Brad Meltzer on The Viper, Witness Protection, and Starting Over
Guy Kawasaki's Remarkable People
Guy Kawasaki
4.5 • 679 Ratings
🗓️ 8 April 2026
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Brad Meltzer joins Guy Kawasaki to discuss his latest thriller, The Viper, and the real-world research behind it—from America’s most secretive funeral home to the hidden realities of witness protection. They dive into the meaning of pentimento, why rough drafts shape masterpieces, and how grief, morality, and second chances influence Brad’s storytelling. The conversation spans conspiracies, character creation, reinvention, and the discipline required to write across genres. It’s a candid look at how one of today’s most versatile authors blends heart, history, and suspense.
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Guy Kawasaki is on a mission to make you remarkable. His Remarkable People podcast features interviews with remarkable people such as Jane Goodall, Marc Benioff, Woz, Kristi Yamaguchi, and Bob Cialdini. Every episode will make you more remarkable.
With his decades of experience in Silicon Valley as a Venture Capitalist and advisor to the top entrepreneurs in the world, Guy’s questions come from a place of curiosity and passion for technology, start-ups, entrepreneurship, and marketing. If you love society and culture, documentaries, and business podcasts, take a second to follow Remarkable People.
Listeners of the Remarkable People podcast will learn from some of the most successful people in the world with practical tips and inspiring stories that will help you be more remarkable.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an ad, but it is an ad to give you something. So not clear to me, that's a real ad. |
| 0:09.7 | Anyway, Madison and I have written a new book called Everybody Has Something to Hide, |
| 0:15.4 | and we want to make you a special offer as a listener to our podcast. So if you are in the United States, I'm sorry, |
| 0:23.4 | we can't offer this outside the United States. That's Amazon's rules, not ours. But if you're |
| 0:29.8 | in the United States and you want a copy of the Kindle version of this book, actually, there is only |
| 0:35.6 | a Kindle version, there is no paper version. If you send an email to |
| 0:40.2 | everybody has something to hide at gmail.com, we will send you a Kindle gift of the book. Yes, |
| 0:51.1 | everybody has something to hide at gmail.com, U.S. only. |
| 0:56.4 | And if for some reason you cannot use the link, just forward it to somebody else in the U.S. |
| 1:01.9 | who might want to use it. |
| 1:04.0 | And if all else fails, the book is only 99 cents. |
| 1:08.0 | And we guarantee you it is worth 99 cents. Thanks. |
| 1:14.1 | We've had three of them banned. In fact, they banned our, I am Rosa Parks, I am Martin |
| 1:19.3 | Lithu Khing Jr. And on the top 10 list of kids' books banned last year as I am Billy |
| 1:24.5 | Jean King, we have fought back successfully against every time they |
| 1:28.4 | banned us. We have fought back every single time. Pennsylvania banned I am Martin Luther King Jr. |
| 1:33.2 | and I am Rosa Parks. It had nothing to do with the content of the book. What happened was |
| 1:38.1 | is there was a list of books that were considered good for talking to kids about racism. The school |
| 1:42.1 | board said they wanted to read the books before they allowed the kids to happen, which to me, that's a fair thing. You should be checking |
| 1:47.7 | those books out before you give them to kids. But here was the fast one they were pulling. A year |
| 1:52.3 | went by and they hadn't read any of the books. |
| 1:59.0 | Hello everybody. It's Guy Kawasaki and this is the Remarkable People podcast. Today we have an author as our guest, and I have read his books before. As soon as we got the pitch for our guest, I sent an email to to Madison and I said, Madison, we must have |
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