Keen On America

The Politifact founder, Duke University professor and Pulitzer Prize winning writer Bill Adair certainly isn’t the first person to raise the alarm about the problem of lying in American politics. But what’s really interesting about his new book, Beyond the Big Lie, is that Adair also has innovative solutions to fixing what he calls an “epidemic of political lying.” One idea, he explained to me, is punishing politicians for their lies through fines. Another, is by pioneering a national pledge, in the manner of Grover Norquist’s successful taxpayer protection pledge, to commit politicians to telling the truth. Good honest stuff from America’s foremost authority on political lying. As a reporter at the Tampa Bay Times, Bill Adair covered everything from small-town crime to big-time politics. He was a metro reporter who wrote about natural disasters, a business reporter who covered the airlines and a data journalist who explored the patterns of race and wealth. As the newspaper’s Washington bureau chief, he took readers behind the scenes to watch a White House advance team, to see the backroom deals of a congressional chairman, and to watch lawyers prepare for the Supreme Court. He interviewed a president, countless senators and once got to chat with Bono. In 2007, he launched PolitiFact, a fact-checking site with a Truth-O-Meter that rates politicians’ factual claims. The site spawned a dozen state sites that rated the claims of governors and other state officials. It also inspired fact-checkers around the world to start their own sites. He then co-founded the International Fact-Checking Network. He came to Duke University in 2013 as the Knight Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy. He teaches journalism in the Sanford School of Public Policy and directs the Duke Reporters’ Lab, where students and professionals conduct research about fact-checking and the future of journalism. His awards include the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting (with the PolitiFact staff), the Manship Prize for New Media in Democratic Discourse and the Everett Dirksen Award for Distinguished Coverage of Congress.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

In February 2011, I had the maven of mavens, Seth Godin, on the show to discuss the end of the industrial age. “So why are you so popular?” I asked the best-selling author, entrepreneur and teacher. “I notice things,” he explained. Luckily for all of us, nearly fourteen years later, Godin is still noticing things, especially the obvious stuff that most of us miss. The problem, as he notes in his new book, This is Strategy, is that we mostly think tactically and thus overlook the strategic insights that enable us to plan a good life for ourselves and our community. And so we struggle to establish agency over our own lives, which is a particular problem in what Godin calls our era of carbon & AI. That said, Godin remains cautiously optimistic about all of our futures because, as he asserts, “we are hardwired for hope”. I hope he’s right - thereby probably proving his theory. Seth Godin is an author, entrepreneur and most of all, A teacher. Seth is an entrepreneur, best-selling author, and speaker. In addition to launching one of the most popular blogs in the world, he has written 21 best-selling books, including The Dip, Linchpin, Purple Cow, Tribes, and What To Do When It's Your Turn (And It's Always Your Turn). His book, This is Marketing, was an instant bestseller in countries around the world. The new book, out in 2024 is THIS IS STRATEGY. His previous books include The Song of Significance and The Practice, and creatives everywhere have made it a bestseller. Though renowned for his writing and speaking, Seth also founded two companies, Squidoo and Yoyodyne (acquired by Yahoo!). He's credited as the inventor of email marketing (the good kind). Seth has given five TED talks, including two that rank as the most popular of all time. By focusing on everything from effective marketing and leadership, to the spread of ideas and changing everything, Seth has been able to motivate and inspire countless people around the world. You can see his podcast appearances here. In 2013, Seth was one of just three professionals inducted into the Direct Marketing Hall of Fame. In an astonishing turn of events, in May 2018, he was inducted into the Marketing Hall of Fame as well. He might be the only person in both.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

New books about the impact of AI on the human condition are two a penny. But it’s rare to have an AI book by such a prominent author as Robert Skidelsky, a member of the British House of Lords and the author of the iconic three-volume biography of John Maynard Keynes. In his new book Mindless, Skidelsky presents a sweeping history of our relationship with machines as way of explaining how we slide into our current conundrum with AI. While Skidelsky doesn’t believe that AI offers an existential threat to us yet, he is fearful of how smart machines could ultimately threaten the human condition. And, of course, we discuss John Maynard Keynes and his (mistaken) vision of both the future of work and of humanity in a market economy.Robert Skidelsky is a member of the British House of Lords, Professor Emeritus of Political Economy at Warwick University, and the author of a prize-winning three-volume biography of John Maynard Keynes. He began his political career in the Labour party, was a founding member of the Social Democratic Party, and served as the Conservative Party’s spokesman for Treasury affairs in the House of Lords until he was sacked for his opposition to NATO’s 1999 bombing of Kosovo. Since 2001, he has sat in the House of Lords as an independent. He has also served as a non-executive director of the American mutual fund Janus (2001-11) and the private Russian oil company PJSC Russneft (2016-21). He is the author of The Machine Age: An Idea, a History, a Warning (Allen Lane, 2023) as well as Mindless: The Human Condition in the Age of Artificial Intelligence`(2024)Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

There are some seriously heavyweight new non-fiction books this Fall including memoirs by Al Pacino and Ketanji Brown Jackson, as well as an intriguing new historical analysis of the recently departed Queen Elizabeth and that inevitable pre-election Bob Woodward tome on the misbehavior of you-know-who. But for our resident book maven, Bethanne Patrick, the most intriguing non-fiction release of the Fall is by a much less well known author. The Harvard art and culture historian Sarah Lewis’ The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America, Patrick believes, is a major work that allows us to perceive the real truth about America in our age of hyperreality. And Sarah Lewis, she suggests, is up there with Isabel Wilkerson as an American treasure of truth-telling. So expect to see Lewis on the show in the not too distant future.Bethanne Patrick maintains a storied place in the publishing industry as a critic and as @TheBookMaven on Twitter, where she created the popular #FridayReads and regularly comments on books and literary ideas to over 200,000 followers. Her work appears frequently in the Los Angeles Times as well as in The Washington Post, NPR Books, and Literary Hub. She sits on the board of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation and has served on the board of the National Book Critics Circle. She is the host of the Missing Pages podcast.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Last October, we featured a conversation with Kian Vesteinsson, co-author of Freedom House’s 2023 FREEDOM ON THE NET report, about the repressive power of artificial intelligence. A year later, Freedom House’s 2024 FREEDOM ON THE NET report is entitled “The Struggle for Trust Online”. And as Allie Funk, one of its co-authors, explains, it’s a very mixed report on the state of online trust. In some countries - most notably Iceland, Chile and Taiwan - internet freedom has improved in 2024. But in others - especially Russia, Iran and, especially, China - things have only gotten worse over the last year. So, I asked Funk, what needs to change to build online trust around the world? How can the large democracies of North America and Europe learn from Iceland, Chile and Taiwan to build more freedom on the net?Allie Funk leads Freedom House's technology and democracy initiative, including Freedom on the Net and Election Watch for the Digital Age. She also represents Freedom House on the Freedom Online Coalition's Advisory Network, serves on the Global Network Initiative's Board of Directors, and is a Council on Foreign Relations' Term Member. Her writing has been published in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, WIRED, Lawfare, the Hill, the Diplomat, and Just Security, among others. Prior to joining Freedom House, Allie worked at the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers on issues relating to reforming U.S. surveillance practices, closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, and protecting the right to counsel, and also worked with Human Rights First’s foreign policy team. She holds a master's degree in human rights from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a B.A. in philosophy and political science from the University of Louisville.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

The conventional way of thinking about digital technology revolutions is akin to thinking about how to build a house. First we build the foundation, then we add the frame and finally the cosmetic furnishing. In tech, this is known as the “stack” - and traditionally, each chapter in the narrative involves different companies and technologies. So in the case of the Internet boom, for example, first there were tech plumbing companies like Cisco, then middleware companies, and finally consumer companies like Amazon that interface with customers. But, as Andrew and Keith Teare discuss in this week That Was the Week tech roundup, in the case of the AI revolution, the entire “stack” might be owned by a single company. So OpenAI or Anthropic threaten to quite literally control the construction of the entire house - from laying the foundations to painting the walls and laying the carpets of tomorrow’s AI world. As Keith and Andrew warn, the implications of this on the future of innovation in the digital economy are immense. In the age of AI, Big Tech threatens to be dramatically more monolith and powerful than ever. Even Keith, the eternal tech optimist, seems a little nervous about such a dramatic concentration of wealth and power. Keith Teare is the founder and CEO of SignalRank Corporation. Previously, he was executive chairman at Accelerated Digital Ventures Ltd., a U.K.-based global investment company focused on startups at all stages. Teare studied at the University of Kent and is the author of “The Easy Net Book” and “Under Siege.” He writes regularly for TechCrunch and publishes the “That Was The Week” newsletter.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Early today, we posted a conversation with Celeste Marcus, LIBERTIES Quarterly managing editor, about her hard-hitting “Hate Lands” essay in the Fall 2024 issue. In the same issue, there’s an equally hard hitting piece by the Rutgers historian, Katherine C. Epstein. But whereas Marcus goes after Trump and Putin, Epstein’s ire is reserved for her fellow American historians who, she believes, are, literally, “killing history”. And Epstein doesn’t pull her punches in this conversation either. America, she told me, is the “world’s teenager” in terms of (not) making sense of its own historical narrative. Meanwhile, “the donkeys are leading the donkeys” inside American history departments, creating a crisis of this most essential academic craft.Katherine C. Epstein is associate professor of history at Rutgers-Camden.  She is currently working on her second book, which examines government secrecy, defense contracting, intellectual property, and the political economy of power projection.  Her first book, Torpedo: Inventing the Military-Industrial Complex in the United States and Great Britain (Harvard University Press, 2014), examined these issues through the lens of torpedo development before World War I.  In 2018-2019, she held an ACLS Frederick Burkhardt Fellowship and was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.  Her work has appeared in various academic journals and edited collections, as well as in the Wall Street Journal and American Interest.  She teaches courses in US history, military history, diplomatic history, and historical methods.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

In the Fall 2024 issue of Liberties Quarterly, managing editor Celeste Marcus writes about the great Polish movie director Agnieszka Holland. Marcus argues that the 75 year-old Holland - best known for her 1990 movie Europa Europa - remains as relevant as ever because of her focus on what she calls the “terrifying contingency” of social breakdown. Linking Holland’s latest film, Green Border, a movie about the the plight of east European migrants with Donald Trump’s dehumanization of American migrants, Marcus argues that “no human hates like the human.” And the very worst humans, Marcus reminds us, with a barely concealed reference to Trump and Putin, “do not live under beds or in our imaginations; they sit in paneled offices behind mahogany desks, signing bills into law, raising and razing cities with the same hand.”Celeste Marcus is the managing editor of Liberties Journal of Culture and Politics and the co-host of “The DC Salon” podcast. She is at work on a biography of the artist Chaim Soutine.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Do we shape the future or does it shape us? That’s the core question in Brian Solis’ new book, Mindshift which provides lessons for corporate executives in transforming leadership and driving innovation. Like so many other futurists, Solis’ work focuses on how we can become irreplaceable in the age of AI. Agency still lies with us, he acknowledges. But unless we use that agency to shape the future, Solis warns, then that future will eventually make all of us eminently replaceable. Brian Solis is Head of Global Innovation at ServiceNow. In his role, Brian sets the strategic direction and programming for ServiceNow’s Innovation and Executive Briefing Centers in Silicon Valley, New York, London, Paris, Sydney, and Singapore. Additionally, Brian designs and delivers strategic engagements with important customers to advise on digital and business innovation strategies. Brian Solis has been called “one of the greatest digital analysts of our time.” Brian is also a world renowned keynote speaker and an award-winning author of eight best-selling books including, X: The Experience When Business Meets Design, What’s the Future of Business and The End of Business as Usual.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

As a longtime Harvard Business School professor and the former chief marketing officer at Aetna, David C. Edelman is all too familiar with both the dangers and opportunities of personalized technology. In Personalization, his new book, co-authored with Boston Consulting Group managing director Mark Abraham, Edelman focuses on customer strategy in our age of AI. While Edelman acknowledges that there have been dangers with Web 2.0 style products that enables personalization, he is nonetheless cautiously optimist that AI will enable companies to provide hyper-personalized services and products that will ultimately benefit consumers. Rather than the age of surveillance capitalism, then, Edelman believes that AI represents the age of the empowered and happy consumer. Fighting talk from one of the world’s leading marketing mavens.David C. Edelman has a long history of Personalization work stretching back more than three decades. In 1989, he wrote the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) classic article, “Segment-of-One Marketing,” in which he predicted the possibilities of Personalization. Since then, he has chronicled the evolution of the field, offering the visionary ideas he’s developed as a practitioner and a consultant. David has worked with dozens of companies on Personalization, AI, and Agile marketing at BCG and Digitas before transforming Aetna’s approach to customer experience while serving as the company’s Chief Marketing Officer. His six articles in the Harvard Business Review cover the evolving Customer Decision Journey, the Future of Customer Experience, and the Implications of AI for Management Leaders and Boards. Today, he is an executive advisor and board member to brands and technology providers, is an advisor to BCG, and teaches at Harvard Business School. Forbes has repeatedly named him one of the Top 20 Most Influential Voices in Marketing, and Ad Age has named him a Top 20 Chief Marketing and Technology Officer. A music fanatic and avid tenor sax player, David lives in Cambridge, MA with his wife Miriam and their two labradoodles, where they periodically host their three grown children.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe