Highlight on Politics: 5 of the World’s Sharpest Minds in Politics (#216)

Nicholas Burns spent 2021 to 2025 in Beijing as US Ambassador to China, witnessing up close the forces shaping the world's most dangerous rivalry.Sitting across from Xi Jinping and living in China, he saw firsthand how dangerously close the world is to a crisis. Some of it genuinely terrified him.Our conventional wisdom about China? Outdated. And dangerously wrong.In this episode, he reveals the alarming "nightmare scenario" almost no one is talking about, why a single unanswered phone call could spark disaster, and what we're getting wrong about China and what China is getting wrong about us.All from someone who lived it.

Sleep shapes your mood, memory, immune system, and long-term health, yet most of us aren’t getting enough. Harvard Medical School and Mass General Brigham sleep scientist Dr. Elizabeth Klerman shares the three easiest science-backed changes proven to improve your sleep tonight, plus the myths that make things worse.  If you’re struggling to fall asleep, waking at 3 a.m., or dragging through the day, this episode is for you. 

In a Paris hospital delivery room, Thomas Chatterton Williams, writer for The Atlantic and author of Self-Portrait in Black and White, held his newborn daughter for the first time. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. And in that instant, everything he thought he knew about race shattered.Thomas lives the questions about race and identity that most of us only debate. The son of a Black father who grew up under Jim Crow and a white mother, he had accepted America's racial categories without question. Until he couldn't.What he decided is radical. Controversial. And will challenge how you think about identity, George Floyd, and the categories we use to define ourselves.

What if fatigue, fear, and even failure aren’t real limits, but signals from the brain trying to protect us?Nick Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic and former Editor-in-Chief of Wired reveals the surprising psychology behind fatigue, focus, and fear and how our biggest limits often come from within.Nick isn’t just one of the most thoughtful leaders in media, he’s also a record-breaking ultramarathoner who’s learned that endurance begins in the mind.This conversation will change how you think about performance, aging, and the power of effort itself.Nick's wonderful new book is The Running Ground. 

We’re told youth is life’s peak — but what if that story is wrong?Stanford psychologist Laura Carstensen reveals how time itself reshapes what we value and how we find meaning. Her research offers profound lessons for living well at every age — and for finding more meaning in the moments we have. It’s a conversation that will change how you think about time, happiness, and life itself.

We’ve entered a new age. Where nature once took a million years to make a few genetic changes, scientists can now make billions in an afternoon — and even imagine adapting humans for life beyond Earth.George Church, a Harvard geneticist, pioneer of the Human Genome Project, and founder of more than 50 biotech companies, helped lay the foundation for CRISPR, personal genomics, and even de-extinction.In this episode, he explains how biotechnology, AI, and materials science are converging to transform life itself -  from reversing aging and curing disease to resurrecting lost species like the woolly mammoth, and one day, helping humanity thrive among the stars.

AI doesn’t just predict our behavior — it can shape it.Cass Sunstein, Harvard professor and co-author of Nudge, reveals how artificial intelligence uses classic tools of manipulation — from scarcity and social proof to fear and pleasure — to steer what we buy, believe, and even feel.Its influence is so seamless, we may not even notice it.The battle for the future isn’t for our data — it’s for our minds.In a world this personalized, how do we keep control of our own minds?

When Vladimir Putin first rose to power, few expected him to become the world’s most confrontational autocrat. Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, who has studied and worked with Putin for decades, explains what changed — and why. From paranoia about democracy to the drive to rebuild Russia’s sphere of influence, McFaul shows how personal power and national destiny became one and the same. His insights reveal not just who Putin is, but what he wants next.

The dollar has been one of America’s most powerful weapons and a major source of global influence, in ways few fully realize. It doesn’t just shape trade and finance; it also gives the U.S. a unique window into the world’s financial flows. But what if that power is beginning to slip? Harvard’s Ken Rogoff examines the mounting pressures that could threaten the dollar’s supremacy — and reveals how a cornerstone of U.S. power could also become its Achilles’ heel.

Grief and trauma are part of being human, yet most of us have little idea what to expect. We picture them as overwhelming, endless, and all-consuming. But what if that story is wrong? Columbia professor George Bonanno reveals a surprising truth about how people actually cope — and it may change the way you think about loss.