Former Google chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt discusses how former college football coach Bill Campbell mentored him and many of Silicon Valley's greatest visionaries from Jeff Bezos and Larry Page to Marc Andreessen and Steve Jobs.  Eric recalls how he initially reacted when venture capitalist John Doerr suggested that he work with a coach, how Coach Campbell helped shape the relationship between Eric and Google's founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, and how the coach talked Eric out of resigning as Goo

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Oscar-winning actor/writer/director/producer Tim Robbins shares how he originally developed his latest project Bobo Supreme as a movie with the director Adam McKay, but he was inspired to adapt his screenplay for an auditory medium when the pandemic shut down film production. He reveals how he managed to record with 35 different actors in 35 different locations simultaneously during quarantine, and how it has given him a renewed appreciation for the radio dramas of Orson Welles and his Mercury Radio Thea

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99% Invisible host Roman Mars discusses his new book why it’s taken him a decade to finally write a 99% Invisible book The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design, all of the thought that this design fan put into the look of his first book, and some of the secret publishing considerations that determine everything from how many units get returned to whether a book gets sold by Costco.  We talk about the baseball player who became synonymous with stairs to nowhere and

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Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster served in the US Army for 34 years and then as National Security Advisor to President Donald Trump.  He discusses what it was like to take over that job in the chaotic period following the firing of his predecessor Michael Flynn, how studying LBJ's mistakes during the War in Vietnam made him even more determined to provide the current Commander-in-Chief with straight-forward, unvarnished policy advice, and why he believes that some others in the White House might not h

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John Lithgow shares some of his favorite poems from his new book Trumpty Dumpty Wanted a Crown: Verses for a Despotic Age and how a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s most famous song inspired him to express his political voice through rhyme and verse.  He reveals that he originally wanted to go into fine art instead of acting, how his poetry books have returned him to his childhood love of drawing, and why the motley cast of characters around Donald Trump serve as endless sources of inspiration

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Based on James Comey's memoir A Higher Loyalty, The Comey Rule is a two night television event that is written/directed by Oscar-nominee Billy Ray and stars Emmy-winner Jeff Daniels as the embattled FBI Director.  They join me on the podcast to open up about their own initial anger at James Comey over the 2016 Hillary Clinton probe and why they want to set the record straight about the man behind the two most controversial investigations of the 21st Century.  Jeff reveals what attracts him to roles tha

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Oscar-nominated actor Richard Jenkins talks about his prolific career as one of Hollywood’s most reliable character actors and achieving fame later in life on the hit HBO series Six Feet Under.  He talks about some of his favorite films including Step Brothers and The Shape of Water, how director Guillermo del Toro gives actors a whole bible of background information on their characters, and the difference between working with the Coen Brothers and the Farrelly Brothers.  Richard discusses his role

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Actress Carrie Coon talks about her incredible hot streak from The Leftovers to her new film The Nest

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For more than 25 years, actors and musicians Jack Black and Kyle Gass have been performing as the rock satire band Tenacious D.  They’ve toured around the world, recorded Grammy-winning albums, started a music festival, made a tv show, made a movie, then made an animated movie, and now they’ve even put out a new graphic novel.  Today Kyle and Jack join me on the show as we get into how they’ve managed to outlast the lifespan of most bands and how satirizing rock bands has led to their playing

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As Official White House Photographer under Ronald Reagan and then Barack Obama, Pete Souza was an eyewitness to the unique and tremendous responsibilities of being the most powerful person on Earth.  Now he's the subject of a new documentary film titled The Way I See It.  Pete discusses the life of a White House photographer and what it was like to go from being a journalist on the outside looking in to being at the President’s side all day, every day.  He talks about the delicate balance between g

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