Conversations with Tyler

Paul Bloom is a renowned psychologist and writer specializing in moral psychology, particularly how moral thoughts and actions develop in children. But his interests and books explore a wide range of topics, including the science of pleasure, the morality of empathy, dehumanization, immoral vs moral punishments, and our feelings about animals and robots. Bloom is a professor at the University of T...

Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Alan Taylor is Tyler's pick for one of the greatest living historians. His many books cover the early American Republic, American westward expansion, the War of 1812, Virginian slavery, Thomas Jefferson, the revolutionary settlements in Maine, and more. He's currently the Thomas Jefferson Chair of History at the University of Virginia. Tyler and Taylor take a walking...

Register for the DC Listener Meetup It's not just the churrasco that made him fall in love with Brazil. Brian Winter has been studying and writing about Latin America for over 20 years. He's been tracking the struggles and triumphs of the region as it's dealt with decades of coups, violence, and shifting economics. His work offers a nuanced perspective on Latin America's persistent challenges and...

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz joined Tyler for a discussion that weaves through Joe's career and key contributions, including what he learned from giving an 8-lecture in Japan, how being a debater influenced his intellectual development, why he tried to abolish fraternities at Amherst, how studying Kenyan sharecropping led to one of his most influential papers, what he thinks today...

Take our  Listener Survey You could try playing out the four-dimensional chess game of how the global order will shift in the next 10-15 years for yourself, or you could hire Velina Tchakarova. Founder of the consultancy FACE, Velina is a geopolitical strategist guiding businesses and organizations to anticipate the outcomes of global conflicts, shifting alliances, and bleeding edge technologies o...

Take our  Listener Survey Michael Nielsen is a scientist who helped pioneer quantum computing and the modern open science movement. He's worked at Y Combinator, co-authored on scientific progress with Patrick Collison, and is a prolific writer, reader, commentator, and mentor.   He joined Tyler to discuss why the universe is so beautiful to human eyes (but not ears), how to find good collaborators...

Take our  Listener Survey Benjamin Moser is a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer celebrated for his in-depth studies of literary and cultural figures such as Susan Sontag and Clarice Lispector. His latest book, which details a twenty-year love affair with the Dutch masters, is one of Tyler's favorite books on art criticism ever. Benjamin joined Tyler to discuss why Vermeer was almost forgotten, how Rem...

Coleman Hughes believes we should strive to ignore race both in public policy and in our private lives. But when it comes to personal identity and expression, how feasible is this to achieve? And are there any other individual traits we should also seek to ignore? Coleman and Tyler explore the implications of colorblindness, including whether jazz would've been created in a color-blind society, ho...

In this conversation recorded live in Miami, Tyler and Peter Thiel dive deep into the complexities of political theology, including why it's a concept we still need today, why Peter's against Calvinism (and rationalism), whether the Old Testament should lead us to be woke, why Carl Schmitt is enjoying a resurgence, whether we're entering a new age of millenarian thought, the one existential risk P...

In The Anxious Generation , Jonathan Haidt explores the simultaneous rise in teen mental illness across various countries, attributing it to a seismic shift from a "play-based childhood" to a "phone-based childhood" around the early 2010s. He argues that the negative effects of this "great rewiring of childhood" will continue to worsen without the adoption of several norms and a more hands-on appr...

Those who know Fareed Zakaria through his weekly column or CNN show may be surprised to learn he considers books the important way he can put new ideas in the world. But Fareed's original aspiration was to be an academic, and it was a chance lunch with Walter Isaacson that convinced him to apply for a job as editor of Foreign Affairs instead of accepting an assistant professorship at Harvard. His...

Marilynne Robinson is one of America's best and best-known novelists and essayists, whose award-winning works like Housekeeping and Gilead explore themes of faith, grace, and the intricacies of human nature. Beyond her writing, Robinson's 25-year tenure at the famed Iowa Writers' Workshop allowed her to shape and inspire the new generations of writers. Her latest book, Reading Genesis, displays he...

In this interview, recorded at a16z's 2024 American Dynamism Summit, Tyler and Marc Andreessen engage in a rapid-fire dialogue about the future of AI, including the biggest change we'll see in the next five years, who will gain and lose status with the rise of LLMs, why open-source is important for national security, the best and worst parts of Biden's AI directive, the most underrated energy sour...

Marc Rowan, co-founder and CEO of Apollo Global Management, joined Tyler to discuss why rising interest rates won't hurt Apollo's profitability, why liabilities have traditionally been the weak spot in insurance, why the concept of liquidity needs a rethink, the meaninglessness of the term "private credit", what role crypto will play in American finance, why Marc bought a brutalist apartment, whic...

A conductor, harpsichordist, and organist, Masaaki Suzuki stands as a towering figure in Baroque music, renowned for his comprehensive and top-tier recordings of Bach's works, including all of Bach's sacred and secular cantatas. Suzuki's unparalleled dedication extends beyond Bach, with significant contributions to the works of Mozart, Handel, and other 18th-century composers. He is the founder of...

Ami Vitale is a renowned National Geographic photographer and documentarian with a deep commitment to wildlife conservation and environmental education. Her work, spanning over a hundred countries, includes spending a decade as a conflict photographer in places like Kosovo, Gaza, and Kashmir. She joined Tyler to discuss why we should stay scary to pandas, whether we should bring back extinct speci...

Rebecca F. Kuang just might change the way you think about fantasy and science fiction. Known for her best-selling books Babel and The Poppy War trilogy, Kuang combines a unique blend of historical richness and imaginative storytelling. At just 27, she's already published five novels, and her compulsion to write has not abated even as she's pursued advanced degrees at Oxford, Cambridge, and now Ya...

Few can measure the impact of a blog post they wrote, in the millions of dollars a year, but Patrick McKenzie has the receipts. His 2012 post on salary negotiation is read hundreds of thousands of times each year, and he has a Gmail folder brimming with success stories. This achievement is just of his many contributions, which include starting several businesses, advising Stripe and other software...

On this special year-in-review episode, Tyler and producer Jeff Holmes look back on the past year in the show and more, including the most popular and underrated episodes, the origins of the show as an occasional event series, the most difficult guests to prep for, the story behind EconGOAT.AI , Tyler's favorite podcast appearance of the year, and his evolving LLM-powered production function. They...

In her third appearance on the show, Chinese food expert Fuchsia Dunlop joins Tyler and a group of special guests to celebrate the release of Invitation to a Banquet , her new book exploring the history, philosophy, and techniques of Chinese culinary culture. As with her previous appearance, this conversation was held over a banquet meal at Mama Chang and was hosted by Lydia Chang . As they dined,...

John Gray is a philosopher and writer renowned for his critical examination of liberalism, atheism, and the human condition. His unique perspective is shaped over a decades-long career, during which he has authored influential books on topics ranging from political theory to what we can learn from cats about on how to live a good life. His latest book,  The New Leviathans: Thoughts After Liberalis...

Jenn ifer Burns is a professor of history at Stanford who works at  the intersection of intellectual, political, and cultural history. She's written two biographies Tyler highly recommends: her 2009 book, G oddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right and her latest, Milton Friedman: The Last Conservativ e, provides a nuanced look into the influential economist and public intellectual. Ty...

Brian Koppelman is a writer, director, and producer known for his work on films like  Rounders and Solitary Man, the hit TV show Billions , and his podcast The Moment , which explores pivotal moments in creative careers. Tyler and Brian sat down to discuss why TV wasn't good for so long, whether he wants viewers to binge his shows, how he'd redesign movie theaters, why some smart people appreciate...

As a follow-up to the episode featuring Stephen Jennings , we're releasing two bonus conversations showing the daily life, culture, and politics of Nairobi and Kenya at large. This second installment features Githae Githinji, a Kikuyu elder and businessman working in Tatu City, a massive mixed-used development spearheaded by Jennings . Born in 1958 and raised in a rural village, he relocated to se...

As a follow-up to the episode featuring Stephen Jennings , we're releasing two bonus conversations showing the daily life, culture, and politics of Nairobi and Kenya at large. This first installment features Harriet Muriithi. Harriet is a 22-year-old hospitality professional living and working in Tatu City, a massive mixed-used development spearheaded by Jennings. Harriet grew up in the picturesqu...