Keen On America

In this KEEN ON episode, Andrew talks to GNAR COUNTRY author Steven Kotler about the biology of aging and how to stay "rad" while growing old.

Steven Kotler is a New York Times bestselling author, an award-winning journalist, and the Executive Director of the Flow Research Collective. He is one of the world’s leading experts on human performance. He is the author of 11 bestsellers (out of fourteen books), including The Art of Impossible, The Future is Faster Than You Think, Stealing Fire, The Rise of Superman, Bold and Abundance. His work has been nominated for two Pulitzer Prizes, translated into over 50 languages, and has appeared in over 100 publications, including the New York Times Magazine, Wired, Atlantic Monthly, Wall Street Journal, TIME, and the Harvard Business Review. His latest book is “GNAR COUNTRY: Growing Old, Staying Rad” (2023)

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

In this KEEN ON episode, Andrew talks to the author of UNLIKELY HEROES, Derek Leebaert, about Franklin Roosevelt's four key lieutenants - Harold Ickes, Harry Hopkins, Frances Perkins and Henry Wallace - and the radically new world that they collectively made.

Derek Leebaert won the biennial 2020 Truman Book Award for Grand Improvisation. His previous books include Magic and Mayhem: The Delusions of American Foreign Policy from Korea to Afghanistan and To Dare and to Conquer: Special Operations and the Destiny of Nations, both Washington Post Best Books of the Year. He was a founding editor of the Harvard/MIT journal International Security and is a cofounder of the National Museum of the U.S. Army. He holds a D.Phil from Oxford and lives in Washington, D.C. His latest book is Unlikely Heroes: Franklin Roosevelt, His Four Lieutenants and the World They Made (2023)

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

In this KEEN ON episode, Andrew talks to BLOOD MONEY author Kathleen McLaughlin about an exploitative American blood industry that, she believes, is sucking the blood of the poor

Kathleen McLaughlin is an award-winning journalist who reports and writes about the consequences of economic inequality around the world. A frequent contributor to The Washington Post and The Guardian, McLaughlin’s reporting has also appeared in The New York Times, BuzzFeed, The Atlantic, The Economist, NPR, and more. She is a former Knight Science Journalism fellow at MIT and has won multiple awards for her reporting on labor in China. Blood Money is her first book.

\Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

In this KEEN ON episode, Andrew talks to THE BENEATH THE ICE author Mensun Bound about the extraordinary story of how the Endurance, Sir Ernest Shackleton's ship, was found in the most hostile sea on earth.

Born in the Falkland Islands, Mensun Bound was the Triton Fellow in Maritime Archaeology at St Peter’s College, Oxford, and the director of the first academic unit for underwater archaeology in England. Known as the "Indiana Jones of the Deep", Bound has conducted wreck surveys and excavations all over the world in a career that spanned 40 years. During that time he excavated one of the oldest known shipwrecks (600 BC) and, in 1997, he used saturation diving methods to carry out the deepest shipwreck excavation there has ever been. Twelve museums around the globe hold permanent displays of artefacts raised by Bound. His work has been the focus of numerous documentaries including a 4-part series by the Discovery Channel entitled ‘Lost Ships’. In 2019 Bound stunned the world with his discovery of Admiral von Spee’s flagship, Scharnhorst which had been lost in battle during World War One. That same year Bound was Director of Exploration for the fist search to find Shackleton’s Endurance which ended in disaster when their Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) imploded from pressure and their principal search vehicle, a Hugin-class Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) disappeared without trace. In 2022 the search resumed under the auspices of the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust with Bound in the same role. On 5 March the Endurance was found and, as predicted by Bound, it was upright, largely intact, proud of the seabed and in an excellent state of preservation .

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

In this KEEN ON episode, Andrew talks to FINALLY SEEN author Kelly Yang about Roald Dahl, Ron DeSantis and why children's literature has become so politicized.

KELLY YANG, Founder, is the New York Times best-selling, award-winning author of FRONT DESK and winner of the 2018 Asian Pacific American Award for Literature. FRONT DESK is a debut middle grade novel published by Scholastic Inc, the publishers of Harry Potter, about a 10 year-old Chinese American immigrant girl who manages the front desk of a motel while her parents clean the rooms. In 2018, FRONT DESK was awarded the Asian Pacific American Award for Literature as well as the Parents’ Choice Gold Medal. In addition, FRONT DESK is a Children’s History Book Prize Honor Book, a E.B. White Honor Book, and has earned numerous other recognitions including being named an Amazon Best Book of the Year, a Washington Post Best Book of the Year, a Kirkus Best Book of the Year, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, a NPR Best Book of the Year, a NBC Best Book of the Year, and a Publisher’s Weekly Best Book of the Year. In 2019, it was announced that FRONT DESK is a 2019 Global Read Aloud, connecting 1.5 million children around the world through one book.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

In this regular KEEN ON summary of the week's news in technology, Andrew talks to That Was The Week newsletter editor Keith Teare about Section 230, an AI bubble, a new China-Saudi axis, techno-political problems in Israel, and Sam Bankman-Fried's legal woes

Keith Teare is a Founder and CEO at SignalRank Corporation. Previously he was Executive Chairman at Accelerated Digital Ventures Ltd - A UK based global investment company focused on startups at all stages. He was also previously founder at the Palo Alto incubator, Archimedes Labs. Archimedes was the original incubator for TechCrunch and since 2011has invested, accelerated or incubated many Silicon valley startups including InFarm, Miles, Quixey; M.dot (sold to GoDaddy); chat.center; Loop Surveys; DownTown and Sunshine. Teare has a track record as a serial entrepreneur with big ideas and has achieved significant returns for investors.

Name as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

In this KEEN ON episode, Andrew talks to the author of THE WORLD CRISIS AND INTERNATIONAL LAW Paul Stephan about the world crisis caused by our knowledge economy and what we can do about it

Paul B. Stephan is a law professor at the University of Virginia. He is an expert on international business, international dispute resolution and comparative law, with an emphasis on Soviet and post-Soviet legal systems. In addition to writing prolifically in these fields, Stephan has advised governments and international organizations, taken part in cases in the Supreme Court of the United States, the federal courts, and various foreign judicial and arbitral proceedings, and lectured to professionals and scholarly groups around the world on issues raised by the globalization of the world economy. His current research interests include the legal challenges posed by big data and a 2023 book entitled The World Crisis and International Law: The Knowledge Economy and the Battle for the Future.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

In this KEEN ON episode, Andrew talks to the co-author of THE BIG MYTH, Erik Conway, about how American business taught us to loathe government and love the free market ideologies of neo-liberal economists like Milton Friedman.

Erik Conway is a historian of science and technology residing in Altadena, CA, and works for the California Institute of Technology. He is the author of seven books, on topics as diverse as aviation infrastructure development in the 1930s and 1940s to Mars exploration in the 2000s, and dozens of articles and essays. He is currently finishing a history of near-Earth asteroids research. In 2011, Conway shared the Watson Davis and Helen Miles Davis prize from the History of Science Society with Naomi Oreskes for their book Merchants of Doubt, which has been translated into 7 languages. It became the basis for the 2014 documentary by the same title, produced by Robby Kenner and Participant Media. He is the co-author of THE BIG MYTH: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market (2023)

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

In this KEEN ON episode, Andrew talks to THE SECRET FILES author Michael Hayes about Bill de Blasio, the NYPD & the Broken Promises of Police Reform

Michael is a journalist and author of the forthcoming book The Secret Files: Bill De Blasio, The NYPD, and The Broken Promises of Police Reform. Set during Bill de Blasio’s tenure as mayor of New York City, the book chronicles the failure of New York City’s most powerful officials to hold the city’s cops accountable to the public they serve.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

In this KEEN ON episode, Andrew talks to the author of INJUSTICE, INC Daniel Hatcher about how the United States criminal justice system has transformed the poor and children into tradable commodities

Daniel L. Hatcher is Professor of Law in the University of Baltimore’s Civil Advocacy Clinic and author of "Injustice, Inc.: How America's Justice System Commodifies Children and the Poor," and "The Poverty Industry: The Exploitation of America's Most Vulnerable Citizens." A former Maryland Legal Aid and Children’s Defense Fund attorney, Hatcher has long been a scholar, advocate, and teacher on poverty and justice.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.