unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Anna Lembke says we are becoming a nation of addicts. She makes that pretty clear in her books with titles like Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance In The Age Of Indulgence and Drug Dealer, MD: How Doctors Were Duped, Patients Got Hooked, And Why It's So Hard To Stop. Her argument is in a world where we’re constantly chasing pleasure, it's not just that we're using up our dopamine and then we go back...

The robots will steal our jobs. That's how many people see the future of labor in the United States. But what do we stand to lose when humans aren’t doing the work they've done for decades? Frank Pasquale is a Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School. And also the author of New Laws Of Robotics: Defending Human Expertise In The Age Of A.I . and The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms That Cont...

In a world where the hustle and the grind are glamorized, it can be almost radical to consider the importance of rest. Alex Soojung-Kim Pang wants to reinvent work so that we can shorten working hours, and even whole working weeks, in order to promote productivity. Alex is the founder of Strategy And Rest, a company that advises others on how to instill more productivity and creativity in their wo...

Today we’re talking philosophy. And we know you may be thinking, somebody creating an app that entertains people or automates some routine office work can’t be compared to the great philosophers or great artists. But there’s more of an overlap than you may think.  Brad Feld is a co-founder of the Foundry Group, Mobius VC, and Techstars, the famous accelerator. He is also known as the author of a b...

When asked about what superpower they could have if possible, people often respond with mind reading. As humans, many of us are constantly thinking about what other people are thinking about us. Does their brain work the same way as mine? What's going on in their inner world? Well, what if I told you there is actually no inner world of thought? That is the basis of Nick Chater’s work. We all like...

Open any newspaper or website, and there are tons of people decrying the end of this or the decline of that. And even with the pandemic just now falling into our recent rearview mirror, it's actually hard to think of a better time for humanity. So why does Gregg Easterbrook think this is such a great time to be alive? Gregg is a prolific journalist and author who has written a number of books. Inc...

Sending economic assistance from western, developed countries to poorer, developing countries has always been a virtuous and noble pursuit. But the ethics behind foreign aid can get messy.  Bill Easterly has built an entire career analyzing the pros and cons within the field of development economics. He is a professor of economics at NYU, and also the co-director of their Development Research Inst...

The intersection of public health and data science can be controversial. How much do we value human life? Can we ever put a dollar sign on it, and what factors into that sum? These questions and more are tackled in today's episode with Howard Friedman. Howard Friedman teaches at Columbia University at the School of Public Health and The Data Science Institute. He is also the author of Ultimate Pri...

One of the key insights of behavioral economics is that people don't do what they know they should do;. That information by itself is just not enough to move the needle. But Kristen Berman is trying to change that, by doing what Greg calls “Pracademics” - putting academics into practice. Kristen Berman is the co-founder of Irrational Labs with Dan Ariely, the co-founder of the Common Sense Labs fo...

Economists, policy makers, and business decision makers all agree on efficiency as a goal, with more better than less and who could object? Well, it all depends, of course on how the objectives are formulated and what you are missing. That's the idea behind Roger Martin’s latest book When More Is Not Better: Overcoming America's Obsession With Economic Efficiency. Roger Martin is the former dean a...

Workers have more rights than maybe they've ever harnessed as a collective, and it's shaping the way leaders lead. We're starting to see the research bear out that when we move away from leading by power, into leading with emotional intelligence, that this is actually a way to build a more successful company, a more successful team, and it's a way to be more successful as a person. Scott Shute is...

Think of a big decision you've made lately. The final call was most likely yours, but how did external factors weigh in? Did you talk it over with a spouse or a close friend, think about your upbringing, your economic status, or how the final outcome might affect your future and your community? So much about our social networks affects our decision making process.  Matthew Jackson is a professor o...

AI & machine learning have been at the center of moral debate for decades now. Scientists and lay people alike know, or assume, that there will come a day where machines will not just figure out how to accomplish goals, but will also figure out what those goals are. That is the central question of our guests latest book, The Alignment Problem. Brian Christian is a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley w...

While many on the left are calling for radical change and the fall of capitalism, Philippe Aghion says the answer is to create better capitalism by understanding and to harness the power of creative destruction. That's the focus of his latest book, The Power Of Creative Destruction: Economic Upheaval And The Wealth Of Nations. Philippe is a French economist who is a Professor at College de France,...

You may not be a hot shot Instagram influencer, but you probably have more power to influence other people's decisions than you think. But on the flip side, some people wrestling with social anxieties and nerves, are overestimating how much other people think about their actions and judge them. So why are people so unaware of their actual place in other people’s worlds, and how can we find the swe...

It's been said that the most important invention of modern times is the corporation. And Colin Mayer agrees, saying the corporation is a “remarkable invention for bringing together the capacity and capability of mankind to work together to create phenomenal outcomes.” Colin is a professor at the Saïd School at the University of Oxford, and was also the Dean between 2006 and 2011, helping to get th...

A combination of structure, constraints and trade, those are the essential ingredients of an engineering mindset. But those traits have benefits and applications to many other scenarios outside the world of engineering. So why aren't they being used? Guru Madhavan is the Senior Scholar and Director of Programs at the National Academy of Engineering, as well as the author of Applied Minds: How Engi...

Physical intelligence is the most primitive and essential form of cognition. We rely on it to perform basic actions (changing a light bulb) to complicated activities (navigating unknown terrain). Renowned neuroscientist, author, and mountaineer, Scott Grafton brilliantly describes the action-oriented brain's design and workings through the lens of behavioral neurology and cognitive neuroscience, d...

The innovation economy begins with discovery and culminates in speculation. For the last 250 years, economic growth has been driven by a consistent process of trial and error. Drawing on his theorist-practitioner experience, Bill Janeway provides an accessible platform to discuss the dynamics of the innovation economy.  In this episode, he shares some of his personal reflections from his forty yea...

New social movements, beliefs, behaviors, and technologies often struggle to gain traction. Some diseases, such as Covid-19, spread quickly and created a world-changing pandemic. Could the idea of viral diseases be applied in spreading innovations and beneficial behaviors? Damon Centola talks about his best-selling books How Behavior Spreads and Change: How to Make Big Things Happen. In this episo...

The same technology that lets your daughter call up her favorite songs in Alexa is also used for government surveillance, racial profiling, and the creation of deep fake YouTube videos from troll farms. While neural networks make our lives easier, they also create ethical tangles and questions. New York Times Silicon Valley reporter, Cade Metz tackles these moral disparities through hundreds of ex...

A determined leader is often motivated by the desire to take risks and move forward. Michael D. Watkins, the transition guru and author stresses the importance of succeeding in your next career change. Success during the adjustment phase will propel you to more challenging roles. Failure will irreparably harm your career and organization. These are the main points of his best-selling books The Fir...

Entrepreneurs are drawn to stories of successful start-ups, but in reality, creating a business from scratch is more grueling than they anticipate. Today, Rand Fishkin tackles the mythology surrounding tech start-ups, exposing the ups and downs of start-up life and shares his hard-won lessons. Rand is the co-founder and CEO of audience research software start-up, SparkToro.  His book Lost & Founde...

Can a company with no profits be valued at a multibillion-dollar level? Why do some start-ups receive large investments while others do not? Aswath Damodaran, a finance professor, and experienced investor, argues that corporate value comes from the power of stories, enticing even cautious investors to take risks. He emphasizes the importance of integrating compelling narratives with strong data-dr...

Certain smells can repel or attract, bring to mind emotionally charged memories or guide our behavior unconsciously. While some find the smell of some cheeses revolting, others will appreciate its creamy and delicious taste. So just how does the olfactory system work, and can the loss of sense of smell assist in diagnosing diseases? In this episode, cognitive scientist and empirical philosopher An...