Smart People Podcast

Andrew Yang - Author of Smart People Should Build Things: How to Restore Our Culture of Achievement, Build a Path for Entrepreneurs, and Create New Jobs in America. Andrew is the Founder and CEO of Venture for America, an organization dedicated to connecting promising recent graduates with startups with the hope of fostering a generation of entrepreneurs who can create economic value. Venture for America will recruit the best and brightest college grads to work for two years at emerging start-ups and early-stage companies in lower-cost cities (e.g., Detroit, Providence, New Orleans). Modeled after Teach for America, Venture for America will provide a path for entrepreneurship to college grads who want to learn how to build companies and create jobs.The goal is that a substantial proportion of VFA Fellows will become successful entrepreneurs, preferably rooted in the communities to which they are assigned. Andrew was recently named one of the "Top 100 Most Creative People in Business" by Fast Company. Quotes from Andrew: What we learn in this episode: How do we encourage innovation and creativity as opposed to comfort and stability for recent graduates? How do you transition from a career you don't like to a brand new field at any age? What is the hardest part about starting a company and how do you overcome that? Resources: Smart People Should Build Things: How to Restore Our Culture of Achievement, Build a Path for Entrepreneurs, and Create New Jobs in America http://ventureforamerica.org/

Carrie Schwab-Pomerantz - President of the Charles Schwab Foundation, Senior Vice President at Charles Schwab & Co., and the daughter of Charles Schwab! Her newest book is The Charles Schwab Guide to Finance After Fifty: Answers to Your Most Important Money Questions. This week we discuss what it was like for Carrie growing up, how finance was in her blood, her deep understanding of the tough financial questions and what you can do to tackle your toughest money issues at any age. Through Carrie’s popular “Ask Carrie” columns, her leadership of the Charles Schwab Foundation, and her work across party lines through two White House administrations and with the President’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability, she has become one of America’s most trusted sources for financial advice. Quotes from Carrie: What we learn in this episode: How Carrie deals with work, life balance? What was it like watching Charles Schwab & Co. grow from a one man company to the financial massive company that it is today? What is the single most important financial advice you give people on a daily basis? What does Carrie personally believe is the future of Social Security? Resources: www.schwab.com/book http://www.schwabmoneywise.com/public/moneywise/home

Dr. Michio Kaku - He is the face (and mind) of science! Dr. Kaku is a theoretical physicist, the Henry Semat Professor of Theoretical Physics at the City College of New York, a futurist, and a communicator and popularizer of science. He has written two New York Times Best Sellers: Physics of the Impossible and Physics of the Future. His most recent book was released in February and is titled, The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind. Additionally, Dr. Kaku is the host of the weekly, one-hour radio program Exploration. You probably recognize Dr. Kaku from TV - he's basically been in every science related show that was released in the past 20 years! Quotes from Dr. Kaku: What we learn in this episode: Did you know we can photograph a dream? Yeah, we talk about that! What is telekinesis and will we ever have the capability to move objects with our minds? Soon, we will be able to record our memories and then upload them to help people with diseases such as Alzheimer's. Is it true that we only use a small portion of our brain? Why do we remember scary dreams much more often than pleasant dreams? Resources: http://mkaku.org/home/ http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/6zj4ki/michio-kaku

Corinne Woods - Director of the UN Millennium Campaign, which supports citizens’ efforts to hold their governments accountable for achieving the Millennium Development Goals and leads the outreach to citizens and stakeholders to get their voices and concerns to feed into the Post-2015 global development agenda. Previously, she served in a variety of roles at UNICEF, including as Senior Adviser on the HIV/AIDS Global Campaign Coordination and as Chief of Advocacy and Partnerships in India, the agency’s largest country operation. Quotes from Corinne: What we learn in this episode: The 4 H's: Humility, Honesty, Hopeful, Help.  These are very key with Corinne. What's it like to work alongside Nelson Mandela and Bill Gates?? How has the UN convinced over 100 countries to work together to tackle our most difficult global issues? What has the WORLD voted on as being the number one challenge today? How do you convince people all over the world to take a "global survey"? How do you get people without internet, computers, or even simple infrastructure (roads) to participate in this incredible survey? Resources: http://www.myworld2015.org/ http://data.myworld2015.org/  

Olof Dallner - WINNER of the Quintuple Ironman. The 12 mile swim, 560 mile bike, and 131 mile run is the distance of 5 Ironmans! WTF? Olof explains what it is like to sleep 6 hours over 4 days while completing (and winning) the worlds toughest endurance event. Olof also has his PhD in Molecular Physiology and is currently a postdoctoral scientist at Rockefeller University, researching the genetics of the hormone Leptin and its role in obesity and metabolism. What we learn in this episode: How do you deal with fear of failure? Can the average person compete in long distance events? How does the hormone Leptin affect body weight and body composition? What are some scientific advances we are making now and what do we expect will happen soon regarding the fight against obesity? Resources: Twitter: @olofdallner http://empiretriclub.com/blog/olof-dallner-wins-quintuple-ironman-2/

Carmine Gallo - "Talk Like Ted: The 9 Public-Speaking Secrets of the World's Top Minds", Former anchor and correspondent for CNN and CBS, communications coach for the world's most admired brands, best-selling author, columnist for Forbes and Monster.com. Carmine has worked with Coca-Cola, Intel, LinkedIn, Stanford, Cisco, and many more. Learn the secrets of how these companies communicate! What we learn in this episode: • How to stand out as a communicator. • What are the most common problems that brands face when trying to communicate with their customers? • What is the best way to land a sales job? • Did you know that passion is contagious? It's science! • What is Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks most passionate about? • All great presentations have 3 key components: They are emotional They are novel They are memorable Resources: http://www.forbes.com/sites/carminegallo/ http://gallocommunications.com/  

Bill Shannon - Vice President of Post and Carrier Solutions at Pitney Bowes.  Bill is on the front lines of a long forgotten staple of communication, the mail.  That's right - not email, or vmail, but actual, physical mail.  Bill has been an integral part of the juggernaut that is Pitney Bowes for over 30 years. Pitney Bowes is a fortune 500 company that is nearly a century old and has managed to navigate through a world of change.  There is a lot we can learn from a company with such longevity! What we learn in this episode: • What really caused the decline in mail? It's not just technology and email! • Have you ever asked yourself, exactly what is mail? You may not have realized but there are a number of different types of mail. Not just the letter you send your grandmother, or the junk mail you put straight in the trashcan.  There is a world of mail out there that is actually really interesting...we promise! • What type of mail has actually been growing in popularity? • What types of technology are used behind the scenes that help get mail where it needs to go? • How does a big company like Pitney Bowes, or any company for that matter, succeed in this rapidly changing environment?

Christian Madsbjerg and Mikkel Rasmussen - The Moment of Clarity: Using the Human Sciences to Solve Your Toughest Business Problems, Co-Founders at ReD Associates where they employ social sciences to study human behavior. Christian Madsbjerg has been leading projects and client programs since ReD’s foundation. He writes, teaches, and speaks about the kinds of methods and reasoning needed for fact-based investigations of human activity, emotions, and decision-making processes. He is the author of books on social theory, discourse analysis, and politics. Mikkel B. Rasmussen, a specialist in innovation strategy, is the Director of ReD’s European division. Mikkel founded Mindlab, the first innovation lab for the public sector in Denmark. His work focuses on helping companies create and implement a direction for the future and figure out where and how to focus innovation. He’s on the board of Copenhagen Clean Tech, numerous startups, and several design policy and management firms. What we learn in this episode: • What are the 3 most common types of problems a business can face and which ones are best solved with human sciences? Problems that are known (algorithmic problems).  These can be solved with numerical analysis and spreadsheets. Hypothetical problem.  You have seen the problem before and you can create a hypothesis and calculate your way back. Unknown problems.  Problems that you aren’t sure even exist, but you tend to know something is wrong. These can only be found out using human sciences and observation. • Is yoga a sport? Well, that decision is up to you.  But fitness is now 50% of the sporting industry and women are the largest consumer of sporting apparel. • Why do consumers lie in focus groups? Most people answer questions the way they would like to believe they act.  They would like to think they make rational decisions based on analysis.  However, science has shown us that the majority of the time this is not true. • ReD makes sense of the culture outside a company utilizing 5 phases: Ask the right question Study consumers in their natural environment Pattern recognition and analysis Insight – what to do with the information gained Make sure that the company can understand the recommendations and be ready to act on it. • If you are a business, stop phrasing your question in business terms – phrase it in personal terms.  Turn it into a human question, something that people can experience. Notable Quotables from Christian and Mikkel: 

Eswar Prasad - Author of The Dollar Trap: How the U.S. Dollar Tightened Its Grip on Global Finance. Eswar is a Senior Professor at Cornell University, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he holds the New Century Chair in International Economics, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He was previously chief of the Financial Studies Division in the International Monetary Fund's Research Department and, before that, was the head of the IMF's China Division. What we discuss in this episode: • Is the dollar still the world’s safest currency, even after the financial crisis? • What does it mean that the US is $17 trillion in debt? Is debt bad? • At what point does the United States have to pay back its debt? • How does the euro compare to the dollar? • Is China a safe place to invest? Notable quotes from Eswar:  

Larry Downes - Author of Big Bang Disruption and Unleashing the Killer App (named by the Wall Street Journal as one of the 5 most important books ever published on business and technology). Larry is an internet industry analyst and speaker, having held faculty appointments at Univ. of Chicago, Northwestern, Berkeley, and Stanford and he is a columnist for Forbes and CNET. What we discuss in this episode • What industries are PRIMED for innovation? The answer may surprise you. • The nature of innovation has changed dramatically, in even the last 10 years. • What industries should younger people consider working in to take advantage of the upcoming innovation? • What can existing companies do to fend off new, more agile start-up companies? Quotes we liked from Larry Resources for you • www.larrydownes.com • Big Bang Disruption: Strategy in the Age of Devastating Innovation • Unleashing the Killer App: Digital Strategies for Market Dominance  

Bob Sutton - Author of Scaling Up Excellence: Getting to More Without Settling for Less and The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't, Professor of Management Science and Engineering in the Stanford Engineering School, IDEO Fellow, ranked one of the "50 Best B School Professors". What we discuss in this episode: • What makes a great professor? What makes a great boss? • Can leadership be taught? Learned? • How do you maintain a good corporate culture as a company grows? How does a company grow/scale effectively? • As a company grows, how does it maintain it's fundamentals, while also allowing individuals to be creative and unique? Quotes we liked from Bob: Resources for you: Scaling Up Excellence: Getting to More Without Settling for Less The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't http://bobsutton.typepad.com/ -- This episode is brought to you by Squarespace – the all-in-one platform that makes it easy to create your own website. For a free trial and 10% off, go to Squarespace.com and use offer code SPP. • Easy – Everything is drag and drop. You can use drag and drop to add content from your desktop, and even rearrange elements of content within a page. • 24/7 support – Squarespace has an amazing 24/7 support team in New York City. They do live chat during the week, and have extremely fast email support throughout the day and night. • Design Focused – Squarespace really cares about design. All their templates are extremely clean, and allow your content to be the focus of your website. -- This episode is brought to you by Warby Parker. – Warby Parker was founded with a rebellious spirit and a lofty objective: to create boutique-quality, classically crafted eyewear at a revolutionary price point. Go to warbyparker.com/smartpeople to get choose your 5, free Home Try On frames! By visiting, you will get FREE 3 day shipping! • Warby Parker believes glasses should be viewed as a fashion accessory—just like a bag, a shoe, a necktie, a hat. At $95, Warby Parker makes it easy to accessorize with glasses. • Warby Parker makes buying glasses fun, easy, and pain-free. • With the Home Try-On Program, you can order 5 pairs of glasses to be shipped directly to you (free). You can try all the frames on, get a feel for them and get feedback from others! (5 pairs, for 5 days). Mail back to Warby Parker in a prepaid package.  

Lance Fortnow, PhD - Author of The Golden Ticket: P, NP, and the Search for the Impossible, professor and chair of the School of Computer Science of the College of Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology, served as the founding editor-in-chief of the ACM Transaction on Computation Theory, served as chair of ACM SIGACT and currently sits on the Computing Research Association board of directors. He served as chair of the IEEE Conference on Computational Complexity from 2000-2006. It's time to bend your brain and mess with your mind with one of Smart People Podcast's most intellectual and in-depth interviews EVER! Did you know that there is a problem known as the "P versus NP problem" that, if solved, could cure cancer, predict the weather, rid us over poverty, and pretty much change the entirety of our world? Our guest this week goes so far as to say, "What we would gain from P = NP will make the whole Internet look like a footnote in history!" But there is one pretty big problem. We have had the best and brightest people in the world (including this week's guest) working on this problem for decades and they still can't even decide IF it can be solved! Due to the complexity and positive implications that a solution would have on our society, the "P versus NP problem" is one of the seven Millennium Problems for which the Clay Mathematics Institute will give you one million dollars if you can prove it. We are going to leave the heavy lifting to Lance, but as a primer, P versus NP basically states that if these two variables are equal, we would be able to solve every complex issue with a very simple equation.  Oh, you want more than that? Ok fine.  P stands for "Polynomial Time" and represents the entire class of problems with efficient solutions. NP stands for "Nondeterministic Polynomial-Time" and represents the entire class of the very hardest, most difficult problems. Therefore if the 2 were equal, we would be able to apply this algorithm to all of our most difficult, complex problems and come up with a simple solution. Believe us, even those that aren't math or computer savvy will love to hear the way that Lance breaks down such a complicated idea into a real life scenario. Imagine the possibilities if P = NP! (I never thought I would write that in my life) Lance Fortnow is professor and chair of the School of Computer Science of the College of Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His research focuses on computational complexity and its applications to economic theory. Fortnow received his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics at MIT in 1989 under the supervision of Michael Sipser. Before he joined Georgia Tech in 2012, Fortnow was a professor at Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, a senior research scientist at the NEC Research Institute and a one-year visitor at CWI and the University of Amsterdam. Since 2007, Fortnow holds an adjoint professorship at the Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago. Fortnow's research spans computational complexity and its applications, most recently to micro-economic theory. Fortnow's survey The Status of the P versus NP Problem is CACM's most downloaded article. Fortnow has written a popular science book The Golden Ticket: P, NP and the Search for the Impossible loosely based on that article.  

Christine Montross - Author of Falling Into the Fire: A Psychiatrist's Encounters with the Mind in Crisis, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Brown University, staff psychiatrist at Butler Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island. When you really get down to it, the entirety of our life is a function of our perception.  The way we interact with the world is completely dependent on the way in which our brain deals with stimulus... that is our existence.  I'd say that's a pretty heavy task for one organ.  However, unlike the heart, which will circulate blood through the body the same way for you as it does for me, your brain will perceive these stimuli differently than mine will.  This difference forms our being, our identity.  For example, you and I could have a conversation and both of us could walk away with two completely different understandings.  We could eat the same food, watch the same movie, and work the same job - yet the way we experience these sensations will be only ours to understand. We tend to forget this simple fact on a daily basis for two main reasons.  First, all of us tend to deal with stimulus in relatively similar manners. Second, humans are magnificent at placing themselves at the center of the universe, assuming that everyone else is interpreting things the same way that they are.  However, we are abruptly made aware of our individuality when someone acts in a way that is extremely out of the ordinary - and this is where it get's really interesting. For example, what would cause a woman to purposefully ingest lightbulbs, a box of nails, and a steak knife, just to then admit herself to the emergency room? Why would an otherwise normal man attempt to amputate a fully functional limb? These are just some of the individuals that our guest this week, psychiatrist Christine Montross, sees on a daily basis in her profession working with the mentally ill.  This week we learn more about the devastation that can be caused when our brain malfunctions. Dr. Christine Montross is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, and Co-director of the Medical Humanities and Bioethics Scholarly Concentration at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. She is also a staff psychiatrist at Butler Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island. Dr. Montross has been named a 2010 MacColl Johnson fellow in Poetry, and the winner of the 2009 Eugene and Marilyn Glick Emerging Indiana Authors Award. She has had several poems published in literary journals, and her manuscript Embouchure was a finalist for the National Poetry Series. She has also written for many national publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post Book World, Good Housekeeping and O, The Oprah Magazine. Dr. Montross's first book, Body of Work, was named an Editors' Choice by The New York Times and one of The Washington Post's best nonfiction books of 2007. Her second book, Falling Into the Fire was named a New Yorker Book to Watch Out For. She and her partner, the playwright Deborah Salem Smith, live in Rhode Island with their two young children.

Colonel (Retired) Peter Mansoor - Author of Surge: My Journey With General David Petraeus and the Remaking of the Iraq War, professor of military history at Ohio State University, served as Executive Officer to General David Patraeus. On September 11, 2001, the United States was the target of the deadliest terrorist attack in the history of the world.  It was a day that would lead to over a decade of war, economic instability, and global confusion.  And although nearly every nation was united in the quest to bring the guilty parties to justice, the events that have transpired from that day, including the resulting war in Iraq and Afghanistan have been the subject of much debate and scrutiny.  Perhaps no decision has been more heavily scrutinized than the United States actions to use military force in Iraq.  Were we going after terrorists, Saddam Hussein, weapons of mass destruction, oil? The answer remains unclear to this day, and many people, including our guest this week believe the move into Iraq was done for strategic reasons that were not well defined.  However, going into Iraq was just part of the problem. After Saddam was captured, there was a huge power vacuum in Iraq and the United States with tasked with the difficult and confusing job of bringing stability to the region.  It was at this moment that the "Surge" went into effect and over 20,000 additional troops were sent to Iraq.  The surge was one of the largest counterinsurgency efforts in United States history and is still the topic of many military discussions. This week on the show we have Retired Colonel, Dr. Peter Mansoor.  Colonel Mansoor served as the Executive Officer to General David Patraeus in the midst of the surge.  There are few people in the world that have a better understanding of the United States military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan than Colonel Mansoor.  In his most recent book, Surge: My Journey With General David Petraeus and the Remaking of the Iraq War, Colonel Mansoor combines newly declassified documents, unpublished manuscripts, interviews, personal notes, and published sources to provide us with a remarkable account of the counterinsurgency. Dr. Peter Mansoor, Colonel, U.S. Army (Retired), is currently the professor of Military History at Ohio State University. He assumed this position in September 2008 after a 26 year career in the U.S. Army that culminated in his service in Iraq as the executive officer to General David Petraeus, the Commanding General of Multi-National Force-Iraq, during the period of the surge in 2007-2008. A 1982 distinguished graduate of the United States Military Academy, Colonel Mansoor served in a variety of command and staff positions in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East during his military career. Colonel Mansoor commanded the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division from 2003 to 2005, to include 13 months in combat in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom from July 2003 to July 2004 - service for which his brigade was awarded a President Unit Citation for collective valor in combat. He has captured the essence of the experience of his brigade’s deployment and the difficulties of the U.S. war in Iraq during the crucial first year of conflict in a personal memoir, Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander’s War in Iraq. -- This episode is brought to you by Squarespace – the all-in-one platform that makes it easy to create your own website. For a free trial and 10% off, go to Squarespace.com and use offer code SMARTS. Easy – Everything is drag and drop. You can use drag and drop to add content from your desktop, and even rearrange elements of content within a page. 24/7 support – Squarespace has an amazing 24/7 support team in New York City. They do live chat during the week, and have extremely fast email support throughout the day and night. Design Focused – Squarespace really cares about design. All their templates are extremely clean,

Another “Best Of" episode is in the books! This week, we bring you a “Best of technology” episode.  While it was tough selecting some of my favorite technology episodes, I finally picked the ones that made me truly geek out. Sit back, relax, and listen to some of the best clips regarding various aspects of technology. If you want a cheat sheet of what is in this week’s episode, here you go! Part 1 - Clips from Episode 110 - Alexis Ohanian. Alexis discusses Reddit, original (or lack thereof) ideas, and learning to code. Part 2 - Clips from Episode 99 - Nicco Mele. Nicco discusses computer advancements, web content creation, and privacy. Part 3 - Clips from Episode 53 - David-Michel Davies. DMD discusses The Webbys, where technology trends are heading, and the age-old question of, 'Are we really doing more work than previous generations?" Part 4 - Clips from Episode 115 - Scott Sklar. Scott discusses the return on investment of renewable energy and explains solar energy and other types of clean energy to Jon and Chris. Part 5 - Clips from Episode 48 - Josh Klein. Josh discusses the importance of sharing your ideas and the effect of piracy.