What It Takes®

One of our very first episodes featured a rare interview with Dr. Jonas Salk, who developed the Polio vaccine at a time of tremendous panic. Today, as scientists around the world intensify efforts to come up with a vaccine for Covid-19, we thought you might find hope and inspiration in his story.  (The episode originally posted 9/21/2015.): Before Jonas Salk developed the Polio vaccine, thousands...

Millions of lives are saved each year with the vaccines developed by these two Nobel Prize recipients.  Their discoveries were some of the  greatest medical achievements of the 20th century.    Gertrude Elion was a biochemist, who unraveled the mysteries and mechanisms of leukemia, herpes, gout, malaria & meningitis in order to create effective medications. She transformed kidney transplantation,...

If Anthony Fauci was not on your radar before the Covid-19 pandemic, he certainly is now. Dr. Fauci is a lead member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, and a trusted daily presence in the news. Many now view him as America’s MD. We told the inspiring story of Dr. Fauci’s life and career on this podcast in July of 2018. Under the circumstances, it seemed time for an encore:  This is the sto...

He was an outspoken proponent of the free market and small government, and one of the most influential economists of all time. Milton Friedman's ideas on monetary policy, taxation, privatization and deregulation have had enormous impact on government policies in the U.S. (and around the world) for over 50 years, including the Federal Reserve’s response to the global financial crisis. He received t...

There’s one person who can claim to have played harmonica with Willie Nelson AND been awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine… and that's James (Jim) Allison. Dr. Allison is the scientist who unlocked the secrets of the immune system, to develop a wildly successful treatment for melanoma and several other kinds of cancer.  Immunotherapy is now considered the “fourth pillar” of cancer treatment, alongs...

The most decorated regiment in US history was the 442nd, a segregated Japanese-American unit that fought in Europe after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. But while they were bravely risking their lives for their country, 120,000 of their fellow Japanese-Americans were languishing in internment camps, simply because of their ethnicity. U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye was in the first group. Representative N...

For 50 years, he has carried the torch for the blues. Buddy Guy learned by listening to the greats that came before him, and then he made the blues his own.  He is one of the greatest guitarists of all time, and an extraordinary showman, who inspired a generation of rock n' rollers, including Jimmy Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and countless others.  He talks here about his early days picking...

Two of the most daring and celebrated playwrights working today talk about their lives, their work, and why they love writing for the stage. Both Lynn Nottage and Suzan-Lori Parks have won the Pulitzer Prize for plays that portray the struggles of African-Americans and working class people, but their approaches are quite different. Nottage talks here about the extensive research that grounds her,...

This son of a sharecropper tells the story of how he grew up to become a legendary leader of the Civil Rights Movement and a 17-term Congressman from the state of Georgia. He describes his political and spiritual awakenings, and recounts how he learned to live fearlessly and non-violently, despite the many beatings and arrests he endured -- at lunch counter sit-ins and during the march from Selma...

These three visionaries changed the way we live our daily lives. You'll hear remarkable archival recordings of each, when they were young successful entrepreneurs, but before history had proven the scale of their impact. Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, describes how, as a teenager, he first envisioned the potential for computers to become fixtures in our homes. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, fou...

He has won more Grammy Awards than any other male country singer, but Vince Gill never set out to be a star. He just wanted to play guitar and sing, and you can hear his reverence for music in this intimate interview. He describes his first guitar - a Christmas gift from his father, and his early days playing music in Oklahoma. He explains why he's always been happiest collaborating with other mus...

It’s undisputed: Andrew Lloyd Webber has written more blockbuster musicals than any composer alive. He talks here about falling in love with musical theater in the 1950’s, and about writing his first hit at the age of 19 (Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat).  He also reveals fascinating behind-the-scenes stories about Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Cats, and Broadway’s longest running sh...

She is a Renaissance Person extraordinaire: a lawyer, an inventor, a biotech innovator, a futurist, a transgender activist, and one of the most successful female CEO's of all time.  Martine Rothblatt talks here about founding Sirius/XM radio. She talks about how her daughter's terminal illness led her to develop a treatment, as well as a biotech company to manufacture it (saving thousands of lives...

He is one of the most compelling storytellers of our time... a novelist who addresses broad societal themes while plumbing the depths of intimate human relationships. Ian McEwan, the author of "Atonement," "Amsterdam" and recently, "Machines Like Me," talks here about beautifully constructed sentences. He explains the "pleasure principle" of literature. And in describing how much research it takes...

Africa's preeminent writer, and one of its greatest advocates for democracy and justice, talks here about the activism that landed him in solitary confinement for two years during Nigeria's civil war. Wole Soyinka was the first African to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. He describes here his life growing up under British colonial rule, and explains why his favorite form of literary expression i...

One of the most significant revolutions in science is underway, and yet most people haven't even heard of it. It's called CRISPR, and it is an easy, inexpensive process for cutting and pasting DNA - the code of life. It is already being used in human trials to cure genetic disease, and it promises to transform agriculture, with drought-resistant crops that will better feed the world. But it also t...

She was a Maori child from a working class family, who grew up by the sea in a remote New Zealand town... So how did Kiri Te Kanawa rise to become one of the greatest sopranos of all time? She tells the story here, starting with a vision her mother had of her singing at Covent Garden, a vision that became a reality. She also tells the hair-raising tale of her accidental debut at the Met; she was g...

When Amy Tan wrote her first book, The Joy Luck Club, she was trying to portray the difficult relationship she had had with her mother, a Chinese immigrant to the United States, and the emotional voyage they took to understand each other. But the novel struck a universal chord, and it became a massive bestseller, launching Amy Tan’s career as a literary superstar. Tan talks here candidly about the...

This is the story of a working class son of Manchester, England, who came to change skylines around the globe, envision a future for architecture that is in harmony with the environment, and design solutions to the most pressing problems of the world’s poor. In his 50 years as an architect, Norman Foster has designed an abundance of iconic buildings & sites, including the Apple Headquarters in Cup...

Toni Morrison was a novelist and Nobel Prize Winner, who carved a space for African-American women’s voices and stories. Hal Prince was a producer & director, who had a hand in shaping Broadway for over five decades. These two giants of American culture recently died, just days apart. In 2007 they shared a stage and regaled young leaders with lessons they’d learned over the course of their storied...

Peter Jackson grew up in a country without any film industry or film schools, and yet, he only ever wanted to do one thing: make movies. The story of how he came to direct The Lord of the Rings (and Heavenly Creatures, The Hobbit, King Kong, and They Shall Not Grow Old) is both improbable and inspiring. He tells the story here of how he quit school to earn enough money for a 16 millimeter camera,...

The ocean covers 70% of the earth. It regulates our climate and it provides most of the oxygen we breathe. And yet we still know very little about it. Well, this is the story of two people who have spent the past 60 years discovering the mysteries of the deep. Sylvia Earle is one of the world’s greatest marine scientists, and David Doubilet is one of the world’s greatest underwater photographers....

Babe Ruth's home run record held for almost four decades. But then Hank Aaron came along and smashed it. On the way to making baseball history, Aaron persevered through poverty, segregation, racism, and threats on his life. He talks here about joining the Negro Leagues, about playing through a period of transformation in America, and about helping to change the world by doing what he did best - sw...

In honor of the 4th of July, we are featuring the foremost champion of civil liberties in America, and a man who embodies the American Dream. Anthony Romero tells the inspiring story here of his path from a housing project in New York City to an Ivy League university and eventually to the head of the ACLU, where he has been Executive Director since 2001. Romero also talks about the tremendous grow...

Alice Waters has been called a food revolutionary. In 1971, she opened a cozy restaurant in Berkeley, California called Chez Panisse.  It showcased seasonal, local, organic fruits and vegetables and meats... a radical departure from the kind of food Americans were used to eating. Waters and her restaurant ushered in the farm-to-table movement and raised Americans' consciousness about fresh ingredi...