Build For Tomorrow

By Jason Feifer

What's Build For Tomorrow about?

Want to take control of the future? In each episode of this podcast, Entrepreneur magazine editor in chief Jason Feifer takes something that seems concerning or confusing today, and then learns its surprising history, what important things we’re missing, and the solutions that can make us smarter and better. (The show was previously called Pessimists Archive.)

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Build For Tomorrow episodes:

03.14.2023
My New Podcast
I have some important news about Build For Tomorrow. And here’s my new show, Help Wanted: https://link.chtbl.com/85RcT5bT Get in touch! Newsletter: onethingbetter.email Website: jasonfeifer.com Instagram: @heyfeifer Twitter: @heyfeifer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
02.23.2023
The Greatest Myth About Learning
For decades, people have been told they have a certain “learning style.” Maybe you think you’re a visual learner, for example, or a reading/writing learner. But new research is upending all that. Here’s what we got wrong — and how...
12.29.2022
What People of 1923 Predicted About 2023
In 1923, a famous scientist predicted how work would change in 2023. Now, 100 years later, we can confirm: He was shockingly right… and yet totally wrong. What happened? The answers can tell you a lot about what’s coming in...
11.30.2022
The Best Ways to Use a Crisis
Everyone’s freaking out! How can that be put to good use? In this episode, we discuss the unexpected benefits of the bubonic plague, what the four-day workweek tells us about the future of work, how world-changing technologies become adopted, why...
10.27.2022
How to Stop Obsessing Over “What If…?”
Have you ever messed up — or just thought you messed up! — and then obsessed over what you could have done better? This episode is about what’s happening in your brain, why you’re doing it, and how to finally let it...
09.29.2022
How to See Gain, Where Others See Loss
You can find opportunity in the hardest situations. But how? To answer that out, we take lessons from one of the most fascinating changes in cultural history -- when the record player was invented. Many people loved it, but musicians hated...
08.25.2022
Why “Nobody Wants to Work Anymore” is BS
Want to fix the problem with work today? It starts by understanding the common phrase “nobody wants to work anymore” — including what’s right about it, what’s wrong about it, and why critics have been using these exact same words...
07.28.2022
To Save Barbie, They Had to Change Her
Barbie sales were plummeting. A new leader had a vision: The doll needed to be “a reflection of our times.” But how do you make something more modern? In this episode, we learn how Barbie took some big risks — and...
06.30.2022
Teddy Bears Are History’s Most Subversive Toy (Classic)
The teddy bear: Is it cute and cuddly, or a “horrible monstrosity” that’ll destroy humanity? In 1907, many people feared the worst — that this new toy would ruin young girls’ developing maternal instincts, and lead us to a terrible...
05.26.2022
All the Fun Facts You Have Wrong!
Our brains are full of fun facts: the memory span of a goldfish, Marie Antoinette’s famous words, the vomitoriums of Rome, and more. But what if it’s all wrong? In this episode, I debunk more than a dozen common misconceptions...
04.28.2022
The Four-Day Workweek Is Here
The four-day workweek was once just an experiment. Now it’s regular life for many people. So what’s that like? In this episode, we look at the good, the bad, the reason our workweek evolved the way it did, and what...
03.31.2022
Real Ways to Predict the Future
Do you wish you could predict the future? Not in a street-corner psychic kind of way, but in a more personal, meaningful way. How can you know what’s coming, and to know what decisions you should make? To answer that,...
02.24.2022
The Climate Problem We Can Solve Now
Climate change is described as a “generational battle,” in which young people care and older people don’t. But this is a perfect example of how we think about generations all wrong — and that has big consequences. If we can...
01.27.2022
Why People Can’t Write, and How To Fix That
Who is to blame for people’s poor writing skills? It isn’t texting or tweeting. It’s a fateful decision made in 1875, from which we’ve never recovered. In this episode, we find out what went wrong — and how today’s educators...
12.27.2021
We Can Make Politics Smarter
We like to laugh at lawmakers for their technology ignorance, like when Sen. Richard Blumenthal asked a Facebook executive if she’ll “commit to ending finsta.” But how do gaffes like these actually happen? The answer is more complicated than you'd...
11.25.2021
The Case for Sex Robots
Sex robots?! For decades, people have debated their dangers or called them ridiculous. But what if these bots can actually be a good thing? Here is the surprisingly human argument for a dystopian-sounding technology — and why it matters far beyond...
10.28.2021
This Episode Will Change Your Brain
People worry that technology changes our brains. It’s the reason why tech critics talk about dopamine, a chemical that they say turns us into social media addicts. But when I called actual brain scientists and asked them to fact-check the...
09.30.2021
Simple Pleasures Aren’t Simple (See: Knitting)
Is everything really political these days? Or has it always been that way? To answer that, let’s look at the story of knitting. Can anything get simpler than knitting? Balls of yarn! Comfy socks! So when the knitting community began reckoning...
08.26.2021
The Not-Boring Truth About Boredom
The most dangerous thing about smartphones, according to critics, is that we're never bored. Boredom is healthy, they say! But history and science may say otherwise. People have spent thousands of years desperately trying to escape boredom, and even considered...
07.30.2021
Yes, Talk to Strangers!
You might think you’re bad at talking with strangers. But in fact, you were built to talk to them — and you’re more natural at it than you know. In this episode, we go back millions of years to learn...
06.24.2021
How to Create Better Memories
Many people are reminiscing about the things they enjoyed during Covid, which is a surprisingly common thing to happen after bad or challenging times. Why do we do this? Because our memories work in strange, unexpected, but ultimately very helpful...
05.27.2021
You Are Not “Addicted” To Technology
Are smartphones and social media addictive? Tech critics say yes. But actual addiction researchers say something else — and they point to ways in which our broad use of the word “addiction” can cause real harm. In this episode, we...
04.29.2021
How To Live Like Ancient Royalty
What was once only available to kings and queens, but that you can do today? The answer: Shocking stuff you've never even thought of. If you ever worry that our world is in decline, this episode can help put that...
03.25.2021
Everyone Is Wrong About Participation Trophies
You’ve heard the story: Young people got “participation trophies” as kids, and it taught them to be entitled, lazy workers. But here’s what you haven’t heard: Participation trophies are 100 years old, and for most of that time, they were...
02.25.2021
The Surprising Importance of To-Go Cocktails
You can learn a lot from a simple margarita… because when you take one home from a restaurant in America, you’re participating in a change that was hundreds of years in the making. In this episode, we dig deep into...
01.28.2021
When Exactly Were "The Good Old Days"?
We like to say that things were better before. But... what year was that, exactly? Join me on a trip through history, as we return to every supposed "golden age" to find out just how golden it was. Then we...
01.27.2021
Did Pessimists Archive Change Its Name? Yes!
This podcast was called Pessimists Archive. Now it's called Build For Tomorrow. Why? Because this show is optimistic — and it needed a name that reflected that. It's the same show you love, now with a name that loves you back. Ready...
12.28.2020
Do We Lose Skills Because of Technology?
We once knew how to do important things... until new technology made us weaker, lazier, and dumber. That’s a story we’ve told ourselves for centuries. But is it true? Get in touch! Website: jasonfeifer.com Newsletter: jasonfeifer.bulletin.com Instagram: Instagram.com/heyfeifer Twitter: Twitter.com/heyfeifer Learn more about your ad choices....
11.26.2020
How to Communicate With the Future
These feel like historic times… so how can we share our wisdom and experiences with future generations? Turns out, it’s really hard! This episode explores why time capsules fail, why almost nothing lasts for thousands of years, why the future...
10.29.2020
The Most Important Podcast of Our Lifetime!
If you’ve ever voted in an election, watched the Bachelor, or worried about the end of days, then you’ve probably fallen for a specific rhetorical trick. In this episode, we explore the history of the phrase “the most important election...
09.24.2020
224 Years of Election Hacking
We have a clear narrative about the 2016 and 2020 election hacking: It’s social media’s fault. But Russia has used the same strategy against America for 100 years (and that’s just the start). If we treat this like it’s only...
08.27.2020
Your Fork Is A Sign That You Think For Yourself
The fork isn’t just a tool for eating. It’s also one of the greatest symbols of individualism — a utensil that people opposed for thousands of years, and that only gained acceptance once we started thinking differently about ourselves. This...
07.30.2020
Why New Technology Always Seems Scary
People said radio was too addictive... then TV was too addictive... and now smartphones are too addictive! Why does every generation say the same things about its new technology (and why do our fears rarely come true?) In this episode,...
06.25.2020
The Mystery of the Shared Earbuds
What does it take for two different people to find common ground? To answer that, we dig into a nine-year-old mystery. In 2011, two very different guys shared a pair of earbuds on the New York City subway. A photo...
05.28.2020
Why We Hate Being Told What To Do
People are refusing to wear masks during a pandemic. Why? To understand, we rewind to the “Anti-Mask League” of 1919 and to the opposition to seatbelt laws in the 1990s. Then we answer the big question: If people won’t listen...
04.30.2020
The Good That Comes From A Pandemic
Covid-19 has interrupted our world, but it's also likely to improve it. After all, history shows that massive disruption is followed by massive opportunity. So what’s in store for us now? In this episode, we learn the surprising consequences of...
03.26.2020
How Natural Is "Natural"?
People love natural foods and natural products... but what is "natural," really? In this episode, we explore that question by going back to one of the very first times anyone claimed a natural product was better than a man-made one:...
02.27.2020
Why We Really Celebrate Our Birthdays
Today, people complain about self-obsessed millennials. Yesterday, they complained about children celebrating their birthdays. When the birthday party became popular in the 19th century, people worried that it would corrupt community, spoil children, and contradict the bible. But the truth...
01.23.2020
Can Tech Physically Change Your Face?
Do you suffer from automobile face? What about airplane face? Or moving-picture face? These are just some examples from a strange historical pattern: For more than a century, people have claimed that new technologies are physically deforming our faces --...
12.05.2019
Teddy Bears Are History's Most Subversive Toy
The teddy bear: Is it cute and cuddly, or a “horrible monstrosity” that’ll destroy humanity? In 1907, many people feared the worst — that this new toy would ruin young girls’ developing maternal instincts, and lead us to a terrible...
10.24.2019
You're Vain and That's OK!
Vanity was born when the mirror was discovered. That’s what the Chicago Record wrote in 1895, around the time when mirrors became a household item. People (and especially women) were condemned for looking in the mirror, and accused of being...
09.12.2019
Should Roads Be For Cars?
Roads weren't always for cars. In fact, highways were originally built for bikes! And now, as modern cities freak out over e-scooters, it’s worth looking back at when the roads were full of all kinds of things on wheels. How...
07.25.2019
The Man Who Nearly Destroyed Comic Books
In the 1950s, America declared war on the comic book. People feared that they’d turn children into hardened criminals, and so opponents burned them in large piles, states banned them, and the U.S. Senate investigated their dangers. The man leading...
06.20.2019
How the Elevator Shaped Our World
The elevator has had a lot of ups and downs. (Sorry, sorry.) As the innovation gained popularity in the late 1800s, it had a profound effect on the way we organize our cities and ourselves. It was also blamed for...
05.15.2019
There's Nothing Wrong With Kids These Days
Kids! They’re lazy, narcissistic, and disrespectful -- or so says the older generation. But when you look back through history, you’ll discover that older generations have been saying a version of the same thing for thousands of years. Our question...
04.22.2019
Every New Dance Used To Be Scandalous
Why are new dances always so scandalous? Grinding, freak dancing, swing dancing, rock-n-roll -- each had their opponents. But at the beginning of it all was the waltz. We may think of the waltz as classy and performative today, but...
03.07.2019
The Scandalous Internet of the 1800s
Today's internet can be a noisy and complicated place, but humanity has seen it all before. In the 1800s, the telegraph triggered many of the same questions and concerns that social media does today — about privacy, information overload, moral...
02.08.2019
Shop Local? Be Thankful for Chain Stores
When chain stores were new, the reaction against them was fierce. Chain stores were accused of destroying democracy, of limiting freedom, of corrupting young people, and of being evil, evil, evil. But in reality, chain stores were innovating the way...
10.15.2018
When Novels Were A "Bad Influence"
Today, novels are a wholesome alternative to modern vices. But long before television and video games, novels were the new and scary form of entertainment. They were accused of corrupting the youth, of planting dangerous ideas into the heads of...
08.06.2018
Overcoming Our Fear of the Underground
“A big humbug” -- that’s how one critic described America’s first subway system. Other opponents were more extreme. It would release dangerous underground air, some said. It would disturb the dead, others said. A religious leader in Boston declared it...

What's Build For Tomorrow about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Build For Tomorrow episodes:

My New Podcast

The Greatest Myth About Learning

What People of 1923 Predicted About 2023

The Best Ways to Use a Crisis

How to Stop Obsessing Over “What If…?”

How to See Gain, Where Others See Loss

Why “Nobody Wants to Work Anymore” is BS

To Save Barbie, They Had to Change Her

Teddy Bears Are History’s Most Subversive Toy (Classic)

All the Fun Facts You Have Wrong!

The Four-Day Workweek Is Here

Real Ways to Predict the Future

The Climate Problem We Can Solve Now

Why People Can’t Write, and How To Fix That

We Can Make Politics Smarter

The Case for Sex Robots

This Episode Will Change Your Brain

Simple Pleasures Aren’t Simple (See: Knitting)

The Not-Boring Truth About Boredom

Yes, Talk to Strangers!

How to Create Better Memories

You Are Not “Addicted” To Technology

How To Live Like Ancient Royalty

Everyone Is Wrong About Participation Trophies

The Surprising Importance of To-Go Cocktails

When Exactly Were "The Good Old Days"?

Did Pessimists Archive Change Its Name? Yes!

Do We Lose Skills Because of Technology?

How to Communicate With the Future

The Most Important Podcast of Our Lifetime!

224 Years of Election Hacking

Your Fork Is A Sign That You Think For Yourself

Why New Technology Always Seems Scary

The Mystery of the Shared Earbuds

Why We Hate Being Told What To Do

The Good That Comes From A Pandemic

How Natural Is "Natural"?

Why We Really Celebrate Our Birthdays

Can Tech Physically Change Your Face?

Teddy Bears Are History's Most Subversive Toy

You're Vain and That's OK!

Should Roads Be For Cars?

The Man Who Nearly Destroyed Comic Books

How the Elevator Shaped Our World

There's Nothing Wrong With Kids These Days

Every New Dance Used To Be Scandalous

The Scandalous Internet of the 1800s

Shop Local? Be Thankful for Chain Stores

When Novels Were A "Bad Influence"

Overcoming Our Fear of the Underground