

Keen On America
Andrew Keen
Nobody asks sharper or more impertinent questions than Andrew Keen. In KEEN ON, Andrew cross-examines the world’s smartest people on politics, economics, history, the environment, and tech. If you want to make sense of our complex world, check out the daily questions and the answers on KEEN ON.
Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best-known technology and politics broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running show How To Fix Democracy and the author of four critically acclaimed books about the future, including the international bestselling CULT OF THE AMATEUR.
Keen On is free to listen to and will remain so. If you want to stay up-to-date on new episodes and support the show please subscribe to Andrew Keen’s Substack. Paid subscribers will soon be able to access exclusive content from our new series Keen On America. keenon.substack.com
Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best-known technology and politics broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running show How To Fix Democracy and the author of four critically acclaimed books about the future, including the international bestselling CULT OF THE AMATEUR.
Keen On is free to listen to and will remain so. If you want to stay up-to-date on new episodes and support the show please subscribe to Andrew Keen’s Substack. Paid subscribers will soon be able to access exclusive content from our new series Keen On America. keenon.substack.com
Episodes
Mentioned books

Sep 18, 2023 • 46min
Is Web3 technology - Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, DAOs, NFTs et al - just the latest Silicon Valley hype? Alex Tapscott separates the signal from the noise on the internet's next economic and cultural frontier
EPISODE 1724: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to the author of WEB3, Alex Tapscott, who separates the signal about Blockchain, Crypto, NFTs and other technologies on the internet's next economic and cultural frontierAlex Tapscott is an entrepreneur, business author, and seasoned capital markets professional focused on the impact of emerging technologies, such as blockchain and cryptocurrencies, on business, government, and society. His latest book, Web3: Charting the Internet’s Next Economic and Cultural Frontier (Harper Collins), will be published September 19th, 2023. Alex is also the Managing Director of the Digital Assets Group at Ninepoint Partners, one of Canada’s leading investment firms, with more than $8 billion in assets under management (AUM). Ninepoint launched the world’s first carbon-neutral Bitcoin ETF, which reached over $400 million in AUM. Alex is also co-author of the critically acclaimed non-fiction best-seller, Blockchain Revolution, translated into more than 19 languages and which has sold more than 500,000 copies worldwide. His other books, Financial Services Revolution and Digital Asset Revolution were published in 2020 and 2022 respectively. Alex is sought after world-wide for his expertise by business and government audiences. He has delivered well over 200 lectures and executive briefings to business audiences at firms like Goldman Sachs (Talks at GS), Google, Allianz, IBM, Microsoft and Accenture, to name a few (Select speeches by Alex). He is consistently ranked as a top influencer in the blockchain industry. His TedX talk, Blockchain is Eating Wall Street has been viewed over 800,000 times. Alex’s writing has been featured in The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, The Globe and Mail, The Financial Post, TIME, Fortune, and many other publications. In 2017, Alex co-founded the Blockchain Research Institute (BRI), a global think-tank investigating blockchain strategies, opportunities and use-cases. Alex is a graduate of Amherst College (Cum Laude) and is a CFA Charterholder. He lives in Toronto.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 mar 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

Sep 18, 2023 • 31min
Tyranny of an Ethnocratic Minority: Steven Levitsky on what an increasingly broken American political system has to learn from the democracies of Brazil and Argentina
EPISODE 1726: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Steven Levitsky, co-author of TYRANNY OF THE MINORITY, about what America has to learn from the democracies of Brazil and ArgentinaSteven Levitsky is David Rockefeller Professor of Latin American Studies and Professor of Government at Harvard University. He is also Director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard. His research focuses on democratization and authoritarianism, political parties, and weak and informal institutions, with a focus on in Latin America. He is co-author (with Daniel Ziblatt) of How Democracies Die (Crown, 2018), which was a New York Times Best-Seller and was published in 25 languages. He has written or edited 11 other books, including Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America: Argentine Peronism in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press 2003), Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War (with Lucan Way) (Cambridge University Press, 2010), and Revolution and Dictatorship: The Violent Origins of Durable Authoritarianism (with Lucan Way) (Princeton University Press, 2022). 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. 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

Sep 18, 2023 • 35min
When the stink became overwhelming: Corban Addison tells the true story of when large-scale farming went on trial in North Carolina
EPISODE 1725: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Corban Addison, the author of WASTELANDS, about the true story of large-scale farming on trial in North CarolinaCORBAN ADDISON is the internationally best-selling author of four novels, A Walk Across the Sun, The Garden of Burning Sand, The Tears of Dark Water (winner of the inaugural Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize), and A Harvest of Thorns, all of which address some of today’s most pressing human rights issues. An attorney, activist, and world traveler, he lives with his wife and children in Virginia.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. 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

Sep 18, 2023 • 32min
Your Face Belongs to Us: Kashmir Hill on a secretive startup's quest to end privacy as we know it
EPISODE 1723: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Kashmir Hill, author of YOUR FACE BELONGS TO US, about a secretive startup's quest to end privacy as we know itKashmir Hill is a journalist at The New York Times and the author of YOUR FACE BELONGS TO US. She writes about the looming tech dystopia and how we can try to avoid it. She got my start in journalism in 2008, as a writer for the legal blog Above the Law. The next year, while getting her master’s in magazine journalism at NYU, she created my own blog called The Not-So Private Parts. It was supposed be a yearlong project, but she’s still chronicling the fate of privacy in the modern age more than a decade later. She joined The NY Times in 2019, after having worked as an investigative reporter at Gizmodo Media Group and as a writer at Forbes Magazine.She has also written for Popular Science about bitcoin and for The New Yorker about poker, a game she loves to play.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. 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

Sep 18, 2023 • 33min
Eight novels to take to a desert island this Fall: Bethanne Patrick on new fiction about Haiti, Jamestown, 1984, Malaysia and women on the margins of the Vietnam war
EPISODE 1722: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Bethanne Patrick , the LATimes book critic, about eight of the best novels she recommends for the Fall.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. 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

Sep 18, 2023 • 35min
On the Awesomeness of Globalization: Keith Teare explains why the next chapter of globalized technology will undermine the economic and political power of the nation-state
EPISODE 1721: In this regular weekly show with THAT WAS THE WEEK newsletter author Keith Teare, Keith explains why he hopes tech globalization will undermine the economic and political power of the nation-stateKeith Teare is a Founder and CEO at SignalRank Corporation. Previously he was Executive Chairman at Accelerated Digital Ventures Ltd - A UK based global investment company focused on startups at all stages. He was also previously founder at the Palo Alto incubator, Archimedes Labs. Archimedes was the original incubator for TechCrunch and since 2011has invested, accelerated or incubated many Silicon valley startups including InFarm, Miles, Quixey; M.dot (sold to GoDaddy); chat.center; Loop Surveys; DownTown and Sunshine. Teare has a track record as a serial entrepreneur with big ideas and has achieved significant returns for investors.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. 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

Sep 17, 2023 • 32min
The Economic and Moral Case for Good Jobs: Zeynep Ton on why companies need to bring dignity, pay and meaning to everyone's work
EPISODE 1720: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Zeynep Ton, author THE CASE FOR GOOD JOBS, about why companies need to bring dignity, pay and meaning to all their employees' workZeynep Ton is a professor of the practice at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Previously, she was on the faculty of the Harvard Business School. Ton received numerous awards for teaching excellence at both schools. Her work has been featured widely in the media, including The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Bloomberg TV, and MSNBC. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with her husband and four 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. 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

Sep 15, 2023 • 32min
How to stand up to a dictator: Maria Ressa on courage, honesty, perseverance and why must all fight for our future
EPISODE 1719: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Maria Ressa, 2021 Nobel laureate and author of HOW TO STAND UP TO A DICTATOR, about courage, honesty, bravery and why we must all fight for our futureA journalist in Asia for more than 37 years, Maria Ressa co-founded Rappler, the top digital only news site that is leading the fight for press freedom in the Philippines. As Rappler's CEO and president, Maria has endured constant political harassment and arrests by the Duterte government, forced to post bail ten times to stay free. Rappler's battle for truth and democracy is the subject of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival documentary, A Thousand Cuts. In October 2021, Maria was one of two journalists awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her "efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace." For her courage and work on disinformation and 'fake news,' Maria was named one of Time Magazine’s 2018 Person of the Year, was among its 100 Most Influential People of 2019, and has also been named one of Time's Most Influential Women of the Century. She was also part of the BBC's 100 most inspiring and influential women of 2019 and Prospect magazine's world's top 50 thinkers. In 2020, she received the Journalist of the Year award, the John Aubuchon Press Freedom Award, the Most Resilient Journalist Award, the Tucholsky Prize, the Truth to Power Award, and the Four Freedoms Award. In 2021, UNESCO awarded her the Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize. Among many awards for her principled stance, she received the prestigious Golden Pen of Freedom Award from the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, the Knight International Journalism Award from the International Center for Journalists, the Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Shorenstein Journalism Award from Stanford University, the Columbia Journalism Award, the Free Media Pioneer Award from the International Press Institute, and the Sergei Magnitsky Award for Investigative Journalism. Maria wrote Seeds of Terror: An Eyewitness Account of al-Qaeda’s Newest Center of Operations in Southeast Asia and From Bin Laden to Facebook: 10 Days of Abduction, 10 Years of Terrorism, and How to Stand up to a Dictator.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 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

Sep 13, 2023 • 34min
The shocking saga of big media malfeasance rivaling Succession for its sex, lies and betrayals: Rachel Abrams on the Redstone dynastic struggle, former CBS executive Les Moonves and their significance to the Me Too movement
EPISODE 1718: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Rachel Abrams, co-author of UNSCRIPTED, about on the Redstone dynastic struggle at Paramount/CBS which rivals the show Succession for its shocking sex, lies and betrayalsRachel Abrams is a senior producer and reporter for “The New York Times Presents,” The Times’s award-winning television documentary series for Hulu and FX. In 2022, she was part of the team that won an Emmy for “Malfunction: The Dressing Down of Janet Jackson,” and in 2018, she was part of the reporting team that won a Pulitzer Prize for public service for exposing sexual harassment and misconduct by Harvey Weinstein and other powerful figures.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. 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

Sep 12, 2023 • 34min
Why AI threatens not just writing, creativity and thinking, but also democracy: Naomi S. Baron on how new tools like Chat GPT are stopping us knowing who we really are as individuals
EPISODE 1717: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Naomi S. Baron, author of WHO WROTE THIS?, about how AI and the lure of efficiency is are stopping us know who we really are as humansNaomi S. Baron is Professor Emerita of Linguistics at American University in Washington, DC. She is the author of Always On: Language in an Online and Mobile World, Words Onscreen: The Fate of Reading in a Digital World, and “Who Wrote This? How AI and the Lure of Efficiency Threaten Human Writing” (Stanford University Press, 2023). 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. 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