Show Notes: 

• NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (05:15) 
• Mentors (07:20) 
• Building and leading teams (13:15) 
• Comfort with uncertainty (15:30) 
• Waleed Abdalati Origins episode (18:30) 
• What drew Nash to JPL (19:00) 
• Trajectories to JPL (20:00) 
• Why you need to read sociology books (22:00) 
• Being a Renaissance Person - curiosity across human endeavors (22:40) 
• T-shaped people (23:00) 
• Challenging yourself (29:45) 
• The change in mentality that comes with public service (32:50) 
• NASA JPL Team X (35:15) 
  • What is Team X?
• van Allen, von Braun, and Pickering famous picture (38:00) 
• What networked computers did for JPL (40:30) 
• Alfred’s contribution to Team X efficiency - paper (42:15) 
• Three types of fun (44:10) 
• Thinking about how you provide information (46:15) 
  • Related: see discussion of human-centered design in Rachel Young Origins episode  
• "Murphy was an optimist” (48:00) 
• Melanie Mitchell Origins episode (56:10) 
• Writing (56:45) 
  • Helping Writers Become Authors podcast
  • Children of Tendu podcast and parallels to proposal writing 
  • Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way  
  • Why you need to learn about design 
  • “All endeavors of humanity are communicative endeavors" 
  • “Vision without action is a daydream, action without vision is a nightmare" 
• “You can never be too clear” (01:05:30) 
• Thinking in questions (01:06:00) 
  • “The people who really make it in life are not those who get the right answer, but the ones that ask the right question”  
  • Right question is the quantum leap to the right answer 
• Lightning round (01:08:00): 
  • Book: Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman 
  • Passion: Gift of gab  
  • Heart sing: Broadest possible definition of product development (The Invincible Company book)  
  • Screwed up: Leading people during Planck Mission project 
• Find guest online: 
  • Twitter @aeniii
  • NASA JPL  
• 'Five-Cut Fridays’ five-song music playlist series   
  • Alfred’s playlist

Show Notes: 

• Spiritual background of his childhood (05:30) 
• Discipline to do good work (06:10) 
• Mentor: Albert-László Barabási (09:30) 
  • How do you demand excellence? 
• Musing on the competitive mentality (11:45) 
• Relevance of science is a very social dimension (12:30) 
• What he tells his students (13:30) 
• Adapting as an individual (14:45) 
• MIT Media Lab Collective Learning Group (17:00) 
• The Last Dance documentary (18:30) 
• The Playbook documentary series (18:40) 
• Complexity (21:00) 
  • Fractals, iterating functions, and chaos
  • Lorenz
  • Feigenbaum
• Book: Why information grows (26:45) 
  • What is information?  
• Book: How humans judge machines (30:20) 
  • Why has knowledge not made it everywhere?  
• TED Talk: “A bold idea to replace politicians” (34:20) 
  • Rethinking democracy and technology 
• Trusting technologies (36:45) 
• Counterfactuals (37:00) 
• What is intelligence? (38:15) 
• Failure that set up for later success (41:15) 
• Reorienting yourself (42:30) 
• Morning routine (45:30) 
• Acting on first emotion (48:00) 
  • Do not lose the emotional energy that comes with creativity - it is fleeting and love is going to fade, so be romantic while love is there 
• Lightning Round (40:15) 
  • Books: Blank Slate (Steven Pinker), the Righteous Mind (Jonathan Haidt), and the Secret of Our Success (Joseph Henrich) 
  • Passion: Writing 
    • Janna Levin (astrophysicist and writer): A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines
  • Heart Sing: Review of economic complexity 
  • Screwed up: Ability to accept things he has screwed up 
• Find guest online: 
  • Website
  • Twitter: @cesifoti
  • https://www.judgingmachines.com/
• 'Five-Cut Fridays’ five-song music playlist series   

Show Notes: 

• Santa Fe Institute (2:00) 
• Alexander Hamilton biography by Ron Chernow (4:30) 
• The Universe and Dr. Einstein by Lincoln Barnett (5:45) 
• Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter (7:30) 
  • Martin Gardner Scientific American “Mathematical Games" (8:30) 
• Douglas Hofstadter (10:00) 
• John Holland (14:30) 
  • Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems
• Copycat cognitive architecture (17:00) 
  • Description  
  • Fantastic discussion
• What sustains her in moments of doubt (21:00) 
• Article about analogies related to COVID (25:00) 
• Overcoming the sense of obligation to follow curiosity (27:30) 
• Strategy for saying ’no’ (29:45) 
• Morning routine (31:00) 
• Pomodoro Method for time management (33:00) 
• Complexity and complex systems (39:00) 
  • Must read: Chaos by James Gleick  
• R-naught parameter and COVID (44:00) 
• Becoming comfortable with uncertainty (45:00) 
  • Think about the world in terms of information 
• Think more complexly - think in relationships instead of entities (46:45) 
  • Network science
• SFI - Transmission Series (49:15) 
• What is missing from our models of intelligence? (50:00) 
• Writing process (54:00) 
• Anne Lamott Bird by Bird (57:45) 
• Lightning round (58:30) 
  • Book: The Recursive Universe  
    • John Conway’s Game of Life  
  • Passion: outdoors 
  • Heart sing: analogy and abstraction beyond human intelligence 
  • Screwed up: Early life with with physics 
• Find Melanie online 
  • https://melaniemitchell.me/
  • Twitter: @MelMitchell1 
• 'Five-Cut Fridays’ series  
  • Melanie’s list

Show Notes: 

• Data-driven design firm Accurat
• Data humanism
• When she realized design was going to be a part of her life (07:00) 
• A ’new chapter’ in her life to fuse data and design (07:30) 
• What teachers told her that changed her (08:00) 
• Discovery of information design (09:00) 
• Rules versus limitations (10:15) 
  • Rules as catalyzers of creativity 
  • Pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone 
• Phases of dealing with COVID-19 (13:00) 
• Think about yourself in 2-3 years - who do you want to remember yourself to be? (13:45) 
• Daily practices (14:15) 
  • How to be in touch with what makes you feel better (15:30) 
  • Be patient with yourself 
• What she does when she feels uncreative (16:30) 
• Saying no to things (19:00) 
  • Setting rules for yourself 
  • Decide who it is that you are 
• Maria Popova and Brain Pickings (23:15) 
• Design vs. data science (25:00) 
• Data as a way to analyze oneself (25:15) 
• Design firm IDEO and user-centered design (28:30) 
• Antidisciplinary (28:40) 
• What to avoid when starting a new project (29:15) 
• The tension between familiarity and the unknown (30:15) 
• The energy you put out (32:20) 
• The value of new creative environments (33:00) 
• Pentagram (33:20) 
• Not the next ’thing,’ the next ‘chapter’ (35:00) 
• Using a language is a way to train the brain (37:00) 
• MIT Media Lab (38:30) 
• Friends in space piece (42:00) 
• Lightning Round (44:00): 
  • Book: The image of the city Kevin Lynch 
  • Passion that set her path: playing the piano 
  • Latest passion: Romantic relationship 
  • Screwed up: Relationship with her father and time 
• Find Giorgia online 
  • http://giorgialupi.com/
  • Twitter
• 'Five-Cut Fridays’ five-song music playlist series  
  • Giorgia’s list

Show Notes: 

• Marx Philosophic and Economic manuscript of 1844 (3:30) 
• Changed by exposure to systematic class privilege (7:10) 
• ‘Cubilcle’-ization revolution (8:10) 
• Normative aspects of economics and markets (11:30) 
• The American Economic Journal (15:00) 
• Being intellectually curious (16:00) 
• Hugh Lacey History of Philosophy and Science - Swarthmore (16:00) 
• Thomas Kuhn - Structure of Scientific Revolutions (18:30) 
  • How scientific ‘controversies’ arise and how they are resolved 
• Intellectual fruitfulness of doing philosophy of X where X can be any discipline or problem (20:00) 
  • Turning point: do this from political and economic philosophy  
• Normative inquiry has to be responsive to the actual experiences of people (22:00) 
• Early life as a contemporary philosopher (24:00) 
• John Dewey and privatism (25:00) 
• Max Weber “Science as a Vocation" (26:30) 
  • Any vocation is ‘Wissenschaft’ (knowledge-making) 
• Sustaining moments are those when the big questions arise 
• Why it is hard to ask people what matters to them (32:00) 
• Ethnography and human-centered design - how your ideas impact on the ground (33:20) 
• Read broadly (34:00) 
• "The Island Of Stone Money” - Island of Yap (36:30) 
• Creative process (38:20) 
  • “The key is always to keep reading" 
  • How she decides what to read - have a research question in mind (39:20) 
• What is populism? By Jan-Werner Müller (42:20) 
• Landmark paper “What is the point of equality” (42:30) 
• Quest for equality is a quest for justice, to get rid of oppressive social relations (46:20) 
• MacArthur Foundation ‘Genius Grants’ (47:25) 
• Cecilia Conrad Origins episode (48:20) 
• Future book (50:30) 
• Research into how different disciplines attributes ‘genius’ (51:30) 
• Definitions of genius (52:00) 
• How she organizes information (52:30) 
• Thomas Piketty Capital in the Twenty-First Century (1:00:00) 
• Morning routine (1:07:10) 
• Locke’s Second Treatise (1:09:50) 
• Lightning Round (1:17:00) 
  • Book: The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith 
• 'Five-Cut Fridays’ series  
  • Guest’s list

• Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) (06:00) 
• One of ten people to be ’NASA Chief Scientist' 
• Being led around by your curiosity 
  • ‘Pulls' from our earliest ages in life (07:30) 
• The Arctic from space (10:00) 
  • The ’space-based perspective' 
• ’No better compass than your emotions’ (11:30) 
  • Constructive emotions 
• Opportunities to connect mind and body (14:00) 
• Love of career and love of family (23:30) 
• “It has to give you energy and not drain energy from you" (25:00) 
• What he tells his students (28:00) 
  • Think about the act of learning 
• The goal: learn, grow, have new experiences (30:00) 
• Becoming comfortable with discomfort - not that hard if you believe in it and if you believe you can contribute meaningfully to it (34:00) 
• Existing in little space (35:00) 
• Antidisciplinary (36:00) 
• NASA = ‘bureaucratic manifestation of all that makes us human’ (38:00) 
  • Study the far off places that only exist in our imagination 
  • Takes our humanity and our human spirit to the limit 
• Communicating difficult things (44:00) 
• It is our responsibility to understand why others feel and think the way that they do (50:45) 
• Physics is better behaved than social science (58:00) 
• Put yourself in a place of understanding why someone may feel differently than you (59:00) 
  • Put the energy into understanding a divergent perspective from yours 
• Lightning Round (1:02:00): 
  • Book: Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! and What Do You Care What Other People Think?
    • Marriage of cerebral and emotional sides 
  • Passion that helped set your path: theater and his children 
  • Making your heart sing now: glimmers of hope in the tragedies of this era’s events 
  • Screwed up: education and career path (1:07:00) 
• Enjoy the challenge to think differently 
• 'Five-Cut Fridays’ series  
  • Guest’s list

Show Notes: 

• Privilege brings with it a sense of responsibility (4:00) 
• Empowering others - "nurturing, supporting, and uplifting" (5:30) 
  • “Talent in unexpected locations" 
• Levels of impact: individual and systems (7:45) 
• Carrying people with you (8:20) 
• POSSE Foundation (8:40) 
• Compensatory and Distributive Justice (9:00) 
• What she tells her students (10:45) 
• Most proud of integrating race and gender into economics programs (11:00) 
  • What we are missing in the discourses of race and gender 
• Difficult to reshape pre-conceived notions unless you allow everyone to explore (13:00) 
• Interconnectedness of society and systems level thinking (14:00) 
  • A must read - Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows 
  • Becoming more comfortable with complexity and uncertainty - Santa Fe Institute guidance during COVID-19
• Cecilia’s message during COVID-19 (15:00) 
• The Top 100 from 100&Change Respond to COVID-19 (16:30) 
• “We don’t have the luxury of backing away from challenges to focus on a single one” (18:30) 
• MacArthur Fellows Program (19:00) 
  • Characteristics of fellows (24:30) 
  • Howard Gardner “fruitful asynchrony” and his book Creating Minds (26:00) 
• Role of poetry in Cecilia’s life (27:50) 
  • Her published poem “Apathy" 
• The Poetry Foundation (29:15) 
• The On Being Project (30:00) 
• Finding hope and despair right now (31:00) 
• Second-line show for healthcare workers (32:15) 
• 'Five-Cut Fridays’ series  
  • Cecilia’s list

Show Notes: 

• Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG) (1:40) 
• The contagious nature of imprisonment paper (1:50) 
• Value of community colleges (6:30) 
• Professor Dan Balaguy at Sierra College (7:20) 
• Professor Richard Stong at Rice University - Combinatorics (8:30)  
• Coming to an understanding of one’s career and curiosity (10:20)  
• How can we make the public more data literate (i.e., numeracy)? (12:15) 
  • Maintain a healthy skepticism of numbers - think more critically (see Seth Godin’s thoughts)  
• Data can encode discrimination and bias (16:10) 
  • Predictive policing algorithms - Kristian’s paper
  • Be reflective about where patterns in data come from 
• Importance of uncertainty (20:00) 
• HRDAG ‘casualty estimations’ (21:10) 
  • Humanize the data (22:00) 
• Describing how systematic things can be (23:50) 
• Taking chances (e.g., Tim Ferriss guidance on cold emailing) (24:50) 
• Where do you get your confidence and energy (26:50) 
• Maintaining beginner’s mindset - blur disciplinary lines (28:20) 
• “The most beautiful experience we have is the mysterious” -Einstein (29:20) 
• How do you grapple with the outrage of injustice? 
• Those with data skills need to get involved with criminal justice reform (36:20) 
  • Volunteer with public defenders - make sure you are a low barrier to people if you volunteer 
  • Talk with the people closest to the problem - human-centered approach
  • Find ways that your unique skills can help 
• How do you maintain your energy? (39:50) 
• Morning routine (40:30) 
• Lightning Round (43:10) 
  • Book: Harry Potter 
  • Passion: sowing costumes 
  • What is making your heart sing now? Her daughter 
  • Screwed up: partial differential equations 
• Further reading and getting involved in criminal justice reform 
  • Pod Save the People podcast (38:30) 
  • https://theappeal.org/ news source (39:00) 
  • Ear Hustle podcast 
  • Organizations leading the way  
• Were to find Kristian online: 
  • Twitter: @KLdivergence (https://twitter.com/KLdivergence) 
• 'Five-Cut Fridays’ series  
  • Kristian’s list

Show Notes: 

• Grew up knowing possibility and that people create things (8:30) 
• Being around art, there was always another reality that could be made (9:00) 
• How do you sit with tension? (10:00) 
  • The thing that allows me to maintain balance in the present - keep moving at the pace that feels most fulfilling and productive in the moment 
  • Find comfort in the tension  
• Poetry is complex enough to hold the tension of human experience - pair with Brené Brown's thoughts (12:15) 
• Love of poetry (12:30)  
  • "Where the sidewalk ends" and "Falling up” - Shel Silverstein 
  • Music - Nas (14:00) 
  • A love for how people are able to communicate narratives 
• Pedagogy (20:15) 
• "The way that you move is going to get you to where you need to get” (22:15) 
• Community empowerment (24:30) 
  • Create. Inspire. Support. 
  • What is it about the physical environment that is preventing people from being about to leave?  
• Community is everything (30:00) 
• What do you tell people to help them embrace the moment? (31:00) 
  • Everything is designed and the built environment (31:00) 
• Concept of scale (space and time) (32:15) 
• The Bayou St. John, New Orleans (35:00) 
• Human-level scale and humanizing things (35:30) 
  • Everything is interconnected 
  • Pair the discussion with David Krakauer thoughts on complexity
• Regaining lost focus (42:00) 
  • Taking long breaths and breathing practice 
  • “The thing that I value most is breathing” (42:30) 
• Perspective on pandemics and COVID-19 (45:00) 
• Lightning round (48:15) 
  • Book: "Where the sidewalk ends" and "Falling up” - Shel Silverstein 
  • Passion outside his work: proximity to social work 
  • Making his heart sing: new series of drawings called Ancestors
  • Changed his mind about lately: “how much I need" 
    • “The fastest way to have more is to need less" 
• Human beings not human doers (55:30) 
• Find José online: 
  • Instagram
  • Twitter @jccotto 
  • https://jccotto.com/
  • Ancestors series of drawings 
• 'Five-Cut Fridays’ series  
  • Jose’s list

Show Notes: 

• Cultivate Wit (03:00) 
• New Glarus Spotted Cow Beer (03:40) 
• Lambeau Field - Green Bay, Wisconsin (04:00) 
• Pausing in your activities to recognize what it is you are actually drawing joy from (07:20) 
• Surprising ways to learn about entrepreneurship (11:00) 
• Common experience and connection (20:30) 
• The Onion (21:00) 
• Creative process at The Onion (25:30) 
• TED Talk: What I learned from writing jokes for The Onion (27:40) 
• Creative collaboration (29:30) 
• Two tracks of the ’notion’ of creativity: within your own head and within a collective group (29:50) 
• Detachment as a key component of creativity (32:30) 
• Daniel Kahneman and cognitive biases (33:00) 
• Ideas are not precious (36:30) 
• Dealing with rejection (36:50) 
• TV show with Baratunde Thurston called Funded (37:30) 
• Take the risk to do your best work - like Stephen Pressfield’s The War of Art (40:30) 
• IDEO (42:50) 
• Ideas in service of cultural growth and people (44:30) 
• Time at Google working on the AI personal assistant (45:10) 
• The whole world is designed (47:40) 
• We are shaping our ideas of the world through every interaction (48:00) 
• Note-taking (50:00) 
  • Field Notes notebooks
  • I’m not writing it down to remember it later, I’m writing it down to remember it now 
  • The magic of the blank page 
• Lightning round (01:01:00): 
  • Book: George Saunders The Tenth of December
• Find Brian online 
  • Website
  • Twitter: @BJanosch 
  • Instagram
• 'Five-Cut Fridays’ series  
  • Brian’s list