Episodes
Wednesday Jun 30, 2021
Amazon, Bezos and a Global Empire
Wednesday Jun 30, 2021
Wednesday Jun 30, 2021
Perhaps in the 70’s it might have been said of Exxon. Today it might very well be said about Amazon.
The company has changed the way we shop...not insignificant in a nation where retail accounts for 6% of our GDP and 25% of our employment.
It has changed the way we think about the cloud, privacy, and electronic storage. It’s now changing transportation, and health care.
How did one company become so powerful and successful not just in one area….like GM or Exxon, but in multiple areas. The answer lies in understanding Amazon’s visionary founder Jeff Bezos.
Currently, the richest man in the world, the money should not obscure his vision, his talents and his place in the founder/CEO hall of fame.
Few understand Bezos better than Brad Stone. Bard is the author of Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire
Monday Jun 28, 2021
Our New Addiction to Outrage: The American Psychosis
Monday Jun 28, 2021
Monday Jun 28, 2021
Over the past 40 years, all that has changed. The long tail of the internet coupled with the evolution of our politics has divided us as never before. Even COVID, an outside enemy that should have united us, has become a cultural and political cudgel. Ironically our collective anger over politics may now be the only thing we have in common, even as it’s devolved into trench warfare.
We are divided into superclusters of like-minded people. People so siloed that they are literally shocked that everyone does not think and vote as they do. In short, reality has become negotiable and we sort ourselves accordingly.
The weaponized culture wars lead to more enmity, disgust, and dehumanization of our opponents. One wonders if all the king’s horse and all the king’s men can ever put the Humpty Dumpty that is our political civility back together again. That's the reality that Peter T. Coleman looks at in The Way Out: How to Overcome Toxic Polarization.
Tuesday Jun 22, 2021
Reasons for Hope in Rural America: A Conversation with Gigi Georges
Tuesday Jun 22, 2021
Tuesday Jun 22, 2021
Certainly much is wrong there. In part as a result of years of external change and neglect at the hands of public policy makers. Places and towns where “everybody knows your names,” are no longer appreciated or reflective of the values that they injected into the nation's DNA.
But there really are things they can still teach us. Especially if we look at the best of what these towns have to offer, not the worst. What happens when young people choose to stay? When those with gifts and talent choose to redirect it into their community, rather than spend their intellectual capital in the attempt to escape. It's not a choice for all in places like Downeast, Maine, but it’s good that it’s a choice for some.
Those are the one that Gigi Georges introduces us to in debut book Downeast: Five Maine Girls and the Unseen Story of Rural America
Friday Jun 18, 2021
A Conversation with Chris Matthews:
Friday Jun 18, 2021
Friday Jun 18, 2021
But perhaps the only way to really understand it is through the sharp lens of contemporary American political history. Particularly the years since the end of WWII.
Our divisions no matter how profound and how powerful, do not stand alone. They exist as a link in the broad scope of our contemporary political story. Without grasping that history, this moment is just noise.
Sure we can study history. Many great books have been written about these times. But those that have lived through all of it, who have paid attention to both the players and the events of this 75 year period are best qualified to try and figure out where we are today. Chris Matthews is certainly on of these. He writes about it in his new book This Country: My Life in Politics and History.
Tuesday Jun 08, 2021
The Secret Service and its Time of Reckoning: A conversation with Carol Leonnig
Tuesday Jun 08, 2021
Tuesday Jun 08, 2021
With respect to the secret service, albeit some of our view comes from Hollywood. But surprise, not all secret service agents are Clint Eastwood, or Gerard Butler, or Nicholas Cage.
Now, as a result of the great investigative reporting of three time Pulitzer Prize winner Carol Leonnig we have a look inside the reality of life in the secret service.
While the service lived by the shibboleth of Zero Fail, today that goal exists inside a nation more divided than ever, more armed and angry than ever before, and a Secret Service that’s overworked, overtasked and even sometimes incompetent. It all part of Carol Leonnig's new book Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service.
Monday Jun 07, 2021
What Happened In Wuhan? Why the Lab Leak Theory Has Gained Traction
Monday Jun 07, 2021
Monday Jun 07, 2021
Investigative science journalist Nicholas Wade helped to turn the tide. His massive, in-depth article in Medium and in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists opened the floodgates on the discussion. Wade joins me on this week’s WhoWhatWhy podcast.
Friday Jun 04, 2021
Campaigns Matter: A conversation with Edward-Isaac Dovere
Friday Jun 04, 2021
Friday Jun 04, 2021