Plain English with Derek Thompson Podcast
1) Russia’s Economic Meltdown, Putin’s Big Mistake, and the West’s Financial War Against Vlad and the Oligarchs
Things are moving very, very fast in Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine—and in the global response to punish Russia. The U.S. and Europe are not engaged in a literal war against Putin, and hopefully...Show More
2) "Yes, AI Is a Bubble. There Is No Question."
The AI buildout continues to break records, as the hyperscalers pour hundreds of billions of dollars into chips and data centers, even as investors punish their stock prices. But the revenue side of t...Show More
3) The Pill That Works Even When You Know It's Fake
Why do placebo effects work, even when patients know that they're taking a sugar pill? How do "nocebo" effects work, and why do some people hold onto beliefs that they suspect might bring them pain an...Show More
4) The Economic Crisis of the Iran War Goes Far Beyond Oil
The Strait of Hormuz is the tiny bottleneck that could destabilize the global economy. As a critical passageway for crude oil, natural gas, and critical inputs for fertilizer, computer chips, and plas...Show More
5) "American Democracy as We Know It Might Not Survive This Technology"
What happens when the two biggest stories in the world—the Trump White House and the development of advanced artificial intelligence—collide? Well, nothing good, apparently. When contract negotiations...Show More
6) Trump Is Doubling Down on Iran. How Should Democrats Respond?
Donald Trump’s polling has continued to edge down week after week. And yet approval of the Democratic Party is still stuck near its all-time low, according to Gallup and other surveys. One interpreta...Show More
7) The Four Ways That the Iran War Could End
Dramatic regime change. Moderate regime evolution. A calamitous regional conflict. Or … no change at all. Today we consider how the Iran conflict might evolve following the killing of Supreme Leader K...Show More
8) How Metrics Make Us Miserable
The modern world swims in numbers: work metrics, fitness metrics, health metrics, social media metrics. Sometimes the quantification of life can make things better. But very often, I think they force ...Show More
9) The Future of GLP-1 Drugs and AI Medicine, With Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks
The GLP-1 drug revolution has taken the medicine world by storm. I’ve done several episodes on the science of GLP-1s. But we’ve never done an episode like this before, where we talk to one of the most...Show More
10) The Supreme Court Strikes Down Trump’s Tariffs. Now What?
Donald Trump suffered a huge blow Friday when the Supreme Court struck down the centerpiece of his economic policy: his vast system of tariffs. So, what happens now? Harvard’s Jason Furman explains th...Show More