Instigators of Change

Kim Scott admits she has made some huge mistakes as a boss - mistakes that made her kind of obsessed with becoming a better manager. She's also learned a thing or two from being managed by Sheryl Sandberg, and from teaching managers at Apple to lead. She argues that if you don’t know what you’re doing as a leader, productivity will suffer. The team being managed will suffer. And you and your investors will suffer. Even though lots of companies - especially in tech - used to shrug off management, what we need, she says, is more "radical candor." But that "radical candor" does not give you license to be a jerk; it has to be coupled with kindness, so you're helping your co-workers do the best work of their lives.

Patrick Brown makes burgers for a living, but he’ll tell you without hesitation: he has no interest in making burgers. So how did a Stanford biochemist - who happily studied cells in a lab - end up trying to revolutionize fast food? He talks to us about why he felt compelled to quit his job, how he thinks burgers could help save us from economic and environmental catastrophe, and why being in the fast food business has been, well, a bit of a culture shock.

You want to do what’s right for the planet. So you buy an all-electric car. Right? Well... not always. Jay Whitacre, one of the country’s foremost experts on batteries, tells us why where you live may dictate the answer to that question. Which speaks to the strange moment we're in right now, when it comes to batteries. Whitacre says that getting batteries - for cars, for large-scale energy storage - from where they are to where we want them to be is going to be tough. Money is flowing into cutting-edge science, but what's likely to move the needle? Whitacre, a professor at Carnegie Mellon, argues that there’s a real tension between what investors are willing to pay for and how quickly batteries can actually revolutionize our lives.

Sure, lots of business leaders have big dreams. But when Jennifer Holmgren tells you she wants to turn pollution into both jet fuel and yoga pants, she means it. And she's done it. Her company, LanzaTech, has refined a technology to recycle carbon. And, as she explains, they can pull right up to a super-polluting steel mill and start gobbling up their emissions. Jennifer talks about her long-running quest to keep fossil fuels in the ground, her concerns about the role politics plays, and why - years ago - she said yes to a CEO gig on the eve of retirement.

Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C., aren't always two peas in a pod. The "move fast, break things" approach may not square with a cautious-at-all-costs outlook. So if you're a company that needs to work with government regulators, how do you do it? And achieve your goals? Michael Huerta, who ran the FAA and served as U.S. Secretary of Transportation, joins us to explain why there's often friction between entrepreneurs and the government - and how you can avoid the pitfalls to collaborate productively.

Self-driving seemed like a can’t-miss technology. Smart people were working on it. Money was poured into it. So why, decades later, aren’t you answering your email, while lounging in the backseat of a self-driving car on your daily commute? Sven Strohband, who came early to the world of self-driving cars and is now a partner at Khosla Ventures, says: we’ve been going about it all wrong. But, he argues, the revolution is indeed coming. Waabi CEO Raquel Urtasun explains where we’ve veered off-track and how to "course correct" to get self-driving to everyone.

Artificial intelligence is upending the way business is done, and shifting who has the advantage. We talk with Harvard Business School's Karim Lakhani about why traditional models don't work anymore, why some companies are in denial about that, and where the opportunities are now. Plus, thorny questions over data, and China's growing influence over AI.

Data shows that Americans are less happy than they’ve been in 50 years and - no surprise - that has implications for the work we do. Folks building companies are dealing with employees who are burnt out - while often feeling exhausted themselves. So how do you make decisions that really help employees? Jennifer Moss, author of "The Burnout Epidemic," joins us. Plus, Kelly Kinnard, Head of Talent at KV, explains why recruiting is so tough right now, and how you get an edge.

Venture capital has drawn both supporters and detractors, as it has altered the economic fortunes of the world over the last 50 years. Today, venture capitalists have some very lofty goals. They want to fund companies that change how we shop, eat, travel, work, and more. Venture capital is revolutionizing China, and coming under fire for a lack of diversity. Author Sebastian Mallaby talks about his new book "The Power Law," and where venture capital goes from here.

In the early 2000s, a baby clothes salesman was about to strike it big. His name was Adam Neumann, and his rise - and fall - has a lot to teach both founders and funders about why a company can go off the rails. Bestselling authors Maureen Farrell and Eliot Brown join us to talk about how Neumann helped build WeWork, how he attracted tremendous amounts of funding, and ultimately, why the company experienced a fiery fall to earth.