Curious Minds at Work

What does it take to pursue your dream? For Miki Agrawal, it took a catastrophic event that had a direct impact on her work and her life. It woke her up to three goals she had always wanted to achieve. And it led her to become the serial entrepreneur she is today. Along the way, Miki has been upending industries and winning all kinds of awards, including the Tribeca Film Festival 2013 Disruptive I...

We all want to do meaningful work that gives our lives purpose and lets us be creative. And yet, the very tools that help us stay organized and connected can cause the kind of distractions that erode time spent on meaningful work. Jocelyn Glei, bestselling author and editor of Manage Your Day-to-Day, Founding Editor-in-Chief and Director of Behance’s 99U and the 99U Conference, talks about this an...

Artificial intelligence, robotics, and automation technologies are fulfilling (and surpassing) predictions from the most creative science fiction. While the possibilities are exciting, these changes force us to ask what this means for the future of work. What jobs will they replace? Which industries will they decimate? What impact will they have on how we live and work in what many are calling a p...

When we operate in silos, we narrow our perspective in ways that can limit, and even destroy, innovation. So where have we seen silos before and what can we learn from them? In this fascinating conversation with Gillian Tett, award-winning journalist and U.S. Managing Editor of the Financial Times, she explains how silos reversed decades of innovation at Sony, limited innovation in a world-class h...

Why do most people want to live in walkable cities and towns? What's the impact on innovation and well-being? Jeff Speck, city planner, urban designer, TED Talk speaker, and bestselling author of Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time, offers fascinating and fact-filled responses to these questions. Along the way, he tells us the changes needed to make cities the thriving...

Why do certain products, services, or stories go viral? How can we make our own work contagious? These are questions Wharton Professor, Jonah Berger, answers in his bestselling book, Contagious: Why Things Catch On. In this fascinating interview, he explains his six-part framework and discusses the behaviors that drive us to make certain ideas, products, and services contagious. In this episode yo...

If you are one of the millions of people who struggle to stick with an exercise program, Michelle Segar has a secret for you: It is not your fault; it is a faulty system. After years of studying the science of motivation, Michelle Segar, Ph. D., Director of SHARP -- the Sport, Health, and Activity research and policy center at the University of Michigan -- has created a framework for rethinking ex...

What if the secret to successful innovation lies in asking ambitious questions, the kinds most of us rarely ask? That is exactly what Warren Berger learned in speaking with some of the most recognized, global leaders in innovation. He discovered that they not only ask different kinds of questions, but they apply those questions to problems unsolved and unseen. Along the way, they change the world....

Nobel-prize-winning economist Alvin Roth explores the markets that shape our lives, particularly our work, our health care and our schools. He also explains how key technologies enable companies like Uber, Airbnb, and Google to thrive. His insights extend beyond products, services, and features to include how successful companies attract and hire the most talented employees. Alvin Roth is a Stanfo...

No one likes uncertainty, yet our success may depend on it. In the bestseller, Nonsense: The Power of Not Knowing, Jamie Holmes argues that uncertainty and ambiguity are invaluable mindsets in an increasingly complex world. In fact, he wants us to rethink our desire for order and closure, so that we can be better leaders, decision makers, and innovators. A recent Future Tense Fellow at New America...

At 16, Madison Maxey was the youngest to intern at Tommy Hilfiger. Shortly after that, she founded her company, The Crated, a product innovation studio focused on second-generation wearable technology. Then, she went to college, like she was supposed to do. But for Maddy, there was a disconnect between the feelings that she received from her work and sitting in college classes. So after one semest...

Alex Koren had never considered dropping out of college. A successful high school student, he headed to Johns Hopkins University and was class president in his first year. Furthermore, that summer, Alex headed to a high-powered summer internship at Intel, seemingly the perfect opportunity for an undergraduate engineering major. Then something happened. While working at Intel, Alex organized a hack...

Jihad Kawas started his company, Saily, when he was 16 years old growing up in Lebanon. Now, two years later, after a recent public launch, his app has over 140,000 U.S. users and is gaining over 1,000 new users daily. Jihad is a 2015 Thiel Fellow who never attended college. Along the way, he was awarded a Forbes 30 Under 30 Scholarship, took first place at an MIT Social Innovation Camp, and has b...

At the age of 16, Charlie Stigler built SelfControl, an app designed to block out online distractions. It has been downloaded by millions. Encouraged by that success, two years later, Charlie founded a successful ed tech company, Zaption, which rethinks the use of video for learning. He did both before the ink was dry on his high school diploma. After graduation, Charlie did what everyone expected...

Design thinking and creativity are like muscles: we all have them, but they are more useful when they are strengthened! In this bestselling book Reframe: Shift the Way You Work, Innovate, and Think, Mona Patel gives you the perfect exercises for your design workout, giving you the tools you need to unleash your inner designer. Mona is a regular contributor to Fast Company, Time Magazine, and Forbe...

What happens when you dedicate a year of your life to practicing gratitude? Maybe everything. In this groundbreaking new book, The Gratitude Diaries: How a Year Looking on the Bright Side Can Transform Your Life, Janice Kaplan explains the science behind the power of gratitude. The author of twelve books, including The New York Times bestselling memoir, I will See you Again, Janice was an award-wi...

Mick Ebeling is the Founder of Not Impossible Labs, an online crowdsourcing platform that dramatically improves the lives of millions by creating low-cost, open-source, and do-it-yourself devices. For example, through a combination of marking and hacking, Not Impossible Labs developed 150-dollar devices that helped people with ALS communicate with loved ones for the first time in years, as well as...

Nir Eyal is the bestselling author of Hooked and a contributing writer for Forbes, TechCrunch, and Psychology Today. An entrepreneur, educator, and speaker, Nir writes about innovations at the intersection of psychology, technology, and business. In this interview, Nir shares the psychology behind why we get hooked by our devices and apps. He talks about how product designers use this knowledge to...

Wendy Suzuki is a Professor of Neural Science and Psychology at New York University. Wendy is an award-winning teacher and researcher, a TEDx speaker, and the author of the best-selling book Healthy Brain, Happy Life. While we have become more familiar with ways exercise can improve our body, Wendy helps us understand what it can do for our brain. She shares how exercise can improve our memories,...

Bernie Roth is a Professor of Engineering and the Academic Director and Co-founder of the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (the d.school) at Stanford University. A leader of international workshops on creativity and design thinking, Bernie is the author of the book, The Achievement Habit: Stop Wishing, Start Doing, and Take Command of Your Life. Bernie talks about what it means to apply design p...

David Heinemeier Hansson is the Founder and CTO of Basecamp, best-selling author of Rework and Remote, and creator of the popular web application framework Ruby on Rails. David is rethinking what it means to build a company in the digital age. He and his co-founder rejected the typical startup narrative in favor of a more traditional approach to building a global business. For this reason, Basecam...

Best-selling author Seth Godin discusses how to reimagine life and work in the post-industrial age. His books include Linchpin, Tribes, The Dip, and Purple Cow. In this interview, Seth talks about the liberating power of committing to a lifetime of projects. He also discusses the challenges involved and ways of overcoming them along the way. Additional topics include: how the resistance prevents u...