3 Takeaways™

3 Takeaways features revealing conversations with the world’s foremost thinkers, business leaders, writers, politicians, scientists and other newsmakers, who each share three takeaways they consider vital. In this special year-end episode, we present the 10 most powerful and compelling takeaways of 2022.  Can you guess which takeaway is from each guest? The guests include: -  former Prime Minster...

According to former Senator Phil Gramm, inequality in the U.S. is grossly overstated largely because it fails to take into account massive government aid to low income earners. The implications of this are huge, especially given the current debate about remaking capitalism. Don’t miss this important conversation.

What was America’s response to the Holocaust? What did we know and not know, do and not do, as the catastrophe unfolded? These questions resonate today, when the refugee crisis, immigration and antisemitism are making headlines. Don’t miss this powerful conversation with the co-directors of the new Ken Burns documentary film The U.S. and the Holocaust, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, we are not living in an age of dwindling resources. Generations of people have been taught that the world's rapidly growing population is consuming the planet's natural resources at an alarming rate. But after analyzing the prices of hundreds of commodities and products over the last 100 years, Marian Tupy and Gale Pooley found that resources became more...

The world as we know it relies on computer chips, and the most important ones are made largely in Taiwan. This renders the U.S. shockingly vulnerable as China continues saber rattling in the region. Don’t miss this enlightening talk with economic historian and author Chris Miller.

Congressional gridlock has created a vacuum that undermines key principles of the Constitution, raising concerns about the country’s future. Yet constitutional expert extraordinaire Kannon Shanmugam believes our future is bright. Learn why.

Hiding what we really think can have devastating social consequences, and helps explain the rise of Donald Trump, why Harvey Weinstein got away with it for so long, the unreliability of election polls, and much more. Don’t miss this eye-opening conversation with Duke’s Timur Kuran.

Countless people knew what Harvey Weinstein, Elizabeth Holmes, and the Catholic Church were doing – but remained silent. Why do good people allow the horrific behavior of others?  Harvard professor Max Bazerman explores this complicity and offers solutions.

Our brains run the show and determine how we relate to the world. Discoveries from the front lines of neuroscience show our brains are creators (as opposed to spectators) of reality and also creator of our emotions. Don’t miss this enlightening talk with Lisa Feldman Barrett, one of the world’s most cited scientists for her groundbreaking research in psychology and neuroscience.

Why will tech and automation never lead to the demise of human work? What qualifies as “good” work? What role will robots and AI play in the fast-approaching future? David Autor, MIT professor and co-chair of the MIT Task Force on The Work of The Future, provides answers in this riveting and enlightening conversation. 

It’s counter-intuitive but true: letting go of being a good person is key to becoming a better one, and often times it starts with acknowledging our unconscious bias. Social scientist and best-selling author Dolly Chugh offers phenomenal insight that can benefit us both at home and in the workplace.

Harvard economics professor and former IMF Chief Economist Ken Rogoff is one of the world’s preeminent economic thinkers. Here he brilliantly dissects today’s U.S. economy and bluntly explains what must happen to tame inflation and sustain growth – and the major role China may play.  He is the co-author of This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly.

Learn how scarcity of anything - money, food or social connections - affects our daily lives and leads us astray. Scarcity reduces both intelligence and control. Having too little preoccupies and taxes the mind, making life much harder. "Even smiling and being pleasant is hard when your mind is taxed. The employee snaps at rude customers ... The parent snaps at the child ... The server rings...

Lawrence Bacow, President of Harvard University, shares how he sees the future of education and the values he leads by at Harvard. Learn the role of universities in a democracy, the importance of teaching students to think critically and why he believes the value of a liberal education is higher than ever. 

Of the 10,000 business plans Bill Sahlman has read, only 3 companies met their plan. Find out what it takes to succeed.  Entrepreneurs have to be really good at running tests and execution trumps idea. Jeff Bezos is the most effective experimentalist in history. Bill Gates did not invent word processing, the spreadsheet, or presentation graphics; rather he took ideas and out executed everyone else...

The deck is still stacked against women in the workplace. Learn how some women dramatically defy the odds, and what both men and women can learn from them to succeed. Don’t miss this eye-opening conversation with CNBC Senior Correspondent Julia Boorstin.

Technology is advancing at exponential speed, and humanity is having serious trouble keeping up. Azeem Azhar, a tech seer who has founded and sold four companies, shares his unique insights into what he calls the “exponential gap” and its impact on business and society.

He’s been called “a successor to Einstein.” Here you’ll see why, as physicist Brian Greene offers profound insights into our place in the universe, how the world ends, the possibility of a parallel universe, and the cosmic pursuits of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. Don’t miss this brilliant and deeply stimulating conversation.

Current debates over climate change are focused almost entirely on reducing emissions - which is something we should do - but we also need to answer the question, how should we be adapting?  MIT’s Robert Pindyck shares what we know and don’t know and how we can adapt given the enormous climate uncertainty.

Did you know that by asking better questions, you get better answers and better results from negotiations, as well as conversations? Learn what the 2 best questions are, and why these 2 questions work almost magically in negotiations as well as in conversations - including those with spouses, children, and colleagues.  Negotiation is not a zero-sum game. It’s an essential skill for your career tha...

Your entire life is an open book of information collected by tech companies. According to Tom Wheeler, former head of the Federal Communications Commission, the privacy problem is shockingly large, getting bigger, and has frightening consequences. What, if anything, can be done? Listen and find out.

Being a leader of any organization today may be more difficult than ever. What enables some leaders to thrive while others fail? What are some of the qualities and actions vital for success? Vik Malhotra, McKinsey and Company’s Chairman of the Americas, shares his insights from interviewing and advising today’s elite business leaders. He is a co-author of the New York Times bestseller, CEO Excelle...

How can we reduce or neutralize unconscious bias? It’s a critical question these days – especially with DEI in mind – answered by an expert: Iris Bohnet, the former Academic Dean of the Kennedy School and co-Director of the Women and Public Policy Program. She calls it “unfreezing” our minds, and offers some surprisingly simple solutions.

“Education runs on lies. That’s probably not what you’d expect from a former Secretary of Education, but it’s the truth.” Arne Duncan exposes the lies and the broken system that have caused American kids to fall behind. He also shares what really works.

The research is in, and it shows that a large part of being successful is understanding how to form the right habits. In fact, forming habits can be more important than willpower and self-control. Wendy Wood, noted USC Psychology Professor, shares some of her research findings and simple strategies that enable many people to live successful, satisfying lives. She is the author of Good Habits, Bad...