The Next Big Idea is a weekly series of in-depth interviews with the world’s leading thinkers. Join hosts Rufus Griscom and Caleb Bissinger — along with our curators, Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, Susan Cain, and Daniel Pink — for conversations that might just change the way you see the world. New episodes every Monday and Thursday. For ad inquiries, please reach out to: Network+NBI@yapmedia.com
We've spent the last few years watching AI transform the digital world. Now it's coming for the physical one. Humanoid robots are leaving the lab and entering homes, factories, and workplaces. But are we witnessing another ChatGPT moment, or are these machines still years away from becoming truly useful? Journalist Stephen Witt has spent months inside the world's leading robotics companies to find out, and what he discovered surprised him. Check out Stephen's article "Are Humanoid Robots Ready to Be Deployed?" and his previous appearance on this show. *** 🎥 The Next Big Idea is now on YouTube! You can find our episodes here. ✉️ Follow Rufus on LinkedIn, subscribe to our Substack, or send us an email at podcast@nextbigideaclub.com. 🔗 SPONSORED BY: Granola — If meetings are eating up your day, Granola is a no-brainer. You can try it totally free for three months. Just head to granola.ai/idea IM8 — Athletes, doctors, David Beckham... they all drink IM8. Get a free welcome kit, five free travel sachets, and 10% off your order when you use code NBI at im8health.com/nbi Momentous — If you want to try Momentous Signature Spec Creatine, head to livemomentous.com and use code IDEA for up to 35% off your entire first order. Northwest Registered Agent — They’ve been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. Learn more at northwestregisteredagent.com/nbifree Upwork — Visit upwork.com right now and post your job for free Wealthfront — Earn up to 4.30% APY with Wealthfront’s high-yield cash account for a limited time: https://wealthfront.com/nbi This experience may not be representative of other Wealthfront clients, and there is no guarantee of future performance or success. Experiences will vary. The host of The Next Big Idea, Caleb Bissinger (“Media Partner”), is a client of Wealthfront. The Media Partner receives cash compensation from Wealthfront Brokerage for this paid endorsement placed in their podcast, creating a conflict of interest. More details available via the referral link. The Direct Deposit Plus Investing Program from Wealthfront Advisers LLC and Wealthfront Brokerage LLC provides eligible clients a 0.25% APY increase above the base APY on eligible Cash Account balances (up to an overall boosted rate of 4.30% for a limited time when including the three month 0.75% APY boost for new clients) when you direct deposit $1,000 a month, plus open, fund, and maintain an investing account. Wealthfront may change or end the program at any time and determine eligibility at its discretion. Terms apply. Full details at wealthfront.com/promo-terms. The Cash Account, which is not a deposit account, is offered by Wealthfront Brokerage LLC ("Wealthfront Brokerage"), Member FINRA/SIPC. Wealthfront Brokerage is not a bank. The Annual Percentage Yield ("APY") on cash deposits as of January 30, 2026, is representative, requires no minimum, and may change at any time. References to the APY for the Wealthfront Cash Account, including any APY increase, are to the APY paid by insured depository institutions that participate in our cash sweep program (the "Program Banks”). Wealthfront Brokerage does not pay interest. Funds in the Cash Account are swept to Program Banks where they earn a variable APY and are eligible for FDIC insurance. Conditions apply. For a list of Program Banks, see: www.wealthfront.com/programbanks. FDIC pass-through insurance, which protects against the failure of Program Banks, not Wealthfront, is not provided until the funds arrive at the Program Banks. While funds are at Wealthfront Brokerage, and while they are transitioning to and/or from Wealthfront Brokerage to the Program Banks, the funds are eligible for SIPC protection up to the $250,000 limit for cash. FDIC insurance is limited to $250,000 per customer, per bank, regardless of whether those deposits are placed through Wealthfront Brokerage. You are responsible for monitoring your total deposits at each Program Bank to stay within FDIC limits. Wealthfront works with multiple Program Banks to make available up to $8 million ($16 million for joint accounts) of pass-through FDIC coverage for your cash deposits. For more info on FDIC insurance coverage, visit www.FDIC.gov. Same-day withdrawal or instant payment transfers may be limited by destination institutions, daily transaction caps, and by participating entities such as Wells Fargo, the RTP® Network, and FedNow® Service. New Cash Account deposits are subject to a 2-4 day holding period before becoming available for transfer. Fees & Eligibility requirements may apply to certain checking features. Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. Securities investments are not bank deposits, bank-guaranteed or FDIC-insured, and may lose value. Product images are for illustrative purposes and do not reflect individual experiences, account balances, or performance.
You Can Just Do Things
Why do some people seem to create opportunities wherever they go while others spend years waiting for the right break? According to Cate Hall — lawyer turned poker player turned drug addict turned CEO of a $3B foundation — the difference isn't luck. It's the ability to question assumptions, reject the default path, and realize the world is far more malleable than it seems. In this episode, Rufus and Cate explore what it really means to become a high-agency person — a.k.a. someone who just does things. Together, they unpack why ambition isn't the same as agency, how fear of embarrassment and an obsession with hard work hold us back, and why curiosity, unconventional thinking, and expanding your "surface area for luck" are the keys to creating extraordinary opportunities. Cate's new book, You Can Just Do Things, is out now. 🎥 The Next Big Idea is now on YouTube! You can find our episodes here. ✉️ Follow Rufus on LinkedIn, subscribe to our Substack, or send us an email at podcast@nextbigideaclub.com 🔗 SPONSORED BY: Granola — If meetings are eating up your day, Granola is a no-brainer. You can try it totally free for three months. Just head to granola.ai/idea IM8 — Athletes, doctors, David Beckham... they all drink IM8. Get a free welcome kit, five free travel sachets, and 10% off your order when you use code NBI at im8health.com/nbi Momentous — If you want to try Momentous Signature Spec Creatine, head to livemomentous.com and use code IDEA for up to 35% off your entire first order. Northwest Registered Agent — They’ve been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. Learn more at northwestregisteredagent.com/nbifree Upwork — Visit upwork.com right now and post your job for free. Shopify — Stop waiting for permission to build something. Your next revenue stream starts free at shopify.com/nbi
The Lost Art of Asking Questions
In the age of AI, endless information, and instant certainty, philosopher Lani Watson argues that questions — not answers — are humanity's greatest intellectual advantage. Today, she explains why curiosity is a biological superpower, why schools unintentionally teach us to stop questioning, and how learning to embrace a question-oriented mindset can make us better thinkers, leaders, and humans. Lani’s new book is Q: The Hidden Power of Questions in a World That Wants Answers. You can take her Questioning Strengths Assessment here. *** 🎥 The Next Big Idea is now on YouTube! You can find our episodes here. ✉️ Follow Rufus on LinkedIn, subscribe to our Substack, or send us an email at podcast@nextbigideaclub.com. 🔗 SPONSORED BY: Granola — If meetings are eating up your day, Granola is a no-brainer. You can try it totally free for three months. Just head to granola.ai/idea IM8 — Athletes, doctors, David Beckham — they all drink IM8. Get a free welcome kit, five free travel sachets, and 10% off your order when you use code NBI at im8health.com/nbi Momentous — If you want to try Momentous Signature Spec Creatine, head to livemomentous.com and use code IDEA for up to 35% off your entire first order. Upwork — Visit upwork.com right now and post your job for free. Shopify — Stop waiting for permission to build something. Your next revenue stream starts free at shopify.com/nbi
Sorry, Skeptics — AI Is Not a Bubble
First, a few numbers. This year Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta will spend more than $700 billion building AI infrastructure. There are 1,500 data centers in development across the country. AI-linked stocks make up at least 40% of the S&P 500. These are the kinds of numbers that make some economists jumpy. If this whole AI thing doesn't pan out, they warn, we're headed for the mother of all crashes. But Azeem Azhar is not one of those economists. He and his team recently spent months turning the AI economy inside out, and they just released a report called The State of the AI Economy. It contains surprising answers to what has become an increasingly pressing question: is this the biggest bubble ever blown, or are we building the durable machinery of a radically more abundant world? In this conversation, Azeem joins Rufus to unpack why AI adoption is growing faster than the internet or mobile, what Wall Street and Silicon Valley may still be getting wrong, and why the most important skill in an AI-powered future may have nothing to do with AI. Along the way, they explore energy, jobs, investing, AI safety, and what exponential change means for the next generation. 💬 PULL QUOTES: "Two years ago I would have said to [my kids], 'Listen, you need to learn how to use AI.' I don't think that's as true now as it was. They need to know how to engage with it. But more importantly, they really need to know how to think for themselves." "If you look at revenue per employee at really excellent firms in the traditional economy, it's $400,000 per employee. Anthropic is up at $10 million." "The thing that shows up in 50 or 60% of investment booms that turn to bubbles is when funding quality gets a bit funky. Last year, the funkiness was low. Now the funkiness is the way the salmon looks at an all-you-can-eat sushi at about 3:30 in the afternoon. It's still edible, but it's not as good as it was at 1:15." 👤 About the Guest: Azeem Azhar is the founder of Exponential View, a deeply-researched newsletter that has become essential reading for nearly 300,000 investors, entrepreneurs, academics, and policymakers. He is an executive fellow at Harvard Business School, a visiting fellow at Oxford, and a former correspondent for the Economist. He’s also an entrepreneur, an investor, the author of The Exponential Age, and a past guest on this show. 🎥 The Next Big Idea is now on YouTube! You can find our episodes here. 📱Follow Rufus on LinkedIn, subscribe to our Substack, or send us an email at podcast@nextbigideaclub.com. 🎁 The best way to support the show is by becoming a Next Big Idea Club member. Learn more at nextbigideaclub.com, and use code PODCAST for a super secret discount (spoiler: it’s 20% off). 🔗 SPONSORED BY: Granola — If meetings are eating up your day, Granola is a no-brainer. You can try it totally free for three months. Just head to granola.ai/idea IM8 — Athletes, doctors, David Beckham… they all drink IM8. Get a free welcome kit, five free travel sachets, and 10% off your order when you use code NBI at im8health.com/nbi Momentous — If you want to try Momentous Signature Spec Creatine, head to livemomentous.com and use code IDEA for up to 35% off your entire first order. Northwest Registered Agent — They’ve been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. Learn more at northwestregisteredagent.com/nbifree Upwork — Visit upwork.com right now and post your job for free. Shopify — Stop waiting for permission to build something. Your next revenue stream starts free at shopify.com/nbi
Why Creating Beats Consuming | Mark Pincus (Part 2)
Most people think success comes from having an original idea. Mark Pincus thinks that's one of the most expensive mistakes you can make. After building one of the most successful gaming companies in history, he believes the best products rarely begin as completely new ideas. Instead, they start with a deep understanding of what already works, a relentless focus on making it better, and just enough novelty to make people care. In part two of our conversation, Mark shares his "Proven, Better, New" framework for building products, explains why AI is creating the greatest opportunity for builders since the birth of the internet, and reveals the surprisingly simple habits that have shaped his career, leadership philosophy, and life. Along the way, he discusses ambition, parenting, creativity, and why a more playful approach to your career may be the key to doing your best work. Chapters: (00:00) The Cheat Code for Building Winners (04:29) The Secret Behind Every Hit Product (12:53) The Best Time to Build Is Now (18:14) Why Work Should Feel Like Play (28:05) The Framework For A Better Year (33:04) Parenting Like a Founder (38:16) The Screen Time Debate Is Broken 🎥 The Next Big Idea is now on YouTube! You can find our episodes here ✉️ Follow Rufus on LinkedIn, subscribe to our Substack, or send us an email at podcast@nextbigideaclub.com 🔗 SPONSORED BY: Granola — If meetings are eating up your day, Granola is a no-brainer. You can try it totally free for three months. Just head to granola.ai/idea IM8 — Athletes, doctors, David Beckham — they all drink IM8. Get a free welcome kit, five free travel sachets, and 10% off your order when you use code NBI at im8health.com/nbi Momentous — If you want to try Momentous Signature Spec Creatine, head to livemomentous.com and use code IDEA for up to 35% off your entire first order. Northwest Registered Agent — They’ve been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. Learn more at northwestregisteredagent.com/nbifree Upwork — Visit upwork.com right now and post your job for free. Shopify — Stop waiting for permission to build something. Your next revenue stream starts free at shopify.com/nbi
Living at the Speed of Play
Podcasting is lousy with guests who peddle advice about starting businesses, building careers, and living full lives. Few of these gurus have actually accomplished anything. Fewer still have advice that comes anywhere close to revelatory. Mark Pincus is the rare exception. The founder of 10 companies, Mark is best known for Zynga, the gaming juggernaut behind FarmVille and Words With Friends. At its peak, Zynga was valued at more than $12 billion and accounted for 20% of Facebook’s page views. It was so big, in fact, that Mark Zuckerberg once admitted to Mark Pincus, “Zynga is the only company that is capable of being an actual Facebook competitor.” Across his 30-year career, Mark — Pincus, not Zuck — developed a cheat code for building products people love and living a life anyone would admire, and that cheat code winds its way through his new book, Life at the Speed of Play. Today, he shares how he learned to trust his gut, why most founders build too much and test too little, and how failure taught him to move faster, pivot sooner, and search for real signals instead of hope. 📖 CHAPTERS: (02:22) The Fight That Changed His Life (08:25) The Startup Decision That Matters Most (17:00) The Fastest Way to Make People Care (20:42) The Day Mark Zuckerberg Proved Him Wrong (31:59) Why Most Startups Build Too Much (40:11) How The Founder Is Employee #1 (43:39) The Culture Hack That Scales (51:37) The Framework Behind FarmVille 📱 This is part one of our conversation with Mark. The second installment will be out on Monday. If you can’t wait until then, you can listen right now in the Next Big Idea app. 🎥 The Next Big Idea is now on YouTube! You can find our episodes here. ✉️ Follow Rufus on LinkedIn, subscribe to our Substack, or send us an email at podcast@nextbigideaclub.com. 🔗 SPONSORED BY: Granola — If meetings are eating up your day, Granola is a no-brainer. You can try it totally free for three months. Just head to granola.ai/idea IM8 — Athletes, doctors, David Beckham — they all drink IM8. Get a free welcome kit, five free travel sachets, and 10% off your order when you use code NBI at im8health.com/nbi Momentous — If you want to try Momentous Signature Spec Creatine, head to livemomentous.com and use code IDEA for up to 35% off your entire first order. Northwest Registered Agent — They’ve been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. Learn more at northwestregisteredagent.com/nbifree Upwork — Visit upwork.com right now and post your job for free. Shopify — Stop waiting for permission to build something. Your next revenue stream starts free at shopify.com/nbi
How to Be a Super Ager
For years, cardiologist Eric Topol hunted for the rarest people in America: those over 80 who had never been sick. When he finally found 1,400 of them, he made a shocking discovery. It wasn't their genes. These "super agers" were often the last ones standing in families where everyone else died decades earlier. So what separates people who live into their 80s or 90s feeling great from those who battle chronic disease? In his new book, Super Agers, Eric reveals what the science actually shows, shares practical advice you can use at any age, and takes on the bro scientists selling false promises along the way. This episode first aired in July 2025. 🎥 The Next Big Idea is now on YouTube! You can find our episodes here. 📱Follow Rufus on LinkedIn, subscribe to our Substack, or send us an email at podcast@nextbigideaclub.com. 🎁 The best way to support the show is by becoming a Next Big Idea Club member. Learn more at nextbigideaclub.com, and use code PODCAST for a super secret discount (spoiler: it’s 20% off). 🔗 SPONSORED BY: IM8 ➡️ Athletes, doctors, David Beckham — they all drink IM8. Get a free welcome kit, five free travel sachets, and 10% off your order when you use code NBI at im8health.com/nbi Northwest Registered Agent ➡️ They’ve been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. Learn more at northwestregisteredagent.com/nbifree Shopify ➡️ Stop waiting for permission to build something. Your next revenue stream starts free at shopify.com/nbi
What If Saving the Planet Could Be Fun?
Despite decades of urgency and alarm, progress on climate change has felt frustratingly slow. What if we've been going about it all wrong? Elizabeth Dunn and Jiaying "JZ" Zhao think there's a missing ingredient in the conversation: joy. In their new book, Leave the Lights On, Liz and JZ draw on psychology, behavioral science, and sustainability research to argue that the most effective climate solutions aren't rooted in guilt, fear, or self-denial. They're rooted in easy choices that also make your life better. Today on the show: why doom-and-gloom messaging backfires, what bacon dipped in maple syrup has to do with saving the planet, how buying more underwear might just protect our species, and why the choices that help most are also the ones that make us happier. *** Chapters: (00:00) Introduction (02:23) Why Climate Fear Backfires (09:24) The Case for Making Meat a Treat (17:44) The BLT Climate Paradox (20:53) The Hidden Climate Cost of Your Bank Account (23:50) Fast Fashion, Slow Happiness (31:10) Why Driving Makes Us Unhappy (39:08) The Best Trips Are Closer Than You Think (45:24) The Science of Social Tipping Points (49:41) The Climate Power of a Single Vote About the Guests: Elizabeth Dunn is a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia and one of the world's leading researchers on happiness and well-being. Her work explores how people can use their time, money, and relationships to build more satisfying lives. Jiaying Zhao is a professor of psychology and the founder of the Behavioral Sustainability Lab at the University of British Columbia. Her research focuses on climate action, behavioral change, and the role of psychology in accelerating the transition to a more sustainable future. *** 🎥 The Next Big Idea is now on YouTube! You can find our episodes here. 📱Follow Rufus on LinkedIn, subscribe to our Substack, or send us an email at podcast@nextbigideaclub.com. 🎁 The best way to support the show is by becoming a Next Big Idea Club member. Learn more at nextbigideaclub.com, and use code PODCAST for a super secret discount (spoiler: it’s 20% off). 🔗 SPONSORED BY: IM8 ➡️ Athletes, doctors, David Beckham — they all drink IM8. Get a free welcome kit, five free travel sachets, and 10% off your order when you use code NBI at im8health.com/nbi Northwest Registered Agent ➡️ They’ve been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. Learn more at northwestregisteredagent.com/nbifree Shopify ➡️ Stop waiting for permission to build something. Your next revenue stream starts free at shopify.com/nbi
How to Live a Long and Useful Life
Publisher, scientist, humorist, diplomat — Benjamin Franklin was America's first polymath. Today, with help from Eric Weiner, we revisit Franklin's life, searching for tips about how to be healthy, wealthy, and wise. This episode first aired in July 2024. 🎥 The Next Big Idea is now on YouTube! You can find our episodes here. 📱Follow Rufus on LinkedIn, subscribe to our Substack, or send us an email at podcast@nextbigideaclub.com. 🎁 The best way to support the show is by becoming a Next Big Idea Club member. Learn more at nextbigideaclub.com, and use code PODCAST for a super secret discount (spoiler: it’s 20% off). 🔗 SPONSORED BY: IM8 ➡️Athletes, doctors, David Beckham — they all drink IM8. Get a free welcome kit, five free travel sachets, and 10% off your order when you use code NBI at im8health.com/nbi Northwest Registered Agent ➡️ They’ve been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. Learn more at northwestregisteredagent.com/nbifree Shopify ➡️ Stop waiting for permission to build something. Your next revenue stream starts free at shopify.com/nbi
As America Turns 250, Are You in the Mood to Celebrate?
"We’re entering our 250th birthday, and we’re not quite in the mood for a birthday party. We’ve been tearing ourselves apart." That's what Walter Isaacson told Rufus when they sat down last year. But, he says, it doesn't have to be that way. "Let's use this birthday party as a chance to try to heal some of the divides." Walter's latest book is The Greatest Sentence Ever Written. That sentence? “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Yes, it’s eloquent, but more than that, it gave the United States a mission statement, one that we are still striving — fitfully, imperfectly — to meet. With America's 250th birthday just a few days away, we think it's the perfect time to revisit this conversation with Walter about how that sentence came to be written, what it meant to the founders, and why it still matters today. 🎥 The Next Big Idea is now on YouTube! You can find our episodes here. 📱Follow Rufus on LinkedIn, subscribe to our Substack, or send us an email at podcast@nextbigideaclub.com. 🎁 The best way to support the show is by becoming a Next Big Idea Club member. Learn more at nextbigideaclub.com, and use code PODCAST for a super secret discount (spoiler: it’s 20% off). 🔗 SPONSORED BY: IM8 ➡️ Athletes, doctors, David Beckham — they all drink IM8. Get a free welcome kit, five free travel sachets, and 10% off your order when you use code NBI at im8health.com/nbi Northwest Registered Agent ➡️ They’ve been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. Learn more at northwestregisteredagent.com/nbifree Shopify ➡️ Stop waiting for permission to build something. Your next revenue stream starts free at shopify.com/nbi
THE GOD TEST (Part 2): Can Humanity Pass the Cosmic Reckoning?
On Thursday, Rufus and Robert Wright (The God Test) talked about AI as a new stage in the evolution of intelligence — and about the very human traits already showing up in our machines: empathy, deception, power-seeking, seduction. Today, they ask the harder question: what happens when these machines become the object of a geopolitical arms race? 🔗 SPONSORED BY: Fora ➡️ Build and scale your own travel business by becoming a Fora Advisor today at foratravel.com/idea Northwest Registered Agent ➡️ Helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. Learn more at northwestregisteredagent.com/nbifree Shopify ➡️ Launch your business for just $1/month. Start selling today at shopify.com/nbi
THE GOD TEST (Part 1): Are You Ready for Superintelligence?
Does the logic of human destiny now lead to artificial intelligence? Are we creating a higher form of intelligence in our own image? And, if so, what kind of image is that? These are the questions celebrated author Robert Wright asks in his new book, The God Test, which was published this week. Bob argues that we should not be surprised to see signs of deception, power-seeking, flattery, and autonomy in AI systems. These are not alien traits; they are behaviors that show up again and again in intelligent systems — including us. And if there is an evolutionary process at work in AI, then we are not just observers: we are part of the selection pressure. In the end, we may get the AI we deserve. This was such a wide-ranging conversation that we’ve divided it into two episodes. Today, we begin with the cosmic story: how life became mind, how mind became culture, and how culture has now begun to build a new mind — one that may surpass us. 🔗 SPONSORED BY: Fora ➡️ Build and scale your own travel business by becoming a Fora Advisor today at foratravel.com/idea Northwest Registered Agent ➡️ Helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. Learn more at northwestregisteredagent.com/nbifree Shopify ➡️ Launch your business for just $1/month. Start selling today at shopify.com/nbi
You Have 72 Free Hours a Week. How Do You Want to Spend Them?
Most of us swear we have no free time. But the week is 168 hours long. Subtract a 40-hour job and eight hours of sleep a night, and you're left with 72 hours. So where do they go? Today, Laura Vanderkam, author of the new book Big Time, shares her system for reclaiming her free time, including her method for knocking out "someday" projects in small daily bites. 🎬 The Next Big Idea is now on YouTube! You can find our episodes here. 📱 Follow Rufus on LinkedIn, subscribe to our Substack, or send us an email at podcast@nextbigideaclub.com. 🎁 The best way to support the show is by becoming a Next Big Idea Club member. Learn more at nextbigideaclub.com, and use code PODCAST for a super secret discount (spoiler: it’s 20% off). 🔗 SPONSORED BY: Fora ➡️ Build and scale your own travel business by becoming a Fora Advisor today at foratravel.com/idea Northwest Registered Agent ➡️ Helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. Learn more at northwestregisteredagent.com/nbifree Shopify ➡️ Launch your business for just $1/month. Start selling today at shopify.com/nbi
Are You Playing Someone Else’s Game?
GPAs. Citations. Step counts. Likes. We love a good metric, don't we? It tells you exactly where you stand, no arguing. Mention a 4.0 to a high schooler and they'll know exactly what you mean. Tell a fellow Fitbit-wearer you just hit 10,000 and they'll nod approvingly. But that clarity has a price. To make a metric that clean, that portable, you have to sand off all the nuance, all the context, everything that made the thing worth measuring in the first place. And philosopher C. Thi Nguyen thinks that's quietly rewiring us. In his book The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else's Game, he argues the metrics we chase have stopped measuring our values and started setting them. 🎬 The Next Big Idea is now on YouTube! You can find our episodes here. 📱 Follow Rufus on LinkedIn, subscribe to our Substack, or send us an email at podcast@nextbigideaclub.com. 🎁 The best way to support the show is by becoming a Next Big Idea Club member. Learn more at nextbigideaclub.com, and use code PODCAST for a super secret discount (spoiler: it’s 20% off). 🔗 SPONSORED BY: Fora — Build and scale your own travel business by becoming a Fora Advisor today at foratravel.com/idea Northwest Registered Agent — Helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. Learn more at northwestregisteredagent.com/nbifree Shopify — Launch your business for just $1/month. Start selling today at shopify.com/nbi
This World Cup Is Messy. Watch It Anyway.
The World Cup kicked off over the weekend, and so far the mood is meh. Fans are fuming over sell-your-kidney ticket prices, frightened by reports that ICE may target matches, tailgates, and sports bars, and generally feeling down on this quadrennial celebration. We wanted to know: Is there any joy left in this thing? So we called up Simon Kuper. He's a columnist at the Financial Times, "one of the best sportswriters in the English language today" (The New Yorker), and author of the Next Big Idea Club must-read World Cup Fever. He's also attended every World Cup since 1990. Simon tells us how the tournament bridges political divides, why suicides decline during the World Cup, whether “sportswashing” really works, and which storylines to follow, no matter if you're a die-hard footy fan or a first-time viewer. 🔗 SPONSORED BY: Fora — Build and scale your own travel business by becoming a Fora Advisor today at foratravel.com/idea Northwest Registered Agent — Helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. Learn more at northwestregisteredagent.com/nbifree Shopify — Launch your business for just $1/month. Start selling today at shopify.com/nbi
The Case for AI Optimism with Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler
Nearly half of all Americans believe AI is bad for humanity. Peter Diamandis is not one of them. On his podcast, Moonshots, and in his new book, We Are as Gods, co-written with the inimitable Steven Kotler, he makes the case that artificial intelligence is already ushering in a world of abundance — think radical life extension, 10 billion humanoid robots, and agents that do your job while you're sipping a latte. He knows it may not be all sunshine and hydroponic roses, but he believes our future is incredibly bright. And he's putting his money where his mouth is: XPRIZE, the nonprofit he founded more than 30 years ago to bankroll breakthroughs, just announced it's giving $3.5 million to filmmakers who conjure convincingly optimistic visions of the future. Rufus and Caleb don't have their film treatment ready yet, but they do have plenty of questions for Peter and Steven about flying cars, the future of work, worst-case scenarios, and the new commandments for working with AI. 💬 LINES WE LOVE: “If you’re in ninth grade and you’re using AI to do your homework, that’s just stupid, and you shouldn’t be allowed to do that. But if you’re in ninth grade and you’re using AI to help you build a starship to go to Alpha Centauri, or create a new form of energy, or something that’s way beyond your dreams — and it’s enabling you to up-level your ambition and your abilities — then that’s amazing.” —Peter Diamandis “Human writing is weird, it's surprising, it's idiosyncratic, it has high prediction error. An LLM optimizes towards the mean, towards the average. It standardizes output... [It] may make your writing look a lot cleaner to you, but it's actually hurting communication and it's hurting persuasion. Average gets ignored; remarkable gets remembered.” —Steven Kotler "I'm not worried about artificial intelligence. I'm worried about human stupidity.” —Peter Diamandis 🎬 The Next Big Idea is now on YouTube! You can find our episodes here. 📱 Follow Rufus on LinkedIn, subscribe to our Substack, or send us an email at podcast@nextbigideaclub.com. 🎁 The best way to support the show is by becoming a Next Big Idea Club member. Learn more at nextbigideaclub.com, and use code PODCAST for a super secret discount (spoiler: it’s 20% off). 🔗 SPONSORED BY: Fora ➡️ Build and scale your own travel business by becoming a Fora Advisor today at foratravel.com/idea Northwest Registered Agent ➡️ Helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. Learn more at northwestregisteredagent.com/nbifree Shopify ➡️ Launch your business for just $1/month. Start selling today at shopify.com/nbi
Best Of: The Power of Thinking Outside Your Brain
Modern life has not been easy on our brains. Average IQ scores rose steadily throughout the last century. Now they appear to be leveling off. The problem, according to neuroscientists, may be that we have reached our neurobiological limits. Our brains simply can’t work any harder. Luckily, science writer Annie Murphy Paul has a solution. In her book The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain, she draws on a wealth of scientific research to show that we’re smarter when we get out of our heads. By offloading our memories onto our phones, making decisions based on our bodily sensations, using tactile tools to solve abstract problems, drawing inspiration from our surroundings, and arguing with our friends, we can access intelligence that exists beyond the confines of our craniums. In this episode, Annie explains how to do it. This episode first aired in June 2021. Sponsored By: Fora — Build and scale your own travel business by becoming a Fora Advisor today at foratravel.com/idea Northwest Registered Agent — Helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. Learn more at northwestregisteredagent.com/nbifree Shopify — Launch your business for just $1/month. Start selling today at shopify.com/nbi
Want to Be Happier? Try Talking to Strangers.
Nicholas Epley is a mind reader. But he doesn’t have ESP or practice hypnosis. He's not telepathic or clairvoyant. Sure, you could ask him to read your fortune, but you'd be better off with a Magic 8 Ball. When we say Nick is a mind reader, what we mean is he studies mind reading at the University of Chicago — studies, as he puts it, "how we make inferences about each other's thoughts and beliefs and attitudes, and mostly how we screw that up." Today, he makes small talk — and big talk — with Rufus about his new book, A Little More Social, which draws on the dozens of studies he's run with thousands of participants to show that talking to strangers, cringe as it may feel, can enliven your days, lengthen your life, and maybe even heal our politics. If you enjoyed this episode, check out our conversations with Charles Duhigg, Leslie John, David Brooks, Marc Schulz, Anna Sale, and John Colapinto. The Next Big Idea is now on YouTube! You can find our episodes here. Follow Rufus on LinkedIn, subscribe to our Substack, or send us an email at podcast@nextbigideaclub.com. The best way to support the show is by becoming a Next Big Idea Club member. Learn more at nextbigideaclub.com, and use code PODCAST for a super secret discount (spoiler: it’s 20% off). 🔗 Sponsored By: Fora — Build and scale your own travel business by becoming a Fora Advisor today at foratravel.com/idea Northwest Registered Agent — Helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. Learn more at northwestregisteredagent.com/nbifree Shopify — Launch your business for just $1/month. Start selling today at shopify.com/nbi
Best Of: Gretchen Rubin’s Guide to Getting Out of Your Head and Into the World
What do your five senses — sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch — have to do with happiness? According to Gretchen Rubin, a great deal. The world around us, she says, has the potential to dazzle, to entertain, to trigger a state of rapture. If only we pay attention. Today on the show, she shares the tools she's developed to delight in the physical world. She spoke to Rufus in April 2023 about her book Life in Five Senses. Sponsored By: Fora — Become a Fora Advisor today at foratravel.com/idea Northwest Registered Agent — Learn more at northwestregisteredagent.com/nbifree Shopify — Launch your business for just $1/month. Start selling today at shopify.com/nbi
The Case for Speechmaking in the Age of Doomscrolling
America's a funny place. It's not a country with a fixed geographic or religious identity. We don't have a common story of divine creation. "What we have," writes Ben Rhodes in his new book, All We Say, "are words." The words of the founding documents, yes — but also "the words of speeches spoken by Americans who call us to be that better version of ourselves." Ben has spent more time with great American speeches than just about anyone. For eight years, he was a speechwriter in the Obama White House, crafting some of the defining oratory of the era. His new book is a 250-year tour through 15 speeches that built the country, challenged it, and raised its sights. He tells us how FDR changed the course of WWII from behind the lectern, how MLK ad-libbed one of the most famous lines in American history, and what Obama's 2008 speech about race can teach today's politicians about storytelling. And he makes the case that America needs great oratory now more than it has in a long time. 💬 LINES WE LOVED: “Try to imagine American identity without speeches. It's hard to do. It's almost like secular scripture. Think about the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln's second inaugural, the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech or those Kennedy speeches — or, if you're a Republican, the speeches that Reagan gave. I would argue that one of the reasons our politics is so fractured and we can't talk to each other or persuade each other of anything is because we're not doing that anymore.” “Obama used to say to me, ‘Remember that everything we do is just we're trying to tell the best story we can about America and what it can be.’ Not only is every speech a story, but every speech is a chapter in a larger story we're trying to tell.” 🔗 LINKS + SPONSORS: If you enjoyed this episode, you might also like our conversations with Erik Larson, Walter Isaacson, Eric Weiner, and Jill Lepore. Granola ➡️ If meetings are eating up your day, Granola is a no-brainer. You can try it totally free for three months. Just head to granola.ai/idea Incogni ➡️ Protect your personal information online and get an exclusive 60% off an annual plan at incogni.com/nbi Quince ➡️ Refresh your spring wardrobe and get free shipping and 365-day returns at quince.com/nbi Shopify ➡️ Launch your business for just $1/month. Start selling today at shopify.com/nbi
Producer's note
Steal the structure. Not the show.
Keep the useful structure, then change the audience, point of view, and voice until the idea is unmistakably yours.
