Bounce! Conversations with Larry Weeks

Is AI doom a prophecy or a set of choices we can make right now? What happens if the people building AI start believing it has a soul? And if AI is risky, why might the doomers be wrong about how to respond? In this episode, Zack Korman explains why AI doom isn't inevitable and why the real risks have less to do with machines plotting against us and more to do with what access we give them and whe...

Your brain isn't simply recording reality. It's constantly predicting it. Why can someone know they are loved and still feel unlovable? Why can we intellectually know something is safe and still be terrified of it? Why can resisting pain sometimes make it worse? And why are some beliefs so difficult to change, even when the evidence seems overwhelming? Jakob Hohwy, one of the leading thinkers on p...

Scores can be useful, but they can also quietly take over—until we start serving the metric instead of the reason we played the game in the first place. Sometimes we don't choose the game. At work, for example, the scoring system just comes with the role. So how do we keep a score useful without letting it hijack our behavior? And for the games we do choose to play, how do we make sure we don't lo...

Your brain is not necessarily doomed to significant cognitive decline with age. But it does need a reason to keep adapting. That is the premise behind The Stimulated Mind , and it is why this conversation with neuroscientist Dr. Tommy Wood may change how you think about aging, retirement, frustration, and the things you normally avoid because they feel difficult. Tommy is an associate professor of...

Something happens. The tire goes flat, the layoff comes, test results come back. And then a sentence starts running in the back of your head. That shouldn't have happened. I should weigh less. They shouldn't have fired me. You barely register it. It plays like a radio in another room, and it produces a feeling, and the feeling produces a behavior, and the behavior produces the day you are having....

You know what you should do. You're just not doing it. The gym bag is by the door. The draft is open on your screen. The email's been sitting there for three days. And somewhere underneath all of it is the same quiet assumption running the show: that you have to feel like it first. That motivation comes before action.  What if that's backwards? That's the premise behind Morita therapy, and it's th...

The AI fallacy is thinking the transformation is only in the tool. AI is already transforming education and work; not just because of what it can do, but because of what people believe it can do. Students, workers, managers, universities, and companies are all changing their behavior around AI, sometimes rationally, sometimes badly, and often before they even fully understand it. The AI paradox is...

Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky is one of the world's leading researchers on happiness, human flourishing, and what actually helps people feel connected. A Professor of Psychology at UC Riverside, she is the bestselling author of The How of Happiness and The Myths of Happiness, published in 39 countries. Her latest book, written with Harry Reis, is How to Feel Loved. Sonja's work has shaped the modern scien...

You make hundreds of decisions a day. Most of them invisibly. A few of them under real pressure, with incomplete information and no clear right answer. So how do the people who do this for a living like firefighters, surgeons, military commanders, and get it right when the stakes are highest? That's the question Dr. Gary Klein has spent his entire career answering. Not in a lab. In the field. With...

Prof. Philip Goff is a British philosopher, author, and professor at Durham University whose research focuses on philosophy of mind and consciousness. He was an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Central European University and the Department of Philosophy, University of Birmingham. Philip is also the author of Galileo's Error: A New Science of Consciousness, Consciousness and Fundamental Realit...

My guest on this podcast asserts that a huge chunk of our psychological stress isn't caused by what's happening but by the demands one quietly places on reality. In this episode, Dr. Walter Matweychuk teaches me about Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), which focuses on identifying and disputing irrational, self-defeating beliefs to reduce emotional distress and change negative behaviors. Wa...

Society views time as a fixed commodity, yet modern theoretical physics and cognitive neuroscience suggest otherwise. If the linear flow of time is truly an illusion, then time isn't just a resource to be managed; it's a perception to be mastered. My guest on the podcast today, Prof. Steve Taylor, argues that time isn't experienced evenly. He suggests that where you place your attention and how yo...

We've been taught that success comes from setting goals, defining purpose, and executing a plan. But what if those very habits—the linear drive for certainty—are what keep us stuck? Dr. Anne-Laure Le Cunff, neuroscientist, founder of Ness Labs, and world-leading expert on mindful productivity, has an alternative: treat your life like a series of tiny experiments. In her new book Tiny Experiments,...

In a world increasingly dominated by AI and computational thinking, we've been taught that logic is the ultimate form of intelligence. But what if an over-reliance on pure reason is making us more fragile and less equipped to navigate uncertainty? Angus Fletcher is a professor at Ohio State's Project Narrative and the author of the best-selling book, Primal Intelligence. Angus's has had an extraor...

In this episode, I'm digging into the messy reality of business turnarounds, the kind where survival isn't guaranteed and leadership is more about doing the hard, boring things than dazzling with big ideas. My guest is Tony Stubblebine, CEO of Medium, whose recent post "Fell Into a Hole and Got Out" made the rounds for being one of the most honest and actionable stories about company rescue I've e...

There's something strangely reassuring about knowing people were wrestling with the similar issues we struggle with over 2,000 years ago — even if they wore togas and wrote with a chisel.   Donald Robertson is a cognitive-behavioral psychotherapist, acclaimed author of How to Think Like a Roman Emperor , and one of the world's leading voices on Stoicism. He's also the founder of the Plato's Academ...

People think happiness comes from getting everything you want. But the science shows, it's the absence, the novelty, and the change that bring joy back - Tali Sharot  Ever wonder why lasting happiness can feel so elusive? This episode delves into the neuroscience of habituation, and why our brains, despite achieving desires, tend to filter out positive experiences. We'll explore this phenomenon an...

Does the richness of your world expand or shrink in direct proportion to how much of your life is digitally mediated? My guest argues that by defaulting to digital mediation—where technology filters and facilitates our interactions—we are trading away the richness of real, embodied experience. And in doing so, we risk losing—without even noticing—the very moments that make us happy and resilient....

In this episode, we explore the human mood system and the origin of depression.  My guest is Dr. Jonathan Rottenberg, Professor of Psychology and Director of the Better Outcomes Laboratory at Cornell University. His work examines long-term functioning and well-being after depression and related conditions, with a particular focus on explaining why some people achieve good outcomes. He received his...

In this episode, we explore the fascinating world of the brain's hemispheres and their profound impact on how we perceive and engage with reality.  My guest is Dr. Iain McGilchrist. Iain is a true polymath—a psychiatrist, neuroscientist, philosopher, and literary scholar. He's been a Fellow of All Souls College at Oxford and an Associate Fellow at Green Templeton College. He's also a Fellow of the...

A.J. Jacobs is a renowned writer and participatory journalist, best known for his immersive, experiment-driven projects that push the boundaries of immersive learning. From living according to the Ten Commandments to exploring radical honesty, A.J. dives headfirst into his experiments, bringing humor and insight into everything he does. His latest endeavor? An exploration of the U.S. Constitution,...

In this episode, we dig into FOMO and the temptations of quick wins and the importance of psychologically sustainable, long-term work.   My guest is Nat Eliason. Nat is a writer and the author of Crypto Confidential: Winning and Losing Millions in the New Frontier of Finance. Since he started publishing his writing in 2013, his work has been read by millions of people and spun out multiple busines...

Christof Koch is a pioneering computational neuroscientist and neurophysiologist best known for his groundbreaking work on the neural basis of consciousness. He collaborated with Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, to establish a neurobiological framework for understanding consciousness. Christof served as the President and Chief Scientist of the Allen Institute for Brain Sci...

Guy Kawasaki is a pioneering figure in Silicon Valley, celebrated marketing icon, and successful serial entrepreneur. Guy was one of the original Apple employees responsible for launching their Macintosh computer line in 1984 - and then revitalizing Apple again in the 90s when it faced market share challenges from Microsoft and IBM. His role at Apple popularized the term evangelism in marketing an...

Outside of the purely physical and physiological, nothing is more challenging than the world of entrepreneurship and business, especially when facing customer indifference and figuring out market demand—the delicate balance between innovation and market reality.  How do you do that?  Professor Merrick L. Furst runs commercialization and new venture creation and directs undergraduate programs and f...