The James Altucher Show

Struggle is part of the price you pay, he says, and his own worst stretch came right after he took the top job. A Note from James: Carlos Gutierrez was diagnosed with ADHD at 65. Sixty-five. By then, he had already run Kellogg. He had already served in George W. Bush’s Cabinet as Secretary of Commerce. And only then did someone explain the procrastination, the disorganization, and those stretches...

He admits he was so bad at firing people at Carlyle that he sometimes promoted them instead by mistake... A Note from James: On this show, I’m usually the one asking the questions. But near the end of this conversation, David Rubenstein turned it around on me. He asked why I care whether the Mets win. And I didn’t really have an answer. I said, “I guess when I was a kid, it felt like I was winning...

Episode Description: Before Cal Fussman interviewed Muhammad Ali, Mikhail Gorbachev, Kobe Bryant, Serena Williams, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, and hundreds of other extraordinary people, he spent nearly a decade traveling the world without much of a plan. He would get on buses without knowing where they were going. He had little money, so he often needed to strike up a conversation with a stranger...

Two weeks after one phone call, four hostages walked free from Gaza... A Note from James: After the election, before Trump was sworn in for his second term, Biden’s national security team needed to reach the president-elect about the hostages in Gaza. According to Bill O’Reilly, they couldn’t get through. So who did they call? Bill O’Reilly. Bill says he set up the conversation, moderated it, and...

Episode Description: A good outcome does not necessarily mean you made a good decision. And a bad outcome does not necessarily mean you made a bad one. That distinction is at the heart of James’s conversation with Annie Duke, former professional poker player and author of Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts . Poker gave Annie an unusually intense laboratory...

Ron Johnson built the Apple Store as Apple's SVP of Retail, and is the author of Shop Different: How Retail Revealed Apple's Genius . A Note from James: I love the Apple Store. I can walk into one without needing anything and still want to stay. I like looking at the products. I like touching everything. I like the space. I like the feeling. I remember buying one of my first iPods at the Apple Sto...

Episode Description: Jon Morrow’s story begins with a diagnosis that was supposed to be a death sentence. Born with spinal muscular atrophy, Jon was diagnosed at six months old. Doctors told his mother he would likely die by age two. Instead, she fought for him. She fought to keep him alive. She fought to get him into public school. She fought through pneumonia, broken ribs, hospital visits, and a...

A Note from James: Carlo Rovelli is one of the smartest people I know. He is a theoretical physicist and the author of a lot of great books, including Seven Brief Lessons on Physics , The Order of Time , Helgoland , White Holes , and now On the Equality of All Things: Lessons on Physics and Philosophy . He has been on the show before, and at the end of this conversation I told him I felt like he w...

Episode Description: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar joins James for a From the Archive conversation about basketball, identity, mentorship, faith, writing, civil rights, and his book Becoming Kareem: Growing Up On and Off the Court . The episode begins with basketball. James asks Kareem how the game has changed since his playing days, and Kareem explains the shift toward the three-point shot, the rule change...

A Note from James: In 1790, one of the easiest ways to get rich in America was the old-fashioned way: marry someone rich. George Washington did pretty well that way. Benjamin Franklin, meanwhile, was so deep in debt that he offered to marry a woman if her parents would mortgage their house to pay off his printing press debt. When they said no, he married someone else who had money. And back then,...

Episode Description: This is a From the Archive episode with Seth Godin. Seth Godin returns to the show for a conversation about making work that matters in a world obsessed with hits, rankings, followers, algorithms, and approval. James opens by talking about Seth’s long body of work: Purple Cow , Linchpin , Graceful , thousands of blog posts, and Seth’s then-new podcast Akimbo . Seth explains wh...

Episode Description: This is a From the Archive episode with Arianna Huffington. Arianna Huffington returns to the show for a conversation about sleep, success, reinvention, and the cultural delusion that burnout is the price of achievement. James begins by asking practical sleep questions: Is nine hours too much? Can sleep be split into two four-hour blocks? Arianna explains that for most people,...

Episode Description: Nancy Cartwright is best known as the voice of Bart Simpson. But in this archive conversation, James is interested in the artist behind the voice. Nancy joins the show to talk about In Search of Fellini , the film she co-wrote with Peter Kjenaas based on her own trip to Italy in the 1980s. At the time, Nancy was already working as an actress and voiceover performer, but she be...

Episode Description: Mike Massimino’s path to space was not a straight line. It was a long series of obstacles, failures, second attempts, and decisions not to quit. In this From the Archive conversation, James talks with Mike about his memoir Spaceman , his two shuttle missions to service the Hubble Space Telescope, his career at NASA, his work at Columbia, and the deeper lessons behind becoming...

Episode Description: This is a From the Archive episode with Ray Dalio. Ray Dalio built Bridgewater Associates into one of the most influential investment firms in the world. But in this archive conversation, James is less interested in the headline version of success and more interested in the painful turning point that made Ray rethink everything. At 34, Ray’s business nearly failed. He had been...

Episode Description: This From the Archive episode features Tyra Banks and her mother, Carolyn London, in a conversation about beauty, business, motherhood, reinvention, and the power of not trying to be perfect. There is no “A Note from James” section for this episode. James begins by explaining why America’s Next Top Model mattered to him as a father. He watched the show with his daughters, and...

Episode Description: This is a From the Archive episode with Dan Harris. Dan Harris returns to the show for a wide-ranging conversation about meditation without the incense, jargon, or grandiose promises. James begins with Dan’s story: his work at ABC News, his public panic attack, his substance abuse, his reporting from war zones, and the recovery path that led him to meditation. Dan’s first book...

Episode Description: This is a From the Archive episode with one of my favorite guests: Steven Pressfield. Steven Pressfield has spent his career writing about war, creativity, discipline, storytelling, and the inner battle every artist faces. In this archive conversation, James and Steven explore how stories work—and why the same structures that power novels and movies also show up in real life....

A Note from James: I’m doing a big experiment in my life. I recently started taking a GLP-1—tirzepatide, one of the so-called weight-loss drugs. But I didn’t start taking it specifically for weight loss. I had some blood work done for the first time in a long time, and there was a small indication that I might be pre-diabetic. My doctor suggested trying tirzepatide, and I wanted to understand what...

A Note from James: I’ve done several hundred podcasts, but if people asked me who were the one or two people I most wanted to have on the show, Garry Kasparov would be at the top of the list. He was World Chess Champion for twenty years, and I’ve followed his career since the early ’80s. His book, Deep Thinking , tells the story of his matches against Deep Blue, but it’s really about what may be t...

A Note from James: This is a very special episode for me. There have only been a few times in the history of this podcast when I’ve had the chance to sit down with one of my heroes. This is one of those times. Frank Miller is one of the most important storytellers of my life. When I first picked up Batman: The Dark Knight Returns in 1986, it completely changed what I thought comics could be. This...

A Note from James: I’ve been obsessed with anti-aging and longevity science for a long time. I’ve had many longevity researchers on the podcast, but this episode feels different because something we’ve been discussing for years has now moved into human trials. David Sinclair first came on the show in 2019, when his book Lifespan was published. He’s a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School...

Episode Description: Prediction markets allow people to trade contracts tied to real-world events—from elections and weather to rocket launches, airport traffic, awards, and the words a public figure might use during a speech. But James argues that having an opinion isn’t enough. Betting on your favorite team, preferred candidate, or a vague feeling about what might happen is speculation without a...

A Note from James: Mark Pincus is one of the true OGs of the internet. You probably know him as the founder of Zynga, the company behind FarmVille , Zynga Poker , and Words With Friends . Zynga was eventually acquired by Take-Two in a transaction valued at approximately $12.7 billion. Before Zynga, Mark started Tribe, one of the first social networks—before MySpace and Facebook. He has spent more...

A Note from James: If I could tell my children to read one post of mine, it would be this post. Influence is how they will navigate a world of uncertainty. Robert Cialdini is the most influential person in the world. And by that I mean, he wrote the book Influence , which sold 3 million copies and defines the six critical aspects of all influence. Now he has a new book, Pre-Suasion , going 10x dee...