TaleWind

Send us Fan Mail From one of our leading chroniclers of the intersection of innovation and capitalism, a landmark reckoning—based on unprecedented access—with one of the world’s most brilliant and driven tech visionaries, and his game-changing company Even by the standard of a tech industry stacked with so-called geniuses, Demis Hassabis is a special case. Born poor in North London to immigrant pa...

Send us Fan Mail A behind-the-scenes tour of the high-stakes world of IPOs and how a visionary band of startup executives, venture capitalists, and maverick bankers has launched a crusade to upend the traditional IPO as we know it. GOING PUBLIC is a character-driven narrative centered on the last five years of unparalleled change in how technology startups sell shares to the public. Initial public...

Send us Fan Mail A biologist’s firsthand account of the hunt for life beneath earth’s surface—and how new discoveries are challenging our most basic assumptions about the nature of life on Earth Life thrives in the deepest, darkest recesses of Earth’s crust—from methane seeps in the ocean floor to the highest reaches of Arctic permafrost—and it is unlike anything seen on the surface. Intraterrestr...

Send us Fan Mail The laser--a milestone invention of the mid-twentieth century--quickly captured the imagination of the Pentagon as the key to the ultimate weapon. Veteran science writer Jeff Hecht tells the inside story of the adventures and misadventures of scientists and military strategists as they exerted Herculean though often futile efforts to adapt the laser for military uses. From the 195...

Send us Fan Mail A National Bestseller –– Recommended by Financial Times as “What to Read in 2025” Our Dollar, Your Problem argues that America’s currency might not have reached today’s lofty pinnacle without a certain amount of good luck. Drawing in part on his own experiences, including with policymakers and world leaders, Kenneth Rogoff animates the remarkable postwar run of the dollar—how it b...

Send us Fan Mail The fascinating, untold story of the air we breathe, the hidden life it contains, and invisible dangers that can turn the world upside down Every day we draw in two thousand gallons of air—and thousands of living things. From the ground to the stratosphere, the air teems with invisible life. This last great biological frontier remains so mysterious that it took over two years for...

Send us Fan Mail Copies of the book are available for purchase at formulabydb.com , and TaleWind listeners may redeem the promo code “Belmont” for an exclusive discount. Formula is a novel about a young man living in San Francisco that works in Big Tech, but who conceives, at the beginning of the story, of an idea for a new business, which he proceeds to execute by partnering with a local rapper. ...

Send us Fan Mail The unputdownable first Western biography of SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, financial disruptor and personification of the 21st century’s addiction to instant wealth, from the former editor of the Financial Times .   As Wall Street swooned and boomed through the last decade, our livelihoods have—now more than ever—come to rely upon the good sense and risk appetites of a few standout...

Send us Fan Mail My conversation with investigative journalist Charles Piller about his recent book, Doctored.  The description below is from Amazon: Nearly seven million Americans live with Alzheimer’s disease, a tragedy that is already projected to grow into a $1 trillion crisis by 2050. While families suffer and promises of pharmaceutical breakthroughs keep coming up short, investigative journa...

Send us Fan Mail This conversation was recorded on February 14, 2025.  One of Smithsonian Magazine 's Ten Best Science Books of 2024, How to Kill an Asteroid is a gripping account of the "city-killer" asteroids that could threaten Earth and the race to build a planetary defense system. There are approximately 25,000 “city killer” asteroids in near-Earth orbit―and most are yet to be...

Send us Fan Mail For decades the most valuable technology company in Europe operated in the shadows. The chips manufactured by its machines, power our smartphones and AI assistants, make our coffee and drive our cars and even guide cruise missiles. In fact, roughly 90% of all chips worldwide are made with ASML’s machines. In recent years, the Dutch manufacturing company has found itself in the spo...

Send us Fan Mail A conversation with Mike Maples Jr. about the book he co-authored, Pattern Breakers: Why Some Start-Ups Change the Future.  Based on extensive research and real-world examples, this book upends accepted wisdom about how to achieve success when launching a startup or creating a new product. The breakthrough concepts of Pattern Breakers come from the observations of Mike Maples Jr.,...

Send us Fan Mail A New York Times bestseller in 2017, An American Sickness reveals the inner workings of the US healthcare system. Elisabeth Rosenthal explores why US healthcare costs are so high, and suggests ways to improve the system. This episode was recorded in Mid-October, 2024.  From Penguin Random House: Breaking down this monolithic business into the individual industries—the hospitals, d...

Send us Fan Mail Lawrence A. Cunningham is the Director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware.  He currently serves as a Director for several publicly-traded companies: Markel Group (NYSE: MKL), Kelly Partners Group Holdings Limited (ASX: KPG), and Constellation Software (TSX: CSU), where he serves as Vice Chairman.  Before becoming a professor, Cunn...

Send us Fan Mail Special family episode this week featuring my father, David Rubenstein, on his new book, The Highest Calling .  From Simon and Schuster: For years, bestselling author David M. Rubenstein has distilled the contours of American democracy through conversations with noted leaders and historians. In The Highest Calling , he offers an enlightening overview of arguably the single most im...

Send us Fan Mail Disclaimer: The content in this episode should not be considered financial or investment advice. Although this could change in the future, at the time of recording and releasing, the host did not own shares in any of the companies discussed.  In When the Heavens Went on Sale , Ashlee Vance illuminates our future and unveils the next big technology story of our time: welcome to the...

Send us Fan Mail The consequences of climate change—rising waters, extreme weather, record temperatures—are transforming our lives, as global warming accelerates more rapidly than scientists predicted even a few years ago. At the same time, the clean energy revolution is forging ahead faster than nearly anyone anticipated. As Tom Steyer sees it, these two trends together create a moment like the o...

Send us Fan Mail Biology is undergoing a quiet but profound transformation. Several aspects of the standard picture of how life works—the idea of the genome as a blueprint, of genes as instructions for building an organism, of proteins as precisely tailored molecular machines, of cells as entities with fixed identities, and more—have been exposed as incomplete, misleading, or wrong. In How Life Wo...

Send us Fan Mail A conversation with William Quinn about Boom and Bust, which he co-authored alongside John D. Turner. Published in 2020, Boom and Bust explores financial bubbles across a number of different markets, geographies, and time periods.  Why do stock and housing markets sometimes experience amazing booms followed by massive busts and why is this happening more and more frequently. In or...

Send us Fan Mail A conversation with Katherine Blunt about her 2022 book, California Burning: The Fall of Pacific Gas and Electric –– and what it means for America’s power grid . Pacific Gas and Electric was a legacy company built by innovators and visionaries, establishing California as a desirable home and economic powerhouse. In California Burning, Wall Street Journal reporter and Pulitzer fina...

Send us Fan Mail A conversation with Rob Wertheimer about the book he co-authored in 2020, Lessons from the Titans: What Companies in the New Economy Can Learn from the Great Industrial Giants to Drive Sustainable Success. The conversation focuses particularly on the chapters that Rob authored in which he analyzes Caterpillar, Stanley Black & Decker, and United Rentals.  In Lessons from the Ti...

Send us Fan Mail A conversation with author Walter Isaacson about his 2021 book, The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race . The bestselling author of Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs returned with a “compelling” ( The Washington Post ) account of how Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna and her colleagues launched a revolution that will allow us to cure disea...