The Next Big Idea Daily

In his new book, More Everything Forever, science journalist Adam Becker investigates the wildly implausible and often profoundly immoral visions of tomorrow — and shows why, in reality, there is no good evidence that they will, or should, come to pass. • Comment on this episode! • Support the show and get transcripts, polls, book lists, and more

We're kicking off the week with a fresh take on leadership from Sébastien Page, chief investment officer at T. Rowe Price.

Not so long ago, conservative intellectuals believed universities were worth fighting for. Today, conservatives seem more inclined to burn them down. Today on the show, conservative political theorist and professor Jonathan Marks makes the case that liberal education is an antidote to this despair, because the true purpose of college is to encourage people to be reasonable.

Eric Topol is the executive vice president and a professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research, the largest nonprofit biomedical institute in the United States. He is also a practicing cardiologist and one of the ten most-cited medical researchers. His new book is Super Agers: An Evidence-Based Approach to Longevity.

Retired Navy SEAL commander and performance expert Rich Diviney reveals a revolutionary method for training individuals and teams to perform at their best, no matter what.

Today, we hear from Jake Knapp, the guy who helped build Gmail, about his new book, Click. It's an innovative guide for starting big projects the smart way.

Kids today are more susceptible than ever to anxiety and stress. Fortunately, there are ways to help.

Taylor Swift isn't just a once-in-a-generation talent. She's also a brilliant businesswoman, says Harvard Business Review editor Kevin Evers, whose career is a masterclass in brand-building, audience engagement, and tactical reinvention.

A new way to thrive in times of uncertainty.

Are you an ambitious hard worker and high achiever ― but feeling stuck, unseen, and struggling to advance in your career? Lorraine K. Lee can help you change that.

Drew Ramsey wants us to approach mental fitness the way we approach physical fitness. Today, he shares his training regimen.

Teddy bears. Paddington. Winnie-the-Pooh. Somewhere along the way, bears wandered out of the wilderness and straight into our imaginations — and our hearts. But outside of the storybooks, the remaining species of bear face a difficult reality: shrinking habitats, poaching, and deadly encounters with our species.  Reuters journalist Gloria Dickie explores that reality in the book Eight Bears: Mythic Past and Imperiled Future.

Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at Redfin, shares some big ideas from her new book, Hate the Game.

Bonnie Tsui, longtime contributor to The New York Times, shares key insights from her new book On Muscle: The Stuff That Moves Us and Why It Matters.

Madeline Mann's new book is Reverse the Search: How to Turn Job Seeking into Job Shopping.

Adulting is hard. Lucky for us Raffi Grinberg, author of How to Be a Grown Up, is here to help.

Sir David Spiegelhalter offers a data-driven guide to managing risk and uncertainty.

In an age of constant connectivity, privacy can feel like a relic of the past. But Lawrence Cappello says it's vital for free societies and essential for a fulfilling life. 

After nearly two decades at Google, where she went from entry-level to executive and helped generate billions in revenue, Jenny Wood realized the secret to success isn't being nice, modest, or agreeable—it actually might call for being a little bit selfish, a little bit shameless, and just manipulative enough to get what you want.

Sabina Nawaz is the author of You're the Boss: Become the Manager You Want to Be (and Others Need).

Laura Delano spent fourteen years under psychiatric care, working with a variety of diagnosed mental illnesses and trying every drug and therapy that promised to “fix” her. But eventually she started wondering what if the problem wasn't in her brain, but in the system itself?

Science writer Thomas Ramge makes the case for geoengineering.

Two former Harvard faculty members join forces to introduce conflict resilience: the radical act of sitting in and growing from conflict to break the bad habits that sabotage our politics, workplaces, and most important relationships.

Emmy award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker Tamsen Fadal on how to take midlife into your own hands. 

Benjamin Weber is a historian at the University of California, Davis. His new book is American Purgatory: Prison Imperialism and the Rise of Mass Incarceration.

How to start, build, buy, scale, and sell a business that expands your life. 

Stanford's Greg Walton is here to tell us about the ordinary experiences that can help us set aside the ordinary worries of life and unleash extraordinary change.

Journalist Benjamin Wallace on his quest to unmask the mysterious inventory of crypto.

Alexandra Shaker on how you can transform anxiety into resilience, courage, or even creativity. 

One of the biggest myths in business is that your ability to network depends on having the “gift of gab.” But Matthew Pollard argues that when it comes to networking, introverts—not extroverts—have the edge.

To thrive in this day and age, smaller cities must create innovation economies. But how can they do that when tech jobs, venture capital, and R&D are concentrated in a handful of big coastal cities, while the broad middle of the country is left out? That's a problem. Nicholas Lalla, founder of Tulsa Innovation Labs, has big ideas for how to change it.

Evan Mandery, a professor at the City University of New York, argues that elite colleges don't fight the inequality — they create it.

From New York Times columnist and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Nicholas Kristof shares what he's learned from a life in journalism. (This episode first aired in September 2024.) 

Something strange is going on in the cosmos. Scientists are uncovering a catalogue of weird phenomena that simply can't be explained by our long-established theories of the universe. Harry Cliff reports. (This episode first aired in June 2024.)

New York Times-bestselling author Alex Hutchinson shares a fresh perspective on how exploration, uncertainty, and risk shape our behavior and help us find meaning.

Caroline Fleck shares five big ideas from her new book, "Validation: How the Skill Set That Revolutionized Psychology Will Transform Your Relationships, Increase Your Influence, and Change Your Life."

Yung Pueblo offers a blueprint for deepening your compassion, kindness, and gratitude so you can truly grow in harmony with another person and build stronger connections in all your relationships. 

Jennifer Finney Boylan shares five big ideas from her new book "Cleavage." 

Melody Wilding has helped thousands of clients advocate for their needs at work while navigating the minefield of office politics. Today, she's here to help you.

Is it possible to change your entire personality in a year? An award-winning journalist experiments with her own personality to find out. 

Sleep researcher Olivia Walch on why your body's clock is so messed up and what to do about it.

Alison Wood Brooks, a celebrated Harvard Business School professor and leading expert on the psychology of conversation, shares easy tips that will make you a better conversationalist.

Psychologist Steven Heine on how to overcome angst and live life with purpose.

Cognitive scientist Vladimir Miskovic and psychologist Steven Jay Lynn have teamed up to write a new book called Dreaming Reality, blending their perspectives to answer the question: what is consciousness?

Power is not working — for women, for men, or for the world. Today, big ideas from Katty Kay and Claire Shipman on how to remake power in a way that benefits everyone.

Two of TIME's 100 Most Influential People in AI share what you need to know about AI — and how to defend yourself against bogus AI claims and products.

Bestselling author and life coach Martha Beck explains how to turn worry into creativity.

Nick Mott and Justin Angle have written a practical guide for living with wildfire, including essential history and science, actions you can take to protect your home, and guiding principles for life in an increasingly fiery future. Today, Nick joins us to share a few big ideas from the book.

Five key insights from "Microdosing for Health, Healing, and Enhanced Performance" by James Fadiman and Jordan Gruber.

Anne-Laure Le Cunff shows how an experimental mindset can turn challenges into self-discovery and doubt into opportunity.