Ben Yeoh Chats

Larry Temkin is a moral philosopher. He has major works on inequality (book: Inequality) ; transitivity and social choices  (when A > B > C, A > C ?; book: Rethinking the Good) and recently on the philosophies of doing good (critiquing some aspects of Effective Altruism, long-termism, international aid, utilitarianism | book: Being Good in a World of Need ). As of 2022, he was Distin...

Leigh Caldwell is a cognitive economist. Leigh has done excellent work around the psychology of pricing and exploring how people consume intangible products with their mind. He has founded several software companies and is co-founder of the Irrational Agency.  We chatted on Leigh graduating from university at 18, what attracted him to the internet and wanting to start companies and what lead...

David Finnigan is an award winning theatre maker, writer and games creator from Ngunnawal country, Australia. David produces performances and writing that explores concepts from Game Theory, Complex Systems science, Network Theory and Resilience. He has also had the dubious honour of performing on stage with me, in our performance lecture collaboration, Thinking Bigly. He has a show coming up at T...

Sophie Purdom co-writes a climate and innovation newsletter read by tens of thousands, ClimateTech VC.  Sophie has worked in start ups as an operator. She is a venture capitalist investor. She has written widely on sustainable investing. We speak on how Sophie came to climate tech investing, the importance of knocking on doors and being helpful. What Sophie learned working for local governmen...

Francesca Sanderson managed an ethical equities fund at JPMorgan as an asset manager but quit that to live for a year living off grid.  She then became a social impact investor with Big Society Capital and now runs the Arts Impact programmes currently at Nesta. We chat about what she learned, missed and loved about living off-grid. How she has a more pluralist world view. Fran talks about wha...

Nadia Asparouhova (previously writing under Nadia Eghbal) is an independent researcher with widely read essays on a range of topics most recently philanthropic funding including effective altruism and ideas machines, and recent ideas in funding science.  She’s written books about the open source community. She has worked in start ups and venture. She set up and ran Helium grants, a microgrant...

Carl Saxton-Pizzie trained as an actor and worked in tv before founding a sustainable grocery delivery company, Wholegood, in 2007 (with a van and £500). Wholegood is on track for £30m in revenue and employes 160 people. This is a small business success story, a start up in the “old economy” but very much touching “new economy” ideas such as sustainability and delivery services. You can find Whole...

Annemarie is Director of Innovation for the Seetec Group. Before that, she was, Director of Policy and Strategy at Future Care Capital - a national charity that uses the insight gathered through evidence-based research to advance ideas that will help shape future health and social care policy to deliver better outcomes for society. We chat about what is under appreciated about libraries and how to...

What is it like to go deaf and then gain back your hearing? On this episode, I speak to Sophie Woolley. Sophie is a writer, performer and theatre maker.  We have been friends for a while and I have learned a lot about Deaf culture and from her personal journey and one as a creative. We have a meandering chat about her creative journey, how felt she had to write about her story of going deaf a...

Stian Westlake is the chief exec at the Royal Statistical Society, and before that he was a policy advisor to government and the executive director at Nesta. He is the co-author with Jonathan Haskel of Capitalism without Capital, and they have a new book out, Restarting the Future (22 March 2022).  Stian discusses how recessions might be different under an intangible economy. I ask him (H/T T...

Stephan Guyenet completed a PhD in neuroscience, then went on to study the neuroscience of obesity and eating behavior as a postdoc. He’s also been involved with Givewell and Open philanthropy projects. In 2017, he wrote the book the Hungry Brain. We discuss two competing obesity models: one based around  a model of energy balance with the brain as one of the main central controllers. And one...

Alec is the co-founder and co-CEO of the Institute for Progress. The IFP is dedicated to to accelerating scientific, technological, and industrial progress while safeguarding humanity’s future. Alec and co-founder Caleb Watney are supported by prominent progress thinkers such as Tyler Cowen and Patrick Collinson. We discuss the competing interests that prevent physical infrastructure such as power...

Chris Stark is the Chief Executive of the UK’s Climate Change Committee. The committee is an independent statutory body which advises the UK and developed governments on emissions targets and preparing for and adapting to the impacts of climate change. I think he is one of the most important and thoughtful thinkers on climate change policy today. We discuss what is most misunderstood about climate...

David Spiegelhalter is an expert on medical statistics. He was the president of the Royal Statistical Society and is Chair of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence communication. He is also a World Champion, in a version of pool called Loop and hosts his own podcast, Risky Talk .  David has a new book out (with Anthony Masters), COVID by Numbers, which is an excellent book on COVID statisti...

Steve Uwin is a theatre director and writer. Amongst many accomplishments he has been the artistic director of the Rose theatre, founder of ETT, English Touring Theatre. He is also chair of the charity Kids, which provides services to children with disabilities.  We speak about whether we need language to be human and what non-verbal people teach us. We chat on how theatre has developed over...

Zeke Hausfather is a climate scientist and energy systems analyst whose research focuses on observational temperature records, climate models, and mitigation technologies. He spent 10 years working as a data scientist and entrepreneur in the cleantech sector, where he was the lead data scientist at Essess, the chief scientist at C3.ai, and the cofounder and chief scientist of Efficiency 2.0. He al...

Aella is perhaps most famous on twitter for shining a light on the life and economics of Camgirls and escorts; and asking challenging questions. But her independent research is larger than that and has encompassed reporting on LSD and psychedelics use, circling, the nature of faith, and enlightenment. She grew up homeschooled in a fundamental Christian household before leaving home at 17. The tran...

Jason Mitchell is Co-Head of Responsible Investment at Man Group. He was a hedge fund manager and he is a poet. He’s a deep thinker on all things sustainable and finance. He hosts a brilliant podcast on sustainability, A Sustainable Future. We chat on his poetry and how he witnessed refugees in the Mediterranean sea. And what poetry has taught him. “rescued by our boat one morning, the man asked m...

Dan Goodley is a professor of disability studies and education at the School of Education, University of Sheffield. Dan co-directs iHuman, which sits at the intersections of Critical Disability Studies and Science and Technology Studies. iHuman is addressing  ome significant questions of contemporary society including: what does it mean to be human? Dan has written the thought provoking book:...

Bec Hill is an actor, comedian and writer famous for flip charts with misheard music lyrics. She has a wide array of talents including as a writer, a recent children’s book series: Horror Heights, The Slime and hosting make-away takeaway for children's ITV. She has her own podcast A Problem Squared which she co-hosts with Matt Parker. We speak about the use of arts and craft in comedy and thinking...

Meaghan Kall is an epidemiologist at what used to be known as Public Health England but is now the UK Health Security Agency. She and her colleagues have been working flat out for two years producing some of the world's best COVID data.  We speak about annoying and funny COVID myths. She gives her view on COVID vaccine waning, Long COVID and risk in children; and how we are going to come to t...

Clare Montagu was the Chief Operating Officer of one of London’s largest hospice groups, Trinity Hospice. Before that, she was a UK government minister special advisor. We talk about the challenges and joys of running a hospice. Much of great hospice care is looking after people in their own homes and in the community. Hospice care goes beyond the medical. For instance, letting a patient die in th...

Jonathan Wolff is the Alfred Landecker Professor of Values and Public Policy . Before he was Professor of Philosophy and Dean of Arts and Humanities at UCL. He is currently developing a new research programme on revitalising democracy and civil society. His other current work concerns equality, disadvantage, social justice and poverty, as well as applied topics such as public safety, disability, g...

Economist Diane Coyle is the Bennett Professor of Public Policy,  Cambridge University. She co-directs the Bennett Institute, where she heads research under the themes of progress and productivity. Her work has touched innovation, technology and intangibles; sustainability, inequality and measuring beyond GDP.   We discuss the challenges of the current narrowness in economics both in ter...

Mark Ravenhill is one of our greatest living theatre makers. I claim this in part because of the length of his writing career, 25 years+ and still going strong, and in part because of the variety of form and type of work. His work has extended into directing and performing Mark  will be co-artistic director (with Hannah Price) of the Kings Head theatre where he is outlining plans to portray s...