Talks at Google

Social health expert Kasley Killam visits Google to discuss her book "The Art and Science of Connection." Weaving together cutting-edge science, mindset shifts, and practical wisdom, Kasley offers a methodology for how to be socially healthy. Her book is an antidote to the loneliness epidemic and an inspiring manifesto for seeing wellbeing as not only physical and mental, but also social. Exercise...

Sir Barry Cunliffe has been Professor of European Archaeology at the University of Oxford for 35 years and is a Fellow of the British Academy. In this talk, he discusses his book "The Scythians: Nomad Warriors of the Steppe." Brilliant horsemen and great fighters, the Scythians were nomadic horsemen who ranged wide across the grasslands of the Asian steppe from the Altai mountains in the east to t...

Simon Sinek, optimist, author, and founder of The Optimism Company, visits Google to discuss how adopting an optimistic mindset can help you rediscover your purpose and thrive even when it seems like everything around you is changing. Simon Sinek is an unshakable optimist, who believes in a bright future and our ability to build it together. He has devoted his professional life to help advance a v...

Muhammad Yunus, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and bestselling author of "Banker to the Poor," visits to Google to talk about his book "A World of Three Zeroes." Muhammad Yunus is one of today's most vigorous social critics. Now he declares it's time to admit that the capitalist engine is broken, and that in its current form it inevitably leads to rampant inequality, massive unemployment, and e...

Tamron Hall and Lish Steiling join us to discuss their book "A Confident Cook," where they share empowerment and excitement with those who are just beginning to cook. This book is packed with scrumptious recipes as well as cocktails and mocktails. Throughout, Lish and Tamron chat, teach, learn, and inspire you to keep it going in the kitchen. Tamron Hall is an Emmy Award-winning television host an...

Christopher McDougall visits Google to discuss his book "Born to Run." Full of incredible characters, amazing athletic achievements, and cutting-edge science, Born to Run is an epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt? In search of an answer, Christopher McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the world's greatest distance runners and learn their secrets, and in the...

Marion Jones visits Google to discuss strength, resilience, and using past experiences to serve as an example of no matter how far you fall down, you can always get back up. Marion Jones is widely considered to be one of the greatest athletes of all time. She became the first woman to win five medals in a single Olympics in the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney, Australia. After a doping scandal that af...

Barbara Corcoran from ABC's series Shark Tank visits Google to discuss entrepreneurship and her success in the real estate business. After failing at twenty-two jobs, Barbara Corcoran borrowed $1,000 from a boyfriend, quit her job as a diner waitress, and started a tiny real estate office in New York City. Using the unconventional lessons she learned from her homemaker mom, she gradually built it...

Renowned computer scientist Neil Lawrence visits Google to discuss his book "The Atomic Human: What Makes Us Unique in the Age of AI." What does Artificial Intelligence mean for our identity? Our fascination with AI stems from the perceived uniqueness of human intelligence. We believe it's what differentiates us. Fears of AI not only concern how it invades our digital lives, but also the implied t...

Tero Isokauppila visits Google to discuss his book Healing Mushrooms: A Practical and Culinary Guide to Using Mushrooms for Whole Body Health. Adaptogenic mushrooms are one of today's buzziest superfoods, known for their ability to restore skin's youthful glow, increase energy levels, reduce brain fog, keep your hormone levels in check, and so much more. In this book, you'll learn about the ten mo...

Elizabeth L. Block visits Google to discuss her book "Beyond Vanity: The History and Power of Hairdressing" where she explores the diverse history of women's hair. In the nineteenth century, the complex cultural meaning of hair was not only significant, but it could also impact one's place in society. After the Civil War, hairdressing was also a growing profession and the hair industry a mainstay...

Stephen Pearcy, lead singer and frontman of the rock band RATT, visits Google to discuss his book "Sex, Drugs, RATT and Roll: My Life in Rock." Women. Spandex. Drugs. Hair spray. Welcome to heavy metal rock 'n' roll, circa 1980, when all you needed was the right look, burning ambition, and a chance. Cranking out metal just as metal got hot, RATT was the perfect band at the perfect time, and their...

Renowned wildlife ecologist Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant visits Google to discuss her book "Wild Life: Finding My Purpose in an Untamed World," where she explores the ever-shifting relationship between humans, animals, and the Earth.  Growing up in the diverse and bustling California Bay Area, renowned wildlife ecologist Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant always felt worlds away from the white male adventurers she watched...

Pat Dorsey visits Google to discuss his book "The Little Book that Builds Wealth". Over time, most businesses with high returns on capital attract competition that forces down profitability. However, a small minority of companies are able to defy the laws of economic gravity by creating competitive advantages, or "economic moats" that insulate them from competition and allow them to maintain high...

Top Olympic swimmer Missy Franklin, ice hockey gold medalist Angela Ruggiero, and two-time track and field gold medalist Ashton Eaton join us for a panel to discuss mindset, goal setting, and resilience in sports and life. Missy Franklin was raised in Centennial, Colorado, began swimming competitively at the age of 5, and competed in her first international event in 2009 at the age of 14. At the 2...

The Venerable Pomnyun visits Google to discuss secular compassion and social justice. Venerable Pomnyun Sunim is the chairman of The Peace Foundation in Seoul, which supports policy research and analysis aimed at Korean unification and humanitarian issues in North Korea. He concurrently serves as the chairman of Good Friends for Peace, Human Rights, and Refugee Issues, whose weekly publication "No...

Jay Ellis visits Google to discuss his book "Did Everyone Have an Imaginary Friend (or Just Me)?" What do you do when you're the perpetual new kid, only child, and military brat hustling school to school each year and everyone's looking to you for answers? Make stuff up, of course! And a young Jay Ellis does just that, with help from his imaginary friend, Mikey. A testament to the importance of in...

John Ousterhout, Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, visits Google to discuss the complex techniques that can help you to become a more confident coder. John is excited to announce that he just published the first edition of a new book on software design, based on material from a software design class he has been teaching at Stanford for the last several years.  Prior to joining...

Olympic skier Gus Kenworthy and Olympic diver Greg Louganis visit Google to discuss what it's like to thrive as an athlete on the world's biggest sporting stage, how things have evolved for LGBTQ+ competitors, and what work remains in the quest to create a more inclusive world for future generations of rising queer athletes. Gus Kenworthy is known as one of the best all-around park skiers of all t...

Robert Greene visits Google to discuss his latest book, "Mastery." What did Charles Darwin, a middling schoolboy and underachieving second son, do to become one of the earliest and greatest naturalists the world has known? What were the similar choices made by Mozart and by Caesar Rodriguez, the U.S. Air Force's last ace fighter pilot? In Mastery, Robert Greene's fifth book, he mines the biographi...

Laurel Harris and Alexandra Socha, who respectively play Elphaba and Glinda in Broadway's Wicked, visit Google to celebrate 20 years of the hit musical. Wicked looks at what happened in the land of Oz…but from a different angle. Long before Dorothy arrives, there is a young woman, born with emerald-green skin – smart, fiery, misunderstood and possessing an extraordinary talent. When she meets a bu...

Author Mary Pilon visits Google to discuss her book, "The Monopolists". The book reveals the unknown story of how the classic board game Monopoly came into existence, the reinvention of its history by Parker Brothers and multiple media outlets, the lost female originator of the game, and one man's lifelong obsession to tell the true story about the game's questionable origins. Most people think Mo...

Acclaimed science writer Ferris Jabr visits Google to discuss his book "Becoming Earth: How our Planet Came to Life." One of humanity's oldest beliefs is that our world is alive. Though once ridiculed by some scientists, the idea of Earth as a vast interconnected living system has gained acceptance in recent decades. We, and all living things, are more than inhabitants of Earth—we are Earth, an ou...

Professor Adrienne Mayor of Stanford visits Google to discuss her book, "The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women Across the Ancient World". This book is the first comprehensive account of warrior women in myth and history across the ancient world, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Great Wall of China.  Amazons―fierce warrior women dwelling on the fringes of the known world―were the mythic...

Ecological engineer Dr. Nadina Galle visits Google to discuss her book "The Nature of our Cities: Harnessing the Power of the Natural World to Survive a Changing Planet." The book describes her journey to show how scientists and citizens from around the world are harnessing emerging technologies to unlock the power of the natural world to save their cities, a phenomenon Dr. Nadina calls the "Inter...