On this latest California Sun podcast, John Freeman, author of “California Rewritten: A Journey Through the Golden State’s New Literature,” talks to me about how California has become America’s new literary center, challenging New York’s dominance. He discusses the pandemic book club that sparked his journey, the state’s evolving mythology, and how diverse voices are redefining what it means to imagine America’s future.

In the theater of history, irony often plays a leading role. How did the greatest engine of prosperity the world has ever known — according to the World Bank lifting 1.5 billion people out of crushing poverty — become America’s most dangerous political wager?

In this recent WhoWhatWhy podcast I spoke with Journalist David J. Lynch — author of The World’s Worst Bet: How the Globalization Gamble Went Wrong (And What Would Make It Right.) He witnessed first-hand globalization’s arc from golden dawn to political twilight and the impact on global trade today.

He asks why the smartest people in Washington were so spectacularly right about the economics and so catastrophically wrong about the politics.

Minerva University, has earned the No. 1 ranking in the World University Rankings for Innovation for four consecutive years.

Founded in San Francisco in 2012, Minerva reimagined higher education — eliminating campuses, lectures, and tenure while sending students to live and study across seven global cities.

In this California Sun podcast, Mike Magee, President of the University discusses how Minerva, with only a 4% acceptance rate and students from more than 100 countries, is preparing the next generation of leaders for an interconnected world.

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More than taking to the streets, a souring economy may be democracy’s last hope. Beneath calm headlines, inflation persists and wealth accumulates. The numbers reveal what matters most.

It’s the economy, stupid.” Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign mantra has never felt more prophetic. In an era when presidential scandals barely register, where lawbreaking and corruption seem consequence-free, where the president himself once boasted he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue without losing support — the economy may be the only force powerful enough to reshape our political landscape.

And right now, beneath the surface calm, something fundamental may be shifting.

In this recent WhoWhatWhy podcast I spoke with Matthew Klein, economics commentator and publisher of The Overshoot newsletter. He takes us deep into the weeds of consumer spending, inflation persistence, housing market dysfunction, and the ticking time bomb of household wealth that could reshape everything in ways that simple politics cannot.

Today, as immigrant families are again separated and detained, Satsuki Ina joins me on the California Sun podcast to talk about her memoir “The Poet and the Silk Girl.” Her story chronicles her family’s journey through California’s network of assembly centers and permanent camps during World War II. It’s a reminder, she says, that what happened then is not just history — it’s a warning about how easily such chapters of fear and racism repeat themselves.

Satsuki was born behind barbed wire at Tule Lake, where she became one of roughly 120,000 Japanese Americans incarcerated during the war. Her parents, both U.S. citizens, lost their freedom and faith in America, leaving a legacy of silence and trauma.

While America fixates on President Donald Trump’s psychology, the real story may be the fundamental mutation of American power itself — one that makes Trump merely a symptom of a deeper transformation reshaping our world.

On this recent week’s WhoWhatWhy podcast, I talk with British novelist and essayist Rana Dasgupta, who argues we’re missing the seismic shifts beneath the surface. Author of the upcoming book After Nations: The History and Future of the Nation State, Dasgupta reveals how three interconnected crises are fundamentally altering the relationship between the state and its people, creating conditions that demand exactly the kind of disruptive figure Trump represents.

America can no longer control the flow of strategic resources that once guaranteed its superpower status. China is building alternative trading networks that bypass traditional American corporate access. Meanwhile, the dollar’s global dominance — which has allowed the US to sustain massive debt — faces unprecedented threats from China.

In March 1998, I had the privilege of sitting down with Jane Goodall, whose pioneering work transformed how we understand chimpanzees and our shared planet. This week, as we mark her passing at 93, we revisit that conversation. The recording has survived nearly three decades — the audio may not be perfect, but her wisdom and spirit shine through.

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How one of California’s corporate crown jewels, Apple, faces an unprecedented rebellion. Tech leaders such as Spotify’s Daniel Ek and Epic Games’ Tim Sweeney are waging a legal war over what they have portrayed as a shakedown operation — the 30% App Store cut that generates massive profits for Apple while stifling competition.

On this Califonria Sun podcast I talk with WSJ reporter Tim Higgins to discuss his new book “iWar,” examining Apple’s hold on the mobile world, and how the rise of artificial intelligence is threatening to potentially displace the smartphone era altogether.

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We inhabit a fractured information landscape where truth itself has become negotiable. Lying has not only lost its stigma — it’s become a viable strategy for success.

My guest on this WhoWhatWhy podcast, Renée DiResta, author of Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality, reveals the machinery behind this transformation.

Politicians lie with impunity, corporate leaders fabricate narratives, and social media influencers craft false personas, all understanding that in the attention economy, authenticity is just another performance metric.

The infrastructure of deception, she explains, has become so sophisticated and pervasive that we’ve normalized dishonesty as simply another tool in the communications toolkit.

Jeff Chang, in his new biography “Water Mirror Echo,” and in our recent California Sun podcast explores how the short of life of Bruce Lee helped shape modern Asian American culture and politics.

Born in San Francisco’s Chinatown, Lee was denied the lead role in Warner Bros.’s 1970s TV series “Kung Fu,” which was given instead to David Carradine in yellowface. Lee’s collision with Hollywood rejection became a catalyst for his rise at a time of emergent Asian American political consciousness.

Chang discusses how Lee became a global symbol of Asian American dignity, and how his legend has only grown in the decades since his death.

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