Vantage Point - the podcast for critical thinkers.

In 1976 Queen Elizabeth II sent an email over ARPANET. The United States Postal Service - an organization whose entire business was carrying messages - watched the future arrive and did nothing. Then it handed out free AOL discs on its own counters, letting customers walk in to mail a letter and walk out with the tools to stop needing one. Eli traces the most expensive failure of critical thinking in modern business, and closes with the man who built the web and gave it away: Tim Berners-Lee.

In this episode
['Why the US Postal Service missed the email revolution', 'How Queen Elizabeth II became the first head of state to use email', 'The story behind Tim Berners-Lee and the World Wide Web', 'What happened when the post office gave away free email kits', "The financial impact of the postal service's failure to adapt", 'Aphorisms on letting go of who we are to become who we might be']

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. More at eliamdur.com.

Vantage Point - the podcast for critical thinkers.

Anyone can learn Excel. The superstar you hire today could be your CEO by 2050 — and hire the CEO who leads your company into the 22nd century. So why are we still hiring for skills, when it is traits that will decide who is in the driver's seat?

In this episode
A hard look at hiring for traits instead of skills, plus 3 of Eli's aphorisms, Benjamin Franklin from great minds, and a "What If?" about Thomas Paine to ponder.

Eli’s Aphorisms
“Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, and the pig likes it.”
“Price, quality, speed: select any two. You can never get all three.”
“Some things in life are no more complicated than this: get up, dress up, show up.”

From Great Minds
“In wine there is truth, in beer there is freedom, and in water there is bacteria.” — Benjamin Franklin

What If?
What if there had been no Thomas Paine? Ask a room of a hundred people who he was and most hands would stay down, yet any list of the ten most important people of the Revolutionary period has to include him. An immigrant from England and an exceptional thinker and writer, he was a pamphleteer — we don't have pamphleteers anymore; we have podcasters, which is pretty much the same thing. "These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country." His pamphlets sold in numbers that were astonishing for the size of the colonies. Somebody was going to do it? Stuff that good doesn't go to just somebody. As the saying from the period has it: without the pen of Thomas Paine, the sword of Washington would have been wielded in vain. That is one hell of a what-if.

This episode is supported by Vantage Point's Executive Sponsor, Stephen Bozer, SVP of Human Health at Flavine.

Also supported by Major Sponsor Bergen Volunteers, neighbors serving neighbors across 70 towns in Bergen County since 1966.

Also supported by Major Sponsor Kardam Consulting, strategic counsel for the business of making medicine.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. More at eliamdur.com.

Vantage Point - the podcast for critical thinkers.

Would you hire this candidate? Eli runs the hiring thought experiment an executive search committee would use for the biggest job on the planet, to show how we keep making the same bad call, no matter which side of the aisle it comes from.

In this episode
• Why do we make decisions that work against our own best interests
• What would happen if you hired a CEO with no relevant qualifications
• What are the six elements of a real leader
• Why is inspiring people better than motivating them
• Why do some people resent the idea of being woke
• How do cuts to public education kill critical thinking
• Which states rank highest in educational achievement and why it matters

This episode is supported by Vantage Point's Executive Sponsor, Stephen Bozer, and by Major Sponsor Kardam Consulting.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. More at eliamdur.com.

Vantage Point - the podcast for critical thinkers.

An open letter from a liberal arts graduate makes her own case, point by point, for why you should hire her — and then Eli tells you what actually happened when a real hiring manager read it.

In this episode
A definition and a hard look at the episode's theme, plus 4 of Eli's aphorisms, Winston Churchill, Mark Twain and Ernest Hemingway from great minds, and a "What If?" to ponder.

Eli’s Aphorisms
“If what you're willing to do exceeds what you want to do, anything is possible — when attitudes change, results change.”
“There are times when one cannot overestimate the great satisfaction of remaining silent.”
“Never miss an opportunity to shut up when it matters most.”
“Never let a conclusion be the place where you just got tired of thinking.”

From Great Minds
“asked by a constituent why he'd just given such a long speech in Parliament, he said: "Because, madam, I didn't have time to write a short one."” — Winston Churchill
“asked the secret to writing a good book, said it comes down to a good beginning and a good ending, kept as close together as possible.” — Mark Twain
“argued that all great American literature starts with one book, Mark Twain's *Huckleberry Finn*.” — Ernest Hemingway

What If?
Charles Dodgson — an unknown writer working under the pen name Lewis Carroll — brought the publisher Alexander Macmillan a manuscript good enough to print as-is. Macmillan pushed back anyway: it needed illustrations, and Dodgson's own weren't good enough. Get John Tenniel, London's premier illustrator, he said — but making that introduction wasn't Macmillan's job. Dodgson found his own way to Tenniel, in 1863, through a now-forgotten go-between named Tom Taylor. The two worked together for eleven months on the book. Published in 1865 as *Alice's Adventures in Wonderland*, it has sold more copies over 160 years than any book in history except the Bible. What if Tom Taylor had never made that introduction?

This episode is supported by Vantage Point's Executive Sponsor, Stephen Bozer, SVP of Human Health at Flavine.

Also supported by Major Sponsor Bergen Volunteers, neighbors serving neighbors across 70 towns in Bergen County since 1966.

Also supported by Major Sponsor Kardam Consulting, strategic counsel for the business of making medicine.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. More at eliamdur.com.

Vantage Point - the podcast for critical thinkers.

You have hundreds of thoughts a day and almost no ideas. The guy who invented pizza had an idea; the guy who orders it for lunch has a nice thought. What separates the two — and why does every organization starve for the first?

In this episode
A definition and a hard look at the episode's theme, plus 5 of Eli's aphorisms, Dr. Jonas Salk from great minds, and a "What If?" to ponder.

Eli’s Aphorisms
“God Bless America was written by Irving Berlin. Irving Berlin was an immigrant. God Bless America was written by an immigrant. Just saying.”
“In 2021 I had my COVID shot, first dose; my COVID shot, second dose; my pneumonia shot; my shingles shot, first dose; my shingles shot, second dose; my flu shot; and my COVID booster. When I was younger, doing shots was a much different activity.”
“A day feels like a year when you haven't accomplished anything. And a year feels like a day when you have.”
“The guy who invented pizza had an idea. The guy who orders it has a nice thought. Big difference.”
“The most valuable asset any organization has is its employees' creativity. Creativity generates ideas. Ideas generate value.”

From Great Minds
“the man who invented the polio vaccine and changed the world. Salk was a very disciplined, thorough researcher who also believed in intuition. His words: "Intuition will tell the thinking mind where to look next." It was certainly the case with him, and he moved forward from there.” — Dr. Jonas Salk
“Intuition will tell the thinking mind where to look next.” — Jonas Salk

What If?
What if Jonas Salk had agreed with the lawyers at the University of Pittsburgh to go after a patent for the vaccine? The whole remainder of the twentieth century would have been different. He refused to let it take that long and pushed straight into distribution, which he could do because the vaccine was under his control — and he never made a dime on it beyond the salary he was already being paid. Many hundreds of thousands of people were spared the disease, or death from it. Intuition will tell the thinking mind where to look next.

This episode is supported by Vantage Point's Executive Sponsor, Stephen Bozer, SVP of Human Health at Flavine.

Also supported by Major Sponsor Bergen Volunteers, neighbors serving neighbors across 70 towns in Bergen County since 1966.

Also supported by Major Sponsor Kardam Consulting, strategic counsel for the business of making medicine.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. More at eliamdur.com.

Vantage Point - the podcast for critical thinkers.

In 1752, Britain's calendar reform erased eleven days overnight - no one actually lost a minute of life, but the country rioted anyway. Eli unpacks why the mere idea of missing time was enough to make people lose their minds, and why Ben Franklin was the only one who didn't blink.

In this episode
Why did September 3rd through 13th, 1752 never happen; What was the act of British Parliament that replaced the Julian calendar with the Gregorian; Why did Londoners riot and demand their eleven days back; What did Benjamin Franklin say about the eleven missing days, and how old was he really; Which countries still use a calendar other than the Gregorian today; What if Ben Franklin had stayed in Boston instead of moving to Philadelphia; What did Thomas Jefferson say when told he was replacing Franklin in Paris.

This episode is supported by Major Sponsor Bergen Volunteers, neighbors serving neighbors across 70 towns in Bergen County since 1966.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. More at eliamdur.com.

Vantage Point - the podcast for critical thinkers.

Suppose every idea reached you anonymously, judged only on its merit. How many of the ones you'd actually accept come from the sources you'd never have expected?

In this episode
A definition and a hard look at the episode's theme, plus 13 of Eli's aphorisms, Dr. Jonas Salk, born 1914 in New York to European Jewish immigrant parents, gave the world the polio vaccine and wiped the disease off the face of the earth, Dr. Jonas Salk, Alan C. "Ace" Greenberg, and Fred Hassan, longtime chairman of Schering-Plough from great minds, a "What If?" to ponder.

Eli’s Aphorisms
“Turning education over to AI and robots will be about as effective as kissing through a glass window.”
“Doing well and doing good are not the same thing, but they go together very nicely.”
“Go ahead and make mistakes — just don't do anything stupid." (Fred Hassan, longtime chairman of Schering-Plough, built research teams unafraid of "grand mistakes," as long as nobody did anything stupid.)”
“When you think you're thinking out of the box, look around — you may just be in a bigger box.”
“This is not about throwing the old sources out. It's about letting the new ones in.”
“Go ahead and make mistakes. Just don't do anything stupid. Mistakes are good when they serve as learning events.”
“Because you never know where the next great idea is going to come from. And you don't want to miss it.”
“Cognitive biases lead to perceptual distortion, narrowed options, faulty judgment, and lost opportunities.”
“Leaders not only have to think out of the box — they have to make sure they're just not in a bigger box.”
“Truly original ideas come from more places, arise and develop much faster, and reach much farther than ever before.”
“Our biases aren't easy to shed, but shed them we must.”
“Greenberg wasn't arguing against education. He was arguing against credentialism.”
“Don't ask where this person went to school. Ask: is this person smart, hungry, resourceful, and determined to succeed?”

From Great Minds
“while his medical-school classmates went into private practice and made fortunes, he went into research instead. When Salk's own lawyers told him, on the eve of release, that he hadn't patented the vaccine and a patent would take another year, he shut the conversation down: a year of delay meant roughly 60,000 more cases of polio, many fatal, many in children. The vaccine shipped in 1954 with no patent. Eli was part of the final human trial as a first-grader — he got the real vaccine, not the placebo, and keeps his Polio Pioneer card on his desk. Salk's own words: "Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors." Eli names Kizzmekia Corbett, who led the final work on the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine and was scooped up by Harvard within days of the announcement, as a Salk for our own time.” — Dr. Jonas Salk, born 1914 in New York to European Jewish immigrant parents, gave the world the polio vaccine and wiped the disease off the face of the earth
“Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors.” — Dr. Jonas Salk
“The firm wanted people not with an MBA, but with PSD degrees — poor, smart, and a deep desire to become rich.” — Alan C. "Ace" Greenberg
“When we built research teams, we built with people who were not afraid to make mistakes. We call them grand mistakes — just as long as we don't do anything stupid.” — Fred Hassan, longtime chairman of Schering-Plough

What If?
July 11, 1804 — the duel between Vice President Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, who as much as anyone built the country from its founding: the Treasury Department, the idea of public debt, the U.S. Coast Guard and later the Navy, the Bank of New York, the New York Post, trusted advisor to George Washington. Hamilton was also almost always right and never held his tongue about it, which cost him — an immigrant from St. Kitts and Nevis at age eleven, product of a mixed-race, illegitimate marriage, scrappy and unpopular with the era's power players. He pushed Burr to the point of challenge. On the field at Weehawken, New Jersey, both men insisted on standing for themselves rather than sending seconds; they took ten paces, turned, and fired. Hamilton missed. Burr didn't. Hamilton was barged back across the river to his home in lower Manhattan and died the next day. What if Burr had missed instead? Eli isn't a historian and won't pretend to be one, but he'll leave you with this: had Hamilton lived — a most persuasive arguer, the kind of man who won people over simply by spending time with them — there very likely would have been a President Alexander Hamilton, and probably no Civil War.

This episode is supported by Vantage Point's Executive Sponsor, Stephen Bozer, SVP of Human Health at Flavine.

Also supported by Major Sponsor Bergen Volunteers, neighbors serving neighbors across 70 towns in Bergen County since 1966.

Also supported by Major Sponsor Kardam Consulting, strategic counsel for the business of making medicine.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. More at eliamdur.com.

Vantage Point - the podcast for critical thinkers.

Two nearly identical New Jersey towns put nearly identical open-space questions on the same ballot. One passed, one failed. The only difference anyone can find is the wording.

In this episode
A definition and a hard look at the episode's theme, plus 3 of Eli's aphorisms, Abraham Maslow from great minds, a "What If?" to ponder.

Eli’s Aphorisms
“Not all great communicators can lead, but all great leaders can communicate." (earned over 15 years teaching Executive Communication and Leadership at Fairleigh Dickinson University)”
“The most important thing you can do with your life is something that will outlast you.”
“Judging by recent politics, one is tempted to challenge Darwin's theory of evolution.”

From Great Minds
“You will either step forward into growth or fall backward into safety." Eli's terse comment: falling backward is precisely what has happened over the last ten to twenty years, and it is why so little progress is being made in schools, education systems and social services — those who resist the teaching of challenging books, who want parents rather than professionals running boards of education, who are afraid to move forward. Throughout history we have stepped forward into growth and backward into safety, and deciding to do something about it is what this podcast is. Maslow also pledged his faith in the species: human beings have wonderful possibilities and inscrutable depths. There is nothing we cannot accomplish; we just have to do it.” — Abraham Maslow

What If?
D-Day, June 6, 1944. Eisenhower launched Operation Overlord across Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword, and as bloody as it was it succeeded — though it should not have, because Erwin Rommel, perhaps the most accomplished general in the world at the time, had everything he needed to defeat it. What he did not have was authority. Thirty kilometers away sat a battalion of panzers with air support and ammunition trains, and Rommel could not release them; he had to ask von Rundstedt, who was in Paris buying birthday shoes for his wife, and who in any case could not go over Hitler's head because Hitler was asleep under standing orders not to be woken before noon. By noon the invasion was six hours old. Hitler signed the release at eleven that night. Meanwhile FDR, Churchill, George Marshall and the King of England had given Eisenhower their complete confidence and full command of the battle, and his objectives — fifty yards inland to the first crossroads, to a barn — were met. What if the authority had run the other way? It very easily could have.

This episode is supported by Vantage Point's Executive Sponsor, Stephen Bozer, SVP of Human Health at Flavine.

Also supported by Major Sponsor Bergen Volunteers, neighbors serving neighbors across 70 towns in Bergen County since 1966.

Also supported by Major Sponsor Kardam Consulting, strategic counsel for the business of making medicine.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. More at eliamdur.com.

Vantage Point - the podcast for critical thinkers.

Three months in, a listener asked where the how-to instructions were. Answering that question would have sabotaged the whole point.

In this episode
A definition and a hard look at the episode's theme, plus 8 of Eli's aphorisms, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. from great minds, a "What If?" to ponder.

Eli’s Aphorisms
“When you're driving the herd, it's a good idea once in a while to look over your shoulder to see if the herd is still there.”
“Never interrupt your competitor or enemy when he's making a mistake.”
“There are six frogs on a log. Five decide to jump off. How many are left? Six — because deciding to do something and actually doing it are two different things altogether.”
“Not one step of progress of humans on this planet has ever been made within anyone's comfort zone.”
“Critical thinking is all about the future, but many of its lessons are found in the past.”
“Don't expect to be spoon-fed, because then you wouldn't be thinking independently or constructively.”
“The real measure of success is not in the data. It's in my inbox.”
“We wanted a place where curiosity mattered more than certainty.”

From Great Minds
“A mind once stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimension.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

What If?
The Columbian Exchange — the potato, tobacco, and chocolate going east, chocolate once valued above gold and hoarded by kings and queens; the horse, steel, guns, germs, and Christianity coming west, remaking warfare, economies, and the art of two continents. Columbus matters not because he discovered a place where indigenous people had lived for thousands of years, but because he facilitated the exchange. What if he had veered off on one of his three voyages looking for India and never arrived here at all?

This episode is supported by Bergen Volunteers.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. More at eliamdur.com.

Vantage Point - the podcast for critical thinkers.

Critical thinking from an unusual angle — sports. Sandy Koufax, and why you should quit trying to be better than others and only try to be continuously better than yourself.

In this episode
The Sandy Koufax story and why becoming great is a decision, 10 of Eli's aphorisms, G.K. Chesterton, Sandy Koufax, and Thomas J. Watson from great minds, and a "What If?" to ponder — what if the Dodgers had never left Brooklyn?

Eli’s Aphorisms
“When attitudes change, results change.”
“If you learn something today you didn't know yesterday, you've had a good day. If not, you have a chance to change that tomorrow.”
“Manage your business, but coach your people.”
“Save the earth — it's the only planet with chocolate, for God's sakes.”
“Quit trying to be better than others. Just try to continue to be better than you've been.”
“Becoming great is a decision, a vision, not a happenstance.”
“Being competitive is about you, not the other guy.”
“If you will be fascinated by things, you will become fascinating. If you are in awe of things, you will become awesome.”
“No matter your level of skills, you can do something about them immediately.”
“Achievement depends as much on resolve as it does on talent and skills.”

From Great Minds
“We are perishing not for lack of wonders, but for lack of wonder.” — G.K. Chesterton
“I became a good pitcher when I stopped trying to make hitters miss the ball and started making them try to hit it.” — Sandy Koufax
“If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today. As of this second, quit doing less than excellent work.” — Thomas J. Watson

What If?
Walter O'Malley, Ebbets Field, and the Dodgers going west — New York offers Queens instead of Brooklyn, O'Malley follows the population west where there was no baseball at all, and 14 teams now play west of the Mississippi. What if New York had built the Dodgers their Brooklyn stadium?

This episode is supported by Bergen Volunteers.

And by Kardam Consulting.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. More at eliamdur.com.