Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper: The Greatest Threat Facing the World Right Now and Individual Rights to Privacy
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper discusses the greatest threats, cyber, surveillance, the information being collected on each one of us and individual rights to privacy. Learn how we can protect ourselves against future health or biological threats.
The Secret to Outstanding Achievement with Character Lab Founder and CEO Angela Duckworth
Angela Duckworth is the Character Lab Founder and CEO and a University of Pennsylvania Professor of Psychology. Angela studies the character traits and habits which predict success. She has studied West Point cadets National Spelling Bee finalists, teachers, sales people and students to determine who is successful and why. A few characteristics emerged as significant predictors of success. Angela shares what the character traits for success are and how we can nurture them.
General Catalyst Chairman and Former American Express Chairman & CEO Ken Chenault: Leadership, Race & Creating Diverse Workforces
Former American Express Chairman and CEO and current General Catalyst Chairman and Managing Director Ken Chenault, shares his thoughts on leadership, race, creating diverse workforces, responsible innovation, and his hope for the future. Ken covers his early life, growing up, his experience leading American Express for nearly two decades through crises and digital transformation, and the advice he gives founders and CEOs building innovative, enduring companies backed by General Catalyst.
Upon Ken’s retirement from American Express, Warren Buffett, the company’s largest shareholder stated, “Ken's been the gold standard for corporate leadership and the benchmark that I measure others against.” Ken is recognized as one of the business world’s experts on brands and brand management. He has been honored by multiple publications including Fortune Magazine, which named him as one of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders in its inaugural list in 2014 and, most recently, in 2021.
Ken serves on the boards of Airbnb, Berkshire Hathaway, Chief, Guild Education, and the Harvard Corporation. He is a co-founder of OneTen, a coalition of leading executives coming together to upskill, hire and advance one million Black Americans over the next 10 years into family-sustaining jobs with opportunities for advancement. He also serves on the boards of numerous nonprofit organizations, including the Smithsonian Institution’s Advisory Council for the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Unconscious Bias: What Works To De-Bias How We Live, Learn and Work with Harvard Kennedy School's Former Academic Dean Iris Bohnet
Iris Bohnet, the Academic Dean of the Kennedy School and co-Director of the Women and Public Policy Program, shares how simple, evidence-based changes can reduce and neutralize the biased behaviors in classrooms, police departments, and boardrooms; and in hiring and promotion. She is a behavioral economist, combining insights from economics and psychology to improve decision-making in organizations and society.
Designing the Future With Materials That Sense, Adapt, Heal & Grow: Founder of MIT's Self-Assembly Lab Skylar Tibbits
Imagine homes that can grow themselves whenever and wherever they’re needed or buildings that can adapt to their environment. We’re limited only by our creativity in designing materials that physically sense, adapt to their environment, heal themselves and grow. Skylar Tibbits shares how we can design simple and elegant materials that harness nature without electronics and batteries.
None Of Us Are Too Small To Make A Difference: Humanitarian & Author Of I Am A Girl From Africa Elizabeth Nyamayaro
Elizabeth Nyamayaro is the author of I Am A Girl From Africa, Special Advisor at the United Nations World Food Programme and founder of the HeForShe movement. She shares her near death experience and how she used adversity to create an opportunity to do greater things. “None of us are too small to make a difference.”
What Leaders and Corporate Boards Can Learn From Boeing’s Mistakes: Harvard Business School’s Sandra Sucher
Boeing’s fall from grace didn’t happen overnight. Sandra Sucher shares five key mistakes made by the CEO and the board of directors.
Her upcoming book is The Power of Trust.
How to Get People to Say Yes: The Godfather of Influence Dr. Robert Cialdini
Warren Buffett recommends Dr. Robert Cialdini’s book Influence, which has sold over 5 million copies, as one of the best business books of all time. Dr. Cialdini shares his latest findings on how we can all use the tactics of influence and persuasion to get people to say “yes” to us. He recently published a new version of Influence.
The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be: Katy Milkman
Wall Street Journal best-selling author Katy Milkman shares science-based ways to create change in our lives. She is a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and author of How to Change: The Science of Getting From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be.
How the World’s Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life: William Green
William Green shares investing and life lessons from the world’s legendary investors. Learn the surprisingly simple rules they follow to stack the odds in their favor in both investing and in life. Discover their common approaches to investing, such as sublime indifference to crowd sentiment. William Green is the author of Richer Wiser Happier.
The Empathy Diaries and How Tech Changes Us and Our Relationships: MIT’s Sherry Turkle
Founding director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self Sherry Turkle shares her personal discoveries with empathy and how tech changes our relationships. She also reveals the implications of constant connection and artificial intimacy.
Losing Trust & Faith in Institutions - Why It’s Happening and the Unexpected Consequences: Yuval Levin
Yuval Levin, Director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute and founding editor of National Affairs, talks about the collapse of trust in our institutions – public, private, civic and political – and its surprising consequences. He explains why it has happened and how we can rebuild lost trust.
Investing in Positive Social Outcomes with Social Impact Bonds: Tracy Palandjian
Learn from Tracy Palandjian, CEO and co-founder of Social Finance, about using impact investing and social impact bonds for a wide range of social purposes from improving high school graduation to reducing recidivism. Social Finance is an impact investing and advisory nonprofit that has mobilized over $150 million to transform the lives of more than 20,000 individuals across a wide range of issue areas including workforce development, education, and health. To find out more visit socialfinance.org.
Harvard Business School’s Bill Sahlman: What I’ve Learned from Reading 10,000 Business Plans and Investing in Hundreds of Startups
Of the 10,000 business plans Bill Sahlman has read, only 3 companies met their plan. Find out what it takes to succeed. Entrepreneurs have to be really good at running tests and execution trumps idea. Jeff Bezos is the most effective experimentalist in history. Bill Gates did not invent word processing, the spreadsheet, or presentation graphics; rather he took ideas and out executed everyone else.
Former Secretary of the Treasury and President of Harvard, Larry Summers: The Big Trends Shaping the World Today
Former Secretary of the Treasury and President of Harvard Larry Summers talks about the defining trends of the 21st century, including how we are going to achieve collective solutions, the shift in the center of gravity of the world’s economy and culture to the east, the upcoming transformation in education, the hard choices facing the leading universities, and the exponential growth in what information technology will be capable of.
Nobel Laureate, Daniel Kahneman: His Latest Findings on "Noise" and Flaws in Human Judgement
Learn about Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman’s latest findings on “noise” and how there is more noise and flaws in human judgement than you think — Find out why you should see a doctor in the morning and go to court after lunch.
Tom Friedman: On the World Getting Flatter and More Fragile, and Elephants Flying
Tom Friedman, author, New York Times columnist, and winner of three Pulitzer Prizes, talks about the world getting flatter and more fragile; abolishing recessions and interrupting the natural laws of capitalism; why the U.S. needs a healthy Republican Party; and how the world AC (After Corona) will be very different from the world BC (Before Corona).
How Right and Wrong Change with Technology with Juan Enriquez
We all think we know what’s right and wrong but we don’t because right/wrong changes over time. Our great grandchildren might be shocked by people eating meat, and the risks of pregnancy, childbirth and unedited genes. Find out which things we're doing now that will be viewed as wrong, and learn about the almost inconceivable things that will become “right" because of new technology. Will genetic engineering of humans for space travel become acceptable? Bigger brains? More compact bodies? Different species of humans to increase our odds of survival?
Princeton Psychology Professor, Eldar Shafir: Why Having Too Little Makes People Perform Worse and Become More Impatient, Impulsive and Careless
Learn how scarcity of anything — money, food or social connections — affects our daily lives and leads us astray. Scarcity reduces both intelligence and control. Having too little preoccupies and taxes the mind, making life much harder. "Even smiling and being pleasant is hard when your mind is taxed. The employee snaps at rude customers ... The parent snaps at the child ... The server rings up the wrong item.” Learn about the latest cutting edge behavioral science to find out how the poor can escape the scarcity trap and how we can all manage scarcity for better satisfaction and success.
Harvard’s Chair of Astronomy, Avi Loeb: Why We Are Not Alone and Are Very Common Like Ants On A Sidewalk
Find out why Harvard’s Chair of Astronomy Avi Loeb says we are not alone in the universe and that there are more intelligent and sophisticated civilizations than ours. Learn about the evidence that we aren't the “smartest cookie in the jar.” Find out when we were visited by another civilization and how we can create life on other planets by launching what he calls "Noah's spaceship.”