KQED's Forum

Spotify was originally marketed as a democratic, anti-establishment music streaming platform. But according to journalist Liz Pelly, it has become a system favoring major labels and its own algorithmic playlists featuring “ghost artists,” all while underpaying independent artists. Pelly draws on interviews with former employees, music industry veterans and artists to pull back the curtain on the music streaming giant in her new book, “Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Cost of the Perfect Playlist.”

Guests:

Liz Pelly, writer; contributing editor to The Baffler

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Once bustling San Francisco neighborhoods such as Union Square and the Financial District have been plagued with high retail and office vacancy rates since the pandemic started five years ago. More than a third of all the office space in San Francisco is now vacant and hybrid schedules mean that even buildings that do have tenants don’t fill up with workers each day. Union Square has also lost its luster as a shopping destination with most of its department stores shuttering. San Francisco’s new mayor, Daniel Lurie, says he has plans to revive downtown. We talk about what it would take to refill and reuse commercial spaces, and bring people back to downtown.

Guests:

Robert Sammons, senior research director, Cushman & Wakefield

Lauran Waxmann, reporter, San Francisco Chronicle

Katie Buchanan, principal, design director and managing director of the San Francisco office, Gensler

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MSNBC host Chris Hayes spends a lot of time thinking about how to grab — and hold — people’s attention. He says the stakes are high because those who can capture attention “command fortunes, win elections and topple regimes.” We’ll talk to Hayes about why it’s become so much harder to command attention, why Donald Trump is exceptionally good at it and how we can reclaim our own attention for the things that matter. Hayes’s new book is “The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource.”

Guests:

Chris Hayes, host, "All In with Chris Hayes" on MSNBC; author, "The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource”

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If Trump’s nominees are confirmed, his administration could include at least 13 billionaires, collectively worth $383 billion. And at the inauguration, billionaire tech leaders like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg sat front and center signaling their proximity to power. Wealthy people joining the government is not new, but the levels of extreme wealth are unprecedented. So much so that in his farewell address, former President Biden warned that “an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy.” Pundits have christened this new era a “broligarchy.” We’ll talk about how billionaires in and out of government are impacting the country.

Guests:

Brooke Harrington, professor of sociology, Dartmouth College; author, "Offshore: Stealth Wealth and the New Colonialism"

Paul Pierson, political science professor, UC Berkeley; co-author, "Let The Eat Tweets: How the Right Rules in an Age of Extreme Inequality"

Noah Bookbinder, president, CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington)

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You might have seen Los Angeles-based comedian Joel Kim Booster in the Maya Rudolph series “Loot,” or enjoyed his “Pride and Prejudice” adaptation “Fire Island,” set on the eponymous gay vacation spot. His latest project is hosting the podcast “Bad Dates,” where comedians share their worst dating stories. We’ll get his advice on how to have better dates and hear why his latest comedy special is called “Rude Little Pig.” He joins us in studio ahead of his appearances at SF Sketchfest.

Guests:

Joel Kim Booster, stand-up comedian, writer and actor; host of the podcast "Bad Dates;" star of the Apple TV+ series “Loot;" writer-star of “Fire Island" on Hulu

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Writer and disability justice activist Alice Wong’s illness took her ability to speak without technological assistance, but she continues to make herself, and members of her community, profoundly heard. As part of our new series profiling legends of the Bay Area, Wong joins us to talk about her joyous approach to life and her recent MacArthur Genius win, and to share some favorite interviews recorded with StoryCorps as part of her Disability Visibility Project. We also check in with fellow disability rights activists about the evolution of the movement and the importance of being heard.

Guests:

Alice Wong, disabled activist, writer and community organizer; founder, Disability Invisibility Project; author, "Year of the Tiger: An Activist's Life."

Yomi Sachiko Young, Oakland-based social justice organizer, disability justice dreamer

Sandy Ho, executive director of the Disability and Philanthropy Forum

Emily Flores, journalist and founder/editor in chief, Cripple Media

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Whether it’s declining an invitation, disagreeing with a boss or questioning a doctor, why is it so hard for us to say “no?” In her new book, Cornell organizational psychologist Dr. Sunita Sah draws on behavioral science to look at the pressure we feel to comply and explains why acts of defiance should be seen as expressions of our values. Sah’s new book is “Defy: The Power of No In A World That Demands Yes.” When do you struggle to say no?

http://www.sunitasah.com

Guests:

Dr. Sunita Sah, author, physician-turned-organizational psychologist, Cornell University; Her new book is ‘Defy: The Power of No In A World That Demands Yes’.

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A cattle supplement that cuts down on cow burps and thus, greenhouse gas emissions. Drugs that make it far easier to prevent AIDS and maybe end the disease altogether. Generative AI upending traditional search engines. These are just some of the advances that made MIT Technology Review’s 2025 list of 10 Breakthrough Technologies. Writers and editors from the magazine join us to talk about how these technologies will progress this year and why they could be so impactful.

Guests:

Mat Honan, editor in chief, MIT Technology Review

Allison Arieff, editorial director of print, MIT Technology Review

Casey Crownhart, climate reporter, MIT Technology Review

James O'Donnell, artificial intelligence reporter, MIT Technology Review

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Mountaineer Jon Waterman first journeyed to the High Arctic in 1983, intent on learning all he could about the strange land with grizzlies and caribou, sea fossil-filled mountains and night skies with “saffron clouds and beams of viridescence.” Waterman has returned more than 20 times since then, and in a new book he documents the environmental changes he witnessed. We talk to him about the world above the Arctic Circle and how the climate crisis is transforming it. His book is “Into the Thaw.”

http://jonathanwaterman.com

Guests:

Jon Waterman, author, “Into the Thaw: Witnessing Wonder Amid the Arctic Climate Crisis”; former Denali National Park ranger. His other books include National Geographic’s “Atlas of the National Parks" and "In the Shadow of Denali."

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On his first day in office Donald Trump issued a slew of executive orders to address what he called “an unprecedented flood” of immigration. Terminating birthright citizenship, a right enshrined in the Constitution, declaring a national emergency at the border and seeking funds to build a border wall are just some of Trump’s directives. Many of his orders faced immediate opposition: as of Tuesday, 18 states and two cities had filed lawsuits attacking the legality of the birthright citizenship order. We talk about Trump’s early moves on immigration and how they are impacting immigrants and their families.

Guests:

Salvador Rivera, correspondent based in San Diego, BorderReport.com

Deep Gulasekaram, professor of law and director of Byron White Center for the Study of Constitutional Law, University of Colorado Boulder Law School. He teaches constitutional and immigration law. He is co-author of the leading immigration law textbook used in U.S. law schools.

Molly O'Toole, fellow, Wilson Center; Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter currently working on a book on immigration for Penguin Random House[[formerly covered migration and security for the Los Angeles Times]]

Rafael Carranza, reporter, Arizona Luminaria, a nonprofit news organization covering Arizona; Carranza covers immigration issues. He previously reported for the Arizona Republic and the USA Today Network.

Tyche Hendricks, senior editor covering immigration, KQED

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