Big Questions with Cal Fussman

Latest Episodes:

Mentors In The Age Of AI Sep 22, 2026

Show notes

Cal's ongoing look at how humans can get the best out of AI while avoiding the worst goes to an unanticipated place: Mentorship. In the time of a loneliness crisis, will young people rely on AI too much for guidance? Will those who refuse all interaction with AI miss out on its benefits and pay a price? It turns out there's never been a more important time for humans to find the people who can put them on the right path. A conversation with Georgetown professor Eric Koester, author of Super Mentors, shows us where ambition meets guidance in our time. And we're in luck! Eric reveals the best ways humans can connect with the right mentors and use AI as an accelerant, whether you're 18 or 52.

The Trip That Beats The Bonus Sep 15, 2026

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Three young girls leave the United States for the first time and head to Paris on a trip that has been awarded to their mother for extraordinary work. It lands them in a restaurant where they encounter escargot for the first time. Do they devour the snails? Drown them in lemon juice to avoid the taste? Or scramble for the nearest detour?!!! The story is a portal into how the workplace has changed through a report called the Recognition Disconnect. Now, with more than 50 percent of employees surveyed feeling burned out and many fearful of being replaced by artificial intelligence, people desire workplace rewards that are about time with family that actually replenishes. The human connection in this trip shifts the narrative away from the dystopian nightmare of AI taking everybody's jobs. It's told through Xceleration CEO Ben Levenbaum – who commissioned the survey. And seasoned by Frank Congiu, a global thought leader at Randstad – which helped 1.7 million people find jobs last year. In the end, it defines how this podcast has evolved into ways of getting the best out of AI and avoiding the worst. For these reward trips are an innovative way of enabling humans to feel confident and thrive in the age of artificial intelligence.

Building New Muscles With AI Sep 08, 2026

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Cal goes to the heartland to talk with a man who's spent decades teaching kids how to build strength the right way for a conversation on how his training approach overlaps with AI. Turns out, Michael Ockrim uses the same disciplined tactics to build digital muscles that can wrestle down insurance payments. This episode is a real-world look at how anyone (not just tech people) can start putting AI to work in their own life. Michael is a husband, father of four and founder of Mighty Oak Athletic in Westmont, Illinois. Consider this episode solid advice from the heartland.

Tower 2 Fell On His Head: 25 Years Later Sep 01, 2026

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As the 25th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, Cal replays one of the most powerful conversations in Big Questions' archive: his interview with Michael Wright, a survivor who was buried alive when Tower 2 of the World Trade Center collapsed on him.

Michael was a 30-year-old account executive on an ordinary Tuesday morning when the hijacked planes hit. Cal interviewed him for Esquire Magazine just days after the attack and has replayed his taped recollections every year since Big Questions started.

This year, Cal introduces curated archival images from that day, synced to Michael's narrative. The visuals can be found on youtube.com/@bigquestionspodcast. This is the story of how Michael survived after being buried alive near a fireman. He crawled to the fireman and stuck to him "like a sticky burr on a bear's ass." The fireman hacked them both out with an axe.

When the story was first published, Esquire called it "the fastest 3,863 words you will ever read." It's a story about adaptation under the worst possible pressure, and about the connection between two strangers that made survival possible. Twenty-five years later, all of those involved still have everything to teach us.

The Future, Interrupted by a Tornado Aug 25, 2026

Show notes

Mike Bechtel doesn't just study the future — he makes a living seeing it before the rest of us. As a historian, futurist, and professor at the University of Notre Dame, he spends his days tracing the throughlines between what's come before and what's coming next in technology and corporate innovation. In this conversation, Cal and Mike go deep. It's the kind of conversation that makes you lean forward, laugh and stop to ponder. But then a tornado warning cut it short. As Mike went off to safety, Cal realized he'd been in on a treasure of a conversation. We can all be grateful that Mike and his family came through the storm okay . . . and that Mike will be back for some more Big Questions.

Seeing the Path Aug 18, 2026

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Lachi is a blind musician who has produced GRAMMY nominated projects. She's also a GRAMMY trustee. And the voice behind Diseducation — a song built on the idea that the world needs a new way of thinking about disabilityHer latest album, Magnificent, features more than 70 human collaborators at a moment when many in the music industry worry about how AI might be coming to replace them. Cal sits down with her to work through the question at the center of this podcast: How do we get the best out of AI without taking on the worst? For Lachi, AI can open vistas that are closed to the disabled. For a musician, it can also take away a livelihood and steal IP. Lachi and Cal talk about accessibility, authorship, the environmental cost of the data centers powering the future, and what happens when we let AI do the thinking our minds were built to do. It's a conversation about what we all need to do to recognize our best path forward.

From A Chicken To Infinite Aug 11, 2026

Show notes

"If you want to know what life's like when you're not the apex of intelligence, ask a chicken."That's the line that Geoffrey Hinton, the Nobel Prize-winning "Godfather of AI" dropped on Steven Bartlett's podcast. It stopped Cal cold. Along with a lot of other people. One of them was a digital anthropologist and best-selling author named Brian Solis, who's spent decades watching technology unfold. To Solis, Hinton's statement felt in the moment like we had reached The End. But when Cal caught up with Brian a year later, he found that the anthropologist had adapted and made a case for what's possible. It's all in the book he co-wrote with Dave Wright that's titled: Infinite. Cal's conversation with Brian did something he never expected. It made him think about himself, for the first time, as a leader. Stay tuned . . .

Be Happy, Kevin's Here! Aug 04, 2026

Show notes

Everybody's telling you that AI is coming for your job. Kevin Surace is here to tell you what they're not telling you. Kevin's the father of the artificial assistant. A CNBC Top Innovator of the Decade. He's the holder of more than 90 patents. And now he's the author of The Joy-Success Cycle – a book that is going to make you happy. Kevin has spent decades watching new technology arrive, and he's never once seen it destroy more than it creates. The headlines may chase the 90,000 jobs lost to AI. Kevin's counting the 364,000 jobs that didn't exist three years ago. That's because they didn't have "AI" in the title at the time. Cal makes a case that the coming labor shortage nobody's talking about is a much bigger story than the layoffs everybody is. Kevin has the numbers to prove it. So be joyful. In 30 minutes you're going to see the world in a new way.

Can't Automate What She Did Next Jul 28, 2026

Show notes

A patient kept showing up in the Emergency Room. Most insurance reps would approve or decline each claim and move on. One customer service representative at Devoted Health called to ask the patient why there were so many repeated visits. Didn't take long for the rep to discover the problem. It was created by mold in the patient's home. The deeper problem was the patient had no money to move. The rep didn't just flag it. She got the company to help the patient move to a new and safe place. Eric Ries tells this story in his latest book, Incorruptible, as proof of something AI can't replicate: the instinct to ask the right question and respond to the answer as if the patient were a family member. On this episode, Cal and Eric talk about what happens when a business defines its product as love. And why there are no algorithms that can compete with the human touch when it comes to generating supreme loyalty.

Decoding The World Jul 21, 2026

Show notes

Cal has a suspicion that the little-known K Economy explains more about where the world is headed than most of what you hear on the news. So he reaches out to one of the world's most masterful interpreters of geopolitics and finance to break it down for the Big Questions audience. As founder of Tanto Capital, Ozan Ozkural flies from one city to the next — advising boards, governments, and investors across the globe, meeting kings, presidents, and financial leaders along the way. Cal met Ozan a decade ago through his pal Larry King, and Ozan became a regular at their breakfast table whenever he was in LA. Ozan is that rare guest who can jump from quantum computing to the Medici family in Renaissance Italy to the future of Chinese demographics in the same conversation. In this episode, Ozan decodes the K Economy down to a level of human evolution that leaves even Cal stunned.

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