Jon Levy: "We Don't Really Want Authenticity"
The Gist
Mike Pesca
4.4 • 3.6K Ratings
🗓️ 11 November 2025
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Behavioral scientist Jon Levy, author of Team Intelligence: How Brilliant Leaders Unlock Collective Genius, joins to talk about why he collects astronauts, Olympians, and other outliers for secret salons—and what they've taught him about trust and connection. He explains why status isn't the same as popularity, how our networks quietly determine our habits and fortunes, and why so-called "authentic" leaders are really just people who match our prewritten narratives. Plus, a Spiel on a government shutdown that changed very little in the real world beyond making everyone mad at Washington and Democrats mad at each other. Also: the "Bono, Lead Singer of U2 Disorder," museum "wayfinding," and one New York Times rice recipe that produced enough leftovers to feed six FTEs.
Produced by Corey Wara
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's Tuesday, November 11th, 2025 from Peachfish Productions. |
| 0:07.7 | It's the gist. I'm Mike Peska. The government shutdown is over. The government will never |
| 0:14.2 | shut down again until it does very soon. The next time. It inconvenienced millions and got us, |
| 0:20.7 | I'm not going to say nothing but not much. |
| 0:23.0 | Morning Joe called it a big win for the Democrats. Here's some of that argument. |
| 0:27.1 | Massive, historic in some ways, whereas Steve Bannon said, Democrats erased 10 years of |
| 0:34.7 | Republican gains in one night. And why did that happen? Donald Trump said it happened |
| 0:40.7 | because of the government shut down. So all this fear and loathing and all this whining, I wish |
| 0:46.2 | Democrats for once, just once could take a win and then understand the Republicans, |
| 0:53.1 | they were never going to help working Americans. They learned |
| 0:56.7 | that through this process. So you know who else learned that through this process? The American voter. |
| 1:04.3 | The great thing about our media ecosystem is you could choose whichever reality you want. |
| 1:08.0 | If you want great win for the Democrats, there is a very well-watch |
| 1:11.5 | cable network to tell you that. Other outlets are going with the fact that almost every Democrat, |
| 1:17.3 | besides the eight who defected, strongly disagree with the defectors. I'm talking everyone from |
| 1:23.6 | AOC to Rocahanna to Amy Klobuchar and John Hickenlooper. |
| 1:28.4 | Here is the ABC podcast start here where they express incredulity over Democrats. |
| 1:34.5 | I don't want to say caving, but doing a toe touch of a spilank in agreeing to settle at this juncture. |
| 1:40.2 | One of the biggest reasons Senate Democrats were not funding the government is because they were like, |
| 1:45.1 | we cannot let people lose their health care or pay way, way more for their health care. |
| 1:49.5 | We're going to shut down the government to make sure this happens. |
| 1:52.3 | And now, a month later, 40 days later, they're caving on that effectively for what, a pinky |
... |
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