Best Global Issues Podcasts

The Ezra Klein Show: Elizabeth Kolbert: We have locked in centuries of climate change. Elizabeth Kolbert covers climate change for the New Yorker. She's the Pulitzer prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction. And she recently wrote a paragraph I can't stop thinking about. "The problem with global warming—and the reason it continues to resist illustration, even as the streets flood and the forests die and the mussels rot on the shores—is that experience is an inadequate guide to what’s going on. The climate operates on a time delay. When carbon dioxide is added to the atmosphere, it takes decades—in a technical sense, millennia—for the earth to equilibrate. This summer’s fish kill was a product of warming that had become inevitable twenty or thirty years ago, and the warming that’s being locked in today won’t be fully felt until today’s toddlers reach middle age. In effect, we are living in the climate of the past, but already we’ve determined the climate’s future."Kolbert lives, to an unusual degree, in the planet's future. She travels to the places around the world where the climate of tomorrow is visible today. She has watched glaciers melting, and seen species dying. And she is able to convey both the science and the cost with a rare lucidity. Talking with Kolbert left me with an unnerving thought. We look back on past eras in human history and judge them morally failed. We think of the Spanish Inquisition or the Mongol hordes and believe ourselves civilized, rational, moral in a way our ancestors weren't. But if the science is right, and we do unto our descendants what the data says we are doing to them, we will be judged monsters. And it will be all the worse because we knew what we were doing and we knew how to stop, but we decided it was easier to disbelieve the science or ignore the consequences. Kolbert and I talk about the consequences, but also about what would be necessary to stabilize the climate and back off the mass extinction event that is currently underway. We discuss geoengineering, political will, the environmental cost of meat, and what individuals can and can't do. We talk about Trump's cabinet, about whether technological innovation will save us, and if pricing carbon is enough. We talk about whether hope remains a realistic emotion when it comes to our environmental future.Books:-Edward Abbe’s “Desert Solitaire”-Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring”-David G. Haskell’s “The Forest Unseen”-Bill McKibben’s “The End of Nature”

The Joe Rogan Experience: #877 - Jordan Peterson. Jordan Peterson is a clinical psychologist and tenured professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. https://www.youtube.com/user/JordanPetersonVideos http://www.selfauthoring.com/ 100% off the Future Authoring Program code: "ChangeYourself" - The offer is valid until the end of Nov 30th.

Best Startup Podcasts

Masters of Scale with Reid Hoffman: The Reid Hoffman Story (Part 1) — Make everyone a hero. In this special episode, we turn the tables on host Reid Hoffman. He’s the guest and we tell his story, while proving a theory that’s perfect for Reid: You can chart an epic journey to scale, if you make everyone a hero along the way. Guest Host is June Cohen, Executive Producer of Masters of Scale, CEO of WaitWhat, and former Executive Producer of TED. Cameo Apperance: Matthew Mercer, host of the web series Critical Role.

Y Combinator: #107 - Vinod Khosla and Sam Altman. Vinod Khosla is the founder of Khosla Ventures, a firm focused on assisting entrepreneurs to build impactful new energy and technology companies. Previously he was the founding CEO of Sun Microsystems, where he pioneered open systems and commercial RISC processors.How to Build the Future is hosted by Sam Altman.***Topics00:30 - Vinod’s intro01:20 - A zero-million-dollar company vs a zero-billion-dollar company4:20 - What percentage of investors in Silicon Valley are good long-term company builders?4:50 - Who has earned the right to advise an entrepreneur?6:50 - Which risk to take when7:20 - Helpful board members8:15 - Who to trust for what advice11:00 - First principles thinking and rate of change13:00 - Evaluating a candidate in an interview14:15 - How much should a founder have planned and how ambitious should a founder be?16:30 - Recruiting great people19:00 - Building a phenomenal early team20:20 - Being generous with early employee equity27:00 - Gene pool engineering27:18 - The art, science, and labor of recruiting28:20 - How founders should think about investors31:00 - Doers vs pontificators32:00 - What does Vinod want to do in the next ten years?32:10 - Reinventing Societal Infrastructure with Technology