The Gray Area with Sean Illing

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W. Kamau Bell on the lessons of parenthood, Twitter, and fame Aug 30, 2016

Show notes

W. Kamau Bell is a comedian and a writer. But you probably know him from one of his podcasts(Denzel Washington Is The Greatest Actor Of All Time Period and Politically Re-Active) or his CNN show The United Shades of America.In this conversation, Bell and I go wide. We begin with an inquiry into the nature of health food, transition into a discussion of how future historians will view our present (and, particularly, a discussion of which stories we're ignoring that they'll see as central), move into the lessons Bell has learned from parenthood and fame, dig into his decision to move to Northern California from New York, examine his path to comedy, talk through the opportunities presented by podcasting, and more. There's also a damn good Eddie Murphy story in here.Here's how good this conversation is: I spoke with Bell just a few days after getting my wisdom teeth out, and I still had a great time. You will too.

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Malcolm Gladwell on the danger of joining consensus opinions Aug 23, 2016

Show notes

Malcolm Gladwell needs no introduction (though if you didn't know the famed author has launched a podcast, you should — it's called Revisionist History, and it's great.).Gladwell's work has become so iconic, so known, that it's become easy to take it for granted. But Gladwell is perhaps the greatest contrarian journalist of his generation — he looks at things you've seen before, comes to conclusions that are often the opposite of the conventional wisdom, and then leaves you wondering how you could ever have missed what he saw. To see something new in something old is a talent, it's a process, and it's what we discuss, in a dozen different ways, in this episode. Among the topics we tackle:-How Gladwell got started at the Washington Post after being fired from another job for waking up late-Gladwell’s high school zine based on personal attacks and Bill Buckley-How Canadians are disinclined to escalate conflicts-The value and nature of boredom in childhood-How people reflexively pile on to convenient narratives -How the economics of media might be influencing its current tone-Why pickup trucks today are so much larger than they used to be-His insights about the current identity of journalists as a culture-Why podcasting is different from writing for the page/screen-Why talking about numbers can be difficult in audio-How the internet will one day seem like an experiment gone completely awry-Why you shouldn’t have satellite radio in your car-Whether more individualized education is a a good idea-The importance of people who are above average though not exceptionalThis is a fun conversation, but it's also a useful one. It's hard to look at something that is believed to be understood and realize it's been misunderstood. Hell, it's hard to look at something that is believed to be understood and take seriously the idea that it might have been misunderstood. This is Gladwell's great skill — it is the product of both a process and an outlook, and it's worth hearing how he does it.

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Grant Gordon on studying the world's worst conflicts Aug 16, 2016

Show notes

Grant Gordon is a political scientist and policymaker who specializes in humanitarian intervention. He’s a fellow at the Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation, and has worked on humanitarian and development policy for the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations, the UN Office of Humanitarian Coordination, the UN Refugee Agency, as well as the Rwandan Government, Open Society Justice Initiative and other organizations. All of that is a long way of saying he works on the some of the world's worst problems and conflicts, and tries to figure out which interventions will actually help. He’s embedded with the Congolese military to try to understand why soldiers attack citizens, he's used satellites to monitor and deter genocidal violence in Darfur, and he's studied the ways in which peacekeepers can win hearts and minds with local communities in Haiti. And over and over again, he's found that good intentions do not always make good policies. It's a valuable lesson — and Grant is a valuable voice — for anyone who thinks seriously about policymaking. Grant is also a good friend whose work has long fascinated me, and so it was great to get a chance to interrogate him on it for two hours. Among other things, we covered:- How to read academic literature efficiently- Grant’s path from being a kid in California to working in the Rwandan health ministry to hiding under cars in Congo- What his whiteness and Jewish heritage means in his work on humanitarian policy- How the politics around humanitarian intervention have changed since the 90s- How and why he got an internship, as a college student, in the Rwandan health ministry by cold emailing Rwanda's health minister- How randomized controlled trials do and don’t help humanitarian work- Why it's actually difficult for a fragile society to build an army strong enough to protect its citizens but not so strong it overthrows the government- How to care for yourself when you work in and out of conflict-torn placesAnd much more. Towards the end of the interview, Grant turns the tables and questions me for a bit, so keep an ear out for that.

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Melissa Bell on starting Vox, managing media, and connecting newsrooms Aug 09, 2016

Show notes

I first started working with Melissa Bell at the Washington Post. I was trying to launch a new product — Wonkblog — and I needed some design work done. Melissa wasn't a designer. She wasn't a coder. She didn't manage designers or coders. She was, rather, a blogger, like me. But somehow, no one would meet with me to talk Wonkblog unless Melissa was also in the room.It was my first exposure to Melissa's unusual talent for finding and connecting the different parts of a modern newsroom. We went on to start Vox together, and it's no exaggeration to say Vox simply wouldn't exist without Melissa's vision, her managerial brilliance, or her unerring sense of where journalism is going. She's also one of my very favorite people — working with her has been one of the highlights of my career. Melissa was recently named publisher for all of Vox Media — so if you're wondering what's next in journalism, she's someone you'll want to listen to, because she'll be building it. In this conversation, we discuss:-How Melissa started her journalism career in India-Her experience working near the World Trade Center on 9/11-What she learned from her time as a waitress, and how it was crucial to her development as a journalist-Her pending case before the Indian Supreme Court-How observing large institutions reveals how little information and control any one person really has-How she thinks about “mapping out” organizations and creating informal networks within those organizations to get things done-Why it’s hard to create new things in big organizations and how to create better systems for making those things-How the distinctions between "old" and "new" media have largely collapsed-What it was like starting Vox, and what we got wrong from the beginning-How Vox's brand identity emerged, and why it proved more important than either of us expectedAnd much more. I work very closely with Melissa, and I learned a lot about her in this discussion. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

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Atul Gawande on surgery, writing, Obamacare, and indie music Aug 02, 2016

Show notes

I've wanted to do this interview for a long, long time.Atul Gawande is a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He's a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health. He is executive director of Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation, and chairman of Lifebox, a nonprofit organization making surgery safer globally. He's a New Yorker writer. He's the author of some of my favorite books, including Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance and The Checklist Manifesto. He's a MacArthur Genius. Atul Gawande makes me feel like a slow, boring, unproductive person. What makes it worse is that he's a helluva nice guy, too. And he knows more new music than I do. There haven't been many conversations on this podcast I've looked forward to more, or enjoyed as much. Among many other things, we talked about:- How Atul makes time to do all of the writing, large-scale research, and surgery he does- His time working in Congress and in the White House- His writing process and how it’s evolved since his early days writing for Slate- Why he hates writing and likes being edited (and why I am the exact opposite)- His thoughts on ignorance, ineptitude, why we fail at things, and what hand washing has to do with it- How effective Medicaid coverage is in improving health outcomes- The ways we need to more effectively deliver existing knowledge and technology rather than always focusing on the next big discovery- What he thinks we’ve learned so far from Obamacare- How Rivers Cuomo from Weezer has applied lessons from Atul’s writing to his music- His work with the Clintons, Jim Cooper, and Al Gore and thoughts on their private versus public personas- How all the different parts of his life — the writing, the surgery, the policy work — come together into one single engine for actually making change- What new albums he thinks everyone should listen toAnd so much more. Talking to Atul was a real pleasure. I hope you enjoy it too.

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Trevor Noah, host of The Daily Show Jul 26, 2016

Show notes

This is a serious conversation with a very funny man.Trevor Noah is the host of Comedy Central's the Daily Show. He's also a stand-up comic who grew up in apartheid South Africa, the son of a black mother and a white father. That was illegal in apartheid-era South Africa, so Noah grew up hiding his real parentage, only seeing his father in carefully controlled circumstances. Somehow, he managed to turn this into a very funny, very incisive stand-up act. Today, he occupies one of the commanding heights of American comedy, and when you talk to him, you can see why: he's funny, but he's also damn smart, with an outsider's perspective on America's very unique problems. In this conversation, we talk about:- What it was like growing up biracial in apartheid South Africa- Noah's experience watching South Africa’s post-apartheid truth and reconciliation commission, and what an American one might look like- Noah's thoughts on the right to be forgotten on the internet- How Donald Trump's superpower is his lack of shame- The ways in which Obama’s presidency changed – and sometimes inflamed — the conversation about race over the last eight years- What Obama does and doesn’t share with other Black celebrities in “transcending” race- The parallels between experiencing catcalling and experiencing racism- Noah's critique of both "objective" news sources, and biased ones- Why Noah was taken aback by the response he got criticizing Bernie Sanders- Noah's news diet, and why he doesn’t watch as much Fox News as you might think- How Noah develops a joke, from start to finishAnd much more. Enjoy!

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Conservative intellectual Yuval Levin on how the Republican Party lost its way Jul 19, 2016

Show notes

Yuval Levin has been called "the most influential conservative intellectual of the Obama era," and the moniker fits. As editor of National Affairs — in my opinion, the best policy journal going on the right — he's been at the head of the "reformicon" movement, and his work has had a heavy influence on top Republicans like Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio. If you had asked me a year ago to name the conservatives likely to set the agenda for the Republican Party in 2016 and beyond, Levin would've been atop my list. And then, of course, Donald Trump won the Republican nomination.In this atmosphere, Levin's new book, Fractured America, reads like a warning. Written before "Make America Great Again" became the rallying cry of the Republican Party, it argues that both Democrats and Republicans were trapped inside a dangerous nostalgia, and tried to propose a way out. We talk about that way out in this podcast, as well as:- How Levin defines the Republican Party, and how he thinks it’s changed with Trump- Why Republicans misunderstand their own voters- His distinction between the conservative movement and the Republican party- Why he views Brexit and Trump’s rise as a kind of “counter-cosmopolitanism” - The role of nostalgia in our current politics- Why a universal basic income is the most interesting idea on the left today- How the free market undermines cultural traditionalism- The way in which we have cultural/moral arguments under the guise of debates about how efficient/effective policies are- What Levin learned working for Newt Gingrich and George W. Bush- Why you’d have to be crazy to want to be presidentIf you want to understand the Republican Party today, you should listen to this interview.

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Hillary Clinton. Yes, that Hillary Clinton. Jul 12, 2016

Show notes

My interview this week is with Hillary Clinton. You may have heard of her.I won't bore you with Clinton's bio. Instead, I want to say a few words about what this interview is, as it's a bit different than the EK Show's normal fare (though I do ask her for book recommendations!).I got about 40 minutes with Hillary Clinton. I wanted to use that time to try to answer a question I've had about Clinton for years: why is the candidate I see on the campaign trail so different from the person described to me by her staff, colleagues, friends, and even foes? I wanted, in other words, to try to see what Clinton is like when she's working her way through policy and governance issues. And so that's what we talk about. Among the topics we covered are:- Extreme poverty, welfare reform, and the working poor- Is it time for more deficit spending?- Would more immigration be good for the economy?- The difficulties of free college and universal health care- What skills does a president need that campaigns don't test?- What's on her bookshelf?- Why America stopped trusting elites — and what elites should do about itIf you want more on this discussion, I also reported out a long piece on how Clinton governs — you can find it on Vox.com.

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Patrick Brown on plant-meat that bleeds and the science of flavor Jul 05, 2016

Show notes

Not long ago, I had the chance to eat a burger from a company called Impossible Foods. The burger was delicious. It was juicy, savory, and bloody. Oh, and it was made from plants.Yes, they've created a veggie burger that bleeds. Patrick Brown is the CEO and Founder of Impossible Foods. His company is the Tesla of plant-based meat: they are trying to create a burger that carnivores will prefer to the thing cut from the side of the cow. And they've got some big backers in that effort: Brown has hundreds of millions of dollars from investors including Bill Gates and Google.I sat down with Brown, a biochemist, to talk about the science and business of Impossible Foods. Among other things, we discussed:- Why meat tastes like meat- How to find the flavor of blood in plants - The ways in which the company is mimicking Tesla's strategy for electric cars- The environmental impact of meat, and how plant-based burgers compare- What happens when you break down the individual flavors of your favorite foods- What it means for a food to be "natural"- Why the market for plant-based proteins hasn't developed many premium productsAnd much more. This episode is interesting even if you love your animal protein and will never, ever give it up: we're really talking here about the science of flavor, the business of food, and whether you can combine technology and marketing to change the most entrenched consumer behaviors of all.

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Heather McGhee on what Democrats get wrong about racism Jun 28, 2016

Show notes

Heather McGhee is the president of the think tank Demos, and one of the most interesting thinkers today on the intersection of racism and economic inequality.Among Heather's most interesting arguments is her belief that "the left will have to challenge its own orthodoxy that defines racism as something that wholly benefits whites and solely victimizes people of color." In this podcast, she explains why. We also talk about:- Why Heather, an African-American woman, worked for John Edwards rather than Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton in 2008- The lame presidency of The West Wing's Josiah Bartlet- Whether the wealthy are actually able to buy the political outcomes they want (spoiler: I'm skeptical)- How racism has been used as a tool to discredit government action- Whether Barack Obama's presidency has led to more racial division in AmericaAnd much more. This is a fascinating conversation about some genuinely tricky topics. It's left me with a lot to think about, and I believe it'll do the same for you.

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