Week of June 10
Week of June 3
Week of May 27
Week of May 20
Week of May 13
Week of June 10
Jerry Seinfeld (@jerryseinfeld) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and producer. In 1989, he teamed up with fellow comedian Larry David to create what was to become the most successful comedy series in the history of television: Seinfeld. The show ran on NBC for nine seasons, winning Emmy, Golden Globe, and People’s Choice awards, and was named the greatest television show of all time in 2009 by TV Guide and in 2012 was identified as the best sitcom ever in a 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll.
Seinfeld made his Netflix debut with the original stand-up special Jerry Before Seinfeld, along with his Emmy-nominated and critically acclaimed web series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, which has garnered over 100 million views and which The New York Times describes as “impressively complex and artful” and Variety calls “a game-changer.” His most recent stand-up special is 23 Hours To Kill, also on Netflix, and his latest book is Is This Anything?, which features his best work across five decades in comedy.
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Maria Popova (@brainpicker) is the creator of The Marginalian (long ago named Brain Pickings), which is included in the Library of Congress’ permanent web archive of culturally valuable materials. The Marginalian is Maria’s one-woman labor of love—an inquiry into how to live and what it means to lead a good life. From Mark Twain to Oscar Wilde and everyone in between, Maria finds the hidden gems. She is prolific and consistent—The Marginalian was created on October 23, 2006, and it has been running strong for 17+ years.
Rick Rubin (@RickRubin) is a nine-time Grammy-winning producer, one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, and the most successful producer in any genre, according to Rolling Stone. He has collaborated with artists from Tom Petty to Adele, Johnny Cash to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Beastie Boys to Slayer, Kanye West to the Strokes, and System of a Down to Jay-Z. His debut book is The Creative Act: A Way of Being.
Mary Karr (@marykarrlit) is the author of three award-winning, bestselling memoirs: The Liars’ Club, Cherry, and Lit. She is also the author of The Art of Memoir, which lays bare her own process as she breaks down the craft of memoir, and Tropic of Squalor, her latest volume of poetry.
A Guggenheim fellow in poetry, Karr has won Pushcart Prizes for both verse and essays. Other grants include the Whiting Award, PEN/Martha Albrand Award, and a Radcliffe/Bunting Institute Fellowship. Karr is also the Peck Professor of Literature at Syracuse University and a regular contributor to The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Poetry magazine.
Week of June 3
Jocko Willink (@jockwillink) is a retired U.S. Navy SEAL officer, bestselling author, host of the top-rated Jocko Podcast, and co-founder of premier leadership consulting company Echelon Front, where he serves as Chief Executive Officer, leadership instructor, speaker, and strategic advisor. Jocko spent 20 years in the SEAL Teams, starting as an enlisted SEAL and rising through the ranks to become an officer. As commander of SEAL Team Three’s Task Unit Bruiser during the battle of Ramadi, he orchestrated SEAL operations that helped the “Ready First” Brigade of the U.S. Army’s First Armored Division bring stability to the violent, war-torn city. Task Unit Bruiser became the most highly decorated Special Operations Unit of the Iraq War.
He is the recipient of the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, and numerous other personal and unit awards and the author or coauthor of 10 books, including the #1 New York Times bestseller Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win, The Dichotomy of Leadership, and Way of the Warrior Kid.
Sebastian Junger (@sebastianjunger) is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Perfect Storm, Fire, A Death in Belmont, War, Tribe, Freedom, and his new book, In My Time of Dying. As an award-winning journalist, a contributing editor to Vanity Fair, and a special correspondent at ABC News, he has covered major international news stories around the world and has received both a National Magazine Award and a Peabody Award.
Junger is also a documentary filmmaker, whose films include Which Way Is the Front Line from Here? and The Last Patrol, both of which premiered on HBO; Korengal, which tries to answer the eternal question of why young men miss war; and Academy Award-nominated Restrepo (co-directed with Tim Hetherington), winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.Sebastian Junger is the founder and director of Vets Town Hall, where veterans of any era, who served in any capacity, have the right to stand before their community and speak for up to ten minutes about what it was like to serve their country.
Dr. Jane Goodall (@JaneGoodallInst) is an English primatologist and anthropologist who is considered the world’s foremost expert on chimpanzees. Her discovery in 1960 that chimpanzees make and use tools sent shockwaves through the scientific community and redefined the relationship between humans and animals.
A tireless conservationist and animal welfare activist, she is the founder of both the Jane Goodall Institute and the Roots & Shoots program, a board member of the Nonhuman Rights Project, a United Nations Messenger of Peace, and an honorary member of the World Future Council. Dr. Goodall’s work through the Jane Goodall Institute is advanced through the generous support of people like you and me. To show your support, visit janegoodall.org/tim.
Cal Fussman (@calfussman) is a New York Times bestselling author, writer-at-large at Esquire, international speaker, and host of the Big Questions with Cal Fussman podcast.
Cal has transformed oral history into an art form, conducting probing interviews with the icons who’ve shaped the last 50 years of world history: Mikhail Gorbachev, Jimmy Carter, Ted Kennedy, Simone Biles, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, Jack Welch, Robert DeNiro, Clint Eastwood, Bruce Springsteen, Dr. Dre, Quincy Jones, Woody Allen, Barbara Walters, Pelé, Yao Ming, Serena Williams, John Wooden, Muhammad Ali, and countless others.
Week of May 27
Tony Robbins (@TonyRobbins) is an entrepreneur, bestselling author, philanthropist, and the nation’s #1 life and business strategist. He has empowered more than 50 million people from 100 countries around the world through his audio programs, educational videos, and live seminars. He is the author of six international bestsellers, including the #1 New York Times financial bestseller Money: Master the Game and Unshakeable: Your Financial Freedom Playbook. His latest book is Life Force: How New Breakthroughs in Precision Medicine Can Transform the Quality of Your Life and Those You Love.
His philanthropic activities include the 1 Billion Meals Challenge, through which Tony, in partnership with Feeding America, has provided over 850 million meals in the last 7 years with a target of 1 billion meals by 2025.
Jerry Colonna (@jerrycolonna) is the CEO and co-founder of Reboot.io, an executive coaching and leadership development firm dedicated to the notion that better humans make better leaders. For nearly 20 years, Jerry has used the knowledge he gained as an investor, executive, and board member for more than 100 organizations to help entrepreneurs and others lead with humanity, resilience, and equanimity. He is the author of Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up and Reunion: Leadership and the Longing to Belong.
Jim Collins (jimcollins.com) is a student and teacher of what makes great companies tick and a Socratic advisor to leaders in the business and social sectors. Having invested more than 25 years in rigorous research, he has authored or coauthored a series of books that have sold more than 10 million copies worldwide. They include Good to Great, the #1 bestseller that examines why some companies make the leap and others don’t (as well as its companion works Turning the Flywheel and Good to Great and the Social Sectors); Built to Last, the enduring classic that reveals why some companies remain visionary for generations; How the Mighty Fall, which delves into how once-great companies can self-destruct; and Great by Choice, which uncovers the leadership behaviors for thriving in chaos and uncertainty.
Jim’s most recent publication is BE 2.0 (Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0), an ambitious upgrade of his very first book, which returns Jim to his original focus on small, entrepreneurial companies and honors his coauthor and mentor, Bill Lazier.
Ed Zschau is an educator, entrepreneur, former member of the US House of Representatives, and a 17-year veteran of the tech industry. He founded System Industries in Palo Alto, California, in 1969, and led it to a successful IPO in 1980 as its CEO. In the 1990s, he was the general manager of the IBM Storage Systems Division headquartered in San Jose, California. Ed taught for 10 years as a professor in the graduate business schools of Stanford University and Harvard University, and he has taught high-tech entrepreneurship courses in the engineering schools at Princeton University, Caltech, and the University of Nevada, Reno.
WEEK OF MAY 20
Dr. Brené Brown (brenebrown.com) is a research professor at the University of Houston, where she holds the Huffington Foundation–Brené Brown Endowed Chair. She is also a visiting professor in management at the University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business.
Brené has spent the past two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy and is the author of six #1 New York Times bestsellers: The Gifts of Imperfection, Daring Greatly, Rising Strong, Braving the Wilderness, Dare to Lead, and Atlas of the Heart. Brené hosts the Unlocking Us and Dare to Lead podcasts, and her TED talk The Power of Vulnerability is one of the top five most viewed TED talks in the world, with over 65 million views.
Edward O. Thorp (@EdwardOThorp) is a legendary blackjack player, mathematics professor, and hedge-fund manager, whose hedge funds were profitable every year for 29 years. He is the author of Beat the Dealer, a New York Times bestseller that transformed the game of blackjack, and A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market. He is a coauthor (with Sheen T. Kassouf) of Beat the Market, which influenced securities markets around the globe.
Greg McKeown (@GregoryMcKeown) is the author of two New York Times bestsellers, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less and Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most. Together they have sold more than two million copies in 37 languages. He is also a speaker, host of The Greg McKeown Podcast, and founder of The Essentialism Academy, with students from 96 countries. More than 175,000 people have signed up for his 1-Minute Wednesday newsletter.
Greg earned his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and he is currently conducting doctoral research at the University of Cambridge.
Diana Chapman is a co-founder of the Conscious Leadership Group and a co-author of The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership. Her passion is helping organizational leaders and their teams eliminate drama in the workplace and beyond. She has worked with more than 1,000 CEOs and is a facilitator for the Young Presidents Organization (YPO), working with their forums and chapters worldwide. She has been a speaker at TEDx, Mindful Leadership Summit, Wisdom 2.0, Stanford Graduate School of Business, and more.
WEEK OF MAY 13
For more Naval-plus-Tim, check out my wildly popular interview with him from 2015 (nominated for “Podcast of the Year”) and our conversation from 2020. Naval also co-piloted the interviews with Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin and famed investor Chris Dixon.
Nick Kokonas (IG: @nkokonas, TW: @NickKokonas) is the co-owner and co-founder of The Alinea Group, comprising restaurants Alinea, Next, The Aviary, Roister, and St. Clair Supper Club and design firm Crucial Detail.
Alinea is one of only 13 restaurants in the US that has been awarded three Michelin stars. In 2016, it received the James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurant and was named Best Restaurant in America and tenth best restaurant in the world by Trip Advisor.
Nick has been featured in Businessweek, Fast Company, The New York Times, and Forbes, among other publications. He is also the founder of Tock, a reservations and CRM system for restaurants, which he sold to Squarespace in 2021 for $400 million.
Dr. Gabor Maté (@DrGaborMate) is a speaker and bestselling author, highly sought after for his expertise on a range of topics that includes addiction, stress, and childhood development. He has written several bestselling books, including the award-winning In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, When the Body Says No, Scattered Minds, and The Myth of Normal. He has also coauthored Hold On to Your Kids. His next book, Hello Again: A Fresh Start for Parents and Their Adult Children is expected in 2025.
Gabor is a member of the Order of Canada and the creator of a psychotherapeutic approach, Compassionate Inquiry, now studied by thousands of therapists, physicians, counselors, and others in over 80 countries.
Dr. BJ Miller is a hospice and palliative care physician, author, and speaker, whose TED Talk “What really matters at the end of life” has been viewed more than 17 million times. BJ is a co-founder of Mettle Health, which provides support and guidance for individuals and families to live well in the face of health challenges. Prior to his work at Mettle Health, BJ served as assistant professor of medicine at UCSF, as a palliative care physician at UCSF Health, and as executive director of Zen Hospice Project. He is a coauthor of A Beginner’s Guide to the End: Practical Advice for Living Life and Facing Death.
The Tim Ferriss Show is one of the most popular podcasts in the world with more than one billion downloads. It has been selected for "Best of Apple Podcasts" three times, it is often the #1 interview podcast across all of Apple Podcasts, and it's been ranked #1 out of 400,000+ podcasts on many occasions. To listen to any of the past episodes for free, check out this page.