Talks at Google
The Talks at Google podcast - where great minds meet. Talks at Google brings the world’s most influential thinkers, creators, makers, and doers all to one place. Every episode is taken from a video that can be seen at YouTube.com/TalksAtGoogle. DISCLAIMER: The views or opinions expressed by the guest speakers are solely their own and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of Google, Inc. The comments on this channel belong only to the person who posted them. We do, however, reserve the right to remove off-topic or inappropriate comments. Also, the materials presented in the episodes are licensed to Google by the speaker(s). Google does not endorse any products or technology presented by the guest speakers.
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Ep467 - Don Tapscott | Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything
07/26/2024
Ep467 - Don Tapscott | Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything
Author Don Tapscott visits Google to discuss his book "Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything". In just the last few years, traditional collaboration in a meeting room, a conference call, even a convention center has been superseded by online collaborations on an astronomical scale. Today, apps, jetliners, operating systems, mutual funds, and many other products are being created by teams numbering in the thousands or even millions. While some leaders fear the growth of these massive online communities, author Don Tapscott’s book "Wikinomics" proves this fear is folly. Smart firms can harness collective capability and genius to spur innovation, growth, and success. A guide to one of the most profound changes of our time, "Wikinomics" challenges our most deeply-rooted assumptions about business and will prove indispensable to anyone who wants to understand competitiveness in the twenty-first century. Based on a $9 million research project led by Tapscott, "Wikinomics" shows how masses of people can participate in the economy like never before. They are creating TV news stories, sequencing the human genome, remixing their favorite music, designing software, finding cures for diseases, editing school texts, inventing new cosmetics, or even building motorcycles. An important look into the future, "Wikinomics" will be your road map for doing business in the twenty-first century. Originally published in February of 2007. Visit to watch the video.
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Ep466 - Eric Siegel | The AI Playbook
07/23/2024
Ep466 - Eric Siegel | The AI Playbook
Leading consultant and former Columbia University professor Eric Siegel visits Google to discuss his book “The AI Playbook: Mastering the Rare Art of Machine Learning Deployment.” The book explains how machine learning works and how to successfully operationalize it. The greatest tools are often the hardest to use. Machine learning is the world’s most important general-purpose technology – but it’s notoriously difficult to launch. Outside Big Tech and a handful of other leading companies, machine learning initiatives routinely fail to deploy, never realizing value. What’s missing? A specialized business practice suitable for wide adoption. In "The AI Playbook", bestselling author Eric Siegel presents the gold-standard, six-step practice for ushering machine learning projects from conception to deployment. He illustrates the practice with stories of success and of failure, including revealing case studies from UPS, FICO, and prominent dot-coms. This disciplined approach serves both sides: It empowers business professionals and it establishes a sorely needed strategic framework for data professionals. Beyond detailing the practice, this book also painlessly upskills business professionals. It delivers a vital yet friendly dose of semi-technical background knowledge that all stakeholders need in order to lead or participate in machine learning projects. This puts business and data professionals on the same page so that they can collaborate deeply, jointly establishing precisely what machine learning is called upon to predict, how well it predicts, and how its predictions are acted upon to improve operations. These essentials make or break each initiative – getting them right paves the way for machine learning’s value-driven deployment. Visit to watch the video.
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Ep465 - Lawrence Lessig | Free Culture
07/19/2024
Ep465 - Lawrence Lessig | Free Culture
Lawrence Lessig visits Google's New York office to discuss his book “Free Culture.” Lawrence Lessig could be called a cultural environmentalist. One of America’s most original and influential public intellectuals, his focus is the social dimension of creativity, or how creative work builds on the past and how society encourages or inhibits that building with laws and technologies. In his two previous books, CODE and THE FUTURE OF IDEAS, Lessig concentrated on the destruction of much of the original promise of the Internet. In FREE CULTURE, he widens his focus to consider the diminishment of the larger public domain of ideas. In this powerful wake-up call he shows how short-sighted interests blind to the long-term damage they’re inflicting are poisoning the ecosystem that fosters innovation. All creative works—books, movies, records, software, and so on—are a compromise between what can be imagined and what is possible. For more than two hundred years, laws in America have sought a balance between rewarding creativity and allowing the borrowing from which new creativity springs. The original term of copyright set by the First Congress in 1790 was 14 years, renewable once. Now it is closer to two hundred. Lessig shows us that while new technologies always lead to new laws, never before have the big cultural monopolists used the fear created by new technologies, specifically the Internet, to shrink the public domain of ideas, even as the same corporations use the same technologies to control more and more what we can and can’t do with culture. As more and more culture becomes digitized, more and more becomes controllable, even as laws are being toughened at the behest of the big media groups. What’s at stake is our freedom—freedom to create, freedom to build, and ultimately, freedom to imagine. Originally published in March of 2007. Visit to watch the video.
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Ep464 - Broadway's The Wiz
07/16/2024
Ep464 - Broadway's The Wiz
Everybody look around, there’s reason to rejoice! "The Wiz," the Tony Award®-winning Best Musical that took the world by storm in 1975 is back. Based on L. Frank Baum’s children’s book, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," "The Wiz" returns home to the stage with an all-new adaptation. This beloved Broadway musical sets Dorothy’s adventures in the Land of Oz to a dazzling, lively mixture of rock, gospel and soul music. Dorothy, a restless Kansas farm girl eager to see the world, is transported by a tornado to a magical world of Munchkins, witches and a yellow brick road. On her way to the Emerald City to meet the Wizard of Oz, who she believes can help her get back home to Kansas, she encounters the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion — friends who help her battle the Wicked Witch of the West and eventually learn that there is “no place like home.” Director Schele Williams and cast members Nichelle Lewis, Avery Wilson, Phillip Johnson Richardson & Kyle Ramar Freeman make up the panel. Visit to watch the video.
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Ep463 - Fred Kofman | Conscious Business
07/12/2024
Ep463 - Fred Kofman | Conscious Business
Fred Kofman visits Google to discuss his book “Conscious Business”. Consciousness is the main source of organizational greatness. Conscious business means finding your passion and expressing your essential values through your work. A conscious business seeks to promote the intelligent pursuit of happiness in all its stakeholders. It produces sustainable, exceptional performance through the solidarity of its community and the dignity of each member. It also fosters personal fulfillment in the individuals, mutual respect in the community, and success in the organization. This book is the definitive resource for achieving what really matters in the workplace and beyond. Fred Kofman is an executive coach and advisor on leadership and culture. He is founder and president of the Conscious Business Center. In 2018, Fred accepted a position as Vice President at Google in charge of advising the CEO's office on leadership and culture. Previously, he was Vice President of executive development at LinkedIn. Originally published in March of 2007. Visit to watch the video.
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Ep462 - Andy Cohen | Design for a Radically Changing World
07/09/2024
Ep462 - Andy Cohen | Design for a Radically Changing World
Andy Cohen visits Google to discuss his book “Design for a Radically Changing World.” The book brings to light the impact of design on our everyday lives and offers innovative ways that design can help address some of the world’s most pressing issues and urgent crises. From rethinking the future of work and the integration of live/work/play in our daily lives, to addressing climate change and revitalizing our urban cores, design can bring people together, elevate the human experience, and provide hope for the future. Reflecting on decades of design experience and offering unique case studies, Andy’s book uncovers the design solutions impacting our lives and offers actionable advice for business leaders, designers, and all people to embrace the power of design to create a better world for all. Visit to watch the video.
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Ep461 - Dr. Ron Siegel | The Science of Mindfulness
07/05/2024
Ep461 - Dr. Ron Siegel | The Science of Mindfulness
Mindfulness-based psychotherapy is the most popular new treatment approach in the last decade—and for good reason. Studies demonstrate that mindfulness practices can be effective tools to help resolve anxiety, depression, addictive habits, stress-related medical disorders, and even interpersonal conflict. Mindfulness is not, however, a one-size-fits-all remedy. Practices must be tailored to particular problems. This talk will outline how mindfulness practices work to alleviate psychological distress and how anyone can creatively adapt them to work with the difficulty of the moment. Dr. Ronald Siegel is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School, where he has taught for over 30 years. He is a long time student of mindfulness meditation and serves on the Board of Directors and faculty of the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy. He teaches internationally about mindfulness and its application to psychotherapy and other fields and has worked for many years in community mental health with inner city families. Originally published in August of 2015. Visit to watch the video.
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Ep460 - Amanda Montell | The Age of Magical Overthinking
07/02/2024
Ep460 - Amanda Montell | The Age of Magical Overthinking
New York Times Bestselling author Amanda Montell visits Google to discuss her book “The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality.” “Magical thinking” can be broadly defined as the belief that one’s internal thoughts can affect unrelated events in the external world - think of the conviction that one can manifest their way out of poverty, stave off cancer with positive vibes, or thwart the apocalypse by learning to can their own peaches. In all its forms, magical thinking works in service of restoring agency amid chaos, but Montell argues that in the modern information age, our brain’s coping mechanisms have been overloaded, and our irrationality turned up to eleven. Montell’s book delves into a cornucopia of the cognitive biases that run rampant in our brains, from how the “halo effect” cultivates the worship or hatred of larger-than-life celebrities, to how the “sunk cost fallacy” can keep us in detrimental relationships long after we’ve realized they’re not serving us. As she illuminates these concepts with her signature brilliance and wit, Montell’s prevailing message is one of hope, empathy, and ultimately forgiveness for our anxiety-addled human selves. If you have all but lost faith in our ability to reason, Montell aims to make some sense of the senseless. Visit to watch the video.
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Ep459 - Chef Melissa King | Pride Q&A: Queer and Asian
06/28/2024
Ep459 - Chef Melissa King | Pride Q&A: Queer and Asian
Chef Melissa King is one of the most exciting talents in America’s culinary scene — with a unique cooking style that combines the Bay Area’s best ingredients with modern techniques and Asian flavors. King visits Google to share her thoughts on current events, the importance of her visibility as a queer Asian woman in the culinary industry, and meals to make. Chef King recently won Bravo’s Top Chef All Stars: Los Angeles Season 17 and was also the winner of All Star’s Fan Favorite. She previously placed as a finalist on Top Chef: Boston Season 12. As a proud Asian-American, queer woman, King has a passion for supporting the community — working with non-profit organizations and LGBTQ+ charities such as The Human Rights Campaign, The Trevor Project, Black Visions Collective, Asian Americans For Equality and more. She was honored as a Celebrity Grand Marshal for San Francisco Pride and has modeled for Levi's Strauss Co. in a global campaign advocating for the LGBTQ+ community. Originally published in June of 2020. Visit to watch the video.
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Ep458 - Dr. Romie Mushtaq | The Busy Brain Cure
06/25/2024
Ep458 - Dr. Romie Mushtaq | The Busy Brain Cure
Triple board certified physician Dr. Romie Mushtaq visits Google to discuss her bestselling book, “The Busy Brain Cure: The Eight-Week Plan to Find Focus, Tame Anxiety, and Sleep Again.” The book sheds light on the science of chronic stress and neuroinflammation for high-performing individuals who need a lasting cure for their busy brain, and is a culmination of 20-plus years of clinical research as a brain doctor and experience in corporate wellness as a Chief Wellness Officer. Dr. Romie is a triple board-certified physician, award-winning speaker, and nationally recognized wellness expert. She brings together over 2 decades of leadership in neurology, integrative medicine, and mindfulness and is on a mission to transform mental health and wellness in the workplace. Dr. Romie speaks and consults with Fortune 500 leaders, professional athletes, and global associations on performance, leadership, and mental health for individuals and teams. She entered neurology at a time when less than 5% of brain doctors were women and faced both career burnout and life-saving surgery. She spent the last decade researching the negative impact of stress and burnout on workplace cultures, team performance, and finding ways to help high-performing leaders. Visit to watch the video.
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Ep457 - Taylor Conroy | Journey: Travel with Purpose
06/21/2024
Ep457 - Taylor Conroy | Journey: Travel with Purpose
Taylor Conroy is a disruptive social entrepreneur. Taylor has been a professional firefighter, a real estate entrepreneur, and a bodybuilder. He has studied with Zen monks in Japan, run with the bulls in Spain, explored every continent on earth including Antarctica, and surfed the longest wave in the world in Peru. He has also filmed documentaries in the red light district of Cambodia to combat sex trafficking, the Ecuadorian Amazon to catalyze microfinance, and the jungles of Uganda as an activist for human rights. He is the co-founder of Journey, an impact travel company bringing groups of people on international trips to build homes, renovate schools, coach women's collectives, and aid refugees, transforming both the communities they visit and the travelers they engage. Listen to this Talk to learn how to travel with more purpose, help communities in need and get connected with an international family of like-minded individuals. Originally published in November of 2016. Visit to watch the video.
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Ep456 - benny blanco | Open Wide
06/18/2024
Ep456 - benny blanco | Open Wide
benny blanco visits Google to discuss his cookbook “Open Wide: A Cookbook for Friends,” where he teaches you everything you need to know about cooking, enjoying life, and throwing the greatest dinner party of all time. benny has contributed to the sale of hundreds of millions of albums worldwide through his work with artists including Ed Sheeran, Justin Bieber, Rihanna, Katy Perry, The Weeknd, Maroon 5, Sia, and many more. As a solo artist, benny has released two platinum albums that have been streamed more than 11 billion times to date and have featured multiple multi-platinum hits. benny made his TV debut playing a fictionalized version of himself on the FXX series "Dave" with Lil Dicky, which has become the #1 comedy on FX and FXX. His longtime friendship with acclaimed chef Matty Matheson has spawned two massively viral online food series, "Matty & Benny Eat Out America" and "Stupid F*cking Cooking Show." Visit to watch the video.
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Ep455 - Wilson Cruz | LGBTQ+ Advocacy
06/14/2024
Ep455 - Wilson Cruz | LGBTQ+ Advocacy
As part of our Pride at Google Speaker Series, actor and activist Wilson Cruz visits Google to discuss his involvement with LGBT advocacy throughout his career. It all began in 1995, when he starred in a groundbreaking drama, My So-Called Life. He also has appeared in Grey's Anatomy, He's Just Not That Into You, Noah's Arc, The West Wing, RENT, Party of Five and Ally McBeal. Wilson currently serves as a full-time GLAAD staff member and national spokesperson. Originally published in June of 2014. Visit to watch the video.
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Ep454 - Claudia de Rham | The Beauty of Falling
06/11/2024
Ep454 - Claudia de Rham | The Beauty of Falling
World-renowned physicist Claudia de Rham visits Google to discuss her book “The Beauty of Falling: A Life in Pursuit of Gravity.” Claudia de Rham has been playing with gravity her entire life. As a diver, she experimented with her body’s buoyancy in the Indian Ocean. As a pilot, she soared over Canadian waterfalls before beginning her daily scientific research. As an astronaut candidate, she dreamt of the experience of flying free from the Earth’s pull. And as a physicist, she discovered new sides to gravity’s irresistible personality by exploring the limits of Einstein’s general theory of relativity. In The Beauty of Falling, she shares captivating stories about her quest to gain intimacy with gravity, to understand both its feeling and fundamental nature. Her life’s pursuit led her away from her dream of becoming an astronaut to an exhilarating breakthrough at the very frontiers of gravitational physics. While many of us presume to know gravity quite well, the brightest scientists in history have yet to fully answer the simple question: what exactly is gravity? De Rham reveals how great minds—from Newton and Einstein to Stephen Hawking - led her to the edge of knowledge about this fundamental force. She found hints of a hidden side to gravity at the particle level where Einstein’s theory breaks down, leading her to develop a new theory of “massive gravity.” De Rham shares how her life’s path turned from a precipitous fall to an exquisite flight toward the discovery of something entirely new about our surprising, gravity-driven universe. Visit to watch the video.
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Ep453 - Kevin Jennings | Queeroes: The People who Made LGBTQ+ History
06/07/2024
Ep453 - Kevin Jennings | Queeroes: The People who Made LGBTQ+ History
Kevin Jennings visits Google to introduce listeners to the “queeroes” who led the fight for LGBTQ+ equality in America over the past century. Featuring both familiar stories as well as ones you may never have heard before, Kevin’s Talk will fill in the gaps in the history textbook you read in high school so that you leave with a fuller appreciation for the courage and determination of those who paved the way for the freedoms we all-too-often take for granted today. Visit http://youtube.com/TalksAtGoogle/ to watch the video.
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Ep452 - Guy Kawasaki | Think Remarkable
06/04/2024
Ep452 - Guy Kawasaki | Think Remarkable
Guy Kawasaki, Chief Evangelist of Canva and Host of the Remarkable People podcast, visits Google to discuss his book “Think Remarkable: 9 Paths to Transform Your Life and Make a Difference.” Ever wonder what sets people like Steve Wozniak, Mark Rober, and Jane Goodall apart? Why do some people seem to eat, sleep, and breathe “awesome?” In Think Remarkable, Guy Kawasaki shares invaluable knowledge from more than 40 years of working with game-changing organizations such as Apple, Canva, Google, Mercedes Benz, and Wikipedia, and delivers insights from a collection of amazing interviews that'll kick you into high gear and get you ready to start showing the world your best, most amazing self. The book shows readers how to lead a fulfilling life by drawing on insights from working closely with some of the world's most remarkable people. Guy Kawasaki is the chief evangelist of Canva and host of the Remarkable People podcast. He was the chief evangelist of Apple, trustee of the Wikimedia Foundation, Mercedes-Benz brand ambassador, and special assistant to the Motorola Division of Google. Visit to watch the video.
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Ep451 - Andrew Skurka | Ultimate Hiking Gear & Skills Clinic
05/31/2024
Ep451 - Andrew Skurka | Ultimate Hiking Gear & Skills Clinic
Renowned long-distance backpacker Andrew Skurka visits Google to discuss the gear, supplies and skills necessary to make hiking fun instead of a chore. Described by National Geographic as “one of the best traveled and fastest hikers on the planet,” and named “Adventurer of the Year” by Outside and “Person of the Year” by Backpacker magazine, Skurka recounts what he’s learned from more than 30,000 miles of long-distance adventures, most recently a 4,700-mile 6-month loop around Alaska and Canada’s Yukon. Whether you’re a first-time backpacker, an occasional weekend warrior, or a seasoned long-distance trekker, you’ll love this guide. Learn exactly what you need to carry – both on your back and between your ears – for all seasons and circumstances through a show-and-tell of clothing, footwear, backpacks, shelter and sleep systems, and more, as well as through detailed articles on foot care, campsite selection and hiking efficiency. Skurka’s practical recommendations give you all the tools and techniques you’ll need to succeed on the trail. Originally published in April of 2012. Visit to watch the video.
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Ep450 - Ali Abdaal | Feel Good Productivity
05/28/2024
Ep450 - Ali Abdaal | Feel Good Productivity
Productivity expert, entrepreneur, creator, and bestselling author Ali Abdaal visits Google to discuss his book “Feel-Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You.” We often think that productivity is all about hard work, and that the road to success is lined with endless frustration and toil. But what if there’s another way? In this book, Ali reveals how the science of feel-good productivity can transform your life. He introduces the three hidden 'energizers' that underpin enjoyable productivity, the three 'blockers' we must overcome to beat procrastination, and the three 'sustainers' that prevent burnout and help us achieve lasting fulfillment. Ali Abdaal started his creator journey in 2017 and has since amassed a following of over 7 million people across various platforms and newsletters, and leads a company with over 15 employees. While working as a doctor in the UK's National Health Service, Ali started to document his journey towards living a healthier, happier, more productive life on his YouTube channel and other social media platforms. To date, Ali’s evidence-based videos, podcasts and articles sharing insights into the human mind have reached hundreds of millions of people all around the world. Visit to watch the video.
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Ep449 - Sarah Williams Goldhagen | Welcome to Your World
05/24/2024
Ep449 - Sarah Williams Goldhagen | Welcome to Your World
Sarah Williams Goldhagen visits Google to discuss how the environments we build profoundly shape our feelings, memories, and well-being, and argues that we must harness this knowledge to construct a world better suited to the human experience. Taking us on a fascinating journey through some of the world’s best and worst landscapes, buildings, and cityscapes, Goldhagen draws from recent research in cognitive neuroscience and psychology to demonstrate how people’s experiences of the places they build are central to their well-being, their physical health, their communal and social lives, and even their very sense of themselves. From this foundation, Goldhagen presents a powerful case that societies must use this knowledge to rethink what and how they build: the world needs better-designed, healthier environments that address the complex range of human individual and social needs. Originally published in June of 2017. Visit to watch the video.
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Ep448 - Broadway's Water for Elephants
05/21/2024
Ep448 - Broadway's Water for Elephants
Jessica Stone, Grant Gustin, Isabelle McCalla, Gregg Edelman & Paul Alexander Nolan visit Google to perform a song and discuss the Tony-nominated Broadway show “Water for Elephants”, which is based on the critically acclaimed bestselling novel that comes to vivid life on Broadway in a spectacle-filled new musical. After losing what matters most, a young veterinary student jumps off a moving train, unsure of where the road will take him. He then finds a new home with the remarkable crew of a traveling circus, and a life - and love - beyond his wildest dreams. Visit to watch the video.
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Ep447 - Chase Iron Eyes | The Indigenous Response to Environmental Assaults
05/17/2024
Ep447 - Chase Iron Eyes | The Indigenous Response to Environmental Assaults
Chase Iron Eyes visits Google to discuss ongoing efforts to prevent oil pipelines from being built at Standing Rock, recent revelations of corporate infiltration of anti-pipeline protests, and attempts to keep arrested water protectors free from prison. Chase has used his career as an attorney to advocate for Native American civil rights. He has served as a staff attorney for the Lakota People's Law Project, an initiative founded in 2005 with the purpose of ending the unlawful practice of removing Lakota children from their families and placing them in foster care outside their communities. In the summer of 2016, he joined with other anti-pipeline protesters near Standing Rock to resist the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline. Originally published in October of 2017. Visit to watch the video.
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Ep446 - Dr. Aarathi Prasad | Silk: A World History
05/14/2024
Ep446 - Dr. Aarathi Prasad | Silk: A World History
Writer, broadcaster, and researcher Dr. Aarathi Prasad visits Google to discuss her book “Silk: A World History.” In a tale that spans continents and millennia, Aarathi weaves together the complex story of the queen of fabrics. Through the scientists who have studied silk, and the biology of the animals from which it has been drawn, she explores the global, natural, and cultural history of a unique material that has fascinated the world for thousands of years. Some four thousand years ago, humans began cultivating silkworms. With it came a growing obsession with unlocking silk’s secrets to understand how the strongest biological material ever known could be harnessed. Explorers and scientists, including groundbreaking women who pushed the boundaries of societal expectations, dedicated their lives to investigate the anatomy of silk-producing animals. They endured unbelievable hardships to discover and collect new specimens, leading them to the moths of China, Indonesia, and India; the spiders of Argentina, Paraguay, and Madagascar; and the mollusks of the Mediterranean. Rich with the complex connections between human and nonhuman worlds, the book not only peers into the past but also reveals the fiber’s impact today, inspiring new technologies across the fashion, military, and medical fields, and shows its untapped potential to pioneer a more sustainable future. Visit to watch the video.
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Ep445 - Gary Small | iBrain
05/10/2024
Ep445 - Gary Small | iBrain
Gary Small, a leading medical expert on memory and brain fitness, visits Google to discuss his book iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind. Never before has one generation experienced such rapid change in the brain's underlying wiring system, and the full consequences of this evolution has yet to be fully explored until now. Gary explores the remarkable evolution of the human brain caused by today’s constant technological presence. The book separates the digital natives from the digital immigrants, and suggests that the Internet—with its virtually limitless wealth of news and information—is radically altering the way young minds are developing and functioning. In this era of social media, Gary Small’s iBrain is an important guide to understanding the astonishing impact of this new brain evolution on our society and our future, as well as a warning of its potential dangers—increased mental illness, social isolation, Internet addiction, and more. Originally published in November of 2008. Visit to watch the video.
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Ep444 - Samuel T. Wilkinson | Purpose
05/07/2024
Ep444 - Samuel T. Wilkinson | Purpose
Samuel T. Wilkinson visits Google to discuss his book “Purpose: What Evolution and Human Nature Imply about the Meaning of Our Existence.” By using principles from a variety of scientific disciplines, Samuel provides a framework for human evolution that reveals an overarching purpose to our existence. Generations have been taught that evolution implies there is no overarching purpose to our existence, that life has no fundamental meaning. We are merely the accumulation of tens of thousands of intricate molecular accidents. Some scientists take this logic one step further, suggesting that evolution is intrinsically atheistic and goes against the concept of the divine. But is this true? By integrating emerging principles from a variety of scientific disciplines—ranging from evolutionary biology to psychology—Yale Professor Samuel Wilkinson provides a framework of evolution that implies not only that there is an overarching purpose to our existence, but what this purpose is. Nature seems to have endowed us with competing dispositions, what Wilkinson calls the dual potential of human nature. We are pulled in different directions: selfishness and altruism, aggression and cooperation, lust and love. When we couple this with the observation that we possess a measure of free will, all this strongly implies there is a universal purpose to our existence. This purpose may be to choose between the good and evil impulses that nature has created within us. Our life is a test. This is a theory that has been espoused by so many of the world’s religions. From a certain framework, these aspects of human nature—including how evolution shaped us—are evidence for the existence of the divine, not against it. Visit to watch the video.
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Ep443 - Amy Larkin | Environmental Debt: The Hidden Costs of a Changing Global Economy
05/03/2024
Ep443 - Amy Larkin | Environmental Debt: The Hidden Costs of a Changing Global Economy
Amy Larkin visits Google to discuss her book, "Environmental Debt." For decades, politicians and business leaders alike told the American public that today's challenge was growing the economy, and that environmental protection could be left to future generations. Now in the wake of billions of dollars in costs associated with coastal devastation from hurricanes, rampant wildfires across the West, and groundwater contamination from drilling, it's becoming increasingly clear that yesterday's carefree attitude about the environment has morphed into a financial crisis of epic proportions. Amy Larkin has been at the forefront of the fight for the environment for years, and in "Environmental Debt" she argues that the costs of global warming, extreme weather, pollution and other forms of environmental debt are wreaking havoc on the global economy. Synthesizing complex ideas, she pulls back the curtain on some of the biggest cultural touchstones of the environmental debate, revealing how, for instance, despite coal's relative fame as a 'cheap' energy source, ordinary Americans pay $350 billion a year for coal's damage in business-related expenses, polluted watersheds, and in healthcare costs. And the problem stretches far beyond our borders: deforestation from twenty years ago in Thailand caused catastrophic flooding in 2011, and cost Toyota 3.4 percent of its annual production while causing tens of thousands of workers to lose jobs in three different countries. Provocative and hard-hitting, "Environmental Debt" sweeps aside the false choices of today's environmental debate, and shows how to revitalize the economy through nature's bounty. Originally published in August of 2013. Visit / to watch the video.
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Ep442 - Simran Kaur | Girls That Invest: Your Guide to Financial Independence
04/30/2024
Ep442 - Simran Kaur | Girls That Invest: Your Guide to Financial Independence
Globally recognized investor Simran Kaur visits Google to discuss her book “Girls That Invest: Your Guide to Financial Independence through Shares and Stocks.” The book is a step-by-step guide to financial independence from the creator of the investing education podcast, Girls That Invest. With only 15 to 25 percent of women investing, Simran founded Girls That Invest, a multi-million dollar media company that has amassed over six million podcast downloads and has become the world’s #1 investing podcast for women. As a Forbes 30 under 30, Global Cartier Women in Business Fellow and finalist for Young New Zealander of the Year, Simran’s work has been featured on TEDx US, Forbes, Vogue, Business Insider, and a billboard in Times Square where she rang the NASDAQ opening bell for International Day of the Girl. Her mission is simple: Putting money into the hands of women. Simran spoke at the UK Houses of Parliament for International Women's Day in March 2023. Her best-selling book, Girls That Invest, has topped charts in the USA, Canada, UK and New Zealand and her podcast is listened to in over 150 countries, demonstrating the need for more investing education tailored to help tackle the wealth gap women are facing. Visit to watch the video.
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Ep441 - Sarah Miller Caldicott | Innovate Like Edison
04/26/2024
Ep441 - Sarah Miller Caldicott | Innovate Like Edison
Sarah Miller Caldicott, the great grand-niece of Thomas Edison, visits Google to discuss her book "Innovate Like Edison: The Five Step System for Breakthrough Business Success." Thomas Edison is counted among the greatest innovators in American history. Edison's focus on practical accomplishment set the stage for America's global leadership in innovation. Now, for the first time ever, "Innovate Like Edison" translates the best practices of this supreme American inventor into contemporary terms to help today's leaders harness their own innovative potential. With her unique insight and expertise, Caldicott introduces a carefully researched, easy-to-apply system of five success secrets inspired by the creative methods of Edison himself. Presented in a step-by-step fashion, "Innovate Like Edison" provides the tools and strategies you need to compete and win in the business world and in everyday life. Whether you're an amateur or an executive, "Innovate Like Edison" is a powerful tool that will enable you to revamp and revitalize your own creative genius and thrive in today's culture of innovation. Originally published in February, 2008. Visit to watch the video.
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Ep440 - Bob Sutton & Huggy Rao | The Friction Project
04/23/2024
Ep440 - Bob Sutton & Huggy Rao | The Friction Project
Professors Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao visit Google to discuss their book “The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder.” This book is a useful guide to eliminating the forces that make it harder, more complicated, or downright impossible to get things done in organizations. Every organization is plagued by destructive friction. Yet some forms of friction are incredibly useful, and leaders who attempt to improve workplace efficiency often make things even worse. Drawing from seven years of hands-on research, Sutton and Rao teach readers how to become “friction fixers.” Sutton and Rao unpack how skilled friction fixers think and act like trustees of each others’ time. They provide friction forensics to help readers identify where to avert and repair bad organizational friction and where to maintain and inject good friction. The heart of the book digs into the causes and solutions for five of the most common and damaging friction troubles: oblivious leaders, addition sickness, broken connections, jargon monoxide, and fast & frenzied people and teams. Sound familiar? Sutton and Rao are here to help. They wrap things up with lessons for leading your own friction project, including linking little things to big things; the power of civility, caring, and love for propelling designs and repairs; and embracing the mess that is an inevitable part of the process. Visit to watch the video.
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Ep439 - Sara Mednick | Take a Nap! Change Your Life.
04/19/2024
Ep439 - Sara Mednick | Take a Nap! Change Your Life.
Sara Mednick visits Google to discuss her book, "Take a Nap! Change Your Life." Imagine a product that increases alertness, boosts creativity, reduces stress, improves perception, stamina, motor skills, and accuracy, helps you make better decisions, keeps you looking younger, aids in weight loss, reduces the risk of heart attack, elevates your mood, and strengthens memory. Now imagine that this product is nontoxic, has no dangerous side effects, and, best of all, is absolutely free. This miracle drug is, in fact, nothing more than the nap: the right nap at the right time. Sara Mednik’s book Take a Nap! details a scientifically-based breakthrough program that shows how we can fight the fatigue epidemic through a custom-designed nap. The book explains the five stages of the sleep cycle, particularly Stage Two, or Slow Wave Sleep, and REM, and the benefits each one provides; how to assess your tiredness and set up a personal sleep profile; and how to neutralize the voice in your head that tells you napping is a sign of laziness. Using the unique Nap Wheel on the cover and interior graphs and charts, it shows us exactly when our optimal napping time is, and exactly how long we should try to sleep—even how it’s possible to design a nap to inspire creativity one day, and the next day design one to help us with our memory. There are tips on how to create the right nap environment, a 16-step technique for falling asleep, a six-week napping workbook, and more. Originally published in November of 2007. Visit to watch the video.
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Ep438 - Stefanie Faye | Neuro-Mechanics of Mindset: How our Past Affects the Present
04/16/2024
Ep438 - Stefanie Faye | Neuro-Mechanics of Mindset: How our Past Affects the Present
Neuroscience specialist Stefanie Faye visits Google to discuss neurophysiology and its connection to mental health, drawing from her book Biomechanics of Human Communication: Neurophysiology, Regulation, and Systems Thinking. Stefanie Faye is a neuroscience specialist with expertise in optimizing learning, performance, attentional control, cognitive flexibility, and emotional regulation using biofeedback, neurotechnology, cognitive training and frameworks that integrate childhood experiences and family systems. Her graduate degree from New York University focused on neuroplasticity, empathy and emotion regulation. She has worked as a counselor, cognitive trainer, reading therapist, research analyst, coordinator of learning programs, and has analyzed many physiological aspects of nervous system states and brain functioning including electric conductance of the skin, facial electromyography, heart rate variability and quantitative electro-encephalography. She integrates all of this with her experience training in monasteries with meditation masters from Vietnam, India and West Africa. Visit to watch the video.
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