People I (Mostly) Admire

Palliative physician B.J. Miller asks: Is there a better way to think about dying? And can death be beautiful?   SOURCES: B.J. Miller , palliative-care physician and President at Mettle Health.   RESOURCES: A Beginner’s Guide to the End: Practical Advice for Living Life and Facing Death , by Shoshana Berger and B.J. Miller and (2019). “ After A Freak Accident, A Doctor Finds Insight Into ‘Living L...

Historian Tom Holland narrowly escaped a career writing vampire novels to become the co-host of the wildly popular podcast The Rest Is History . At Steve’s request, he compares President Trump and Julius Caesar and explains why the culture wars are arguments about Christian theology.   SOURCES: Tom Holland , historian and host of The Rest is History .   RESOURCES: Dominion: How the Christian Revol...

John Green returns to the show to talk about tuberculosis — a disease that kills more than a million people a year. Steve has an idea for a new way to get treatment to those in need.   SOURCES:   John Green , best-selling author and YouTube creator.   RESOURCES:   Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection , by John Green (2025). " The Deadliest Infectious D...

Abraham Verghese is a physician and a best-selling author — in that order, he says. He explains the difference between curing and healing, and tells Steve why doctors should spend more time with patients and less with electronic health records.   SOURCES: Abraham Verghese , professor of medicine at Stanford University and best-selling novelist.   RESOURCES: The Covenant of Water , by Abraham Vergh...

Jens Ludwig has an idea for how to fix America’s gun violence problem — and it starts by rejecting conventional wisdom from both sides of the political aisle.    SOURCES: Jens Ludwig , professor of economics at the University of Chicago and director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab.   RESOURCES: Unforgiving Places: The Unexpected Origins of American Gun Violence , by Jens Ludwig (2025). " Sc...

Ellen Wiebe is a physician who helps seriously ill patients end their lives in Canada, where assisted suicide is legal. Is death a human right?   SOURCES:  Ellen Wiebe , clinical professor of medicine at the University of British Columbia.   RESOURCES:  " The Last Decision by the World’s Leading Thinker on Decisions ," by Jason Zweig ( The Wall Street Journal , 2025). " Most Americans Favor Legal...

He has been a lawyer, an instructor at the F.B.I. Academy, the owner of a frozen-yogurt chain, and a winner of the TV show Survivor . Today, Kwon works at Google, but things haven’t always come easily for him. Steve Levitt talks to Kwon about his debilitating childhood anxieties, his compulsion to choose the hardest path in life, and how Kwon used game theory to stage a victory on Survivor .   SOU...

Ken Goldberg is at the forefront of robotics — which means he tries to teach machines to do things humans find trivial.   SOURCES: Ken Goldberg , professor of industrial engineering and operations research at U.C. Berkeley.   RESOURCES: " The Bitter Lesson, " by Rich Sutton (UT Austin, 2019). R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots): A Fantastic Melodrama in Three Acts and an Epilogue , by Karel Capek (...

Suzanne O'Sullivan is a neurologist who sees many patients with psychosomatic disorders. Their symptoms may be psychological in origin, but their pain is real and physical — and the way we practice medicine, she argues, is making those and other health problems worse.   SOURCES: Suzanne O'Sullivan , neurologist and author of The Age of Diagnosis How Our Obsession with Medical Labels Is Making Us S...

Reginald Dwayne Betts spent more than eight years in prison. Today he's a Yale Law graduate, a MacArthur Fellow, and a poet. His nonprofit works to build libraries in prisons so that more incarcerated people can find hope.   SOURCES: Reginald Dwayne Betts , founder and director of Freedom Reads, award-winning poet, and lawyer.   RESOURCES: Doggerel: Poems , by Reginald Dwayne Betts (2025). “ The P...

Chemist Jack Szostak wants to understand how the first life forms came into being on Earth. He and Steve discuss the danger of "mirror bacteria," the origin of biology in poisonous chemicals, and the possibility that life might exist on other planets too.    SOURCES: Jack Szostak, Nobel laureate and professor of chemistry at The University of Chicago.   RESOURCES: Is Earth Exceptional?: The Quest...

Owen Flanagan's newest book details his 20-year dependence on alcohol and pills — and outlines his research on what addiction can tell us about the nature of consciousness.   SOURCES: Owen Flanagan, philosopher, neurobiologist, and professor emeritus at Duke University.   RESOURCES: What Is It Like to Be an Addict?: Understanding Substance Abuse, by Owen Flanagan (2025). Consciousness Reconsidered...

The primatologist discusses the thrill of observing chimpanzees in the wild, the value of challenging orthodoxy, and why dying is her next great adventure.   SOURCES: Dr. Jane Goodall, GBE , founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and U.N. Messenger of Peace.   RESOURCES: The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times , by Jane Goodall, Douglas Abrams, and Gail Hudson (2021). Jane , by Brett Mo...

Hank Green is an internet phenomenon and a master communicator, with a plan to reform higher education. He and Steve talk about the video blog that launched Hank’s career, the economics of the internet, and how a cancer diagnosis prompted him to become a stand-up comedian.   SOURCES: Hank Green , founder of Complexly and science communicator   RESOURCES: Complexly CrashCourse YouTube Channel SciSh...

Jonathan Levin is an academic economist who now runs one of the most influential universities in the world. He tells Steve how he saved Comcast a billion dollars, why he turned down Steve’s unusual pitch to come to the University of Chicago, and why being a nice guy makes him a better college president.   SOURCE : Jonathan Levin , president of Stanford University.     RESOURCES: " Income Segregati...

Sarah Hart investigates the mathematical structures underlying musical compositions and literature. Using examples from Monteverdi to Lewis Carroll, Sarah explains to Steve how math affects how we hear music and understand stories.      SOURCE: Sarah Hart , professor emerita of mathematics at the University of London.   RESOURCES: Once Upon a Prime: The Wondrous Connections Between Mathematics and...

Sarah Stein Greenberg runs Stanford’s d.school, which teaches design as a mode of problem solving. She and Steve talk about what makes her field different from other academic disciplines, how to approach hard problems, and why brainstorms are so annoying.   SOURCE: Sarah Stein Greenberg , executive director of the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University.   RESOURCES: Creative Act...

In her book, Rumbles , medical historian Elsa Richardson explores the history of the human gut. She talks with Steve about dubious medical practices, gruesome tales of survival, and the things that medieval doctors may have gotten right.   SOURCE: Elsa Richardson , medical historian at the University of Strathclyde.   RESOURCES: Rumbles: A Curious History of the Gut: The Secret Story of the Body's...

How psychologist Dan Gilbert went from high school dropout to Harvard professor, found the secret of joy, and inspired Steve Levitt's divorce.   SOURCE: Daniel Gilbert , professor of psychology at Harvard University.   RESOURCES: " What the Data Says (and Doesn’t Say) About Crime in the United States ," by John Gramlich (Pew Research Center, 2020). Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science,...

Moon Duchin is a math professor at Cornell University whose theoretical work has practical applications for voting and democracy. Why is striving for fair elections so difficult?    SOURCE: Moon Duchin , professor of mathematics at Cornell University.   RESOURCES: " Gerrymandering: The Origin Story ," by Neely Tucker ( Timeless: Stories from the Library of Congress, 2024). " Redistricting for Prop...

The director of the Hayden Planetarium is one of the best science communicators of our time. He and Steve talk about his role in reclassifying Pluto, bad teachers, and why economics isn’t a science.   SOURCE: Neil deGrasse Tyson , director of the Hayden Planetarium.   RESOURCES: Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization , by Neil deGrasse Tyson (2022). “ The Universe and Beyond, with S...

He’s the chief creative officer of Pixar, and the Academy Award-winning director of Soul, Inside Out, Up, and Monsters, Inc. Pete Docter and Steve talk about Pixar’s scrappy beginnings, why wrong turns are essential, and the movie moment that changed Steve’s life.   SOURCE: Pete Docter , chief creative officer of Pixar.   RESOURCES: " ‘Inside Out 2’ Becomes the Highest-Grossing Animated Film of Al...

David Eagleman is a Stanford neuroscientist, C.E.O., television host, and founder of the Possibilianism movement. He and Steve talk about how wrists can substitute for ears, why we dream, and what Fisher-Price magnets have to do with neuroscience.   SOURCE: David Eagleman , professor of cognitive neuroscience at Stanford University and C.E.O. of Neosensory.   RESOURCES: Livewired: The Inside Story...

Boys and men are trending downward in education, employment, and mental health. Richard Reeves, author of the book Of Boys and Men , has some solutions that don’t come at the expense of women and girls. Steve pushes him to go further.   SOURCE: Richard Reeves , senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, president of the American Institute for Boys and Men, and author.   RESOURCES: Of Boys and Men...

Daron Acemoglu was just awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in economics. Earlier this year, he and Steve talked about his groundbreaking research on what makes countries succeed or fail.   SOURCES: Daron Acemoglu , professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.   RESOURCES: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2024 . Power and Progress: Our Tho...