How We Got Here

Elon Musk has spent his career turning improbable ideas into companies that reshape the world. To some, the entrepreneur behind Tesla and SpaceX is an engineering genius whose ambitions have transformed electric cars and space travel. To others, his politics and extraordinary influence raise serious questions about the future he is building. Either way, the world’s first trillionaire is betting Tesla’s future on AI and humanoid robots, and SpaceX’s on life beyond Earth. In this season’s debut episode, Walter asks Musk about DOGE regrets, why he believes robots will solve America’s national debt, and the dark politics that have consumed his own platform, X. Along the way, Musk shares why living in a simulation demands that we all be less boring. A candid conversation about the imagination, drive and contradictions of a man determined to turn his vision into our future. Interview taped August 6, 2026. And be sure to pick up Walter Isaacson’s The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution, wherever fine books are sold. ABOUT THE HOSTWalter Isaacson is the bestselling author of biographies of Elon Musk, Jennifer Doudna, Leonardo da Vinci, Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, and Albert Einstein. He is a professor of history at Tulane University and previously served as CEO of the Aspen Institute, chair and CEO of CNN, and editor of Time. He was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2023. IN THIS SEASONElon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX, xAI)Peter Thiel (Founders Fund, PayPal, Palantir)Mustafa Suleyman (Microsoft AI, DeepMind)Dario Amodei and Daniela Amodei (Anthropic)and more!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chris and Sam joined Michael Easter on his podcast, Two Percent with Michael Easter, to break down the aftermath of the Enhanced Games. Almost no world records fell. Clean athletes kept beating the enhanced ones. They get into what it was actually like to be there, what the billionaires behind it are really selling, and what happens next.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What exactly is wrong with doping? It sounds like a simple question until you try to answer it. Dr. April Henning has spent her career studying exactly that. She’s a professor at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh and one of the world’s leading experts on the history of anti-doping. She walks us through how we got here from the 1904 Olympics, the East German state doping program, to Ben Johnson’s infamous 1988 gold medal. April makes a case that the system built to keep sports clean has been failing athletes. Maybe the Enhanced Games are forcing a reckoning that’s long overdue.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What does it actually feel like to use performance-enhancing drugs? Not the results everyone sees on the outside - the real stuff. The rage in the car on the way to the gym. The panic attack at midnight, The thought about ripping open a training partner’s rib cage. Dr. Mike Israetel has a PhD in sport physiology, co-founded fitness company RP Strength, and is one of the most candid voices on the internet about performance enhancement. He pulls back the curtain on what these drugs actually do to your body, your mind, and your relationships. And he makes a surprising prediction that anabolic steroids could become obsolete within a decade.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Enhanced Games are finally here. We arrive at a makeshift arena on the Las Vegas Strip not knowing quite what to expect. Hours pass, event after event, and the world records don’t come. Then something even more unexpected starts happening. It all comes down to one final race, and one last chance to prove that this whole experiment was worth it. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Performance enhancing drugs aren’t just for professional athletes anymore - they’re everywhere. We go inside the grey market, the underground world of steroids and peptides being bought, tested, and injected by everyday people. We meet Aaron, a Florida salesman who’s lost 43 pounds with grey market help. And AJ, a 19-year-old who says he’d rather die big than play it safe. They’re willing to risk their health on unregulated drugs… but why?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Enhanced athletes are training in Abu Dhabi - and their “enhancement” protocol keeps getting delayed. Week after week, the athletes are told it’s starting soon. Then it doesn’t. Then missiles start dropping outside their hotel windows as the war in Iran begins. And still, somehow, the hardest part is the waiting. By the time the moment finally arrives, no one quite knows how to feel. Because once that needle goes in, there’s no turning back.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Over Memorial Day weekend, we traveled  to Las Vegas for the inaugural Enhanced Games. Where things heated up. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Before the athletes signed up, this all started with an idea. We go inside the minds of the men behind the Enhanced Games. They believe they’re doing something much bigger than sports: ushering in a new age of mankind. But the deeper you go into their vision, the more complicated it gets. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We travel to the Enhanced Games training camp in Las Vegas to meet the competitors at the heart of this experiment. Former world champion Ben Proud, who walked away from the Paris Olympics with a silver medal and a looming question: who was he without swimming? And Megan Romano, a retired world champion who spent nine years away from the pool before getting the call. They're chasing speed, financial security, and a shot at something they never quite got when they were playing by the rules. The only catch: they'll be the first athletes in history to do it openly, on performance-enhancing drugs, in front of the world.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.