Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

This program was originally recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California on February 27, 2018. John Hope Bryant is an entrepreneur, author, advisor and one of the nation’s most recognized empowerment leaders. He is the founder, chairman and CEO of Operation Hope and the Bryant Group Companies and The Promise Homes Company, the largest for-profit minority-controlled o...

This program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation. Even with just a two-word title, John Lanchester’s newest novel, The Wall, evokes the political divisiveness our time. In this dystopian future, current political issues are taken to their logical extremes: issues of mass immigration (and populist reactions against it) are cast as symptoms of the ultimate pr...

The free market, limited government development model has been an ecological and social disaster for the developing world. Sustainable and equitable development is possible only with the active involvement of a strong central state that can guide the economy, protect the environment and prioritize meeting its people's basic needs. In his latest book, The Sustainable State, Chandran Nair shows that...

Growing up as an American-born daughter of immigrant parents, Dr. Sunita Puri always tried to live up to her parents’ expectations and the examples they set. While completing medical school at UCSF, a troubling issue seemed to arise. Between her mother’s experiences as an anesthesiologist and her own conversations with her family about their faith, the disconnect between the traditional medical ob...

Greg Dalton sits down for a rare interview with newly-confirmed U.S. EPA Chief Andrew Wheeler on cars, coal, and climate. Mary Nichols, Chair of the California Air Resources Board, responds to Wheeler’s position on vehicle standards, and discusses her agency’s role leading a group of states in contesting the Trump administration’s revised auto emissions rules. Also featuring Albert Cheung of Bloom...

Join us as Michelle Meow brings her long-running daily radio show to The Commonwealth Club one day each week. Meet fascinating—and often controversial—people discussing important issues of interest to the LGBTQ community, and have your questions ready. This week's in-studio guest is singer and songwriter Matt Alber. Portland-based singer/songwriter Matt Alber is currently touring his fourth self-p...

In 2018, Emily Chang’s Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley made national headlines, further opening up the conversation around discrimination, sexual harassment and toxic work environments taking place across industries and in Silicon Valley. One year later, join Chang and moderator Aileen Lee, partner at Cowboy VC and founder of All Raise, the new nonprofit dedicated to strateg...

Grain by Grain tells the story of Bob Quinn, an organic farmer from Big Sandy, Montana. Quinn was raised with traditional farming methods but learned that organic farming could create better, healthier food and bring economic opportunity to his small town. He is the founder of the international company Kamut International and the leader in reviving that ancient grain. Ultimately, Quinn’s story sho...

Richard Caro will describe the Longevity Explorers’ most recent explorations. The explorers are a unique sharing, evaluation and ideation community made up of older adults (in their 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s) and their friends, families and caregivers. The presentation will include promising products the explorers have tried, ideas the explorers have been discussing related to improving the quality of...

On March 16, 2018, just 26 hours before his scheduled retirement, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was fired by then Attorney General Jeff Sessions. President Donald Trump celebrated on Twitter, saying: "Andrew McCabe FIRED, a great day for the hard working men and women of the FBI - A great day for Democracy." Now McCabe is telling his side of one of the most intriguing political episodes of 201...

Is Silicon Valley at a breaking point? The power of technology has been called into question amid the growing number of data breaches, disinformation and lack of privacy. Kara Swisher reflects on what has brought Silicon Valley to this point, the ethical challenges facing tech companies and prognosis for the future. Notes: In association with the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics Learn more about...

How Businesses Can Restore the State’s Middle Class California’s powerhouse economy, the fifth largest in the world, relies on a skilled, healthy and available workforce. Yet employers say that job candidates often lack the skills they need—and they cannot grow as a result. Meanwhile, many workers make low wages that are stagnant, despite ever higher living costs. Often workers lack access to qual...

Monday Night Philosophy analyzes the biblical roots of philosophical inquiry. Accepting your divinely ordained lot in life, as Job did (but ironically Lot did not), is often lauded in the Bible. A few dared negotiate with Jehovah (Abraham, Lot and Moses), and quite a few even tried to outsmart omniscience. But Jeremiah makes it clear he has a problem with the whole prophetic game, even as he was f...

Join us as Michelle Meow brings her long-running daily radio show to The Commonwealth Club one day each week. Meet fascinating—and often controversial—people discussing important issues of interest to the LGBTQ community, and have your questions ready. This week's in-studio guests, from St. James Infirmary in San Francisco, will discuss the decriminalization of sex work. James Burch is St. James I...

Monday Night Philosophy features author Benn Steil, winner of the 2018 American Academy of Diplomacy Douglas Dillon Prize for best book. Steil will discuss the gripping history behind the Marshall Plan. In the wake of World War II, with Britain’s empire collapsing and Stalin's on the rise, U.S. officials under new Secretary of State George C. Marshall set out to reconstruct Western Europe as a bul...

The last five years have been the hottest on record globally. But this past winter, plunging temperatures, snowstorms and torrential rains throughout the country have a lot of people questioning the reality of climate change. If the planet is warming up, why is the Midwest suffering record cold temperatures? Climate scientists, communicators and educators join us to talk about about why, after one...

Come for a gathering of San Francisco business leaders and philanthropists. They will discuss the importance of and need to give youth a voice, enabling them to make change happen in their own communities. The conversation will focus on the disparities that exist for our youth and families and how local entities are working to close the gap in health, education and access to the outdoors. Learn mo...

Celebrate Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day with an intimate conversation with San Francisco Mayor London Breed. Following her election in 2018, Mayor Breed is the city’s first African-American female mayor and just the second woman to ever hold the office, elected during a historic year for women’s representation in local and national politics. The mayor has lived a life of publ...

This program is part of our Marin Conversation Series, which is supported in part by the Marin Community Foundation and Relevant Wealth Advisors. Art is good for you: It nourishes your spirit and feeds your mind. Home to a diverse, vibrant and rapidly-expanding art scene, the Bay Area is a hive of creativity, brimming with artists, gallerists and curators who labor tirelessly to make, collect and...

New technology is constantly being developed for home care. What solutions work best, and how can technology successfully enhance the very personal side of home care? We will explore how to find the right balance between using and not using technology with home care. This technology may allow your aging parents and loved ones to remain safely at home. MLF ORGANIZER NAME Denise Michaud NOTES MLF: G...

Everyone is looking down—but especially kids. There is something unnatural about a 15-month-old using an iPad to soothe him or herself. Many assume this is just the natural progression of our high-tech society. But what if this is causing us harm? And what if children are more vulnerable than adults? Numerous politicians are calling for reining in of the Internet. Is this necessary? Robert Lustig...

Join us as Michelle Meow brings her long-running daily radio show to The Commonwealth Club one day each week. Meet fascinating—and often controversial—people discussing important issues of interest to the LGBTQ community, and have your questions ready. Today's in-studio guest: Rimi Born in Hyderabad, India, blossomed in Toronto and living in Oakland, Rimi has been on the gender journey proudly wit...

When Norman Eisen moved into the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Prague and returned to the land his mother had fled after the Holocaust, he was startled to discover swastikas hidden beneath the furniture in his new home. These symbols of Nazi Germany were remnants of the residence’s forgotten history, and evidence that we never live far from the past. Looking into the building’s history, Eisen dis...

Steven Campbell's talk is an eye-opening presentation on cognitive psychology, which began in the 1960s. He explores how our brains conform to the messages we give them. When we optimize those messages, our brains literally rewire themselves to create new, positive self-images of who we want to be and how we want to learn and grow even more. However, Campbell's presentation does not stop there. Si...

Authors Julio Moreno and Thomas O’Keefe debate the current state of U.S. hegemony in Latin America and the Caribbean, a region where the United States first made its appearance as a world power in the late 19th century. In his new book, Bush II, Obama, and the Decline of U.S. Hegemony in the Western Hemisphere, O’Keefe assets that U.S. economic dominance and leadership in the Americas has been in...