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Steve (“Woz”) Wozniak, Co-Founder of Apple

Author, Entrepreneur, Special Guest, TED Speaker

Today, my guest is Steve (“Woz”) Wozniak, who co-founded Apple Computer with the late Steve Jobs in 1976. A Silicon Valley icon and philanthropist for the past three decades, Woz has been involved in various business and philanthropic ventures, including providing students and teachers with hands-on teaching and donations of state-of-the-art technology and being the founding sponsor of the Tech Museum, Silicon Valley Ballet and Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose. Woz also served as Chief Scientist for Fusion-io and is […]

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Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch (Caroll Spinney)

Author, Special Guest, TV Celebrity / Movies

Today, my guest is Caroll Spinney, who has performed Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street since the show’s inception in 1969, after meeting Jim Henson, the creator of The Muppets. Spinney has been honored with 4 Daytime Emmy Awards and 2 Grammy Awards and has received both a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the Library of Congress’ Living Legend award. Caroll Spinney is the author of The Wisdom of Big Bird and was the subject of the critically acclaimed […]

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Scott Adams, Creator of Dilbert

Author, Special Guest

Today, my guest is Scott Adams, the creator of the world famous Dilbert cartoon strip. After working at Crocker National Bank and Pacific Bell, Adams entertained himself during boring meetings by drawing cartoons of his coworkers and bosses and a bespectacled character named Dilbert emerged from the doodles. Today, Adams devotes his time to Dilbert, including speaking, writing, doing interviews, designing licensed products and answering hundreds of e-mail messages per day. Dilbert is published in over 2,000 newspapers across 65 countries.

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Jeffrey Toobin, CNN Legal Analyst and Author

Author, Lawyer, Special Guest, TV Celebrity / Movies

Today, my guest is Jeffrey Toobin, Senior Legal Analyst at CNN, staff writer at the New Yorker and best selling author of The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson; A Vast Conspiracy: the Real Story of the Sex Scandal that Nearly Brought Down a President; Too Close to Call: the Thirty-Six Day Battle to Decide the 2000 Election; The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court; The Oath: The Obama White House and the Supreme Court; and most recently, American Heiress: […]

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Laura Hillenbrand, Author of “Unbroken” and “Seabiscuit”

Author, Special Guest

Today, my guest is Laura Hillenbrand, author of the best selling books, Unbroken and Seabiscuit. Unbroken is the absolutely amazing story of Louie Zamperini, an Olympic class runner who was shot down from an airplane in World War II over the Pacific Ocean and somehow managed to survive on a life raft for 47 days — only to be captured by the Japanese and tortured as a POW for 2 years before being released. His story — and survival — […]

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Adam Grant, Organizational Psychologist and TED Speaker

Academic, Author, TED Speaker

Today, my guest is Adam Grant, one of Wharton’s top-rated professors, 2 time TED Speaker and best selling New York Times author on work and psychology. He has been recognized as one of the world’s 25 most influential management thinkers, the 100 most creative people in business, the 40 best business professors under 40, and one of Malcolm Gladwell’s favorite thinkers. Adam is the author of two New York Times bestselling books: Originals which explores how individuals champion new ideas and leaders fight […]

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Leigh Steinberg, Professional Sports Agent

Author, Lawyer, Special Guest, TED Speaker

Today, my guest is Leigh Steinberg, a legendary sports agent and lawyer, who has represented many of the most successful athletes in professional sports, including the #1 overall pick in the NFL draft 8 times as well as over 60 first round picks. During his career, Leigh has secured over $3 billion for his 300+ pro athlete clients and directed more than $750 million to various charities, receiving commendations from Congress, cities, states and Presidents Reagan, Bush and Clinton. Leigh’s historic career was portrayed […]

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Ben Stein, Economist, TV Show Host, Comedian, Writer

Author, Lawyer, Special Guest, TV Celebrity / Movies

Today, my guest is Ben Stein, economist, movie actor, author, novelist, screenwriter, law school professor, television show host and comedian. A graduate of Columbia University and Yale Law School, Ben never had any aspirations to be a lawyer; but instead stumbled into a series of jobs that ultimately led to him to serving in the Nixon and Ford administrations and achieving overnight fame in the iconic movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Ben was kind enough to take time from his busy speaking […]

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Daniel James Brown, Author of “The Boys in the Boat”

Author

Today, my guest is Daniel James Brown, author of the New York Times best selling book The Boys in the Boat, a story about 9 working class boys who became the 1936 U.S. Men’s Olympic gold medal winning rowing team. With a team composed of the sons of blue collar workers and led by Joe Rantz, a teenager without family or prospects, the University of Washington’s eight-oar crew team was never expected to defeat the elite teams of the East Coast […]

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Dan Ariely, Behavioral Economist and TED Speaker

Academic, Author, Special Guest, TED Speaker

Today, my guest is Dan Ariely, Ph.D., who is a Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University, founder of The Center for Advanced Hindsight and co-founder of BEworks. Ariely’s research and writing lies between psychology and economics, focusing on how people behave and make decisions. Ariely’s TED talks have been watched nearly 10 million times and he is the author of several best selling books including Payoff: The Hidden Logic That Shapes our Motivations; Irrationally Yours: On Missing Socks, […]

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Will Shortz, NY Times Crossword Puzzle Editor

Author, Lawyer, Special Guest

Today, my guest is Will Shortz (aka the “Puzzle Master“), Editor of the New York Times Crossword Puzzles, and star of WordPlay (see trailer below), one of my favorite movies. Some may know that he graduated from the University of Virginia Law School but probably not many know that he almost dropped out after his first semester and that his favorite class was intellectual property! Listed as one of the 30 most famous people with law degrees, Will was gracious enough to join […]

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Jerry Kaplan, Founder of GO and Author of “Startup”

Author, Entrepreneur

Today, my guest is Jerry Kaplan, a renowned Silicon Valley veteran who has founded several storied technology companies over his 35-year career, two of which became public companies. Jerry is probably best known for his key role in defining the tablet computer industry as the Founder and CEO of GO Corporation in 1987 and as author of the best selling book Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure (1994). After GO, Jerry co-founded Onsale, Inc., the world’s first Internet auction website, which was ultimately acquired by Egghead […]

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Scott Turow, Author of “One L” and NYTimes Best Seller

Author, Lawyer

Today, my guest is Scott Turow, a lawyer and author of the best selling book One L about his experience as a first year student at Harvard Law School; as well as the author of ten best-selling works of fiction, including his first novel Presumed Innocent, which was made into a movie with Academy Award Nominee Harrison Ford. Originally from Chicago, Scott has a degree from Amherst College and taught creative writing at Stanford as the E. H. Jones Lecturer before entering Harvard Law […]

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Lawrence Levy, on Steve Jobs, Pixar and Meditation

Author, Lawyer

Today, my guest is Lawrence Levy, a Harvard Law School graduate and former partner at Wilson Sonsini, who is the author of To Pixar and Beyond: My Unlikely Journey with Steve Jobs to Make Entertainment History. In 1994, Lawrence received a personal call out of the blue from Steve Jobs to see if he had any interest in joining Pixar, which led to a 12 year working relationship with Steve Jobs, first serving as Pixar’s Chief Financial Officer, a member of […]

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Guy Kawasaki, former Apple Evangelist

Author, Special Guest, TED Speaker, Venture Capitalist

Today, my guest is Guy Kawasaki, the Chief Evangelist of Canva, an online, graphics-design service, Trustee of the Wikimedia Foundation, former Chief Evangelist of Apple, and the author of several best selling books on startups including The Art of the Start 2.0. Although my guests are normally lawyers, most people do not realize that Guy actually did attend law school for about 10 days. I first met Guy when he started Garage with the late founder of Venture Law Group, Craig […]

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James B. Stewart, Author of “Den of Thieves”

Author, Lawyer

Today, my guest is James Stewart, a Pulitzer Prize winning author, who wrote many best selling books, including Den of Thieves and Disney War. A graduate of Harvard Law School and former Associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, he began his writing career at the American Lawyer in 1979. He wrote a well known book on the nation’s elite law firms called The Partners before writing his New York Times best-seller Den of Thieves on Wall Street arbitrager Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken. His 2005 book Disney War on Michael […]

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Simon Sinek, Author of “Start With Why” and TED Speaker

Author, Special Guest, TED Speaker

Today, my guest is Simon Sinek, an author, speaker, and consultant who writes on leadership and management. He is best known for his brilliant and ground breaking TED Talk entitled “How Great Leaders Inspire Action,” which explains why we are inspired by some people, leaders, messages and organizations over others and is the 3rd most viewed video on TED. Since then, he has written 3 books: Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action (2009), Leaders Eat Last: Why Some […]

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Cass Sunstein, Harvard Law School Professor and Author

Academic, Author, Lawyer

Today my guest is Professor Cass Sunstein, the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard Law School. Prof. Sunstein graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School, after which he clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall on the US Supreme Court. From 2009 to 2012, he was Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. He is also the founder and director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy at Harvard Law School. Professor Sunstein has written numerous […]

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Geoffrey Moore, Author of “Crossing the Chasm”

Author, Special Guest, Venture Capitalist

Today, my guest is Geoffrey Moore, an author, speaker, and advisor who wrote the groundbreaking book Crossing the Chasm in 1991. Since then, Geoff’s other best selling business books include Zone to Win, Escape Velocity, Inside the Tornado, The Gorilla Game, Living on the Faultline and Dealing with Darwin. Geoff began his management consulting career at Regis McKenna Inc, and then started 3 firms: The Chasm Group, Chasm Institute and TCG Advisors. Today, he splits his time as a Venture Partner with Mohr Davidow Ventures and […]

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Robert Cialdini, Author of “Influence” and “Pre-Suasion”

Academic, Author, Special Guest

Today, my guest is Dr. Robert Cialdini*, a renowned speaker and author of the iconic book “Influence: the Psychology of Persuasion” and President & CEO of Influence at Work, which focuses on ethical influence training. His book Influence has sold over 3 million copies, is a New York Times Bestseller and has been published in over 30 languages. Charlie Munger has said “Robert Cialdini has had a greater impact on my thinking on this topic [Influence] than any other scientist…” His latest book, Pre-Suasion: A […]

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Daniel Pink, NYTimes Best Selling Author and TV Show Host

Author, Lawyer, Special Guest, TED Speaker

Today, my guest is Daniel Pink. Most people know Daniel Pink as one of the most popular TED speakers of all time (see video below), New York Times best selling author of A Whole New Mind, Drive and To Sell is Human, and host of the National Geographic TV show Crowd Control. But what is less known is that Dan actually went to law school (attended Columbia and graduated from Yale) and he discusses how law school shaped his career, but not in […]

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Mike Dillon (Adobe) and Cross-Country Cycling

Author, Inhouse Counsel, Lawyer

Today, my guest is Mike Dillon, General Counsel of Adobe Systems, who bicycled across the country from Florida to California. When he started the trip, he was nothing more than a weekend cyclist and honestly didn’t even know if he would even complete the ride. He eventually not only finished it, but he blogged about it every day and was inspired to write a book about it called Changing Cadence, the proceeds of which go to support the Aldar Academy. […]

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Gillian Zoe Segal, Author of “Getting There”

Author, Lawyer

Today, my guest is Gilian Zoe Segal*, author of the terrific book Getting There, a compilation of 30 incredible interviews. Gillian originally started this project because she wanted to interview people at the top of their fields who struggled to achieve their success but what she discovered was that every success story has its challenges — there is no easy path. An incredibly skilled interviewer and accomplished photographer in her own right, Gillian traveled across the country to interview all 30 people […]

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Chris Yeh, Co-Author with Reid Hoffman of “The Alliance”

Author, Entrepreneur, Venture Capitalist

Today, my guest is Chris Yeh, Co-Author (along with Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha) The Alliance, a New York Times best selling book on managing talent in the networked age from the employer’s perspective. Chris is an entrepreneur, investor, advisor, mentor and one of the most prolific writers I know — he once wrote a white paper in 17 minutes! During my candid discussion with him, he talked about the creative, the collaborative — and occasionally arduous — process of […]

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Jason Zweig, Columnist at The Wall Street Journal

Author, Special Guest

Today, my guest is Jason Zweig*, a personal finance columnist for The Wall Street Journal and author of several books, including The Devil’s Financial Dictionary. He is also the editor of the revised edition of Benjamin Graham’s The Intelligent Investor, the classic text that Warren Buffett has described as “by far the best book about investing ever written.” Inspired by Ambrose Bierce’s satirical masterpiece, The Devil’s Dictionary, Jason Zweig’s The Devil’s Financial Dictionary is a glossary of the essential financial and investor terms […]

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Brad Meltzer, NYTimes Best Selling Author and TV Show Host

Author, Lawyer, Special Guest, TV Celebrity / Movies

Today my guest is Brad Meltzer, a New York Times best-selling author, host of the TV show Decoded and fellow Columbia Law School Alumni. Brad’s first novel received 24 rejection letters before getting his next book, The Tenth Justice, published while he was still in law school. But even with all his accomplishments, Brad never takes his success for granted and reminds himself every day what it was like getting those rejection letters. His latest book is The President’s Shadow.

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Joseph A. Grundfest, Stanford Law School Professor

Academic, Author, Lawyer

Today, my guest is Professor Joseph A. Grundfest, the W. A. Franke Professor of Law and Business at Stanford Law School and Senior Faculty, Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford University. Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 1990, Professor Grundfest was a commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and served on the staff of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors as counsel and senior economist for legal and regulatory matters. Professor Grundfest is also a co-founder and director […]

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Guy Spier, Hedge Fund Manager and Value Investor

Author, Special Guest

Today, my guest is Guy Spier, a Zurich-based investor and author of a book entitled The Education of a Value Investor. Guy manages the Aquamarine Fund, an investment partnership inspired by, and styled after Warren Buffett’s 1950s investment partnerships. In June 2007, Guy paid US$650,100 with Mohnish Pabrai for a charity lunch with Warren Buffett. He recently sat down and talked with me about what it was like to write his first book.

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Stephen L. Carter, Yale Law School Professor and Author

Academic, Author, Lawyer

Today, my guest is Professor Stephen L. Carter, the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Yale, where he has taught for almost thirty years. A graduate of Stanford University and Yale Law School, where he was a Notes Editor of the Yale Law Journal, he then served as a law clerk for Judge Spottswood W. Robinson III on the DC Circuit, and then to Justice Thurgood Marshall of the US Supreme Court. Professor Carter was one of my favorite authors even […]

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Bryan Garner on interviewing Supreme Court Justices

Academic, Author, Lawyer

Today, my guest is Bryan Garner, Founder & President of LawProse, Inc. and Professor of Law at Southern Methodist University School of Law, who has personally interviewed 9 Supreme Court Justices on writing and oral advocacy: Justices Elena Kagan, John Roberts, John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Samuel Alito. In addition, Professor Garner is the co-author of 2 books with the late Justice Scalia: Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges and Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal […]

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Richard Susskind (II), Author of “Tomorrow’s Lawyers”

Academic, Author, Lawyer

Today, my guest is Professor Richard Susskind OBE, an author, speaker, and independent adviser to major professional firms and to national governments. He has written and edited numerous books, including Expert Systems in Law (OUP, 1987), The Future of Law (OUP, 1996), Transforming the Law (OUP, 2000), The Susskind Interviews: Legal Experts in Changing Times (Sweet & Maxwell, 2005), The End of Lawyers? Rethinking the Nature of Legal Services (OUP, 2008), Tomorrow’s Lawyers (2013), and has written around 150 columns for The […]

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Nathan Sawaya and Lego Brick Artist

Author, Lawyer

Today, my guest is Nathan Sawaya who is a Lego Brick Artist. What started as a side hobby after working as a lawyer has now blossomed into a full time profession with millions of bricks. Even though Nathan has played with lego bricks as a child – like many of us – what he finds most fascinating is to transform simple plain square lego pieces into curved life size humans and other objects. Nathan’s most recent book is entitled The Art of the […]

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Lucy Kalanithi on “When Breath Becomes Air”

Author

Today, my guest is Dr. Lucy Kalanithi, the widow of the late Dr. Paul Kalanithi, author of the #1 New York Times bestselling memoir, When Breath Becomes Air, for which she wrote the epilogue. At the age of thirty-six, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer and he wrote a deeply profound book on death and his illness as he went from doctor to patient and a new father to a baby girl, all the while confronting his own mortality. I sat […]

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William Green, Author of “The Great Minds of Investing”

Author

Today, my guest is William Green*, author of The Great Minds of Investing where he interviews 33 of the greatest investors, including Irving Kahn, Marty Whitman, Charles Brandes, Thomas Gayner, Bruce Greenwald, Paul Tudor Jones, Bill Miller, Arnold Van Den Berg, Thomas Russo, Francisco García Paramés, Pat Dorsey, Wallace Weitz, Isabel Levy, Warren Buffett, Mohnish Pabrai, John Spears, David Winters, Howard Marks, Donald Yacktman, Georg von Wyss, François-Marie Wojcik, Vincent Strauss, Bill Nygren, Mario Gabelli, Klaus Kaldemorgen, Thomas Braun, Jean-Marie Eveillard, Joel Greenblatt, Bill Ackman, Mason Hawkins, Frank Lingohr, Francis Chou and Charlie Munger. William Green wrote 22 of the profiles and edited 11 of them. After interviewing many of these extraordinary investors in […]

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Anja Manuel, co-Founder of Rice Hadley Gates LLC

Author, Lawyer

Today, my guest is Anja Manuel*, author of “This Brave New World” and Co-Founder and Partner along with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, of Rice Hadley Gates LLC, which assists companies to expand their businesses and meet regulatory challenges in international markets. A graduate of Harvard Law School and Stanford University, she also served as Special Assistant to Under-Secretary for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns at the U.S. Dept. of […]

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Sandy Kurtzig, Entrepreneur, CEO, ASK Group and Kenandy

Author, Entrepreneur

Today, my guest is Sandy Kurtzig, who has been the founder, co-founder and investor in many successful software companies. She founded her first company, the ASK Group and grew the company into one of the ten largest software companies in the world and was the first woman CEO to take a technology company public. She is the author of the best-selling autobiography, CEO: Building a $400 Million Company from the Ground Up and her latest company, Kenandy, is transforming the world of enterprise software […]

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Henry Bushkin, Author of “Johnny Carson”

Author, Lawyer

Today, my guest is Henry Bushkin, who was Johnny Carson’s lawyer, business manager, advisor, confidante and author of the book Johnny Carson. I sat down with Henry in his apartment on the Upper East Side to talk about what it was like to work for the “King of Late Night” for 18 years and to write a book about it 25 years later. It took him over 3 years just to “get the voice right” in the book but despite having […]

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Kelly Perdew and Apprentice 2 Winner

Author, Entrepreneur, Lawyer, TV Celebrity / Movies, Venture Capitalist

Today, my guest is Kelly Perdew, entrepreneur, investor, advisor, author and winner of The Apprentice 2. A graduate of West Point and former Army Ranger, Kelly decided to start a company after law school and eventually won Season 2 of the television reality show “The Apprentice.” Even though he now works almost exclusively with startups as an investor and entrepreneur, he says not a day goes by where he doesn’t get a chance to use his law degree. Kelly Perdew and […]

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Dr. Pippa Malmgren, Economist, Politics and Policy Advisor

Author

Today, my guest is Dr. Philippa “Pippa” Malmgren, a politics and policy advisor, who is the author of Signals: the breakdown of the social contract and the rise of geopolitics. Raised by a father who served in four presidential administrations (Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford), Pippa learned early in her career that the only way to influence public policy is to be able to explain things in plain, everyday language. Partially inspired by Peter Lynch‘s famous book on choosing stocks One up […]

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Richard Susskind (I), Author and Speaker

Academic, Author, Lawyer

Today, my guest is Dr. Richard Susskind, an author, speaker and thought leader in the legal profession. He has written 4 books about the practice of law, including The Future of Law, Transforming the Law, The End of Lawyers? and most recently Tomorrow’s Lawyers. He is as good a speaker as he is a profound thinker and it was a privilege to have him join me for this interview from his home in Radlett, England. Here is a recorded interview about […]

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David Lat, Founder of “Above the Law”

Author, Lawyer

Today, my guest is David Lat, a Yale Law School alum, former Ninth Circuit clerk, Wachtell Associate and Founder and Managing Editor of “Above the Law,” a widely read and award-winning website covering the legal profession. When I spoke with David late last year, he had just published his first novel, Supreme Ambitions, which allowed him to combine his creative writing skills with his circuit court clerking experience. Although he hasn’t committed to writing a second book, the first one […]

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Robert J. Lang, Origami Master

Author, TED Speaker

Today, my guest is Roberg J. Lang, an origami master who is widely recognized as one of the world’s leading masters of the art, with over 500 designs catalogued and diagrammed. A distinguished Caltech alumi, he started his career as a laser physicist before pursuing a lifelong hobby of origami as a full time profession. A TED speaker, he is noted for designs of great detail and realism, and has folded some of the most complex origami designs ever created. The barrel cactus pictured here […]

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Harold J. McGee, Food Scientist

Author

Today, my guest is Harold McGee, a food scientist who writes about the chemistry and history of food, science and cooking. A distinguished Caltech alum, he earned his Ph.D. from Yale University before becoming a food science writer. After writing his first book On Food and Cooking in 1984, it was extensively revised in 2004. Today, he writes a regular column for the New York Times which examines, and often debunks, conventional kitchen wisdom; and also teaches at The French Culinary Institute in New York […]

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Ro Khanna, Congressional Candidate

Author, Lawyer

Today, my guest is Ro Khanna*, Congressional Candidate for the US House of Representatives in Silicon Valley. With a law degree from Yale, Ro began his career as a successful Silicon Valley technology attorney but has found his passion in politics and policy, having written Entrepreneurial Nation and served in the Obama Administration. Ro took time from his very busy campaign schedule to talk candidly about his career and his current run for Congress. *with special thanks to Chad Walsh I had […]

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Helen Wan, Author and Speaker

Author, Lawyer

Today, my guest is Helen Wan*, former Associate General Counsel at Time Inc, now speaker, writer and author of “The Partner Track.” Helen worked on the manuscript for her novel for over 12 years and when it was finally published, she — along with her publisher — were amazed at the overwhelming response from the legal and business community to her message about diversity and inclusion. So despite having a successful career as a lawyer, she couldn’t resist the opportunity […]

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