Straight To It

In this episode, I interview Emily Greenhouse. Emily is the editor of The New York Review of Books . After working as an editorial assistant to legendary NYRB founding editor Robert Silvers and New Yorker editor David Remnick, Emily became the managing editor of The New Yorker . She returned to the NYRB in 2019 and became its sole editor in 2021. We discuss what goes into creating an issue of the...

In this episode, I interview Dawn Hammatt. Dawn is the Director of the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in College Station, TX. Dawn also served as director of two other presidential libraries: the Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon libraries. We discuss her love of public history, the responsibilities of a presidential library director, and the three presidencies she has help...

Missy is the CEO of Crankstart, a San Francisco-based foundation. Crankstart has awarded over $1.6 billion in grants focused on economic mobility, education, democracy, housing, the environment, and more, mainly in San Francisco. Missy had a successful business career, including roles at TPG and Boston Consulting Group, before joining Crankstart in 2021. During her tenure, Crankstart has launched...

In this episode, I interview Tommy Rosenkranz. Tommy is the Chief Product Officer at Constrafor, building an AI-native platform for construction subcontractors' back-office work. Constrafor lets companies use AI to handle the grunt work, like the time-consuming process of organizing and tracking invoices. Before working at Constrafor, Tommy graduated from Yale University and served as a produc...

In this episode, I interview Neeru Khosla. Neeru is the co-founder of CK-12, an educational nonprofit that provides learning materials and AI support to millions of students worldwide.  More recently, Neeru became the controlling owner of the Seattle Seahawks. We discuss the evolution of CK-12, Neeru’s vision for the future of education, and leading the Seahawks.

In this episode, I interview Jonathan Weber at KALW's studio in San Francisco. Straight to It was recently featured on Bay Made, KALW's series highlighting local podcasts. I was lucky to be joined by such an incredible guest, Jonathan Weber. Jonathan Weber is the author of City on the Edge : Technology, Politics, and the Fight for the Soul of San Francisco .  In 1990, Jonathan was named th...

To purchase tickets and see details, look here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/city-on-the-edge-book-talk-with-jonathan-weber-charlie-zeitlin-tickets-1995878050978?aff=ebdsoporgprofile

In this episode, I interview ProPublica Climate Reporter Alex Cuadros. Alex recently published a major investigation into Hilcorp, a company owned by oil billionaire Jeffrey Hildebrand, and its relationship with the U.S. government. Alex has written for The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Harper's, The Atlantic, and The Washington Post. Alex is also the author of Brazillionaires and W...

In this episode, I interview Andy Nettell. Andy, with his wife Marcee, founded Stellar Books & Ephemera in 2022. Based out of Sequim, Washington, Andy and his wife focus on selling rare Americana. This past February, I visited their wonderful booth at the International Antiquarian Book Fair, which came to San Francisco. I met Andy and purchased a collection of presidential campaign pins. I rea...

In this episode, I interview Dr. Alice Siu of Stanford University’s deliberative democracy lab. The lab is devoted to research on democracy and public opinion using Deliberative Polling. It is a process that includes convening a representative sample of the group, educating the group on the issue, hearing from experts, and debating it. Consistently, the lab has found that this process makes partic...

In this episode, I interview Lara Hall. Lara is the Museum Curator of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library. Lara worked as an archivist, organizing the over 45 million documents housed at the library, for about a decade before becoming the curator. She creates exhibits predominantly focused on the life, times, and legacy of President Johnson.  We discuss the challenge of communicating LB...

In this episode, I interview Dan Kurtz-Phelan. Since 2021, Dan has served as the Editor-in-Chief of Foreign Affairs , which for the past 100 years has been one of the leading publications covering foreign policy. Before his tenure as editor, Dan worked in the State Department during the Obama Administration. He went on to work for then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as a speechwriter and for t...

In this episode, I interview Professor Ray Madoff of Boston College. Ray focuses on philanthropic policy, the rights of the dead (including the dead's ability to control their bodies, reputation, and property), estate taxes, comparative inheritance law, and wealth inequality and taxes. Recently, I became acquainted with Ray’s work through her award-winning book, The Second Estate . The book re...

In this episode, I interview Peter Wicks. Peter is a scholar-in-residence at the Elm Institute whose research focuses on the contemporary applications of Aristotle’s ethical and political thought, the history and philosophy of higher education, and the psychology and ethics of argument and persuasion. Recently, Peter co-edited Alasdair MacIntyre on Practical Philosophy: Essential Works , which was...

In this episode, I interview Tony Haile. Currently, Tony is the CEO of Filament, a company that aims to revolutionize professional networking through smaller, private spaces for connection.  Previously, Tony was on Twitter's Global Leadership Team, the Founding CEO of Scroll (which Twitter acquired), and the Founding CEO of  Chartbeat . Tony got his education at St. Andrews and spent a semeste...

In this episode, I interview Sherri Franklin. Sherri is the founder of Muttville, a senior dog rescue in San Francisco. After understanding how wonderful senior dogs can be and seeing how inhumanely they are treated in the shelter system, Sherri started a grassroots dog rescue that eventually grew into Muttville. Every year, Muttville rescues over 1,000 senior dogs. Sherri and I discuss Muttville’...

In this episode, I interview Janet Lindow. Janet founded the Rural Behavioral Health Institute to address the startling issue of rural youth suicide. For the past 12 years, Janet's career goal has been to improve the health of populations with limited access to effective treatment, with a primary focus on those experiencing mental disorders. After finishing her doctoral work, she taught a scie...

In this episode, I interview Matt Zeitlin, the Co-Founder of Rookly. Matt and his co-founder, Amir Moazami, have known each other since they were six. They played chess together growing up, and both eventually won National Championships. Rookly works to make school chess more fun and accessible by offering easy online competition. Students can see their opponents, play with friends, and connect wi...

Our guest today, Sunni Khalid, is the News Editor at KALW, a public radio station that has been broadcasting for over 80 years in the San Fransico Bay Area. He has reported from over thirty-five different countries at outlets including: TIME, USA TODAY, The Wilmington News-Journal, The Baltimore Sun, and National Public Radio.  We dig into the shift from the heyday of print media to today's fr...

In this episode, I interview Sam DeMello. Sam founded Evive, the leading digital health platform for gambling behavior change, serving partners across the nation. They bridge the critical gap in care by reaching the 99.5% of people experiencing gambling harm who never access traditional state-funded support services. Through an evidence-based platform and state partnerships, they have built a nati...

Earlier this month, I was lucky to have an awesome conversation with David Steinberger. David has over 25 years of experience in the publishing industry. He has served as CEO of Arcadia Publishing and the Perseus Books Group, and as both President of Corporate Strategy and President of Adult Trade at HarperCollins. Over the course of his career, David has led the acquisition and transformation of...

In this episode, I interview Jim Irizarry. Jim has been working in elections for over fourty years, and currently, he is the Asst. Assessor-Clerk-Recorder & Asst. Chief Elections Officer for San Mateo County. We had an a wide-ranging conversation covering the importance of youth civic engagement, the power of one vote, and the threats he sees to elections in the near future regarding AI. I rea...

For the past forty years, Steve Staiger has worked as a historian at the Palo Alto Historical Society. He works in PAHS' archives, helping others research information about Palo Alto, and he promotes information about the city's history. During our conversation, we discussed Palo Alto's founding, Stanford's impact on Palo Alto history, and some of Palo Alto's more curious chara...

In this episode, I interview Mark Polizzotti. Mark has translated over sixty books from French to English, including works from authors such as Jean Echenoz, Gustave Flaubert, and Patrick Modiano. Mark leads publishing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He is also the author of many books, including Sympathy For The Traitor: A Translation Manifesto and Why Surrealism Matters . We discuss the art o...

In this episode, I interview the Legal Director of the Northern California American Civil Liberties Union: Shilpi Agarwal. Shilpi, formerly a senior staff attorney, has worked as the Legal Director for 5 years, managing litigation and advocacy. We had a wide-ranging conversation covering the case surrounding the deployment of the National Guard to Los Angeles, the Trump administration's handli...