Smart People Podcast

Kevin Smokler – Literary enthusiast, speaker, author of Practical Classics: 50 Reasons to Reread 50 books you Haven’t Touched Since High School. When you hear the name Holden Caulfield, does it trigger any memories? Perhaps you get a nervous, jittery sensation that runs down your spine as you reminisce about an old book report gone...

Michael Moss – Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter; author of #1 NY Times Bestseller, Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us  Look, we know you don’t need a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter to tell you that junk food is bad for you, soda makes you fat, and the Western diet is causing an epidemic of...

Roman Krznaric: How to Find Fulfilling Work; founding faculty member of The School of Life in London. ONE MILLION DOWNLOADS AND COUNTING! That’s right – in case you didn’t see it on Facebook or twitter (@smartpeoplepod), Smart People Podcast (SPP) just passed the one million downloads threshold on Friday.  We then proceeded to pop some bubbly,...

Jonah Berger – Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School, author of Contagious: Why Things Catch On. Do you remember the first time you heard the song “Friday” by Rebecca Black? I do – I f’ing hated it.  I also remember the first time someone told me to listen to “Gangnam Style” and “Thrift...

Dr. Paul Ruggieri – Author of Confessions of a Surgeon “Now I want you to count back from ten.  10…9…8…..” And that’s all you remember.  Sure you might be a little sore, groggy or confused – but for the most part, you felt nothing. However, during that time, your mass is removed, your knee is...

David Shenk – Bestselling author of 6 books, including his most recent, The Genius in All of Us: New Insights into Genetics, Talent, and IQ. Tune in to this weeks episode to learn how to unleash your inner genius, conquer your genetic shortcomings, and be the best at anything. But trust us, it ain’t easy....

Joe Peta – Author of Trading Bases: A Story About Wall Street, Gambling, and Baseball I’m not even going to butter you up this time, trust me – you would rather just dive in. You’ll understand once I give you a little background on our guest for this weeks episode, Joe Peta. A few years...

Daniel Pink – AMAZING! One of the most watched TED Talks of all time.  Author of five provocative bestselling books about the changing world of work, including his most recent, To Sell is Human. Good to have you back! If you haven’t noticed, Smart People Podcast has been getting some real recognition these days! We...

Marlene Zuk – author of Paleofantasy, professor of ecology Unless you’ve been living in a cave (best….pun….ever), you are probably well aware of the new fad diet, the paleo diet. The quick and dirty of the diet is you can eat anything that was available to our cave dwelling ancestors. So chow down on all...

Venkatesh Rao: Author of Tempo: timing, tactics and strategy in narrative-driven decision-making & independent researcher. How many decisions do you think you make in a day? What about an hour? Well, if you want to do the math – go ahead, because all I know is you make about 1,400 decisions a MINUTE.  With that many...

Dan Carlin – Host of the Hardcore History and Common Sense podcasts, Political Commentator New media is coming for us.  Well, if you are reading this, it already came for you – so congratulations on being ahead of the curve.  New media is supposed to be the “democratization” of the creation, production, distribution and consumption of media by...

Stefan Molyneux – Philosopher, host of Freedomain Radio When you take a stance on something, you’re bound to have those on the other side that try to take you down.  In fact, many people believe, that if you aren’t making enemies, then you aren’t saying anything substantial.  Well, if you believe this to be true, then...

Alex Stone – Magician, writer, speaker I don’t know about you, but growing up I had this hilarious $10 magic set.  It came with some weird squishy ball, a few metal rings, some cards, a cape, and of course…. a wand.  Thinking back, I don’t know how my parents even sat through my poor attempt...

Marty Cagan – Expert on all things product, founding partner of the Silicon Valley Product Group If you have ever thought about creating or inventing ANYTHING….seriously listen to this episode. How many ‘products’ do you think you use in a day?  Even if you just look at a small subset of your day, the list...

Sydney Finkelstein – Steven Roth Professor of Management at Dartmouth, author, expert on strategy and leadership. Businesses fail all the time.  Such is the nature of the beast.  It’s survival of the fittest, healthy competition, may the best man win.  So you would think, when the cream rises to the top and a company takes...