Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghan

I have trouble wrapping any adequate labels around this episode’s guest, Paco Nathan. Paco is a technologist, data scientist and an evangelist of a brighter data and technology future. He has an uncommon ability to synthesize the gaps and trends in this complex and evolving space, and gives me hope that we can create a more flourishing future within it. Show Notes : Origins of Artificial Intellige...

Caitlin McShea is that special kind of curious that you cannot help but be inspired by, and she has the intellect to spread that curiosity over any domain. For the past ten years in roles varying from director of art galleries, curator and coordinator of exhibits, and now as a program manager at the Santa Fe Institute , she has been giving language, image, and concreteness to some of the most imag...

Professor Anima Anandkumar is a meteor in the field of artificial intelligence or AI. Her rise in the space has been a phenomenon to behold and her voice is a refreshing and inviting one that might just alter the trajectory of AI and society. Show Notes : Artificial Intelligence (AI) (01:00) Love of the liminal spaces (03:20) Philosophy and connection to AI (07:30) Advaita Vedanta The science of c...

Dan Goods is a leader among the community of creatives at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory , so he's an imaginer among imaginers. A creator among creators. He's one of the most innovative minds I've come across, and someone who embodies selflessness and that most wonderful and contagious quality that is an insatiable curiosity.  Show Notes : How he decided to go to art school (...

During two years spent at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, curiosity-driven coffee conversations every morning with people who surprised and inspired me sparked an endless fascination with the pivotal moments across a life. Travels to leading art, science, engineering, and design institutions around the world nourished my passion and blossomed into the conversations you hear on Origins every...

Peter Turchi takes the art and act of writing as an irresistible analog for the art and the act of living. His work is part of a long tradition of fascination with processes of writers and he is among the masters at relating that process in a way that reaches all domains of society. For anyone who has ever thought about writing - the craft of it, its centrality in the human experience, its analog...

Ethan Zuckerman is a voice that you need to know. He’s a pioneer for the use of media as a tool for social change, for cultivating international development with technology, and for the activation of new media technologies by activists. Ethan is uncommonly insightful about the currents and trends of our society. In this conversation he helps us understand the shape of our public discourse, and rel...

We find ourselves in a world that feels incongruent and unfamiliar, changing socially and technologically at paces that expose conventional explanations as inadequate. Climate change, pandemics, political unrest have punctuated this new century and feel like clarion calls for new ways of being and being together. Enter Richard D. Bartlett — someone who has been a pioneer in thinking about these ne...

Tomas Björkman transcends science, business, philosophy, and social and personal change. Founder of the Ekskäret Foundation and coauthor of The Nordic Secret , Tomas’ story is a guide for anyone thinking about the future of society - a confluence of physics, macroeconomics, and entrepreneurship. Show Notes :  Ekskäret Foundation ; Oak Island Foundation (05:45)  Origins of his union of scientific s...

Show Notes :  Storytelling (03:00)  Wonder Collaborative (04:30)  Jane Goodall (05:00)  Human Nature (CRISPR documentary)  Nobel Prize Winner Jennifer Doudna Ron Vale (06:00)  "Cell Hell” - Cell Biology and Genetics course at Middlebury  iBiology (09:00)  The power of words (09:45)  “Bringing good people to work with you” (10:30)  How do you build a team?  Creating community that cuts across...

Show Notes :  Small Arcs of Larger Circles (02:00)  Objectivity (05:45)  Relationships and interdependencies (07:00)  Smiling with your whole system (10:00)  Flip side of delight and seeing connections (11:00)  Language developed from your own frustration (13:30) Different kinds of teachers  Esalen Institute (15:30)  Diving more deeply into the arts and an exploration of culture (19:20)  Working w...

Show Notes :  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) (02:00)  Rachel Carson’s words (03:30)  Scale of things and perspective  Pioneers of oceanography: Rossby and Montgomery (07:30)  Global conclusions from small data (09:30)  World Ocean Circulation Experiment (10:00)  Eye-opening expeditions (12:00)  All kinds of ways of ’seeing’ (14:00)  Evolution of distributing data (15:00)  R...

Show Notes :  NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (05:15)  Mentors (07:20)  Building and leading teams (13:15)  Comfort with uncertainty (15:30)  Waleed Abdalati Origins episode (18:30)  What drew Nash to JPL (19:00)  Trajectories to JPL (20:00)  Why you need to read sociology books (22:00)  Being a Renaissance Person - curiosity across human endeavors (22:40)  T-shaped people (23:00)  Challenging your...

Show Notes :  Spiritual background of his childhood (05:30)  Discipline to do good work (06:10)  Mentor: Albert-László Barabási (09:30)  How do you demand excellence?  Musing on the competitive mentality (11:45)  Relevance of science is a very social dimension (12:30)  What he tells his students (13:30)  Adapting as an individual (14:45)  MIT Media Lab Collective Learning Group (17:00)  The Last D...

Show Notes :  Santa Fe Institute (2:00)  Alexander Hamilton biography by Ron Chernow (4:30)  The Universe and Dr. Einstein by Lincoln Barnett (5:45)  Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter (7:30)  Martin Gardner Scientific American “ Mathematical Games " (8:30)  Douglas Hofstadter (10:00)  John Holland (14:30)  Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems Copycat c...

Show Notes :  Data-driven design firm Accurat Data humanism When she realized design was going to be a part of her life (07:00)  A ’new chapter’ in her life to fuse data and design (07:30)  What teachers told her that changed her (08:00)  Discovery of information design (09:00)  Rules versus limitations (10:15)  Rules as catalyzers of creativity  Pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone  Phases o...

Show Notes :  Marx Philosophic and Economic manuscript of 1844 (3:30)  Changed by exposure to systematic class privilege (7:10)  ‘Cubilcle’-ization revolution (8:10)  Normative aspects of economics and markets (11:30)  The American Economic Journal (15:00)  Being intellectually curious (16:00)  Hugh Lacey History of Philosophy and Science - Swarthmore (16:00)  Thomas Kuhn - Structure of Scientific...

Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) (06:00)  One of ten people to be ’NASA Chief Scientist'  Being led around by your curiosity  ‘Pulls' from our earliest ages in life (07:30)  The Arctic from space (10:00)  The ’space-based perspective'  ’No better compass than your emotions’ (11:30)  Constructive emotions  Opportunities to connect mind and body (14...

Show Notes :  Privilege brings with it a sense of responsibility (4:00)  Empowering others - "nurturing, supporting, and uplifting" (5:30)  “Talent in unexpected locations"  Levels of impact: individual and systems (7:45)  Carrying people with you (8:20)  POSSE Foundation (8:40)  Compensatory and Distributive Justice (9:00)  What she tells her students (10:45)  Most proud of integra...

Show Notes :  Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG) (1:40)  The contagious nature of imprisonment paper (1:50)  Value of community colleges (6:30)  Professor Dan Balaguy at Sierra College (7:20)  Professor Richard Stong at Rice University - Combinatorics (8:30)   Coming to an understanding of one’s career and curiosity (10:20)   How can we make the public more data literate (i.e., numeracy )? (...

Show Notes :  Grew up knowing possibility and that people create things (8:30)  Being around art, there was always another reality that could be made (9:00)  How do you sit with tension? (10:00)  The thing that allows me to maintain balance in the present - keep moving at the pace that feels most fulfilling and productive in the moment  Find comfort in the tension   Poetry is complex enough to hol...

Show Notes :  Cultivate Wit (03:00)  New Glarus Spotted Cow Beer (03:40)  Lambeau Field - Green Bay, Wisconsin (04:00)  Pausing in your activities to recognize what it is you are actually drawing joy from (07:20)  Surprising ways to learn about entrepreneurship (11:00)  Common experience and connection (20:30)  The Onion (21:00)  Creative process at The Onion (25:30)  TED Talk: What I learned from...

Show Notes :  Institute for Learning Innovation (02:20)  Those that have given language and expression to Martin in his life (15:00)  Art - Die Brücke impressionists Art - Mid-century modernism Poetry and philosophy - Schopenhauer Poetry vs. Science as forms for expression (17:00)  Rainer Maria Rilke (18:00)  Questions are a mighty form of words  Wellsprings of creativity and growth  Waldorf schoo...

Show Notes :  Breakthrough Collaborative (3:10)  Education as a vehicle for exploring the edges of social justice (6:00)  Passion to give people what they need to be successful (8:20)  Teach for America (10:00)  Qualities of a good mentor: patience, clarity, guide through learning moments (12:10)  Reasons for loving learning (13:20)  How Rachel sustains her energy (14:50)  How to decide what to sa...

Show Notes :  Weather in outer space (1:30)  Explosive learning through taking advantage of breadth and depth of knowledge (2:20)  NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (2:40)  Mentors:  Ari Viljanen (5:20)  Risto Pirjola (5:30)  Olaf Amm (5:40)  Hannu Koskinen (9:50)  Geomagnetically induced currents and effect of space weather on the power grid (5:40)  Approach to mentorship (6:00)  Finnish Meteorolo...