Episodes

EPISODE 1953: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Patrick Winn, author of NARCOTOPIA, about a south-east Asian nation the size of Belgium which controls the region's $60 billion meth trade. Patrick Winn is an award-winning investigative journalist. He mostly covers rebellion and black markets in Southeast Asia. Winn is the author of two narrative non-fiction books:Narcotopia: In Search of the Asian Drug Cartel that Survived the CIA (PublicAffairs / Icon Books) & Hello, Shadowlands: Inside the ...

EPISODE 1952: Andrew talks to Leon Wieseltier, editor of LIBERTIES QUARTERLY, about how to protect traditional liberal values against both right and left wing intolerance. Leon Wieseltier (born June 14, 1952) is an American critic and magazine editor. From 1983 to 2014, he was the literary editor of The New Republic . He was a contributing editor and critic at The Atlantic until 2017. In 2020, he became the editor of Liberties , a quarterly literary review. He is the author of the essay "Savager...

EPISODE 1951: In this KEEN ON show, I talk to the Israeli author and clinical psychologist Ayelet Gundar-Goshen about the impact of October 7 on a people trained in both remembering and forgetting their own history. AYELET GUNDAR-GOSHEN was born in Israel in 1982. She is a practicing clinical psychologist, has been a news editor on Israel’s leading newspaper and has worked for the Israeli civil rights movement. “One Night, Markovitch”, her first novel, won the Sapir Prize for best debut. Her nov...

Celeste Marcus , Liberties Quarterly managing editor, is in the news today. In the Winter 2024 volume of Liberties , she wrote “After Rape: A Guide for the Tormented” - a piece about her own experience of a 2021 rape. And today, she revealed the identity of her rapist on X. “I will not be raped with impunity”, she wrote today to explain why she’s gone public with his identity. As it happens, I sat down with Marcus last week at the Liberties office in Washington DC to talk about “After Rape”. Our...

EPISODE 1949: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Scott Gac, author of BORN IN BLOOD, about why violence is the defining feature of American history Scott Gac is Director of American Studies and Associate Professor of American Studies and History at Trinity College and the author of Singing for Freedom: The Hutchinson Family Singers and the Nineteenth-Century Culture of Reform. Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcaste...

EPISODE 1948: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Nicholas B. Dirks, author of CITY OF INTELLECT, about why American universities need to reinvent themselves in our disruptive age of social media and AI NICHOLAS B. DIRKS is an internationally recognized historian and anthropologist, and an important leader in higher education. Well-known for his commitment to and advocacy for accessible, high-quality undergraduate education, to the globalization of the university, and to interdisciplinary inno...

EPISODE 1947: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Ernest Scheyder, author of THE WAR BELOW, about the new economic war between China and the West to control critical minerals like lithium, copper and cobalt Ernest Scheyder is a senior correspondent for Reuters covering the clean energy transition and critical minerals, as well as the author of the forthcoming book "The War Below: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power our Lives." Early reviewers are calling it an “illuminating” and “e...

EPISODE 1946: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Mike Chen, author of A QUANTUM LOVE STORY, about why scientific truth might be infinitely weirder than science fiction Mike Chen is a critically acclaimed science fiction author based out of the San Francisco Bay Area. His debut novel HERE AND NOW AND THEN was a finalist for the Goodreads Choice, CALIBA Golden Poppy, and Compton Crook awards. His other novels include A BEGINNING AT THE END, WE COULD BE HEROES, LIGHT YEARS FROM HOME, and STAR WA...

EPISODE 1945: In our weekly KEEN ON wrap of tech news with Keith Teare, author of the THAT WAS THE WEEK newletter, Keith defends Elon Musk's decision to go to Auschwitz and bemoans the breakdown of civility in our social media age Keith Teare is a Founder and CEO at SignalRank Corporation. Previously he was Executive Chairman at Accelerated Digital Ventures Ltd - A UK-based global investment company focused on startups at all stages. He was also previously the founder at the Palo Alto incubat...

EPISODE 1944: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Ehud Shapiro, a computer scientist at the Weizmann Institute of Science, about the egalitarian architecture necessary to build genuine digital democracy Ehud Shapiro is a multi-disciplinary scientist, artist, entrepreneur and a Professor of Computer Science and Biology at the Weizmann Institute of Science. With international reputation, he made fundamental contributions to many scientific disciplines. Ehud was also an Internet pioneer, a succes...

EPISODE 1943: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Kevin J. Mitchell, author of FREE AGENTS, about how evolution gave us free will Mitchell is a neurogeneticist interested in the relationships between genes, brains, and minds. He is a faculty member at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, in the departments of Genetics and Neuroscience. He writes the Wiring the Brain blog ( www.wiringthebrain.com ) and is on Twitter @WiringtheBrain He received an AM and a PhD in economics from Harvard University. H...

EPISODE 1942: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Keith Boykin, author of WHY DOES EVERYTHING HAVE TO BE ABOUT RACE, about Claudine Gay, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott and why the real function of racism is distraction Keith Boykin is a TV and film producer, national political commentator, New York Times best-selling author, and a former White House aide to President Bill Clinton. His latest books are Race Against Time: The Politics of a Darkening America (2021) and Quitting: Why I Left My Job to Liv...

EPISODE 1941: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Benjamin Herold, author of DISILLUSIONED, about the unravelling of both America's suburbs and the American dream Benjamin Herold explores America's beautiful and busted public education system. His award-winning beat reporting, feature writing, and investigative exposés have appeared in Education Week, PBS NewsHour, NPR, the Hechinger Report, Huffington Post, and the Public School Notebook. Herold has a master's degree in urban education from T...

EPISODE 1940: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Bernard Avishai, author of the Harper's story "Israel's War Within", about the age old battle in Israel between globalists and messianic Zionists Bernard Avishai: Bernard Avishai is the author of The Tragedy of Zionism and The Hebrew Republic, among other books. He teaches at Dartmouth College and splits his time between New Hampshire and Jerusalem. Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's ...

EPISODE 1939: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Simon Shuster, author of THE SHOWMAN, about Volodymyr Zelensky, a workaholic improv politician who needs to be loved by his Ukrainian people Simon Shuster has reported from Russia and Ukraine for 17 years, most of that time as a staff writer for Time Magazine. His coverage of the war began in 2014, when he was the first foreign journalist to arrive in Crimea as Russian troops took over the peninsula. In 2019, he met and interviewed Volodymyr Ze...

EPISODE 1938: In this special KEEN ON show from DLD in Munich, Andrew talks Union Square Ventures partner, Albert Wenger, about work, leisure and the environment in our smart machine age Albert Wenger is a managing partner at Union Square Ventures. Before joining USV, Albert was the president of del.icio.us through the company’s sale to Yahoo and an angel investor (Etsy, Tumblr). He previously founded or co-founded several companies, including a management consulting firm and an early hosted da...

EPISODE 1937: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Alex Byrne, author of TROUBLE WITH GENDER, about slippery sex facts and factual gender fictions ​Alex Byrne teaches in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . (In the philosophy half of the department.) His main interests are philosophy of mind (especially perception), metaphysics (especially color) and epistemology (especially self-knowledge). A few years ago he started working on philosophic...

EPISODE 1936: In this special KEEN ON show from DLD in Munich, Andrew talks to Martin Puchner, author of CULTURE: THE STORY OF US, FROM CAVE ART TO K-POP, about on the future of artistic creativity in the age of the smart machine ​ Martin Puchner, the Byron and Anita Wien Professor at Harvard University, is a prize-winning author, educator, public speaker, and institution builder in the arts and humanities. His writings range from philosophy and theater to culture and technology and have been tr...

EPISODE 1935: In this special KEEN ON show from DLD in Munich, Andrew talks to Susan Danzinger about she is putting radical philosophical ideas into practice in upstate New York Susan Danziger is an investor and entrepreneur, founding a venture capital firm along with several social and environmental impact organizations including Wally Farms—a living research project dedicated to finding a food system that is better for the planet, the economy and the consumer. With their eyes set on the future...

EPISODE 1934: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to the founder & CEO of Fairly Trained, about the dire consequences of generative AI companies "scraping" data without acknowledging its creators Ed Newton-Rex work sat the intersection of generative AI and music creation. He founded Jukedeck, an AI music generation company that provided music for video, TV, radio, podcasts and games. In 2019, Jukedeck was acquired by ByteDance, where he ran the European AI Lab and later led Product in Europe for ...

EPISODE 1933: In this special KEEN ON show recorded at the DLD conference in Munich, Andrew talks to the Founder & CEO of Hidden Door, Hilary Mason, who peers behind the hidden door of AI, Gaming and Storytelling Hilary Mason is the Founder & CEO of Fast Forward Labs , a machine intelligence research company, and the Data Scientist in Residence at Accel Partners . She co-founded HackNY , and she is a member of NYC Resistor . Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Kee...

EPISODE 1932: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Yanis Varoufakis, author of TECHNO FEUDALISM, about the death of capitalism ad its replacement with a "cloudalist" totalitarianism Yanis Varoufakis is the former finance minister of Greece and the author of several international bestselling books. And the Weak Suffer What They Must?: Europe, Austerity and the Threat to Global Stability reveals the underlying problems that led to the Eurozone crisis and its ongoing catastrophic mishandling. Adul...

EPISODE 1931: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Nick Romeo, author of THE ALTERNATIVE, about how to build a just economy Nick Romeo is a journalist, critic, and essayist. His new book, The Alternative: How to Build a Just Economy (forthcoming January 2024 from PublicAffairs and Basic Books), uses extensive original reporting to provide a road map for a sustainable and survivable twenty-first-century economy. He has spent years covering policy and ideas for The New Yorker magazine, where he h...

EPISODE 1930: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Frank Vogl, author of THE ENABLERS, about the marketing scammers behind the increasingly mainstream success of cryptocurrency Frank Vogel is the co-founder of two leading international non-governmental organizations fighting corruption -- Transparency International and the Partnership for Transparency Fund (Frank is the Chair of the PTF Board). He teaches at Georgetown University, writes regular "blog" articles on corruption for theGlobalist....