The TED Interview

"What if you could control digital devices using just the power of thought? That's the incredible promise behind the Stentrode -- an implantable brain-computer interface that collects and wirelessly transmits information directly from the brain, without the need for open surgery. Neurotech entrepreneur Tom Oxley describes the intricacies of this breakthrough technology, which is currently enrollin...

How often do you go back and forth over how much to tip at the end of a meal? Depending on the state, in the U.S. that choice could be the difference between a livable income or financial mayhem for the workers who served and prepared your meal. But why do consumers have such power–and why are labor wages so tied to tips? Saru Jayaraman is a lawyer, activist and President of One Fair Wage. She is...

Michael Scott, Leslie Knope, Detective Jake Peralta–television producer and writer Michael Schur has created some of TV’s most beloved sitcom characters on shows like The Office, Parks and Recreation, and The Good Place. Still, his shows and his philosophy are not just about laughs. Today on The TED Interview, Michael Schur talks about the craft of writing the TV comedy, why he is obsessed with ph...

With such rampant inequality across the globe, it’s difficult to imagine that in the near future, society could be a place of abundance where everyone has education, healthcare, or housing. But for journalist Aaron Bastani, this improved state of affairs is not off limits; in fact, he believes that, with technology, a better world could be closer than we think. In this episode, Aaron speaks to how...

Before labor unions fought for them, society didn’t have weekends as we know them. In the 13th century, the average male peasants in the UK only worked 135 days a year. In a post-pandemic and increasingly virtual world, what is the future of labor? Juliet Schor is an economist and sociologist whose research focuses on work and consumer society. In this episode, she shares her thoughts on modern wo...

Demis Hassabis is one of tech's most brilliant minds. A chess-playing child prodigy turned researcher and founder of headline-making AI company DeepMind, Demis is thinking through some of the most revolutionary—and in some cases controversial—uses of artificial intelligence. From ​​the development of computer program AlphaGo, which beat out world champions in the board game Go, to making leaps in...

Jennifer Egan is a journalist and writer whose novel “A Visit from the Goon Squad” won both the 2011 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. Using a unique format—including a whole chapter told through Powerpoint—Egan nimbly explores the mystery and complexity of human life in the digital age. Her newest book, “The Candy House,” poses similar questions around technol...

Garry Kasparov is one of the greatest chess players of all time. He was one of the youngest world champions ever, and had a 20-year streak as the world’s top-rated player. But even though he is known as a champion, he is also particularly famous for losing—against Deep Blue. After the IBM computer beat Kasparov, the Azerbaijan native spent much of his career thinking about games, computers, artifi...

The way Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, a theoretical physicist, sees it, Harriet Tubman is the Great American Astronomer. Using the North Star, with no formal training, Harriet Tubman led hundreds of enslaved people to freedom. Chanda is a night sky expert, too. She’s studying the intersections of astrophysics, particle physics, and cosmology, and she’s a leading thinker in understanding dark matter—th...

Future forecaster and game designer Jane McGonigal ran a social simulation game in 2008 that had players dealing with the effects of a respiratory pandemic set to happen in the next decade. She wasn’t literally predicting the 2020 pandemic—but she got eerily close. Her game, set in 2019, featured scenarios we're now familiar with (like masking and social distancing), and participant reactions gave...

It’s official, the TED Interview has a new host! In Chris’s last episode as head of the show, he interviews his successor, bestselling science and technology author Steven Johnson. Two self-described intellectual soulmates, Chris and Steven take a deep dive in discussing where ideas come from, how optimism benefits creative ideation, the complex and even controversial process of discovery, and the...

The way that our brain perceives the world is profoundly informed by our senses–so what would happen if we could heighten them—or even create a whole NEW sense? In one of his last episodes as host of the show, Chris Anderson kicks off our series on the future of intelligence by interviewing neuroscientist and author David Eagleman. They’ll decode the mysteries of the brain, consider consciousness...

What will it take to build a future worth being excited about? Elon Musk believes we already have the tools that will help us create one, but we must take bold action to get there. In conversation with head of TED Chris Anderson, Musk details how the radical new innovations he’s working on—Tesla’s intelligent humanoid robot Optimus, SpaceX’s otherworldly Starship and Neuralink’s brain-machine inte...

In an ever expanding world, it can be easy to think of our lives as insignificant. But according to David Deutsch, we all possess one skill that gives each of us infinite reach: our ability to attain knowledge. In the final episode of this season dedicated to making a case for optimism, Chris revisits his interview with the father of quantum computing to explore how knowledge first developed, how...

Biochemist Jennifer Doudna won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for pioneering CRISPR, a revolutionary biotech tool that can edit DNA with unprecedented precision and ease. But how exactly does CRISPR work, and what consequences may arise from altering our internal makeup? She talks to Chris about the remarkable effects CRISPR can have on our lives--from eradicating genetic diseases to slowing th...

From governments to airlines to your favorite eco-friendly clothing brand, tree-planting campaigns are everywhere. Reforesting the planet has become one of the quickest, easiest and most ubiquitous ways to reduce our carbon footprint...but is it actually helping to stop climate change? Ecologist Thomas Crowther speaks with Chris about how planting trees can actually hurt the environment -- unless...

We all have to give a presentation at some point in our lives—on a stage, in a conference room, and, these days, on Zoom. So what makes a good speech? In this episode from How To! science writer David Epstein turns the microphone on Chris to find the answer. Chris breaks down some of the most famous talks of all time and solves an unusual challenge from a 6th-grader named Lucy: can he help her pre...

Some believe our world has changed at a rapid pace in recent decades. From the rise of the internet to the proliferation of startups spinning out inventions, it can certainly seem that way. In this episode, though, economist Tyler Cowen argues that none of this has really transformed the ways we live over the last 50 years. But he contends that now that's changing, as new breakthroughs in science...

What does it take to persevere and succeed, not just in our careers but in all aspects of our lives? For psychologist Angela Duckworth, the answer can be summed up in one concept: grit. She explains the ingredients in grit and the experiences that make one person persist where another gives up — and offers concrete steps to instill grit early in life and sustain it. Can’t get enough TED? Become a...

From the strikes that transformed the world's view on climate change to the marches that demanded equity and justice for Black lives, there has been a new awakening of people passionate about creating change. As founder and CEO of Acumen, Jacqueline Novogratz decided early on to dedicate her life's work to doing just that. In this episode, Chris talks to Jacqueline (who he also happens to be marri...

Before the pandemic struck, young people everywhere abandoned their classrooms and took to the streets. Xiye Bastida was a driving force among these youth climate activists in the U.S. Xiye grew up in Mexico, moved to New York at 13 and started organizing school walk-outs to demand a future unruined by climate change. That movement led to one of the biggest global marches the world has ever seen....

Work as we knew it is undergoing seismic shifts as the pandemic in the U.S. wanes. As some businesses reopen, even people lucky enough to work from home face big questions. What lessons do we take from this past year? How should we lead? How should we talk to each other? How should we even relate to work? Chris turns to Simon Sinek, a thinker and writer on leadership, for some candid guidance in t...

This past year, scientists racing to stop the novel coronavirus delivered vaccines at a pace and scale the world has never seen before. Adrian Hill, director of Oxford University's vaccine research institute, recounts how he and his team developed the AstraZeneca vaccine. He explains why the challenges were as much about logistics as science, and predicts how the rapid creation of all COVID vaccin...

In this new season of the TED Interview, conversations with people who make a case for...optimism. Not some blind, hopeful feeling but the conviction that somewhere out there are solutions that, given the right attention and resources, can guide us out of the dark place we’re in. We share those ideas—and the people propelling them—to light a possible path forward. For the first episode: AI. Will i...

Today, we're re-sharing a conversation with Christiana Figueres, because we've got a special update for you from TED. On Saturday, October 10, we'll launch Countdown: an exciting new global initiative to champion and accelerate solutions to the climate crisis, turning ideas into action. To get involved, tune in to the global launch which will be live-streamed at youtube.com/ted on October 10 at 11...