Freakonomics co-author Steve Levitt tracks down other high achievers for surprising, revealing conversations about their lives and obsessions. Join Levitt as he goes through the most interesting midlife crisis you’ve ever heard — and learn how a renegade sheriff is transforming Chicago’s jail, how a biologist is finding the secrets of evolution in the Arctic tundra, and how a trivia champion memorized 160,000 flashcards.
Listen here or follow People I (Mostly) Admire on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. We also provide transcripts, show notes, and links to research for each episode.
Historian Tom Holland narrowly escaped a career writing vampire novels to become the co-host of the wildly popular podcast The Rest Is History. At Steve’s request, he compares President Trump and Julius Caesar and explains why the culture wars are arguments about Christian theology.
John Green returns to the show to talk about tuberculosis — a disease that kills more than a million people a year. Steve has an idea for a new way to get treatment to those in need.
Abraham Verghese is a physician and a best-selling author — in that order, he says. He explains the difference between curing and healing, and tells Steve why doctors should spend more time with patients and less with electronic health records.
Jens Ludwig has an idea for how to fix America’s gun violence problem — and it starts by rejecting conventional wisdom from both sides of the political aisle.
Ellen Wiebe is a physician who helps seriously ill patients end their lives in Canada, where assisted suicide is legal. Is death a human right?
He has been a lawyer, an instructor at the F.B.I. Academy, the owner of a frozen-yogurt chain, and a winner of the TV show Survivor. Today, Kwon works at Google, but things haven’t always come easily for him. Steve Levitt talks to Kwon about his debilitating childhood anxieties, his compulsion to choose the hardest path in life, and how Kwon used game theory to stage a victory on Survivor.
Ken Goldberg is at the forefront of robotics — which means he tries to teach machines to do things humans find trivial.
Suzanne O’Sullivan is a neurologist who sees many patients with psychosomatic disorders. Their symptoms may be psychological in origin, but their pain is real and physical — and the way we practice medicine, she argues, is making those and other health problems worse.
Reginald Dwayne Betts spent more than eight years in prison. Today he’s a Yale Law graduate, a MacArthur Fellow, and a poet. His nonprofit works to build libraries in prisons so that more incarcerated people can find hope.
Chemist Jack Szostak wants to understand how the first life forms came into being on Earth. He and Steve discuss the danger of “mirror bacteria,” the origin of biology in poisonous chemicals, and the possibility that life might exist on other planets too.
Owen Flanagan’s newest book details his 20-year dependence on alcohol and pills — and outlines his research on what addiction can tell us about the nature of consciousness.
The primatologist discusses the thrill of observing chimpanzees in the wild, the value of challenging orthodoxy, and why dying is her next great adventure.
Hank Green is an internet phenomenon and a master communicator, with a plan to reform higher education. He and Steve talk about the video blog that launched Hank’s career, the economics of the internet, and how a cancer diagnosis prompted him to become a stand-up comedian.
Jonathan Levin is an academic economist who now runs one of the most influential universities in the world. He tells Steve how he saved Comcast a billion dollars, why he turned down Steve’s unusual pitch to come to the University of Chicago, and why being a nice guy makes him a better college president.
Sarah Hart investigates the mathematical structures underlying musical compositions and literature. Using examples from Monteverdi to Lewis Carroll, Sarah explains to Steve how math affects how we hear music and understand stories.
Sarah Stein Greenberg runs Stanford’s d.school, which teaches design as a mode of problem solving. She and Steve talk about what makes her field different from other academic disciplines, how to approach hard problems, and why brainstorms are so annoying.
In her book, Rumbles, medical historian Elsa Richardson explores the history of the human gut. She talks with Steve about dubious medical practices, gruesome tales of survival, and the things that medieval doctors may have gotten right.
How psychologist Dan Gilbert went from high school dropout to Harvard professor, found the secret of joy, and inspired Steve Levitt’s divorce.
Moon Duchin is a math professor at Cornell University whose theoretical work has practical applications for voting and democracy. Why is striving for fair elections so difficult?
The director of the Hayden Planetarium is one of the best science communicators of our time. He and Steve talk about his role in reclassifying Pluto, bad teachers, and why economics isn’t a science.
He’s the chief creative officer of Pixar, and the Academy Award-winning director of Soul, Inside Out, Up, and Monsters, Inc. Pete Docter and Steve talk about Pixar’s scrappy beginnings, why wrong turns are essential, and the movie moment that changed Steve’s life.
David Eagleman is a Stanford neuroscientist, C.E.O., television host, and founder of the Possibilianism movement. He and Steve talk about how wrists can substitute for ears, why we dream, and what Fisher-Price magnets have to do with neuroscience.
Boys and men are trending downward in education, employment, and mental health. Richard Reeves, author of the book Of Boys and Men, has some solutions that don’t come at the expense of women and girls. Steve pushes him to go further.
Daron Acemoglu was just awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in economics. Earlier this year, he and Steve talked about his groundbreaking research on what makes countries succeed or fail.
David Autor took his first economics class at 29 years old. Now he’s one of the central academics studying the labor market. The M.I.T. economist and Steve dissect the impact of technology on labor, spar on A.I., and discuss why economists can sometimes be oblivious.
Kate Douglass is a world-class swimmer and data scientist who’s used mathematical modeling to help make her stroke more efficient. She and Steve talk about why the Olympics were underwhelming, how she won gold, and why she won’t be upset to say goodbye to the pool.
Ken Ono is a math prodigy whose skills have helped produce a Hollywood movie and made Olympic swimmers faster. The number theorist tells Steve why he sees mathematics as art — and about his unusual path to success, which came without a high school diploma.
Artist Wendy MacNaughton knows the difficulty of sitting in silence and the power of having fun. She explains to Steve the lessons she’s gleaned from drawing hospice residents, working in Rwanda, and reporting from Guantanamo Bay.
Bestselling author James Nestor believes that we can improve our lives by changing the way we breathe. He’s persuasive enough to get Steve taping his mouth shut at night. He explains how humans dive to depths of 300 feet without supplemental oxygen, and describes what it’s like to be accepted into a pod of whales.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals founder Ingrid Newkirk has been badgering meat-eaters, fur-wearers, and circus-goers for more than 40 years. For a woman who’s leaving her liver to the president of France in her will, she sounds quite sensible when she tells Steve what we can learn from animals, why she supports euthanasia, and who’ll get her other organs.
Revisiting Steve’s 2021 conversation with the economist and MacArthur “genius” about how to make memories stickier, why change is undervalued, and how to find something new to say on the subject of scarcity.
Under his helm, the TED Conference went from a small industry gathering to a global phenomenon. Chris and Steve talk about how to build lasting institutions, how to make generosity go viral, and what Chris has learned about public speaking.
The former YouTube C.E.O. — and sixteenth Google employee — died on August 9, 2024. Steve talked with her in 2020 about her remarkable career, and how her background in economics shaped her work.
The author of the classic The Selfish Gene is still changing the way we think about evolution.
Victoria Groce is the best trivia contestant on earth. The winner of the 2024 World Quizzing Championship explains the structure of a good question, why she knits during competitions, and how to memorize 160,000 flashcards.
Richard Prum says there’s a lot that traditional evolutionary biology can’t explain. He thinks a neglected hypothesis from Charles Darwin — and insights from contemporary queer theory — hold the answer. Plus: You won’t believe what female ducks use for contraception.
Thomas Hildebrandt is trying to bring the northern white rhinoceros back from the brink of extinction. The wildlife veterinarian tells Steve about the far-out techniques he employs, why we might see woolly mammoths in the future, and why he was frustrated the day the Berlin Wall came down.
She is one of the best basketball players ever. She’s won multiple championships, including five Olympic gold medals and four W.N.B.A. titles. She also helped negotiate a landmark contract for the league’s players. Sue Bird tells Steve Levitt the untold truth about clutch players, her thoughts about the pay gap between male and female athletes, and what it means to be part of the first gay couple in ESPN The Magazine’s Body Issue.
Conrad Wolfram wants to transform the way we teach math — by taking advantage of computers. The creator of Computer-Based Maths convinced the Estonian government to give his radical curriculum a try — so why is the rest of the world so resistant?
Ellen Langer is a psychologist at Harvard who studies the mind-body connection. She’s published some of the most remarkable scientific findings Steve has ever encountered. Can we really improve our physical health by changing our mind?
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.
Suleika Jaouad was diagnosed with cancer at 22. She made her illness the subject of a New York Times column and a memoir, Between Two Kingdoms. She and Steve talk about what it means to live with a potentially fatal illness, how to talk to people who’ve gone through a tragedy, and ways to encourage medical donations.
Caroline Paul is a thrill-seeker and writer who is on a quest to encourage women to get outside and embrace adventure as they age. She and Steve talk about fighting fires, walking on airplane wings, and finding awe in birdwatching.
Steve shows a different side of himself in very personal interviews with his two oldest daughters. Amanda talks about growing up with social anxiety and her decision not to go to college, while Lily speaks candidly about her battle with anorexia and the conversation she had with Steve that led her to seek treatment.
The economist Joseph Stiglitz has devoted his life to exposing the limits of markets. He tells Steve about winning an argument with fellow Nobel laureate Milton Friedman, why small governments don’t lead to more freedom, and why he’s not afraid to be an advocate.
Monica Bertagnolli went from a childhood on a cattle ranch to a career as a surgeon to a top post in the Biden administration. As director of the National Institutes of Health, she’s working to improve the way we find new treatments — despite regulatory constraints and tight budgets.
Nobel laureate, bestselling author, and groundbreaking psychologist Daniel Kahneman died in March. In 2021 he talked with Steve Levitt — his friend and former business partner — about his book Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment (cowritten with Olivier Sibony and Cass Sunstein) and much more.
Google researcher Blaise Agüera y Arcas spends his work days developing artificial intelligence models and his free time conducting surveys for fun. He tells Steve how he designed an algorithm for the U.S. Navy at 14, how he discovered the truth about printing-press pioneer Johannes Gutenberg, and when A.I. first blew his mind.
After Haiti’s devastating earthquake, Rajiv Shah headed the largest humanitarian effort in U.S. history. As chief economist of the Gates Foundation he tried to immunize almost a billion children. He tells Steve why it’s important to take big gambles, follow the data, and own up to your mistakes.
The Power of Habit author Charles Duhigg wrote his new book in an attempt to learn how to communicate better. Steve shares how the book helped him understand his own conversational weaknesses.
Cat Bohannon’s new book puts female anatomy at the center of human evolution. She tells Steve why it takes us so long to give birth, what breast milk is really for, and why the human reproductive system is a flaming pile of garbage.
Economist Daron Acemoglu likes to tackle big questions. He tells Steve how colonialism still affects us today, who benefits from new technology, and why democracy wasn’t always a sure thing.
Journalist Walt Hickey uses data to understand how culture works. He and Steve talk about why China hasn’t produced any hit movies yet and how he got his own avatar in the Madden NFL video game.
Arnold Schwarzenegger has been a bodybuilder, an actor, a governor, and, now, an author. He tells Steve how he’s managed to succeed in so many fields — and what to do when people throw eggs at you.
Physicist Helen Czerski loves to explain how the world works. She talks with Steve about studying bubbles, setting off explosives, and how ocean waves have changed the course of history.
The filmmaker doesn’t want to be known only for his movies. He tells Steve why he considers himself a writer first, how it feels to be recognized for his role in The Mandalorian, and why he once worked as a rodeo clown.
Economist Michael D. Smith says universities are scrambling to protect a status quo that deserves to die. He tells Steve why the current system is unsustainable, and what’s at stake if nothing changes.
Computer scientist Fei-Fei Li had a wild idea: download one billion images from the internet and teach a computer to recognize them. She ended up advancing the state of artificial intelligence — and she hopes that will turn out to be a good thing for humanity.
Data scientist Nate Silver gained attention for his election predictions. But even the best prognosticators get it wrong sometimes. He talks to Steve about making good decisions with data, why he’d rather write a newsletter than an academic paper, and how online poker led him to the world of politics.
Abraham Verghese is a physician and a best-selling author — in that order, he says. He explains the difference between curing and healing, and tells Steve why doctors should spend more time with patients and less with electronic health records.
Claudia Goldin is the newest winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics. Steve spoke to her in 2021 about how inflexible jobs and family responsibilities make it harder for women to earn wages equal to their male counterparts.
For 37 years, Rick Doblin has been pushing the F.D.A. to approve treating post-traumatic stress disorder with MDMA, better known as Ecstasy. He tells Steve why he persisted for so long, why he doesn’t like calling drug use “recreational,” and what he learned from his pet wolf.
Psychologist Thomas Curran argues that perfectionism isn’t about high standards — it’s about never being enough. He explains how the drive to be perfect is harming education, the economy, and our mental health.
Avi Loeb is a Harvard astronomer who argues that we’ve already encountered extraterrestrial technology. His approach to the search for interstellar objects is scientific, but how plausible is his argument?
Reginald Dwayne Betts spent more than eight years in prison. Today he’s a Yale Law graduate, a MacArthur Fellow, and a poet. His nonprofit works to build libraries in prisons so that more incarcerated people can find hope.
Obi Felten used to launch projects for X, Google’s innovation lab, but she’s now tackling mental health. She explains why Steve’s dream job was soul-destroying for her, and how peer support could transform the therapeutic industry.
Artist Wendy MacNaughton knows the difficulty of sitting in silence and the power of having fun. She explains to Steve the lessons she’s gleaned from drawing hospice residents, working in Rwanda, and reporting from Guantanamo Bay.
Sal Khan returns to discuss his innovative online high school’s first year — and Steve grills a member of the school’s class of 2026 about what it’s really like.
The creator of The Wire, The Deuce, and other shows is leading the Writers Guild on the picket lines. He and Steve break down the economics of TV writing, how A.I. could change television, and why he’s taking a stand even though he’s at the top of the game.
Robert Solow is 98 years old and a giant among economists. He tells Steve about cracking German codes in World War II, why it’s so hard to reduce inequality, and how his field lost its way.
Talithia Williams thinks you should rigorously track your body’s data. She and Steve Levitt trade birth stories and bemoan the state of STEM education.
Kevin Kelly believes A.I. will create more problems for humanity — and help us solve them. He talks to Steve about embracing complexity, staying enthusiastic, and taking the 10,000-year view.
Clementine Jacoby went from performing in a circus to founding a nonprofit that works to shrink the prison population.
Steve is on a mission to reform math education, and Sarah Hart is ready to join the cause. In her return visit to the show, Sarah explains how patterns are everywhere, constraints make us more creative, and literature is surprisingly mathematical.
From recording some of the first rap hits to revitalizing Johnny Cash’s career, the legendary producer has had an extraordinary creative life. In this episode he talks about his new book and his art-making process — and helps Steve get in touch with his own artistic side.
Physician Peter Attia returns to the show to talk about the science of longevity — which focuses not only on extending life but on maintaining good health into old age. He explains the possibilities and limits of current medicine and gives Steve his best advice on how to defeat the aging process.
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.
Tom Dart is transforming Cook County’s jail, reforming evictions, and, with Steve Levitt, trying a new approach to electronic monitoring.
Since his last visit to People I (Mostly) Admire, the formerly top-ranked golfer has become the sport’s most controversial figure. Why has he partnered with the Saudi government — and can his new golf league unseat a monopoly?
Neil Shubin hunts for fossils in the Arctic and experiments with D.N.A. in the lab, hoping to find out how fish evolved to walk on land. He explains why unlocking these answers could help humans today.
Ecologist Suzanne Simard studies the relationships between trees in a forest: they talk to each other, punish each other, and depend on each other. What can we learn from them?
The mathematician and author sees mathematical patterns everywhere — from DNA to fireflies to social connections.
When Freakonomics co-authors Steve Levitt and Stephen Dubner first met, one of them hated the other. Two decades later, Levitt grills Dubner about asking questions, growing the pie, and what he learned from Bruce Springsteen.
From baseball card conventions to Walmart, John List has always used field experiments to say revolutionary things about economics. He explains the value of an apology, why scaling shouldn’t be an afterthought, and why he moved to the private sector to stay at the forefront of science.
Former professional poker player Annie Duke has a new book on Steve’s favorite subject: quitting. They talk about why quitting is so hard, how to do it sooner, and why we feel shame when we do something that’s good for us.
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.
The ethologist and conservationist discusses the thrill of observing chimpanzees in the wild, the value of challenging orthodoxy, and why dying is her next great adventure.
The philosopher known for his rigorous ethics explains why Steve is leading a morally inconsistent life.
Heeding the warnings of public health officer Charity Dean about Covid-19 could have saved lives. Charity explains why she loves infectious diseases and why she moved to the private sector.
The documentary filmmaker, known for The Civil War, Jazz, and Baseball, turns his attention to the Holocaust, and asks what we can learn from the evils of the past.
Harvard economist Raj Chetty uses tax data to study inequality, kid success, and social mobility. He explains why you should be careful when choosing your grade school teachers — and your friends.
Philosopher Will MacAskill thinks about how to do as much good as possible. But that’s really hard, especially when you’re worried about humans who won’t be born for many generations.
Victoria Groce is one of the best trivia contestants on earth. She explains the structure of a good question, why she knits during competitions, and how to memorize 160,000 flashcards.
The author of Sapiens has a knack for finding the profound in the obvious. He tells Steve why money is fiction, traffic can be mind-blowing, and politicians have a right to say stupid things in private.
When she’s not rescuing chickens from coyotes, Susan Athey uses economics to address real-world challenges — from online ad auctions to carbon capture technology.
Khan Academy founder Sal Khan returns to share his vision for a new way to learn — and the conversation inspires Steve to make a big announcement.
Astronomer Jill Tarter spent her career searching for extraterrestrial intelligence. She explains what civilizations from other planets could teach us about our own future.
Game theorist Barry Nalebuff explains how he used basic economics to build Honest Tea into a multimillion-dollar business, and shares his innovative approach to negotiation.
David Keith has spent his career studying ways to reflect sunlight away from the earth. It could reduce the risks of climate change — but it won’t save us.
Billionaire John Arnold is figuring out how to do as much good as he can with his wealth. It takes hard work, risk tolerance, and a lot of spending.
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