Talks at Google

Few American chefs, much less female chefs, can say they’ve run Michelin-starred restaurants abroad. Chef Alexandra Guarnaschelli can make such a boast, having embarked on a culinary journey in France that saw her working in some of that country’s top restaurants, including esteemed chef Guy Savoy’s eponymous three-star kitchen. In 2003, Guarnaschelli became the executive chef at Butter Restaurant in New York City, which provided the opportunity for her to develop a menu based on her own choices and point of view. Today, Guarnaschelli is recognized as one of America’s most accomplished top chefs, acclaimed for her work in the kitchen, as a popular television personality, and now as an author. Her second cookbook, The Home Cook: Recipes to Know by Heart, is a compendium of the indispensable dishes that she feels should be in every cook’s repertoire, for every occasion and every palate. The chapters and recipes of The Home Cook are inspired by the foods of Alex’s childhood, her own travels & experience as a mother, as well as her many years spent as a chef in world-renowned kitchens. As delightful to read as it is instructive, The Home Cook is a must-have resource that will become the most-reached-for book on the shelves of home cooks everywhere. Originally published in September of 2018. Visit YouTube.com/TalksatGoogle to watch the video.

Award-winning journalist Katie Couric discusses her recent book "Going There", the fast-paced, emotional, riveting story of a thoroughly modern woman, whose journey took her from humble origins to superstardom. Katie Couric is a New York Times best-selling author and a co-founder of Stand Up To Cancer. Since its launch in 2008, Stand Up To Cancer has raised more than $600 million to support cutting edge collaborative science, and its research has contributed to nine new FDA approved therapies. In 2017, she founded Katie Couric Media (KCM), which has developed a number of media projects, including a daily newsletter, a podcast, digital video series and several documentaries. Previous documentaries produced by KCM include: America Inside Out with Katie Couric, a six-part series for National Geographic; Gender Revolution: A Journey with Katie Couric, for National Geographic; Under the Gun, which aired on EPIX; and Fed Up, available on iTunes, Amazon and YouTube. Couric was also the executive producer of Unbelievable on Netflix and is developing other scripted projects. Couric was the first woman to solo anchor a network evening newscast, serving as anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News from 2006 to 2011, following 15-years as co-anchor of NBC’s Today show. She also hosted a syndicated show and served as the Yahoo Global News Anchor until 2017. Most recently, Couric was the first guest host of the iconic game show Jeopardy!. She has won a duPont-Columbia, a Peabody, two Edward R. Murrows, a Walter Cronkite Award, and multiple Emmys. She was twice named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People and was Glamour Magazine’s Woman of the Year three times. Katie has received numerous awards for her cancer advocacy work, honored by both the Harvard and Columbia schools of public health, the American Cancer Society and The American Association of Cancer Researchers. Get the book here: https://goo.gle/2ZpzVCW. For more information on Katie, please visit https://katiecouric.com/. For more information on Stand Up To Cancer, please visit https://standuptocancer.org/. Visit YouTube.com/TalksatGoogle to watch the video.  

Nightline anchor Dan Harris embarks on an unexpected, hilarious, and deeply skeptical odyssey through the strange worlds of spirituality and self-help, and discovers a way to get happier that is truly achievable. After having a nationally televised panic attack on Good Morning America, Dan Harris knew he had to make some changes. A lifelong nonbeliever, he found himself on a bizarre adventure, involving a disgraced pastor, a mysterious self-help guru, and a gaggle of brain scientists. Eventually, Harris realized that the source of his problems was the very thing he always thought was his greatest asset: the incessant, insatiable voice in his head, which had both propelled him through the ranks of a hyper-competitive business and also led him to make the profoundly stupid decisions that provoked his on-air freak-out. We all have a voice in our head. It’s what has us losing our temper unnecessarily, checking our email compulsively, eating when we’re not hungry, and fixating on the past and the future at the expense of the present. Most of us would assume we’re stuck with this voice – that there’s nothing we can do to rein it in – but Harris stumbled upon an effective way to do just that. It’s a far cry from the miracle cures peddled by the self-help swamis he met; instead, it’s something he always assumed to be either impossible or useless: meditation. After learning about research that suggests meditation can do everything from lower your blood pressure to essentially rewire your brain, Harris took a deep dive into the underreported world of CEOs, scientists, and even marines who are now using it for increased calm, focus, and happiness. 10% Happier takes readers on a ride from the outer reaches of neuroscience to the inner sanctum of network news to the bizarre fringes of America’s spiritual scene, and leaves them with a takeaway that could actually change their lives. Visit YouTube.com/TalksatGoogle to watch the video.  

Sanjay Gupta, MD discusses "World War C: Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic and How to Prepare for the Next One", his new book that offers the unvarnished story behind the pandemic, including insights about the novel virus’s behavior, and practical tools to ready ourselves for what lies ahead. Dr. Sanjay Gupta is CNN’s multiple Emmy Award–winning chief medical correspondent and the host of the acclaimed podcasts Coronavirus: Fact vs Fiction and Chasing Life, America’s go-to resource for advice on how to stay safe and healthy. The New York Times bestselling author of "Keep Sharp", "Chasing Life", "Cheating Death" and "Monday Mornings", Dr. Gupta lives in Atlanta, where he is an associate professor of neurosurgery at the Emory University School of Medicine and continues to practice neurosurgery. Get the book here: https://goo.gle/3jizcKZ. Moderated by Karen DeSalvo. Visit YouTube.com/TalksatGoogle to watch the video.  

NASA is on a journey to Mars, and we are closer to reaching the Red Planet with human explorers than we have ever been in our history. Across the country, and around the world, NASA and its partners are working right now on the technologies and missions that will enable human “boots on Mars” in the 2030s. Humanity is currently testing advanced technologies for the next giant leaps of space exploration. From solar electric propulsion to cutting edge life support systems, to the first crops grown in space, the journey to Mars is already unfolding in tangible ways across NASA today. Other breakthrough technologies we need are moving from drawing boards to development. The agency’s strategic approach involves developing capabilities in three stages – from missions close to Earth involving commercial partners and the International Space Station, advancing to missions in Earth–Moon orbit, or deep space, using the Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft, and finally moving on to Mars, where explorers will need to be completely independent from Earth. The innovation required to achieve a human mission to Mars cuts across science, human exploration, and technology. It builds on what has gone before, while driving the next advances. Our journey to Mars inspires educators and students by investing in new leaders ready to take on the challenges of tomorrow’s missions. Originally recorded in July of 2016, here is Dr. Dava Newman. Visit YouTube.com/TalksatGoogle to watch the video.  

In 1925, a young student named Werner Heisenberg retreated to an island archipelago on the north coast of Germany called Helgoland to escape a terrible bout of hay fever. On the treeless, pollen-free island, Heisenberg made crucial breakthroughs for the creation of quantum mechanics, setting off a century of scientific revolution. Full of alarming ideas such as ghost waves, distant objects that seem to be magically connected, and cats that appear to be both dead and alive, quantum physics has led to countless discoveries and technological advancements. Today our understanding of the world is based on this theory, yet it is still profoundly mysterious. As scientists and philosophers continue to fiercely debate the meaning of the theory, theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli argues that its most unsettling contradictions can be explained by seeing the world as fundamentally made of relationships rather than substances. We and everything around us exist only in our interactions with one another. This bold idea suggests new directions for thinking about the structure of reality, and even the nature of consciousness. Rovelli makes learning about quantum mechanics an almost psychedelic experience. Shifting our perspective once again, he takes us on a riveting journey through the universe so we can better comprehend our place in it. Moderated by Sanders Kleinfeld. Visit YouTube.com/TalksatGoogle to watch the video.  

Bestselling author, neuroscientist, and computer engineer Jeff Hawkins joins computational neuroscience researcher and software technologist Subutai Ahmad to discuss the recent book "A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence" and how those concepts are being applied to Machine Learning. For all of neuroscience's advances, we've made little progress on its biggest question: How do simple cells in the brain create intelligence? Jeff Hawkins and his team discovered that the brain uses maplike structures to build a model of the world - not just one model, but hundreds of thousands of models of everything we know. This discovery allows Hawkins to answer important questions about how we perceive the world, why we have a sense of self, and the origin of high-level thought. "A Thousand Brains" heralds a revolution in the understanding of intelligence. It is a big-think book, in every sense of the word. Moderated by Peter Norvig. Get the book here: https://goo.gle/3vMY4Ok. Visit YouTube.com/TalksatGoogle to watch the video.