The Monster Smash
We’ve been following James Altucher‘s continuing social experiment around the idea of ad-agency disintermediation — JungleSmash, a cash contest where people compete to make the best commercial for a product…
We’ve been following James Altucher‘s continuing social experiment around the idea of ad-agency disintermediation — JungleSmash, a cash contest where people compete to make the best commercial for a product…
He’s the award-winning author of hugely popular books like Guns, Germs, and Steel; Collapse; and Upheaval. But Jared actually started his varied career as an expert on gallbladders and birds….
Steve loved Michael Lewis’s latest, The Premonition, but has one critique: Why aren’t there even more villains? Also, why the author of best-sellers Moneyball and The Big Short can barely…
Steve and producer Morgan Levey look back at the first 100 episodes of the podcast, including surprising answers, spectacular explanations, and listeners who heard the show and changed their lives….
What’s the difference between anger and indignation? What’s Angela’s problem with turkey sandwiches? And why wasn’t a No Stupid Questions listener angry at the men who assaulted him? Take the…
Humans, it has long been thought, are the only animal to engage in economic activity. But what if we’ve had it exactly backward?…
Humans, it has long been thought, are the only animal to engage in economic activity. But what if we’ve had it exactly backward?
The debut of a live game show from Freakonomics Radio, with judges Malcolm Gladwell, Ana Gasteyer, and David Paterson….
Host Bapu Jena is an economist and medical doctor whose latest research measures the link between birthdays and Covid. He explains his team’s findings, explores the role that kids’ parties…
The debut of a live game show from Freakonomics Radio, with judges Malcolm Gladwell, Ana Gasteyer and David Paterson….
…had it better. By nearly all accounts, the deregulation of the industry starting in the late 1970s has been a smash success. Since that time, airfares have dropped by more…
What’s a college degree really worth these days?
Levitt and Dubner answer your FREAK-quently Asked Questions about junk food, insurance, and how to make an economist happy.
Kenji López-Alt became a rock star of the food world by bringing science into the kitchen in a way that everyday cooks can appreciate. Then he dared to start his…
To you, it’s just a ride-sharing app that gets you where you’re going. But to an economist, Uber is a massive repository of moment-by-moment data that is helping answer some…
…than paying a la carte. And once you put people in a box of any sort, one of the first things they want to do is smash down the walls….
Author and YouTuber John Green thought his breakout bestseller wouldn’t be a commercial success, wrote 40,000 words for one sentence, and brought Steve to tears.
…at least to tuck it under their clothes. L.A.’s downtown jewelry district has been hit by a recent surge of smash-and-grab jobs, like this one caught on camera in June:…
…a couple derby girls put it: “[T]here‘s no laws in place – you don‘t even have to register your derby name – it‘s COURTESY. Ref might not see you smash…
…scream, ’til your lungs get sore Another example is the new smash hit “Payphone” by Maroon 5. Here are some of the lyrics to that song: Yeah, I, I know…
Daniel Ek, a 23-year-old Swede who grew up on pirated music, made the record labels an offer they couldn’t refuse: a legal platform to stream all the world’s music. Spotify…
Our Self-Improvement Month concludes with a man whose entire life and career are one big pile of self-improvement. Nutrition? Check. Bizarre physical activities? Check. Working less and earning more? Check….
The most popular song of the 20th century — and a key part of a ubiquitous American ritual — was also the subject of a years-long legal battle. Zachary Crockett…
…Works, The Fat Smash Diet: The Last Diet You’ll Ever Need, and Ultrametabolism: The Simple Plan for Automatic Weight Loss. All these books make me think of the argument that…
…to the law of the jungle? Whatever happened to letting people take the hit for their behavior? Isn’t that what your world is all about.” Portis, 42 years old and…
…arrive. But I just love the exotic stuff so much better. I guess on some subconscious level I’ve decided that the thrill of camping on the jungle floor of the…
The art market is so opaque and illiquid that it barely functions like a market at all. A handful of big names get all the headlines (and most of the…
…solution for all the world, you should immediately mistrust them. Q. If we know that a particular piece of jungle can only successfully sustain X number of animals, is there…
How using peer pressure — and good, old-fashioned shame — can push people to do the right thing.
