutes Atul Gawande on Priorities, Big and Small Thankfully coming on the podcast was one of them. |
| 2017-Jun-28 • 81 minutes Ben Sasse on the Space between Nebraska and Neverland (Live at Mason) One is home, the other is a dystopian hell. |
| 2017-Jun-21 • 54 minutes Edward Luce on The Retreat of Western Liberalism (Live) Tyler’s first question to him dealt with James II and William of Orange. |
| 2017-Jun-14 • 69 minutes Jill Lepore on Traveling through Time Is time like a line, a stretched out accordion, buried silos, or a flat circle? And how does Doctor Who fit into all this? |
| 2017-Jun-07 • 24 minutes Tyler Cowen and Steve Davies talk Theresa May, Brexit, and Europe (Live) The prospects for the European left-wing and the populism underneath it all. |
| 2017-May-24 • 63 minutes Raj Chetty on Teachers, Social Mobility, and How to Find Answers to Big Questions The most influential economist in the world reveals his approach to meaningful research. |
| 2017-May-10 • 68 minutes Garry Kasparov on AI, Chess, and the Future of Creativity Change is inevitable, says the chess grandmaster, and we should speed up our search for the edge of human potential. |
| 2017-Apr-12 • 94 minutes Patrick Collison has a Few Questions for Tyler (Live at Stripe) The Stripe CEO flips the script for a special Conversations with Tyler. |
| 2017-Mar-15 • 92 minutes Malcolm Gladwell Wants to Make the World Safe for Mediocrity (Live at Mason) "I think that it would be really useful to ban graduates of elite colleges from ever disclosing that they went to an elite college." |
| 2017-Mar-13 • 56 minutes *The Complacent Class* with Katherine Mangu-Ward (Live at Mason) In this bonus episode, Editor-in-chief of Reason Katherine Mangu-Ward interviews Tyler about *The Complacent Class.* Make sure to listen all the way to the end for an answer Katherine describes as . Follow on Twitter Follow on Twitter More CWT... |
| 2017-Feb-15 • 80 minutes Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) And does playing chess break the Sabbath? |
| 2017-Jan-25 • 76 minutes Chef Mark Miller on Food as the Ultimate Intellectual Exploration ...and the merits of eating your next hamburger upside down. |
| 2017-Jan-11 • 87 minutes Jhumpa Lahiri on Writing, Translation, and Crossing Between Cultures (Live at Mason) “This is one of the things about writing in Italian that people aren’t prepared for: that I don’t pretend anymore.” |
| 2016-Dec-14 • 85 minutes Joseph Henrich on WEIRD Societies and Life Among Two Strange Tribes (Live at Mason) To anthropologist Joseph Henrich, intelligence is overrated. Cultural evolution is what really sets our species apart. |
| 2016-Nov-16 • 75 minutes Fuchsia Dunlop on Chinese Food, Culture, and Travel China’s had a foodie culture for centuries. No one understands this better than Fuchsia Dunlop, one of Tyler Cowen’s favorite writers. |
| 2016-Nov-02 • 87 minutes Steven Pinker on Language, Reason, and the Future of Violence (Live at Mason) Steven Pinker believes deeply in the power of reason to understand the world and ourselves. But can he convince Tyler? |
| 2016-Oct-06 • 77 minutes Ezra Klein on Media, Politics, and Models of the World Vox.com’s editor-in-chief chats with Tyler Cowen about biases in digital media, politics, the morality of meat eating, and more. |
| 2016-Aug-24 • 48 minutes Margalit Fox on Life, Death, and the Best Job in Journalism Margalit Fox has penned over 1,200 obituaries for the New York Times. Read to discover what she’s learned along the way. |
| 2016-Jul-27 • 57 minutes Michael Orthofer on Why Fiction Matters One of the world’s most prolific book reviewers talks to Tyler Cowen about how and why we should read fiction — particularly from abroad. |
| 2016-Jun-22 • 77 minutes Cass Sunstein on Judicial Minimalism, the Supreme Court, and Star Wars (Live at Mason) On Star Wars, judicial minimalism, Bob Dylan, nudging, the Supreme Court, James Joyce, Hayek, and the merits of a ‘banned products store.’ |
| 2016-Apr-25 • 87 minutes Camille Paglia on her Lifestyle of Observation (Live at Mason) On David Bowie, lamb vindaloo, her lifestyle of observation, why writers need real jobs, Star Wars, Harold Bloom, Amelia Earhart, and more. |
| 2016-Mar-24 • 69 minutes Jonathan Haidt on Morality, Politics, Disgust, and Intellectual Diversity on Campus On morality, politics, disgust, free speech on campus, LSD, and antiparsimonialism. |
| 2016-Feb-23 • 81 minutes Nate Silver on the Supreme Court and the Underrated Stat for Finding Good Food (Live at Mason) On data, forecasting, My Bloody Valentine, gambling, Donald Trump, vacation advice, Supreme Court picks, and the wisdom of Björk. |
| 2016-Feb-02 • 82 minutes Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on Fighting Bruce Lee, Growing Up in Harlem, and Basketball (Live at Mason) Kareem Abdul-Jabbar joins Tyler Cowen for a conversation on segregation, Islam, Harlem vs. LA, Earl Manigault, and jazz. |
| 2015-Nov-18 • 83 minutes Cliff Asness on Comics and Why Never to Share a Gym with Cirque du Soleil (Live at Mason) Tyler and investment strategist Cliff Asness discuss momentum and value investing strategies, and disagreeing with Eugene Fama. |
| 2015-Oct-01 • 85 minutes Dani Rodrik on Premature Deindustrialization and Why the World is Second Best at Best On premature deindustrialization, the world's trilemmas, the political economy of John le Carré, RCTs, Orhan Pamuk, and more. |
| 2015-Sep-16 • 77 minutes Luigi Zingales on Italy, Google and Conglomeration, and Donald Trump (Live at Mason) Tyler and Luigi talk Donald Trump, Antonio Gramsci, Google, and Luchino Visconti. |
| 2015-Mar-31 • 92 minutes Jeffrey Sachs on Charter Cities and How to Reform Graduate Economics Education (Live at Mason) Tyler and Jeffrey on the resource curse, Paul Krugman, premature deindustrialization, the middle income trap, and Sach’s favorite novel. |
| 2015-Mar-25 • 81 minutes Peter Thiel on Stagnation, Innovation, and What Not to Call your Company (Live at Mason) On stagnation, the Bible, company names, chess, favorite TV shows, and the “Straussian Christ.” |