Welcome to Econ Talk, Conversations for the Curious, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.

I'm your host, Russ Roberts, of Sholem College in Jerusalem and Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

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Today is April 16th, 2026.

And before introducing today's guest, I want to correct two errors from recent episodes.

The name of the founder of Invidia is pronounced Jensen Wong.

And I misquoted the line from the poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, and evidently I've done that before.

The poem's title is, as King Fischer's Catch Fire, the line, the correct line is, what I do is me for that I came.

Now on to today's guest, author David Epstein.

This is David's third appearance on eContalk.

He was last on the program in May of 2019, discussing his book, Range.

Our topic for today is his latest book, Inside the Box, How Constraints Make Us Better.

David, welcome back to Econ Talk.

It's wonderful to be back.

What's the idea of inside the box and the power of constraints?

I think the main idea is that it's never been easier to do too much in our work lives, in our personal lives, and that we often overvalue complete freedom, a problem that is a newer problem in human history,

and undervalue the ability of smart boundaries to make us more creative,

to make us more productive, and to make us more satisfied in our lives more meaningful.

And there's an extraordinary story that runs through the entire book.

There are a number of great stories in the book, which we'll get to some of them.

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