Rob Henderson: An Internet Academic
North Star Podcast
Rob Henderson is one of my favorite up-and-coming writers. I like him because he's one of those people who doesn't fit into a category. He's a Ph.D. candidate in psychology, but I met him in a book club about technological stagnation. He's spent years in the academy, first at Yale and now at Cambridge, but most of his influence comes from his online writing. Most of all, he's interested in human nature. In particular, psychology, status, and social class.
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Chrisman Frank and Ana Lorena Fabrega: How Childhood Education Will Change
North Star Podcast
This week, I have two guests. Both are affiliated with Synthesis, a new kind of online school where kids learn through games and simulations. One is Chrisman Frank, the CEO of Synthesis. The other is Ana Lorena Fabrega, who is their Chief Evangelist.
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Ash Fontana: Building Artificial Intelligence
North Star Podcast
Ash Fontana is an entrepreneur, investor, and author. As an entrepreneur, he was only of the early employees at an online investing platform called AngelList. From there, he became the Managing Director at Zetta, the first investment fund focused on artificial intelligence. Now, he's the author of the AI-First Company.
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Li Jin: Creating the Creator Economy
North Star Podcast
My guest today is Li Jin, the founder and managing partner at an early-stage venture capital firm called Atelier.
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Zena Hitz: Liberal Arts Thinking
North Star Podcast
My guest today is Zena Hitz, a tutor at St John’s and the author of an excellent book called Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life. Her book explores the meaning and the value of learning for its own sake, through images and stories of bookworms, philosophers, scientists, and other learners, both fictional and historical.
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Tiago Forte and Will Mannon: Building Cohort-Based Courses
North Star Podcast
I have two guests today: Tiago Forte and Will Mannon.
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Gagan Biyani: Building Silicon Valley Startups
North Star Podcast
My guest today is Gagan Biyani, the current CEO of an education startup that helps teachers run Cohort-Based Courses on the Internet and has students from around the world. Gagan also founded a multi-billion dollar online education platform called Udemy. Afterward, he founded Sprig, a food delivery platform that grew to a nine-digit valuation but eventually failed. So today, he has the distinct pleasure of being both the founder of a unicorn and the founder of a massive failure.
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Trevor Bauer: Playing Professional Baseball
North Star Podcast
My guest today is Trevor Bauer, who is arguably the very best pitcher in Major League Baseball. I wanted to interview Trevor not only because he's an excellent pitcher, but because he takes a radical approach to the game. He's a physicist and a scientist. A scholar and an entrepreneur. And you don't find that combination very often.
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Nik Sharma: Building DTC Companies
North Star Podcast
My guest today is Nik Sharma, the founder of Sharma Brands and an advisor to companies like Judy and Cha Cha Matcha. Nik is one of my very best friends, and my go-to person for all things commerce. Since we first met, we've spent hours exploring the future of marketing and commerce together, and recorded this podcast to give you a window into what our conversations are like.
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Kevin Kelly: Seeing the Future
North Star Podcast
My guest today is Kevin Kelly, who co-founded Wired Magazine in 1993 and served as its Executive Editor for the first seven years. As one of the most important futurists of our generation, he's published a number of books including The Inevitable, What Technology Wants, and New Rules for the New Economy which is my favorite one. Coolest of all, he's also a founding member of the board of the Long Now Foundation, a non-profit devoted to encouraging long-term thinking.
info_outlineNewsweek Magazine once called Rabbi Wolpe the most influential rabbi in America. He is the Senior Rabbi at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles and he's the author of eight books including one about King David and another gem called Why Be Jewish? I don't remember the last time I enjoyed preparing for an interview so much. I'm named after King David, but until this interview, I hadn't explored the history of my name in more than a decade.
This interview touches on various parts of Judaism including how rabbis should interpret the Bible, what we can learn from King David, and how Judaism anchors us when a loved one dies. There were two parts that I'll always remember. The first was a discussion about the concept of aloneness in Judaism. On one hand, the book of Deuteronomy says: “It is not because you are the most numerous of peoples that I have set my heart upon you and treasured you—indeed, you are the fewest.” On the other, community is everywhere in Jewish life and the first thing God called not good in the Bible is loneliness — “It is not good for the man to be alone (Gen 2:18).” Secondly, I enjoyed our conversation about repentance in the Jewish faith and how you must repent after a loved one dies but also have to stop after 11 months. If this conversation interests you, I recommend his sermons on YouTube and the book I mentioned before called: Why Be Jewish?
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Show Notes
3:15 - How Jews have uniquely struggled with their identity and the way they present themselves.
5:56 - How the heroes of the Jewish culture have changed over time and what makes them heroic.
8:26 - What makes Judaism different from Christianity.
11:39 - The interpretation of the Bible and how Judaism reconciles its eternal nature with the changing interpretations over time.
14:43 - The most meaningful traditions in Jewish people's lives and why Rabbi Wolpe sees the Jewish mourning rituals as some of the most powerful.
19:24 - Why many Jewish people converted to Buddhism in the Modern era.
22:11 - Why the decline of religious people throughout the world may indicate a decline in art being created.
25:52 - The power of a culture of togetherness and why Rabbi Wolpe believes that Judaism was unique in being welcomed to America with open arms.
29:02 - Yom Kippur and why Judaism uniquely holds a ritual of confession not only for each person's sin but also from the sins of the Jewish people.
31:01 - One of the biggest differences between classical Christianity and Judaism.
34:35 - What separated Maimonides from other prominent Jewish philosophers.
36:39 - What Heschel meant in that the collapsing of space is seen as the collapsing of time.
38:45 - Why we should always take care of our "big rocks" first before anything else.
44:56 - Why modern life and technology can cause people to lose touch with the transcendent and the world around us.
49:09 - Why Rabbi Wolpe feels that introducing children to religion at an early age is important to their understanding of it.
54:20 - The origin of the Jewish style of dry humor.
1:00:05 - What about King David drew Rabbi Wolpe to study him so deeply.
1:04:34 - Why it's impossible to change the age of a boy's transition into a man through a bar mitzvah.
1:07:01 - What it means to Rabbi Wolpe to be a Rabbi.