277. Think Remarkable with Guy Kawasaki (Part 2)

From the first home computers to the smartphone revolution, Steve Jobs was a guiding force in the worldwide electronics industry. His innovations, his obsessions, and even his shortcomings impacted the way we use computers today. To understand Jobs’s life is to understand why the modern information landscape functions the way it does.

Walter Isaacson’s biography is considered to be the definitive work on Steve Jobs’s life. He was given full access to Jobs and those who knew him with no limitations on what he might uncover. The result is an intimate portrait of a man who was thoughtful and callous, insightful and blind, and whose passions left a mark on the world.

This guide gives an overview of Steve Jobs’s life, then explores the themes that emerge from Isaacson’s narrative—Jobs’s knack for innovation and his emphasis on design, coupled with a domineering personality and his will to reshape reality to his liking.

Join "The Daily" as Michael Barbaro and Andrew Ross Sorkin sit down with Elon Musk for a compelling Sunday Special at 'DealBook'. Delve deep into the mind of the tech titan as he shares insights on his groundbreaking innovations and the driving forces behind SpaceX, Tesla, and Neuralink. This engaging episode moves beyond Musk's status as the world's wealthiest person, exploring how his childhood inspirations, like Douglas Adams' literature, and his philosophical musings have fueled a lifetime of curiosity and creative problem-solving. As Musk reflects on technological superiority and product quality, listeners gain a unique perspective on his vision for the future and humanity's expansion into space.

In this conversation, Musk not only discusses his companies' influence on the tech industry and the market's reception but also addresses the ethical dilemmas and social responsibilities that come with advancements in AI and neuro-technology. The episode doesn't shy away from more controversial topics, as Musk gives his take on Tesla's workplace culture, the impact of his social media engagement, and his unwavering commitment to free speech in the face of political shifts. Together, Barbaro and Sorkin paint a vivid image of Musk—the avant-garde entrepreneur whose principles in business and life continue to challenge conventional norms and pave a path of lasting global influence.

Elon Musk is one of the modern age’s most controversial figures. He’s made commercial spaceflight a viable business and brought electric cars into public awareness, but the way that Musk presents himself has led many to see him as disruptive toward society. His drive and lack of empathy have stirred up chaos in the companies he owns, and his need for absolute control of his businesses silenced criticism that he may have found useful.

Renowned biographer Walter Isaacson shadowed Musk for two years, gaining access to his thoughts and those of the people closest to him. In this guide, we’ll follow Isaacson on Musk’s journey from a traumatic South African childhood to his founding of SpaceX and Tesla, as well as his takeover of Twitter. We’ll compare the views of Musk’s supporters and detractors while giving context to his innovations and decisions that have shaped the path of technological progress.

Elizabeth Holmes, former CEO of Theranos, the blood-diagnostic company that imploded under the weight of its exaggerated claims, is on trial for wire fraud and conspiracy. If convicted, the one-time Silicon Valley superstar faces 20 years in prison. In the immediate aftermath of Theranos’s implosion, investors approached other health-tech companies with extra caution, but today, money is once more pouring into the industry and investors are again running up valuations with little due diligence.

Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes was the perfect advertisement for self-made Silicon Valley. The only problem was, her product didn’t work. This 2016 article examines how her lies unraveled—and how she became so successful in the first place.

Theranos was a high-flying blood test startup. Founded in 2003 by 19-year old Stanford dropout Elizabeth Holmes, Theranos raised over $700 million in investment at a $9 billion valuation. The problem? It was all fake.

What led professional investors, Walgreens, and luminaries like Henry Kissinger to be blind-sided by Theranos’s deception? Learn about the rise and fall of this cautionary startup and the psychological biases at play.

Many of us are glued to our smartphones, tablets, and laptops, to the point that we’ve lost control of how we spend our time and attention. We feel overpowered and exhausted by the multitude of digital tools at our fingertips, including smartphones and tablets, websites, addictive apps, and social media platforms. Meanwhile, tech companies continue to invest major resources into making their products and services addictive so that we’ll continue scrolling and tapping.

This book explains how you can transform your tech habits by adopting digital minimalism, which aims to maximize the benefits of technology and avoid the pitfalls by identifying your values and determining how to use technology to support them. Learn how tech companies use human psychology to make their apps addictive, how likes and comments are weakening your relationship, and why trading your smartphone for a dumb phone could change your life.

We live in an age where sophisticated technologies are increasingly pervasive. User interfaces are so intuitive that we don’t need a manual to figure out how every mobile application works—but what is it about specific technologies that allows them to integrate seamlessly into our day-to-day lives, and how did user-friendliness become the bedrock of innovation?

In User Friendly, user experience designers Cliff Kuang and Robert Fabricant explore the evolution of user-friendly design—how the concept emerged from the feminist movement in the 1920s, how it has morphed into the often addictive forms of technology that we have today, and how it might be leveraged to improve human well-being in the future. The authors argue that we must shift how companies apply user-friendly design principles to ensure that technology reflects the values of consumers—and doesn’t just keep people glued to screens to their own detriment. In this guide, we’ll also incorporate research showing how technology impacts the social fabric of society as well as advice on mitigating technology’s harmful effects.

The rapid pace of technological change has impacted our lives and our world in many ways, and our headlong rush into the future may have staggering implications for our species. In The Singularity Is Near, computer scientist Ray Kurzweil predicts that a profound technological shift will change everything about how we live, how society functions, and even what it means to be human. From using genetics to reprogram the body to having the power to digitally augment our brains, the technological Singularity will lead to a future in which even death may one day be forgotten.

In this guide, we’ll explore the ongoing revolutions that together may overturn our current order—bioscience, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence. We’ll examine Kurzweil’s predictions for these technologies, as well as some of their potential dangers. As the book was published in 2005, we’ll also look at how well Kurzweil’s predictions hold up and the different paths that some technologies have taken.

Artificial intelligence that’s billions of times smarter than humans is on its way. And when it arrives, it’ll have the power to make our world much better—or a lot worse. In Scary Smart, Mo Gawdat warns that we’ve put AI on a path toward creating the dystopia that science fiction writers have always warned us about. But he contends there’s still time to change how the story ends.

Gawdat, who worked as chief business officer at Google X, explains that the most efficient way to change what AI learns to do is to change what it observes from us. By taking better care of each other, we can prepare for a future where machines gain consciousness, emotions, and a sense of ethics. In this guide, we’ll explore Gawdat’s ideas about the technology that makes AI smart, the problems that make it scary, and how we can ensure AI builds a utopia rather than a dystopia. We’ll also put Gawdat’s ideas into the context of the latest research on what popular tools like ChatGPT tell us about AI and where it’s going.

Artificial Intelligence could revolutionize every aspect of our lives, but only if we can develop AI that reliably carries out its tasks. While some see AI as a cornucopia that will free the human race from drudgery, others see dangers in ceding so much power to digital, non-human minds. In Rebooting AI, Gary Marcus and Ernest Davis argue that modern AI underdelivers on its promise while AI proponents oversell what it can do. Marcus and Davis are AI advocates who feel that current AI research is heading in the wrong direction, with its narrow focus on “big data” and machine learning.

In this guide, we’ll examine how the public perception of modern AI differs from reality, how AI works, and the many ways in which it fails. We’ll then describe Marcus and Davis’s prescription for producing stronger AI systems to benefit the human race. We’ll also highlight where modern AI trends are leading, other experts’ thoughts on machine cognition, and how AI development is affecting business and society at large.

In today’s fast-paced world, our lives increasingly revolve around productivity, efficiency, and work. It’s now normal for many people to answer emails during dinner and pack their days with as many tasks as possible. Yet in Do Nothing, radio journalist Celeste Headlee argues that by trying to do too much, people are working less efficiently because the human brain isn’t designed to multitask or work without rest. In addition, the culture of overworking has led to worse health outcomes and increased social isolation.

So if all this work isn’t serving us, how can we end an addiction to productivity? And if not work, what should we be doing? Headlee’s solution is to embrace true leisure—doing things just for the fun of it. In this guide, we’ll explain the historical origins of the modern work addiction, how it impacts society, and what you can do to live a healthier life. We’ll also supplement Headlee’s ideas with more context on global labor trends and tips from other wellness and productivity experts.

Happiness is more than just a positive state of mind—it’s a state of being that enhances your health, strengthens your relationships, and fuels both your creativity and productivity. However, though many people are aware of these benefits and try to feel happier, their efforts often fail to create consistent, long-term happiness.

In The How of Happiness, Sonja Lyubomirsky—psychology professor and recipient of the Templeton Positive Psychology Prize—addresses this challenge. Drawing from her extensive research as well as insights from leading scientists in the positive psychology field, she unpacks the factors that fuel happiness and provides practical strategies to nurture and sustain it.

In this guide, we’ll explore Lyubomirsky's thoughts on what contributes to long-term happiness and how you can amplify it in your life. Additionally, we’ll supplement her ideas with psychological research and actionable methods from other self-improvement authors and practitioners.

If you want to heal your body, you have to cultivate a healthy mind. In Mind Over Medicine, Lissa Rankin explores the mind-body connection and reveals our innate ability to promote self-healing. By proliferating positive beliefs and designing a fulfilling lifestyle, she says you can create conditions for healing relaxation and whole-body health.

Rankin is a physician, author, and speaker. Using her own chronic illnesses as a catalyst, she expanded her modern, Western healing repertoire to include holistic medicine after researching mindset and lifestyle factors on spontaneous remissions. She now teaches that optimal health involves more than just prescription medicine and physical treatments—it also depends on the quality of our beliefs, our relationships, and our jobs.

In this guide, we examine Rankin’s principles for healing and compare them to similar books like When the Body Says No and The Upside of Stress.