Afleveringen
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Dave Baszucki is co-founder and CEO of Roblox, the user-generated gaming platform where all the games are built by the community itself. With over 100 million daily active users and projected revenue bookings of $7 billion this year, it is one of the largest gaming economies in the worldâand one that has made millionaires out of teenage developers in Argentina, South Korea, and everywhere in between.
Tyler and Dave explore why Roblox decided early against prioritizing advertising revenue, why Dave thinks the main competition of Roblox is its own execution speed rather than Fortnite, whether every mega platform inevitably becomes an everything app, how falling token costs will change the platform, why he insists all the games on Roblox are beautiful, whether Robux should have a floating exchange rate, why admitting you have kids under 13 on your platform turns out to be a competitive advantage, why he's skeptical of blanket social media bans, what his son's experience with bipolar disorder taught him about metabolic health, his two-year sabbatical between companies that involved a motorhome trip across North America and a stint hosting talk radio in Santa Cruz, why Mutiny on the Bounty remains one of his favorite books, what he'll learn next, and much more.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video on the new dedicated Conversations with Tyler channel.
Recorded May 27th, 2026.
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Follow us on X and Instagram Follow Tyler on X Follow Dave on X Sign up for our newsletter Join our Discord Email us: [email protected] Learn more about Conversations with Tyler and other Mercatus Center podcasts here.Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:44 - Roblox by the Numbers
00:08:54 - Competition
00:12:13 - Everything Apps
00:19:50 - AI Language Translation
00:21:18 - Token Costs
00:24:01 - Beauty and Gaming
00:27:01 - Robux
00:29:28 - Social Media and Younger Audiences
00:40:56 - AI and Gaming
00:45:44 - Mutiny on the Bounty
00:47:38 - David's Earlier Companies
00:51:16 - Mentors
00:52:35 - Outro
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Katja Hoyer is a German-British historian who has made a career out of explaining Germany to the worldâand, just as importantly, to Germans themselves. Born in East Germany in 1985 and now based in Britain, she has written acclaimed histories of the German Empire, the GDR, and most recently the Weimar Republic.
Tyler and Katja discuss why communism made East Germans more loyal to the system while it bred dissidents in Poland and Hungary, how happy or unhappy life in the GDR actually was, Tyler's own bleak day-trip to East Berlin in 1984, the underrated literature of the GDR (Christa Wolf, Brigitte Reimann), whether Good Bye, Lenin! got the era right, why it's no coincidence that Richter and Polke came from the East, the strange coexistence of communist prudishness and Germany's nudist culture, what Merkel's East German background did and didn't give her as a chancellor, why East Germans remain dramatically underrepresented in leadership positions today, what makes Weimar the cultural and spiritual heart of Germany, why relatively few Jews ever settled there, how much the citizens of Weimar knew about Buchenwald, what actually killed the Weimar Constitution, how she'd rewrite the Treaty of Versailles, Hitler's citizenship problem, underrated German thinkers, the complacency behind Germany's current economic decline, which side of the WeiĂwurstĂ€quator she'd choose to live on, and much more.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video on the new dedicated Conversations with Tyler channel.
Recorded March 30th, 2026.
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Follow us on X and Instagram Follow Tyler on X Follow Katja on X Sign up for our newsletter Join our Discord Email us: [email protected] Learn more about Conversations with Tyler and other Mercatus Center podcasts here.Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:05:34 - East German Artistic Creations
00:10:55 - Angela Merkel's East German Background
00:14:08 - East German Underrepresentation Today
00:17:02 - East Germans vs. West Germans
00:20:32 - Goethe and Weimar's Cultural Heritage
00:27:09 - What Weimar Knew About Buchenwald
00:31:10 - Why the Weimar Constitution Failed
00:35:21 - Prussia, Bavaria, and Where Nazism Took Root
00:38:23 - Rewriting the Treaty of Versailles
00:39:59 - Historical Antisemitism in Germany
00:42:27 - Hitler's Citizenship problem
00:45:14 - Weimar's Best Cultural Creations
00:47:02 - The Most Underrated German Thinker
00:49:07 - Improving Weimar
00:52:58 - Germany's Economic Malaise
00:55:38 - Living in Britain as a German Historian
01:00:49 - Outro
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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Toby Wilkinson is one of the world's leading Egyptologists, whose books have ranged across the full sweep of pharaonic history. His latest, The Last Dynasty: Ancient Egypt from Alexander the Great to Cleopatra, covers the 300-year Ptolemaic period â stranger and more modern-feeling than the Egypt of the pyramids, built around commerce and cosmopolitanism rather than divine kingship, and home to the greatest concentration of scientific talent the ancient world ever saw.
Tyler and Toby cover how Alexander took over the empire almost without a fight, why Alexandria became the Manhattan of the ancient world, whether the era was as philosophically fertile as it was scientifically, whether your ancient doctor's visit had positive expected value, what Egypt was actually exporting and selling, whether living standards rose above subsistence or stayed Malthusian, how the ethnic divide between Greek rulers and Egyptian subjects shaped society, what constrained the Ptolemaic Empire from becoming the next Rome, whether Cleopatra has been overhyped, what Julius Caesar was really thinking when he sided with her over her brother, the new frontiers in archeology, whether Herodotus can be trusted, what ancient Egypt knew about Israel and India, when Egyptian jewelry peaked and why, what triggered the sudden emergence of civilization across the ancient world, why a six-year-old Tyler knew King Tut better than Napoleon, and much more.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video on the new dedicated Conversations with Tyler channel.
Recorded March 23rd, 2026.
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Follow us on X and Instagram Follow Tyler on X Sign up for our newsletter Join our Discord Email us: [email protected] Learn more about Conversations with Tyler and other Mercatus Center podcasts here.Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:04:29 - Intellectual Activity of Alexandria
00:11:07 - The Alexandrian Economy
00:14:36 - The Ptolemaic Empire
00:21:19 - Unanswered Questions in Ptolemaic Egypt
00:23:32 - Modern Alexandria and the Future of Archaeology
00:26:37 - Other Topics in Ancient Egypt
00:42:10 - Toby's Career
00:45:26 - Outro
Photo Credit: Benjamin Frei
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Bob Spitz has written major biographies of the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, and now the Rolling Stones â but also, somehow, Ronald Reagan and Julia Child. In rock, his credentials were hard won: he started out hustling gigs for an unknown Bruce Springsteen for six years, moved on to handling Elton John's American business, and spent long enough in the world to find himself jamming with Paul McCartney and chatting with Bob Dylan on a stoop in the Village. The Reagan and Julia Child books are harder to explain, and perhaps that's the pointâSpitz seems to do his best work when he has no business writing the book at all.
Tyler and Bob discuss how the Stones became so great so quickly, what they added to the blues, how their melodies stack up against the Beatles', whether Exile on Main Street deserves its canonical status, which songs are most underrated, what Charlie Watts actually got out of playing in a rock band, the rise and fall of Brian Jones, how the Stones outlasted nearly everyone, the influence of Mick's London School of Economics training, why popular music has lost its cultural influence, what we should still be asking Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, whether the Beatles' breakup was good for the world, how senile Reagan really was in his second term and whether he was ever truly a communist, how good a cook Julia Child actually was, his next book on Lennon's second act, and much more.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video on the new dedicated Conversations with Tyler channel.
Recorded April 28th, 2026.
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Follow us on X and Instagram Follow Tyler on X Follow Bob on X Sign up for our newsletter Join our Discord Email us: [email protected] Learn more about Conversations with Tyler and other Mercatus Center podcasts here.Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:02:44 - The Sound of the Rolling Stones
00:05:25 - Underrated Rolling Stones Songs and Albums
00:09:06 - Charlie Watts and Brian Jones
00:11:18 - Art Colleges and Rock 'n' Roll
00:13:06 - The Stones' Stability
00:16:32 - Mick Jagger: Closet Economist?
00:17:53 - Pop Music's Lack of Relevance
00:20:10 - The Beatles
00:28:14 - Led Zeppelin
00:31:30 - Bruce Springsteen
00:36:20 - Bob Dylan
00:39:40 - Julia Child
00:42:29 - The Knicks
00:45:21 - Ronald Reagan
00:49:01 - Robert Caro
00:52:03 - Writing
00:55:00 - Outro
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Craig Newmark's career, in retrospect, looks like a series of deliberate subtractions: he kept Craigslist plain, stepped aside as CEO early on, gave his equity to his foundation, and now funds people and gets out of their way. His theory, arrived at gradually, is that recognizing your limitations and relying on your network is how you get more done.
Tyler and Craig discuss why webpage design has gotten worse for 30 years, what Craig's "obsessive customer service disorder" taught him about human nature, why trusting people and maintaining a nine-second rule for scams aren't as contradictory as they sound, why roommate ads are a better way to find love, why Craigslist never added seller evaluations, why Leonard Cohen speaks to him more than Bob Dylan, what William Gibson's Neuromancer got right about the internet, why Jackson Lamb is now one of his role models, why large foundations lose accountability, what two painful Ivy League grants taught him philanthropy, what he gets from rescuing pigeons, the hard lesson he learned about confronting people who lie for a living, his favorite TV shows and movies, the one genuine luxury he can't go without, what he still needs to learn, and much more.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video on the new dedicated Conversations with Tyler channel.
Recorded April 14th, 2026.
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Follow us on X and Instagram Follow Tyler on X Follow Craig on X Sign up for our newsletter Join our Discord Email us: [email protected] Learn more about Conversations with Tyler and other Mercatus Center podcasts here.Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:02:41 - Stepping Aside as CEO
00:04:20 - Customer Service and Social Skills
00:16:27 - Restaurants
00:18:06 - Music
00:19:27 - Science Fiction
00:20:14 - TV Shows
00:26:03 - Philanthropy
00:30:20 - Journalism
00:31:55 - Pigeons
00:32:50 - Entrepreneurship
00:35:09 - Craig's Personal Philosophy
00:37:37 - Major Regrets
00:39:17 - Audience Q&A
00:46:23 - Outro -
Kim Bowes is an archaeologist at the University of Pennsylvania whose book, Surviving Rome: The Economic Lives of the Ninety Percent, Tyler calls perhaps his favorite economics book of 2025. By sifting through the material remains of Roman life â shoes, bricks, ceramics, and the like â she uncovers a picture of ordinary Romans who could evidently afford to buy multiple sets of colorful clothes, use gold coins for daily transactions, and eat peppercorns sourced from thousands of miles away. This vast web of commerce, she argues, both bound the empire together and provided the tax base that kept it running â and when it unraveled, Rome unraveled with it.
Tyler and Kim discuss what would surprise a modern visitor to a Roman elite home, what early Roman Christianity actually looked like on the ground, why Romans never developed formal economic reasoning, what decentralized money-lending reveals about the Roman state, whether there were anything like forward markets, why Romans continued to use coins even as the empire debased them, the economics of Roman slavery, whether Roman recipes taste any good, the Romans as hyper-scalers rather than inventors, what Rome made of China and Egypt, why Kim's not a fan of the Vesuvius challenge, the practicalities of landscape archaeology, how a vast belt of factories along the Tiber Valley went undiscovered until twenty years ago, where to go on a three-week tour of the Roman Empire, what she thinks is ultimately behind Rome's unraveling, and much more.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video on the new dedicated Conversations with Tyler channel.
Recorded February 2nd, 2026.
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Follow us on X and Instagram Follow Tyler on X Sign up for our newsletter Join our Discord Email us: [email protected] Learn more about Conversations with Tyler and other Mercatus Center podcasts here.Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:06 - Roman Housing
00:08:28 - What Early Roman Christians Actually Believed
00:16:29 - Roman Economic Thought
00:18:39 - Roman Banking and Money Practices
00:28:48 - The Economics of Roman Slavery
00:31:56 - What Held The Roman Empire Together
00:36:46 - Roman Cookery
00:39:17 - The Romans as Masters of Scale
00:42:05 - Rome's Contact with Asia
0043:59 - The Vesuvius Challenge
00:45:13 - Ancient Carthage and the Fall of Rome
00:49:43 - The Realities of Doing Archaeology
00:57:15 - Touring the Roman Empire
01:00:42 - Outro -
Click here to find Tyler's new generative book, The Marginal Revolution: Rise and Decline, and the Pending AI Revolution!
Arthur Brooks reckons he's on the fourth leg of a spiral-shaped career: French horn player, economist, president of the American Enterprise Institute, and now Harvard professor and evangelist for the science of happiness. His new book, The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness, argues that happiness isn't a feeling but a combination of enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning â the macronutrients of happiness, he calls them â and that most of us are gorging on the wrong ones. Tyler, naturally, wants to know: what's the marginal value of a book on happiness, and what does spiral number five look like?
Along the way, Tyler and Arthur cover how scarcity makes savoring possible and why knowing you'll die young sharpens the mind, what twin studies tell us about the genetics of well-being and why that's not actually depressing, the four habits of the genuinely happy, the placebo theory of happiness books, curiosity as an evolved positive emotion, the optimal degree of self-deception, why Arthur chose Catholicism rather than Orthodoxy, what the research says about accepting death, how he became an economist via correspondence school, AI's effect on think tanks, the future of classical music, whether Trumpism or Reaganism is the equilibrium state of American conservatism, whether his views on immigration have changed, what he and Oprah actually agree on, which president from his lifetime he most admires, Barcelona versus Madrid, what 60-year-olds are especially good at, why he's reading Josef Pieper, how he'll face death, and much more.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video on the new dedicated Conversations with Tyler channel.
Recorded March 19th, 2026.
This episode was made possible through the support of the John Templeton Foundation.
Other ways to connect
Follow us on X and Instagram Follow Tyler on X Follow Arthur on X Sign up for our newsletter Join our Discord Email us: [email protected] Learn more about Conversations with Tyler and other Mercatus Center podcasts here.Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:02:10 - The Macronutrients of Happiness
00:07:54 - What Happiness Books are Worth
00:12:28 - The Habits of the Happiest People
00:14:27 - Why the Young Reject Happiness Advice
00:17:35 - Curiosity's Role in Happiness
00:20:22 - Self-Deception
00:22:04 - Facing Death
00:25:44 - Choosing a Religion
00:28:41 - Immigration
00:30:27 - The American Right Wing
00:33:55 - AI's Role in Happiness
00:37:12 - What Drives Generosity
00:38:37 - Oprah's Political Views
00:40:16 - Which Political Leaders Arthur Admires
00:41:59 - The Best French Horn Players
00:43:40 - Arthur's Spiral of Careers
00:48:20 - The Future of Think Tanks
00:49:50 - The Future of Classical Music
00:51:27 - Living in Spain
00:55:34 - Age and Peak Performance
00:56:12 - What Arthur Will Do Next
00:59:14 - OutroImage Credit: Jenny Sherman
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Tyler calls Paul Gillingham's new book, Mexico: A 500-Year History, the single best introduction to the country's pastâand one of the best nonfiction books of 2026. Paul brings both an outsider's eye and ground-level knowledge to Mexican history, having grown up in Cork â a place he'd argue gave him an instinctive feel for fierce local autonomy and land hunger âearning his doctorate on the Mexican Revolution under Alan Knight at Oxford, and doing his fieldwork in the pueblos of Guerrero.
He and Tyler range across five centuries of Mexican history, from why Mexico held together after independence when every other post-colonial superstate collapsed, to why YucatĂĄn is now one of the safest places on earth, what two leaders from Oaxaca tell us about Mexican politics, how Mexico avoided the military coups that plagued the rest of Latin America, what CĂĄrdenas's land reform actually achieved versus what it promised, whether the ejido system held Mexico back, why Mexico worried too much about land and not enough about human capital, how Mexico's fertility rate fell below America's, why Guerrero has been violent for two centuries, why the new judicial reforms are a disaster, where to find the best food in Mexico and Manhattan, what a cache of illicit Mexican silver sitting on a ship in the English Channel has to do with his next book, and more.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video on the new dedicated Conversations with Tyler channel.
Recorded February 27th, 2026.
Other ways to connect
Follow us on X and Instagram Follow Tyler on X Sign up for our newsletter Join our Discord Email us: [email protected] Learn more about Conversations with Tyler and other Mercatus Center podcasts here.Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:30 - Post-Independence Mexico
00:05:18 - Peace in YucatĂĄn
00:6:54 - Quintana Roo
00:08:24 - Mexican Infrastructure
00:10:26 - Oaxaca
00:13:54 - Great Food Outside Cities
00:16:39 - Leaders from Coahuila
00:17:50 - Military Rule and Civil War in Mexico
00:21:47 - The CĂĄrdenas Regime
00:24:03 - The Ejido System
00:25:49 - Human Capital
00:40:59 - Doing Mexican History as a Brit
00:42:43 - Guerrero
00:48:37 - MichoacĂĄn Violence
00:50:44 - Monterrey
00:52:40 - Judicial Reforms
00:54:44 - The Best Mexican Film, Music, and Novel
00:59:42 - The Best Trip Around Mexico
01:04:05 - Outro
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Buy tickets for the live Conversations with Tyler recording with Craig Newmark at 92NY!
Few living scholars can claim to have shaped how we read Machiavelli as decisively as Harvey Mansfield. His new book, The Rise and Fall of Rational Control, argues that Machiavelli didn't just write about politicsâhe invented the intellectual machinery of the modern world, starting with the concept of "effectual truth," which Mansfield credits as the seed of modern empiricism. At 93, after 61 years of teaching at Harvard, Mansfield remains cheerfully unimpressed by most of contemporary philosophy, convinced that the great books are self-sustaining, and that irony is what separates serious philosophy from the rest.
Tyler and Harvey discuss how Machiavelli's concept of fact was brand new, why his longest chapter is a how-to guide for conspiracy, whether America's 20th-century wars refute the conspiratorial worldview, Trump as a Shakespearean vulgarian who is in some ways more democratic than the rest of us, why Bronze Age Pervert should not be taken as a model for Straussianism, the time he tried to introduce Nietzsche to Quine, why Rawls needed more Locke, what it was like to hear Churchill speak at Margate in 1953, whether great books are still being written, how his students have and haven't changed over 61 years of teaching, the eclipse rather than decline of manliness, and what Aristotle got right about old age and much more.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video on the new dedicated Conversations with Tyler channel.
Recorded January 22nd, 2026.
This episode was made possible through the support of the John Templeton Foundation.
Other ways to connect
Follow us on X and Instagram Follow Tyler on X Sign up for our newsletter Join our Discord Email us: [email protected] Learn more about Conversations with Tyler and other Mercatus Center podcasts here.Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Bumper
00:00:36 - Intro
00:01:20 - Machiavelli's "Effectual Truth"
00:05:56 - Conspiracy Theories
00:12:39 - The Vulgarity of Democracy
00:16:35 - The Future of Straussianism
00:34:30 - Why the Supply of Great Books has Dried Up
00:37:56 - Rational Control vs. Spontaneous Order
00:40:25 - Winston Churchill
00:43:30 - Students at Harvard
00:46:05 - Manliness
00:47:34 - Death and Politics
00:48:56 - Outro
Image Credit: Erin Clark via Getty Images
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Henry Oliver is the preeminent literary critic for non-literary nerds. His Substack, The Common Reader, has thousands of subscribers drawn in by Henry's conviction that great literature is where ideas "walk and talk amongst the mess of the real world" in a way no other discipline can match. Tyler, who has called Henry's book Second Act "one of the very best books written on talent," sat down with him to compare readings of Measure for Measure and range across English literature more broadly.
Tyler and Henry trade rival readings of the play, debate whether Isabella secretly seduces Angelo, argue over whether the Duke's proposal is closer to liberation or enslavement, trace the play's connections to The Merchant of Venice and The Rape of Lucrece, assess the parallels to James I, weigh whether it's a Girardian play (Oliver: emphatically not), and parse exactly what Isabella means when she says "I did yield to him," before turning to the best way to consume Shakespeare, what Jane Austen took from Adam Smith, why Swift may be the most practically intelligent writer in English, how advertising really works and why most of it doesn't, which works in English literature are under- and overrated, what makes someone a late bloomer, whether fiction will deal seriously with religion again, whether Ayn Rand's villains are more relevant now than ever, and much more.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video on the new dedicated Conversations with Tyler channel.
Recorded January 12th, 2026.
This episode was made possible through the support of the John Templeton Foundation.
Other ways to connect
Follow us on X and Instagram Follow Tyler on X Follow Henry on X Sign up for our newsletter Join our Discord Email us: [email protected] Learn more about Conversations with Tyler and other Mercatus Center podcasts here.Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:40 - What Shakespeare is really saying in Measure for Measure
00:29:17 - The best way to consume Shakespeare
00:32:26 - Jane Austen, Adam Smith, and Jonathan Swift
00:39:29 - Advertising that works
00:44:37 - Things that are under- and overrated in literature
00:51:24 - Late bloomers
00:58:36 - Outro
Image Credit: Sam Alburger
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When Tyler called Joe Studwell's How Asia Works "perhaps my favorite economics book of the year" back in 2013, he wasn't alone: it became one of the most influential treatments of industrial policy ever written. Now Studwell has turned his attention to Africa with How Africa Works. Tyler calls it excellent, extremely well-researched, and essential reading, but does Studwell's optimism about the continent hold up under scrutiny?
Tyler and Joe explore whether population density actually solves development, which African countries are likely to achieve stable growth, whether Africa has a manufacturing future, why state infrastructure projects decay while farmer-led irrigation thrives, what progress looks like in education and public health, whether charter cities or special economic zones can work, and how permanent Africa's colonial borders really are. After testing Joe's optimism about Africa, Tyler shifts back to Asia: what Japan and South Korea will do about depopulation, why industrial policy worked in East Asia but failed in India and Brazil, what went wrong in Thailand, and what Joe will tackle next.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video on the new dedicated Conversations with Tyler channel.
Recorded January 23rd, 2026.
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Follow us on X and Instagram Follow Tyler on X Sign up for our newsletter Join our Discord Email us: [email protected] Learn more about Conversations with Tyler and other Mercatus Center podcasts here.Image Credit: Nick J.B. Moore
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Andrew Ross Sorkin sees the crash of 1929 as a tale of excessive leverage and irrational speculation, but Tyler wonders: maybe those sky-high 1929 prices were actually justified given America's remarkable century ahead. Maybe the real problem was the "Negative Nellies" who panicked afterward rather than the speculators everyone blamed. For that matter, isn't 2008 looking less and less like a bubble with each passing year?
Tyler and Andrew debate whether those 1929 stock prices were justified, what Fed and policy choices might have prevented the Depression, whether Glass-Steagall was built on a flawed premises, what surprised Andrew most about the 1920s beyond the crash itself, how business leaders then would compare to today's CEOs, whether US banks should consolidate, how Andrew would reform US banking regulation, what to make of narrow banking proposals and stablecoins, whether retail investors should get access to private equity and venture capital, why sports gambling and new financial regulations won't make us much safer, how Andrew broke into the New York Times at age 18, how he manages his information diet, what he learned co-creating Billions, what he plans on learning about next, and more.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video on the new dedicated Conversations with Tyler channel.
Recorded October 30th, 2025.
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Tyler considers Diarmaid MacCulloch one of those rare historians whose entire body of work rewards reading. This work includes his award-winning Cranmer biography, his sweeping histories of Christianity and the Reformation, and his latest on sex and the church, which demonstrates what MacCulloch calls the historian's true vocation: unsettling settled facts to keep humanity sane.
Tyler and Diarmaid explore whether monotheism correlates with monogamy, Christianity's early instinct towards egalitarianism, what the Eucharistic revolution reveals about the cathedral building boom, the role of Mary in Christianity and Islam, where Michel Foucault went wrong on sexuality, the significance of the clerical family replacing the celibate monk, why Elizabeth Iânot Henry VIIIâmattered most for the English Reformation, why English Renaissance music began so brilliantly but then needed to start importing Germans, whether Christianity needs hell to survive, what MacCulloch plans to do next, and more.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video on the new dedicated Conversations with Tyler channel.
Recorded October 29th, 2025.
This episode was made possible through the support of the John Templeton Foundation.
Other ways to connect
Follow us on X and Instagram Follow Tyler on X Sign up for our newsletter Join our Discord Email us: [email protected] Learn more about Conversations with Tyler and other Mercatus Center podcasts here.Image Credit: Barry Jones
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At 22, Brendan Foody is both the youngest Conversations with Tyler guest ever and the youngest unicorn founder on record. His company Mercor hires the experts who train frontier AI modelsâfrom poets grading verse to economists building evaluation frameworksâand has become one of the fastest-growing startups in history.
Tyler and Brendan discuss why Mercor pays poets $150 an hour, why AI labs need rubrics more than raw text, whether we should enshrine the aesthetic standards of past eras rather than current ones, how quickly models are improving at economically valuable tasks, how long until AI can stump Cass Sunstein, the coming shift toward knowledge workers building RL environments instead of doing repetitive analysis, how to interview without falling for vibes, why nepotism might make a comeback as AI optimizes everyone's cover letters, scaling the Thiel Fellowship 100,000X, what his 8th-grade donut empire taught him about driving out competition, the link between dyslexia and entrepreneurship, dining out and dating in San Francisco, Mercor's next steps, and more.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video on the new dedicated Conversations with Tyler channel.
Recorded October 16th, 2025.
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Follow us on X and Instagram Follow Tyler on X Follow Brendan on X Sign up for our newsletter Join our Discord Email us: [email protected] Learn more about Conversations with Tyler and other Mercatus Center podcasts here.Timestamps
00:00:00 - Hiring poets to teach AI
00:05:29 - Measuring real-world AI progress
00:13:25 - Why rubrics are the new oil
00:18:44 - Enshrining taste in LLMs
00:22:38 - Turning society into one giant RL machine
00:26:37 - When AI will stump experts
00:30:46 - AI and employment
00:35:05 - Why vibes-based hiring fails
00:39:55 - Solving labor market matching problems
00:45:01 - Scaling the Thiel Fellowship
00:48:11 - A hypothetical gap year
00:50:31 - Donuts, debates, and dyslexia
00:56:15 - Dating and dining out
00:59:01 - Mercor's next steps
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On this special year-in-review episode, Tyler and producer Jeff Holmes look back on the past year on CWT and more, including covering the most popular and underrated episodes, why single-subject deep dives made for some of the best conversations this year, the biggest AI surprises and how LLMs changed the show's production function, what happened with the Magnus Carlsen episode, listener questions on everything from hotel selection to AI x-risk discourse, Tyler's serene acknowledgment that uncontrollable laughter is something he has neither experienced nor desires, reviewing his pop culture picks from 2015, and a dispatch from Muscat, Oman.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video on the new dedicated Conversations with Tyler channel.
Recorded November 5th and December 15th, 2025.
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Follow us on X and Instagram Follow Tyler on X Follow Jeff on X Sign up for our newsletter Join our Discord Email us: [email protected] Learn more about Conversations with Tyler and other Mercatus Center podcasts here.Timestamps
00:00:00 - Favorite episodes of the year
00:12:08 - AI's impact on the show
00:15:05 - The lost Magnus episode
00:17:13 - Tyler's #1 hotel amenity
00:18:40 - Tyler's growing influence and thoughts on tariffs
00:21:15 - AI x-risk discourse
00:26:22 â Copying Tyler's interview style
00:28:50 - Tyler's lack of joy
00:32:55 - How well ChatGPT answers as Tyler
00:35:15 - Tyler's 2015 movie picks
00:40:44 - Tyler's 2015 book picks
00:45:00 - Tyler's 2015 music picks
00:48:16 - Most popular episodes and thoughts on Oman
Photo Credit: Kevin Trimmer
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Alison Gopnik is both a psychologist and philosopher at Berkeley, studying how children construct theories of the world from limited data. Her central insight is that babies learn like scientists, running experiments and updating beliefs based on evidence. But Tyler wonders: are scientists actually good learners? It's a question that leads them into a wide-ranging conversation about what we've been systematically underestimating in young minds, what's wrong with simple nature-versus-nurture frameworks, and whether AI represents genuine intelligence or just a very sophisticated library.
Tyler and Alison cover how children systematically experiment on the world and what study she'd run with $100 million, why babies are more conscious than adults and what consciousness even means, episodic memory and aphantasia, whether Freud got anything right about childhood and what's held up best from Piaget, how we should teach young children versus school-age kids, how AI should change K-12 education and Gopnik's case that it's a cultural technology rather than intelligence, whether the enterprise of twin studies makes sense and why she sees nature versus nurture as the wrong framework entirely, autism and ADHD as diagnostic categories, whether the success of her siblings belies her skepticism about genetic inheritance, her new project on the economics and philosophy of caregiving, and more.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video on the new dedicated Conversations with Tyler channel.
Recorded October 30th, 2025.
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00:00:00 - How childrenâand scientistsâlearn
00:14:35 - Consciousness, episodic memories, and aphantasia
00:23:06 - Freud's and Piaget's theories about childhood
00:27:49 - Twin studies and nature vs. nurture
00:39:33 - Teaching strategies for younger vs. older children
00:44:07 - AI's ability to generate novel insights
00:53:57 - What Autism and ADHD diagnoses do and don't reveal
00:58:02 - The success of the Gopnik siblings
Photo Credit: Rod Searcey
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Gaurav Kapadia has deliberately avoided publicity throughout his career in investing, which makes this conversation a rare window into how he thinks. He now runs XN, a firm built around concentrated bets on a small number of companies with long holding periods. However, his education in judgment began much earlier, in a two-family house in Flushing that his parents converted into a four-family house. It was there where a young Gaurav served as de facto landlord, collecting rent and negotiating late payments at age 10. That grounding now expresses itself across an unusual range of domains: Tyler invited him on the show not just as an investor, but as someone with a rare ability to judge quality in cities, talent, art, and more with equal fluency.
Tyler and Gaurav discuss how Queens has thrived without new infrastructure, what he'd change as "dictator" of Flushing, whether Robert Moses should rise or fall in status, who's the most underrated NYC mayor, what's needed to attract better mayoral candidates, the weirdest place in NYC, why he initially turned down opportunities in investment banking for consulting, bonding with Rishi Sunak over railroads, XN's investment philosophy, maintaining founder energy in investment firms and how he hires to prevent complacency, AI's impact on investing, the differences between New York and London finance, the most common fundraising mistake art museums make, why he collects only American artists within 20 years of his own age, what makes Kara Walker and Rashid Johnson and Salman Toor special, whether buying art makes you a better investor, his new magazine Totei celebrating craft and craftsmanship, and much more.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video on the new dedicated Conversations with Tyler channel.
Recorded October 8th, 2025.
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Follow us on X and Instagram Follow Tyler on X Follow Gaurav on X Sign up for our newsletter Join our Discord Email us: [email protected] Learn more about Conversations with Tyler and other Mercatus Center podcasts here.Timestamps
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:32 - Queens and NYC's geography
00:08:36 - New York City mayors and electoral politics
00:13:22 - Building a career in investing
00:18:50 - XN's investment philosophy
00:24:35 - Maintaining founder energy in investment firms
00:30:45 - The sociology of finance in NYC, London, and UAE
00:32:21 - How AI is reshaping investing
00:36:53 - Museum operations
00:42:21 - Favorite artists
00:50:39 - Tastes in art and how the canon will evolve
00:57:22 - Totei, a new venture
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Dan Wang argues that China is a nation of engineers while America is a nation of lawyers, and this distinction explains everything from subway construction to pandemic response to why Chinese citizens will never have yards with dogs. His prescription: America should become 20% more engineering-minded to fix its broken infrastructure, while China needs to be 50% more lawyerly so the Communist Party can stop strangling individual rights and the creative impulses of its people. But would a more lawyerly China constrain state power, or just create new tools for oppression? And aren't the American suburbs actually sterling achievements where the infrastructure works quite well?
Tyler and Dan debate whether American infrastructure is actually broken or just differently optimized, why health care spending should reach 35% of GDP, how lawyerly influences shaped East Asian development differently than China, China's lack of a liberal tradition and why it won't democratize like South Korea or Taiwan did, its economic dysfunction despite its manufacturing superstars, Chinese pragmatism and bureaucratic incentives, a 10-day itinerary for Yunnan, James C. Scott's work on Zomia, whether Beijing or Shanghai is the better city, Liu Cixin and why volume one of The Three-Body Problem is the best, why contemporary Chinese music and film have declined under Xi, Chinese marriage markets and what it's like to be elderly in China, the Dan Wang production function, why Stendhal is his favorite novelist and Rossini's Comte Ory moves him, what Dan wants to learn next, whether LLMs will make Tyler's hyper-specific podcast questions obsolete, what flavor of drama their conversation turned out to be, and more.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video on the new dedicated Conversations with Tyler channel.
Recorded October 31st, 2025.
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Follow us on X and Instagram Follow Tyler on X Follow Dan on X Sign up for our newsletter Join our Discord Email us: [email protected] Learn more about Conversations with Tyler and other Mercatus Center podcasts here.Timestamps
00:00:00 - American infrastructure and suburban life
00:05:18 - American vs. Chinese infrastructure buildouts...
00:12:25 - And health care investment
00:17:52 - Chinese suburbs
00:20:10 - The existing lawyerly influence in East Asia
00:25:12 - China's lack of a liberal tradition
00:29:35 - Why China's won't democratize
00:33:49 - China's economic disfunction
00:38:44 - China's expansionism
00:41:55 - Chinese pragmatism and bureaucratic incentives
00:46:50 - Chinese cities and regional culture
00:59:44 - James C. Scott, Zomia, and elite culture
01:06:27 - A 10-day Yunnan itinerary
01:11:57 - On Chinese arts, literature, and cultural expression
01:18:23 - The Dan Wang production function
01:30:34 - Tyler's grand strategy, or lack thereof -
Cass Sunstein is one of the most widely cited legal scholars of all time and among the most prolific writers working today. This year alone he has five books out, including Imperfect Oracle on the strengths and limits of AI and On Liberalism: In Defense of Freedom. In his second appearance on the show, he brings his characteristic intellectual range to exploring liberalism's present precariousness and AI's implications for law and speech.
Tyler and Cass discuss whether liberalism is self-undermining or simply vulnerable to illiberal forces, the tensions in how a liberal immigration regime would work, whether new generations of liberal thinkers are emerging, if Derek Parfit counts as a liberal, Mill's liberal wokeism, the allure of Mises' "cranky enthusiasm for freedom," whether the central claim of The Road to Serfdom holds up, how to blend indigenous rights with liberal thought, whether AIs should have First Amendment protections, the argument for establishing a right not to be manipulated, better remedies for low-grade libel, whether we should have trials run by AI, how Bob Dylan embodies liberal freedom, Cass' next book about animal rights, and more.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video on the new dedicated Conversations with Tyler channel.
Recorded October 10th, 2025.
This episode was made possible through the support of the John Templeton Foundation.
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Blake Scholl is one of the leading figures working to bring back civilian supersonic flight. As the founder and CEO of Boom Supersonic, he's building a new generation of supersonic aircraft and pushing for the policies needed to make commercial supersonic travel viable again. But he's equally as impressive as someone who thinks systematically about improving dysfunctionâwhether it's airport design, traffic congestion, or defense procurementâand sees creative solutions to problems everyone else has learned to accept.
Tyler and Blake discuss why airport terminals should be underground, why every road needs a toll, what's wrong with how we board planes, the contrasting cultures of Amazon and Groupon, why Concorde and Apollo were impressive tech demos but terrible products, what Ayn Rand understood about supersonic transport in 1957, what's wrong with aerospace manufacturing, his heuristic when confronting evident stupidity, his technique for mastering new domains, how LLMs are revolutionizing regulatory paperwork, and much more.
Recorded live at the Progress Conference, hosted by the Roots of Progress Institute. Special thanks to Big Think for the video production.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video on the new dedicated Conversations with Tyler channel.
Recorded October 18th, 2025.
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Follow us on X and Instagram Follow Tyler on X Follow Blake on X Sign up for our newsletter Join our Discord Email us: [email protected] Learn more about Conversations with Tyler and other Mercatus Center podcasts here.Photo Credit: Jeremi Rebecca
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