My guest today, Robert Solo, is an absolute giant in the field of economics.

He received the Nobel Prize in 1987 for his pioneering work on the topic of economic growth.

When I first got interested in economic questions, the whole point was that the system appeared to be broken.

And it was necessary to find ways to patch it together.

Welcome to People I mostly admire with Steve Levin.

But Robert Solo is more than just a great researcher. He was one of the most inspiring teachers

I ever had. And he's been a legendary mentor to generations of students at MIT.

Four of whom have themselves gone on to win Nobel prizes. And at the age of 98,

still the sharpest ever, he's a model for growing old gracefully.

So you taught me macroeconomics almost 30 years ago. You know, I'm no macroeconomist,

but your class was the best class that I took at MIT. I remember I would read these macro papers

ahead of class. I mean, I would spend hours and I would understand nothing about the paper.

It was pure math to me. Math I didn't understand. And then you would roll into class.

And you would describe these papers in the simplest terms. You would strip away all the math.

And you would show what was going on with a few words with a few equations. And I really stood

in awe of you being able to do that. That's the only way I can understand anything is to break it

down into simplicity. I'm glad you liked it. Not only I liked it, but that is actually

something that I carried with me. You gave me the belief that no matter how complex

an author or a creator says something is that deep down, it's really simple. You just have to

find the simplicity. You have to find the basic thing that's happening. God may understand

the rest of it, but it's not given to us to do that. What we can do is figure out you punch it

here. It reacts there. Why? There's some chain of connections that's going on. And by the way,

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