How To Change The World Podcast

Ben & Jerry’s. You know it. You love it. It’s one of the most iconic brands of the last 50 years, blending inventive flavors, a joyous hippie spirit, and a bone-deep commitment to social impact. Then in 2000, Unilever came calling with $326 million, and what followed is a 25-year masterclass in what happens when corporate oligarchs try to gut the social mission of a business with one hand while using that reputation to sell more product to the public on the other.

This is the story of a remarkable friendship, the powerful market forces that try to shape even the most well intentioned businesses, and their fight to get their company back.

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The How to Change the World Podcast is produced by World Within Studios with PRX.

Producer and Composer: Alexandre Miller

Editors: Eve Weston and Martin McGreevy

Standing Rock has been home to the Lakota people for centuries. When the Dakota Access Pipeline threatened their water and their land, the world showed up. Most people left when the cameras did, but the people of Standing Rock stayed, and today we're talking about what happened next.

My guests today are Joseph McNeill of the SAGE Development Authority at Standing Rock Nation, and Alex Honnold, the professional climber who free soloed El Capitan and climbed Taipei 101. Maybe more importantly, Alex founded the Honnold Foundation, which has teamed up with SAGE on something that's never been done before.

These two are friends, and they have a lot to teach us about energy sovereignty, overcoming huge odds, and the future of how we power our communities.

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The How to Change the World Podcast is produced by World Within Studios with PRX.

Producer and Composer: Alexandre Miller

Editors: Eve Weston and Martin McGreevy

Friends, this was a fun one. I’m somewhat embarrassed to say, I didn't know who John Green was until relatively recently. We met on a Zoom call where I first learned about the fan-owned English Football Club, AFC Wimbledon. Now we’re working together on a film about the power of community ownership through the lens of sports, which feels particularly relevant as more and more soccer teams get snatched up by some of the worst humans on earth. 

You probably know John from his smash-hit novel and its film adaptation, The Fault in Our Stars, or from Vlogbrothers, the YouTube series he's run with his brother Hank for nearly two decades, or maybe from Crash Course, their series shown in classrooms across America. He's as prolific as he is thoughtful. And, he has a phenomenal new book out called Hollywood, Ending.

We talk about his book Everything Is Tuberculosis - and how a disease we've been able to cure for over 80 years, is still the world’s most deadly infection. We also talk about a hope that stands up to scrutiny, why history doesn’t belong to the past, and how we’re both the cause and the cure to most of the things that plague us.

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The How to Change the World Podcast is produced by World Within Studios with PRX.

Producer and Composer: Alexandre Miller

Editors: Eve Weston and Martin McGreevy

Cinematography: Jonathan Vogler

Rostam here. I came up in the worlds of finance and venture capital - worlds that fancy themselves as disruptors and visionaries, but in reality, they reinforce the status quo by further consolidating wealth and power to a few at the expense of the many.

Throughout this podcast, we've been making the case that building a truly fair society requires building a fair economy. My guest today both helps us understand what that economy can look like as well as illuminate some of the thinkers and practitioners who have been building it for over a century.

Dr. Jessica Gordon-Nembhard is a political economist at John Jay College whose book, Collective Courage, documents a history most of us were never taught - a century-long tradition of Black cooperative enterprise, from W.E.B. Du Bois' economic writings in 1907 through Ella Jo Baker's organizing work and Fannie Lou Hamer's Freedom Farm. Their work presented sophisticated alternatives to an extractive economy, building shared ownership and economic solidarity from the ground up. 

And the fact that most of us don't know this history isn't by coincidence. 

In this conversation, we're going to explore what this rich tradition of cooperative enterprise actually looked like, why it was buried, and what figures like Du Bois and Baker can teach us about building an economy that works for all of us.

Income inequality in America has reached levels not seen since the Gilded Age - and by some measures beyond it. The top 1% of Americans now hold more wealth than the entire bottom 90% combined.

Our guest today has had a front row seat to how that happens. He was an early employee of the tech oligopoly, and later became a whistleblower testifying before Congress against the very platform he once believed in.

Since then, Brian Boland has conducted extensive research into just how much strain our financial system and its emphasis on shareholder primacy is placing on everyday Americans.

Through Unlock Ownership, he's now building and making the case for what he calls an ownership economy: a practical blueprint for an economic future that has room for us all. 

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The How to Change the World Podcast is produced by World Within Studios

Producer and Composer: Alexandre Miller

Editors: Eve Weston and Martin McGreevy

Friends!

Big, big, big news. How to Change the World is becoming a TV show. And it’s launching - on our youtube - September 10th with 10 episodes dropping over 10 weeks.

In this conversation, the show creators Rostam Zafari and Dylan Mulick sit down together to talk about why they made this, why does it matter, why now? They also share some of their favorite memories, experiences, and lessons from traveling around the world to make this show over 3 years.

What do you do when a corporation steals your football club, the government looks the other way, and the sport you love makes it all perfectly legal?

If you're Marc Jones and your fellow lifelong fans - you build something that’s your own.

Marc is one of the founders of AFC Wimbledon, the fan-owned club that rose from the ashes after Wimbledon FC was controversially relocated to Milton Keynes in 2002 - one of the most brazen acts of corporate indifference in the history of English Football. What the fans built in response has become one of sports most remarkable stories, and honestly, one of the most remarkable stories in community organizing full stop.

World Within is thrilled to partner with AFC Wimbledon because their story is the kind we exist to tell. Building an economy for the many, not the few. To do so, we've teamed up with director Jonathan Vogler, author John Green, Rosianna Halse Rojas and Mike Tollin Productions, the people behind, among many other beloved film/TV spectacles, The Last Dance.

Join us for the ride, and wear your very own World Within x AFC Wimbledon, which is available to buy at AFC Wimbledon's online shop.

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The How to Change the World Podcast is produced by World Within Studios with PRX.

Producer and Composer: Alexandre Miller

Editors: Eve Weston and Martin McGreevy

With the World Cup upon us, there's no better time to ask: What is it about sports that makes strangers embrace and entire communities all around the world to hold their breath together?

My guest today has spent a career exploring those questions, making us laugh, cry, and leap for joy through his films, television series, and documentaries. Mike Tollin is a legendary film producer and director behind Radio, Coach Carter, Varsity Blues, and The Last Dance, the Michael Jordan documentary that stopped the world in its tracks and reminded a global audience why we fall in love with sports in the first place.

Mike understands something deeper about what sports really are about: community, identity, and what we're capable of when we come together around something bigger than ourselves.

We recorded this conversation from a room at the Dog and Fox in Southwest London, where Mike and I found ourselves getting to know AFC Wimbledon, a fan-owned football club with one of the most remarkable stories in sports. We address that a bit in this conversation, and we'll be going much deeper on their story in our next episode.

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The How to Change the World Podcast is produced by World Within Studios with PRX.

Producer and Composer: Alexandre Miller

Editors: Eve Weston and Martin McGreevy

Videography: Jonathan Vogler

Today, we’re talking to Kristen Sonday (or as her friends know her, K-Bad), the co-founder and CEO of Paladin. Paladin is working to close what she calls the "Justice Gap," the over 90% of Americans who can't access essential legal services. 

Together, we break down where our justice system fails to live up to its name, the damaging impact it can have on people and communities as a result, and Paladin's creative solution to set the record straight. 

At World Within, we are supporting Paladin on their journey to help 1 million people get a fair shot in the justice system.

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The How to Change the World Podcast is produced by World Within Studios with PRX.

Producer and Composer: Alexandre Miller

Opening Music: Craig DeLeon

Editors: Eve Weston and Martin McGreevy

Session Engineer: Gabe Sweeney

Community. It’s an idea we come back to again and again on this podcast. Not the superficial buzzword used to sell us coworking spaces, wellness retreats, and condo developments, but the soul-nourishing, and yes, world-changing, power of caring for the places we live, and the people who live there with us. 

Today we’re joined by my friend and teacher Matt Jorgensen and zoom in on a small town in Northern California that’s building real community, and unpack its potential for our own lives.

While it’s tempting to only start conversations about changing the world with sweeping, global plans, Matt has taught me that it can also begin with a defunct gas station, a broken down firehouse, and a vision for something different.

Learn more about ReVillage and get in touch at: https://www.revillage.earth/

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The How to Change the World Podcast is produced by World Within Studios with PRX.

Producer and Composer: Alexandre Miller

Editors: Eve Weston and Martin McGreevy

Session Engineer: Gabe Sweeney