The Next Big Idea

What if, thanks to AI, you can now research and write a book two, three, or even four times faster? For authors and AI pioneers Steven Johnson (Editorial Director, NotebookLM and Google Labs) and Ethan Mollick (Wharton professor and creator of One Useful Thing), that's the new reality. In this episode, they crack open their personal toolkits to reveal the prompts and workflows they use to supercharge their creativity. What you’ll learn: How Steven used AI to write 40,000 words in 72 hours. The specific AI tools Steven and Ethan rely on for researching and writing. Whether AI will ever write better than humans. How the very concept of a "book" may morph into an interactive, personalized experience that readers can query, customize, and even turn into a game. Further listening: BILL GATES: Superhuman AI May Be Closer Than You Think SAL KHAN: How AI Will Revolutionize the Way We Learn MARYANNE WOLF: Are We Forgetting How To Read? STEVEN JOHNSON & DAVID CHALMERS: Artificial Intelligence Meets Virtual Worlds ADAM BROTMAN & ANDY SACK: The AI Tsunami Is Already Here ——— This episode is brought to you by AUTHOR INSIDER, our exclusive community and learning platform for ambitious creators. What's Inside: ✅ Innovative strategies from bestselling authors and industry experts ✅ Audience growth tactics to expand your readership and revenue ✅ Vibrant creator community for networking and collaboration ✅ Exclusive content not available anywhere else 🎯 Exclusive 25% discount for podcast listeners — join AUTHOR INSIDER today ——— Ready to reach 300,000 curious listeners and readers? Promote your brand, book, or product to an audience passionate about big ideas. Request our sponsor kit: https://tally.so/r/wLgkN1

Transcribed - Published: 28 August 2025

Most of us like to think we could spot a con artist. But according to Emmy-winning television producer and investigative podcaster Johnathan Walton, the truth is much scarier: Scammers don’t look like strangers. They look like friends, neighbors, even soulmates. In his new book Anatomy of a Con Artist: The 14 Red Flags to Spot Scammers, Grifters, and Thieves, Walton draws from his own jaw-dropping experience of being conned out of nearly $100,000 by someone he considered family. The good news? He turned that pain into purpose, and he’s here to help the rest of us avoid the same fate. 📱 Follow The Next Big Idea Daily on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen 📩 Want more bite-sized insights from the best new nonfiction delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for our Book of the Day newsletter

Transcribed - Published: 25 August 2025

On a June night several years ago, Sebastian Junger, bestselling author of The Perfect Storm and co-director of the Oscar-nominated documentary Restrepo, lay on an operating table, dying. An undiagnosed aneurysm in his pancreatic artery had ruptured, flooding his abdominal cavity with blood. His odds of survival were between 10 and 20 percent. "I said, 'Doc, you've got to hurry. You're losing me right now. I'm going.'" This near-death experience inspired him to embark on a scientific, philosophical, and profoundly personal exploration of what happens after we die. Host: Caleb Bissinger Guest: Sebastian Junger, author of In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face to Face with the Idea of an Afterlife. 🎁 We all know that reading is the best investment we can make in ourselves. But figuring out what to read — well, that's another matter. Which is why we started the Next Big Idea Club. We get the best new books (as chosen by our friends Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, Susan Cain, and Daniel Pink) into the hands of curious people. Like you! Join us today at nextbigideaclub.com and use code PODCAST to take 20% off your order.

Transcribed - Published: 21 August 2025

Happiness might not sound like a business strategy, but Arthur C. Brooks—Harvard professor, Atlantic columnist, and all-around happiness guru—says it’s the most important metric of all. In his new book ⁠The Happiness Files: Insights on Work and Life⁠, Arthur argues that your life is a startup, and you’re the founder, CEO, and maybe even the unpaid intern. Which means you’ve got to manage your most important asset: yourself. 📱 Follow The Next Big Idea Daily on ⁠Apple Podcasts⁠, ⁠Spotify⁠, or ⁠wherever you listen⁠ 📩 Want more bite-sized insights from the best new nonfiction delivered straight to your inbox? ⁠Sign up for our Book of the Day newsletter⁠

Transcribed - Published: 18 August 2025

We all have eureka moments, sudden bursts of certainty that seem to come out of nowhere. What if you could summon that feeling on command? Laura Huang, a business school professor, has been studying that question. She’s found that for the world's most successful people, intuition isn't an accident. It's a skill. A tool they’ve sharpened. Today on the show: the practical steps you can take to turn a random hunch into your most reliable guide. 📕 Grab a copy of You Already Know 📱Sign up for The Next Big Idea Club+ in Apple Podcasts, and you’ll get ad-free listening, bonus episodes, subscriber-only shows, and more. 📩 Want to transform your day in just 10 minutes? Sign up for our Book of the Day newsletter, and you’ll get daily, bite‑sized insights from the best new nonfiction books — in audio or text — straight from the authors. Join us today!

Transcribed - Published: 14 August 2025

In Robin Hood Math, mathematics professor Noah Giansiracusa shows how understanding a little math can help you push back against a world that keeps reducing you to a number. 📱 Follow The Next Big Idea Daily on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen 📩 Want more bite-sized insights from the best new nonfiction delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for our Book of the Day newsletter

Transcribed - Published: 11 August 2025

We have a pretty good idea what ancient civilizations looked like. But what did they taste, smell, and feel like? 📕 Dinner with King Tut by Sam Kean 📱 Sign up for Next Big Idea Club+ on Apple Podcasts, and you’ll get ad-free listening, bonus episodes, subscriber-only shows, and more. 📩 Want to transform your day in just 10 minutes? Sign up for our Book of the Day newsletter, and you’ll get daily, bite‑sized insights from the best new nonfiction books — in audio or text — straight from the authors. Sign up today!

Transcribed - Published: 7 August 2025

If you’ve raised an adolescent (or been one), you already know it’s a life stage that can feel like an emotional rollercoaster—full of drama, defiance, and slammed doors. But what if all that chaos wasn’t a bug but a feature? Today we’re hearing from Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times journalist Matt Richtel, who says adolescence is a brilliant, necessary phase of human development. In his new book ⁠How We Grow Up⁠, Matt explains how teenage brains are wired to question, rebel, and innovate—and how that friction might just be the thing that helps our species survive. 📱 Follow The Next Big Idea Daily on ⁠Apple Podcasts⁠, ⁠Spotify⁠, or ⁠wherever you listen⁠ 📩 Want more bite-sized insights from the best new nonfiction delivered straight to your inbox? ⁠Sign up for our Book of the Day newsletter⁠

Transcribed - Published: 4 August 2025

All day long, your brain makes subconscious value calculations. It looks at every decision and asks, "What is going to be most rewarding for me right this very minute?" That creates a gap, doesn't it? A gap between the person you want to be and the choices you actually make. Today on the show, neuroscientist Emily Falk explains the science behind that gap. She shows us how understanding our brain's hidden valuation system can give us more compassion for ourselves, and help us gently nudge our daily actions to align with our deepest values. Her new book is What We Value. 🎧 Sign up for Next Big Idea Club+ 📩  Want insights from the best new nonfiction delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for our Book of the Day newsletter

Transcribed - Published: 31 July 2025

Neuroscientist Joseph Jebelli explains how doing nothing might be the best thing you do all day. His new book is The Brain at Rest: How the Art and Science of Doing Nothing Can Improve Your Life. 📱 Follow The Next Big Idea Daily on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen 📩 Want more bite-sized insights from the best new nonfiction delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for our Book of the Day newsletter

Transcribed - Published: 28 July 2025

In part two of our interview with Eric Topol, author of the New York Times bestseller Super Agers, we cover how to get a good night's sleep, why one day everyone may take GLP-1s, and how AI is poised to transform medicine. 1️⃣ Missed Part 1? Listen now on Apple Podcasts or Spotify 📚 Become an executive member of the Next Big Idea Club, and we'll send you a copy of Super Agers, along with the seven other best books of the year as chosen by our curators: Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, Susan Cain, and Daniel Pink. Use code PODCAST to take 20% off your subscription ✉️ Sign up for our Book of the Day newsletter

Transcribed - Published: 24 July 2025

According to Wendy Johnson, real wellness starts with community, nature, and rethinking everything we’ve been told. 📱 Follow The Next Big Idea Daily on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen 📩 Want more bite-sized insights from the best new nonfiction delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for our Book of the Day newsletter

Transcribed - Published: 21 July 2025

For years, cardiologist Eric Topol hunted for the rarest people in America: those over 80 who had never been sick. When he finally found 1,400 of them, he made a shocking discovery. It wasn't their genes. These "super agers" were often the last ones standing in families where everyone else died decades earlier. So what separates people who live into their 80s or 90s feeling great from those who battle chronic disease? In his new book, Super Agers, Eric reveals what the science actually shows, shares practical advice you can use at any age, and takes on the bro scientists selling false promises along the way. This is part one of our interview with Eric. Part two will be available right here next week. If you can't until then, you can listen now on the Next Big Idea app: https://nextbigideaclub.com/app/

Transcribed - Published: 17 July 2025

📱 Follow The Next Big Idea Daily on ⁠Apple Podcasts⁠, ⁠Spotify⁠, or ⁠wherever you listen⁠ When we talk about the forces that shape history, we usually hear about wars, revolutions, inventions, maybe the occasional love affair. But there’s one powerful force that’s rarely acknowledged because, well, it makes people uncomfortable. That force is drugs. In his new book Human History on Drugs, writer and historian Sam Kelly uncovers the surprising, often scandalous ways that everything from opium to cocaine has shaped leaders, inspired art, fueled some bad decisions — and some good ones. It’s a provocative and oddly humanizing look at the past, and it just might change the way you think about both history and substance use. 📩 Want more bite-sized insights from the best new nonfiction delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for our Book of the Day newsletter

Transcribed - Published: 14 July 2025

Sign up for our Substack! Arthur Schopenhauer said, “Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.” Thomas Edison famously claimed, “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” Helen Lewis has a different take entirely. To her, the term genius licenses noxious eccentricities, exasperating ego trips, and downright bad behavior. Sure, plenty of things qualify as acts of genius — Shakespeare’s sonnets, penicillin — but when we pin the genius badge on a person instead of an achievement, we grant them membership in a supposedly superior class. That, Helen says, is the genius myth. She wants to demolish it and, in its place, tell the real story of how breakthroughs happen and who deserves credit.

Transcribed - Published: 10 July 2025

Life changes can sneak up on all of us, and sometimes they hit pretty hard. Cassidy Krug spent 20 years training to be one of the best divers in the world. She made it to the Olympics. And then, in a single moment, her lifelong dream ended—with no medal, no encore, just the quiet shock of “What now?” Cassidy’s new book, ⁠Resurface⁠, is a guide for anyone navigating life’s big transitions—grief, identity shifts, career changes, reinventions. In the book, she gathers wisdom from Olympians, veterans, new parents, and more. Below, she shares what she’s learned about letting go, asking for help, and redefining success. 📱 Follow The Next Big Idea Daily on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen 📩 Want more bite-sized insights from the best new nonfiction delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for our Book of the Day newsletter

Transcribed - Published: 7 July 2025

Sign up for our daily Substack here! Kevin Kelly has made a career out of looking to the future. He helped pioneer online social networking all the way back in the 1980s, and he co-founded Wired, the magazine devoted to digital technology, when the internet was still an infant. But in his new book, Excellent Advice for Living, he looks backward. It’s a collection of 450 bits of wisdom he wishes he’d known when he was young. Things like “Being enthusiastic is worth 25 IQ points” and “That thing that made you weird as a kid could make you great as an adult—if you don’t lose it.” Today on the show he shares his best advice for building careers, nurturing relationships, solving problems, and finding satisfaction. He also explains why he’s more optimistic than ever about technology (yes, even AI).

Transcribed - Published: 3 July 2025

Let’s talk about revenge. Not the juicy, action-movie kind with flaming cars and dramatic showdowns, but the kind that quietly simmers in your brain long after someone cuts you off in traffic or sends a snarky email. According to Yale psychiatry lecturer and lawyer James Kimmel, revenge isn’t just an emotion. It’s an addiction. A hit of dopamine here, a rumination there, and suddenly we’re hooked on the fantasy of payback. But what if we could quit cold turkey? In his new book, ⁠The Science of Revenge⁠, James explains how to rewire our minds, embrace forgiveness, and break free from the cycles of grievance that keep us stuck. 📱 Follow The Next Big Idea Daily on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen 📩 Want more bite-sized insights from the best new nonfiction delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for our Book of the Day newsletter

Transcribed - Published: 30 June 2025

AI, according to Andy Sack and Adam Brotman, co-founders of Forum3 and co-authors of the new book AI First, isn't just a neat new tool. It's "a tsunami of technology and capabilities." And if you don't start learning how to use it properly, they say, "you are absolutely gonna be left behind." The problem? Most people are using AI wrong. They're treating it like Google search when it should be treated like "an alien synthetic intelligence that can really reason and think and help you." In this episode, Andy and Adam share the mindset shifts and practical techniques that can help you harness AI to supercharge your productivity, creativity, and capability.

Transcribed - Published: 26 June 2025

Science journalist Melinda Wenner Moyer, shares research-backed strategies for parenting with compassion, curiosity, and resilience from her new book, Hello, Cruel World!: Science-Based Strategies for Raising Terrific Kids in Terrifying Times. 📱 Follow The Next Big Idea Daily on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen 📩 Want more bite-sized insights from the best new nonfiction delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for our Book of the Day newsletter

Transcribed - Published: 23 June 2025

This is one of our favorite conversations from the last year. On the surface, it's an interview we did with Michael Lewis to coincide with the paperback release of Going Infinite, his book about Sam Bankman-Fried and the collapse of FTX. Michael, who spent months hovering over Sam's shoulder, believes he wasn't some malevolent grifter: he was an awkward kid undone by a “pathological ability to foist risk upon other people without asking their permission." But what we love about this episode is that it's not only about the rise and fall of Sam Bankman-Fried. It's also about Michael's approach to writing — and living. He opens up about losing his daughter, shares what draws him to a story, and explains how taking pleasure in the world produces his best work. 🏛️ Check out Michael's latest book, Who Is Government?: The Untold Story of Public Service 🎁 Get 25% off a Next Big Idea Club subscription when you use the code PODCAST at https://nextbigideaclub.com/

Transcribed - Published: 19 June 2025

Today, Travis Bradberry, author of ⁠The New Emotional Intelligence⁠, argues that understanding and managing your emotions — and the emotions of others — is even more important than IQ when it comes to success at work and in life. 📱 Follow The Next Big Idea Daily on ⁠Apple Podcasts⁠, ⁠Spotify⁠, or ⁠wherever you listen⁠ 📩 Want more bite-sized insights from the best new nonfiction delivered straight to your inbox? ⁠Sign up for our Book of the Day newsletter⁠

Transcribed - Published: 16 June 2025

Susan Cain always knew she wanted to be a writer. But her path to becoming one was anything but straightforward. She took a creative writing class in college and came away convinced she wasn’t very talented. So she pivoted: law school, white-shoe firm, eyes set on making partner. Seven years later, a senior partner walked into her office with life-changing news. It wasn’t going to happen. “I burst into tears,” Susan recalls. Three hours later, she quit. Within a week, she enrolled in a creative non-fiction class. A few years after that, despite never having published a word in her life, she sold her first book, Quiet, in a bidding war. Today, she ranks among the most successful non-fiction writers of her generation. In this episode, Susan takes us inside her journey from rejection to literary sensation, revealing the unexpected lessons she learned along the way. Today’s episode first appeared on Author Insider, our newsletter and community for anyone who wants to turn words and ideas into income. Learn more at authorinsider.nextbigideaclub.com. Subscribe to Susan’s Substack, The Quiet Life, at thequietlife.net

Transcribed - Published: 12 June 2025

If you want your organization to succeed in the future, you need to take advantage of AI now. Lucky for you, Adam Brotman and Andy Sack have written AI First, a playbook that can help you future-proof your business. 📱 To hear the rest of this week’s Next Big Idea Daily episodes, follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen 📩 Want to transform your day in just 10 minutes? Sign up for our Book of the Day newsletter, and you’ll get daily, bite‑sized insights from the best new nonfiction books — in audio or text — straight from the authors. Sign up today!

Transcribed - Published: 9 June 2025

We think that cynicism protects us from being disappointed by other people. But Stanford psychologist Jamil Zaki says the opposite is true. When we expect the worst in people, we create a self-fulfilling prophecy that brings out exactly what we feared. So in his new book, Hope for Cynics, Jamil sets out to prove that hope isn't naive: it's smart. 🎁 Looking for a gift for the graduates in your life? How about a subscription to The Next Big Idea Club? They’ll get the smartest new nonfiction as chosen by our curators Malcolm Gladwell, Susan Cain, Daniel Pink, and Adam Grant. Go to nextbigideaclub.com and use the code GRADUATION to get 20% off a new or gift membership

Transcribed - Published: 5 June 2025

Psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman broke free from resentment and rumination, shifting into what he calls an empowerment mindset. Are you ready to do the same? • Support our show by becoming a Next Big Idea Club member. Learn more here

Transcribed - Published: 29 May 2025

Acclaimed poet Maggie Smith says everyone is creative — yes, even you. 📖 Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life 📱 Today's episode comes from our sister show, The Next Big Idea Daily. For more mini masterclasses, follow it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen

Transcribed - Published: 26 May 2025

What if everything we've been told about having a successful career is wrong? Rutger Bregman thinks most of us are wasting our working lives and argues we should stop trying to get rich and start trying to solve the world's problems instead.

Transcribed - Published: 22 May 2025

In his new book, The Thinking Machine, Stephen Witt offers a riveting portrait of Jensen Huang, who went from immigrant dishwasher to CEO of the world’s most valuable company. • If you enjoyed this episode, check out our conversation with Walter Isaacson about his biography of Elon Musk

Transcribed - Published: 15 May 2025

Humans are wired to explore. So why are we less adventurous than ever — and what are we losing because of it? Guest: Alex Hutchinson, author of The Explorer’s Gene Further Listening: Looking for more episodes about adventure? Check out our conversations with Colin O’Brady and David Grann

Transcribed - Published: 8 May 2025

Could AI take over in the next few years? Daniel Kokotajlo thinks so. Here’s why. 💿 Check out this Spotify playlist of our other episodes about AI 📩 Want to transform your day in just 10 minutes? Sign up for our Book of the Day newsletter, and you’ll get daily, bite‑sized insights from the best new nonfiction books — in audio or text — straight from the authors. Sign up today!

Transcribed - Published: 1 May 2025

Adulting is hard. Lucky for us Raffi Grinberg, author of How to Be a Grown Up, is here to help. 📱 Follow The Next Big Idea Daily on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen 📩 Want more bite-sized insights from the best new nonfiction delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for our Book of the Day newsletter

Transcribed - Published: 28 April 2025

Remember magazines? Piled high on coffee tables or tucked into seatback pockets. Savored beneath beach umbrellas or skimmed anxiously in dental waiting rooms. Glorious, glossy magazines. Graydon Carter made some of the best. He started with Spy, a sly, sharp-edged monthly that managed to feel both smarter and more mischievous than anything else on the rack. But it was Vanity Fair that became his cathedral. Over his remarkable 25-year tenure as editor, he built the magazine into a financial juggernaut and a cultural touchstone renowned for its ambitious journalism and arresting photography. The hard-won wisdom he gathered along the way — about editing, storytelling, leadership, and how to leave before the music stops — is the subject of his new memoir, When the Going Was Good. (This conversation was recorded live at WBUR Cityspace.) 💿 Check out this playlist of our interviews featuring magazine greats like Michael Lewis, Sebastian Junger, Kara Swisher, and David Grann.

Transcribed - Published: 24 April 2025

Laura Delano spent fourteen years under psychiatric care, working with a variety of diagnosed mental illnesses and trying every drug and therapy that promised to “fix” her. But eventually she started wondering what if the problem wasn’t in her brain, but in the system itself? 📱 Follow The Next Big Idea Daily on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen 📩 Want to transform your day in just 10 minutes? Sign up for our Book of the Day newsletter, and you’ll get daily, bite‑sized insights from the best new nonfiction books — in audio or text — straight from the authors. Sign up today!

Transcribed - Published: 21 April 2025

You know those families where the kids all grow up to be remarkably successful? New York Times journalist Susan Dominus has spent the last few years getting to know some of them, looking for parenting techniques and life lessons. She's written a book about her findings called The Family Dynamic. "I thought I wrote a book about high-achieving families," she tells us, "but when I look back, it's really a book about families who did believe that the sky's the limit." 📕 Pre-order The Family Dynamic on Amazon, Bookshop, or from your local bookstore, send a copy of your receipt to [email protected], and we'll give you three months of free access to our paid Substack!

Transcribed - Published: 17 April 2025

How to start, build, buy, scale, and sell a business that expands your life. 📱 Follow The Next Big Idea Daily on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen 📩 Want to transform your day in just 10 minutes? Sign up for our Book of the Day newsletter, and you’ll get daily, bite‑sized insights from the best new nonfiction books — in audio or text — straight from the authors. Sign up today!

Transcribed - Published: 14 April 2025

Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson is probably the most talked-about book in the country right now. And the most hotly debated. It’s a book about how we got here — here being a country without enough housing, a country that has lost its ambitious optimism, a country that has forgotten how to build. The prescription Ezra and Derek offer to cure what ails us is conspicuously pro-growth: more housing, more clean energy, more scientific development and technological innovation. But to pull that off, they argue, will require Democrats to question their endemic zeal for regulation. This view has fired up some liberals while simultaneously drawing ire from others. Today, Rufus sits down with Derek Thompson to talk about the book, the reaction to it, and how to convince political leaders from both sides of the aisle to embrace a liberalism that builds.

Transcribed - Published: 10 April 2025

📱 Follow The Next Big Idea Daily on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen 📩 Want to transform your day in just 10 minutes? Sign up for our Book of the Day newsletter, and you’ll get daily, bite‑sized insights from the best new nonfiction books — in audio or text — straight from the authors. Sign up today!

Transcribed - Published: 7 April 2025

To thrive in this day and age, smaller cities must create innovation economies. But how can they do that when tech jobs, venture capital, and R&D are concentrated in a handful of big coastal cities, while the broad middle of the country is left out? That's a problem. Nicholas Lalla, founder of Tulsa Innovation Labs, has big ideas for how to change it. 📱 Follow The Next Big Idea Daily on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen 📩 Want to transform your day in just 10 minutes? Sign up for our Book of the Day newsletter, and you’ll get daily, bite‑sized insights from the best new nonfiction books — in audio or text — straight from the authors. Sign up today!

Transcribed - Published: 7 April 2025

We’re often told that success comes down to talent, hard work, and luck. But Adam Grant's research suggests that view is missing something crucial. In today’s installment of Next Big Idea Classics, Adam revisits his 2013 bestseller “Give and Take,” explaining how our interactions with others determine who thrives and who doesn’t. 💿 For Adam’s previous appearances on the show, click here 🎙️ And check out our classic interviews with Daniel Pink, Kim Scott, and James Clear

Transcribed - Published: 3 April 2025

Caroline Fleck shares five big ideas from her new book, "Validation: How the Skill Set That Revolutionized Psychology Will Transform Your Relationships, Increase Your Influence, and Change Your Life." 📩 Want to transform your day in just 10 minutes? Sign up for our Book of the Day newsletter, and you’ll get daily, bite‑sized insights from the best new nonfiction books — in audio or text — straight from the authors. Sign up today!

Transcribed - Published: 31 March 2025

In 2008, a mysterious figure created Bitcoin — a digital currency without banks or borders that sparked a global financial movement. And then he disappeared without a trace. Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? Why did he vanish? And why hasn’t he touched his $100 billion fortune? Today on the show, we talk to journalist Ben Wallace about his search for answers. 📕 The Mysterious Mr. Nakamoto 📩 Want to transform your day in just 10 minutes? Sign up for our Book of the Day newsletter, and you’ll get daily, bite‑sized insights from the best new nonfiction books — in audio or text — straight from the authors. Sign up today!

Transcribed - Published: 27 March 2025

Sleep researcher Olivia Walch on why your body’s clock is so messed up and what to do about it. 📱 To hear the rest of this week’s Next Big Idea Daily episodes, follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen 📩 Want to transform your day in just 10 minutes? Sign up for our Book of the Day newsletter, and you’ll get daily, bite‑sized insights from the best new nonfiction books — in audio or text — straight from the authors. Sign up today!

Transcribed - Published: 24 March 2025

Can you change who you are? When reporter Olga Khazan decided she was tired of being a “high-strung misanthrope” (her words), she turned to science for answers. What she discovered about personality — and how to change it — might surprise you. Host: Daniel Pink Guest: Olga Khazan Book: Me, But Better This episode was recorded live at Politics and Prose on March 12th.

Transcribed - Published: 20 March 2025

Two of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in AI share what you need to know about AI — and how to defend yourself against bogus AI claims and products. 📱 Follow The Next Big Idea Daily on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen 📕 AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference by Arvind Narayanan & Sayash Kapoor 📩 Want to transform your day in just 10 minutes? Sign up for our Book of the Day newsletter, and you’ll get daily, bite‑sized insights from the best new nonfiction books — in audio or text — straight from the authors. Sign up today!

Transcribed - Published: 17 March 2025

Every day you inhale 2,000 gallons of air. What’s in there? 📕 Air-Borne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe by Carl Zimmer 📩 Want to transform your day in just 10 minutes? Sign up for our Book of the Day newsletter, and you’ll get daily, bite‑sized insights from the best new nonfiction books — in audio or text — straight from the authors. Sign up today!

Transcribed - Published: 13 March 2025

Electric vehicles are here to stay. What does that mean for the automotive industry, the world, and you? 📕 Inevitable by Mike Colias 📱 Follow The Next Big Idea Daily on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen 📩 Want to transform your day in just 10 minutes? Sign up for our Book of the Day newsletter, and you’ll get daily, bite‑sized insights from the best new nonfiction books — in audio or text — straight from the authors. Sign up today!

Transcribed - Published: 10 March 2025

Turns out it’s not all about the Benjamins. Real success, according to Sahil Bloom, author of “The 5 Types of Wealth,” also requires the freedom to decide how you spend your time, meaningful relationships, a sense of purpose that pulls you forward, and the kind of health that lets you actually enjoy all of the above. 📩 Want to transform your day in just 10 minutes? Sign up for our Book of the Day newsletter, and you’ll get daily, bite‑sized insights from the best new nonfiction books — in audio or text — straight from the authors. Sign up today!

Transcribed - Published: 6 March 2025

Steve Magness shares five key insights from his new book "Win the Inside Game." 📱 Follow The Next Big Idea Daily on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen 📩 Want to transform your day in just 10 minutes? Sign up for our Book of the Day newsletter, and you’ll get daily, bite‑sized insights from the best new nonfiction books — in audio or text — straight from the authors. Sign up today!

Transcribed - Published: 3 March 2025

In part two of our conversation with Will Storr about his new book A Story Is a Deal, he reveals the five storytelling techniques you can use to captivate any audience. Plus, he helps us craft the story of the Next Big Idea Club. 1️⃣ Listen to Part 1 here 📩 Want to transform your day in just 10 minutes? Sign up for our Book of the Day newsletter, and you’ll get daily, bite‑sized insights from the best new nonfiction books — in audio or text — straight from the authors. Sign up today!

Transcribed - Published: 27 February 2025