

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

Nov 6, 2023 • 24min
How to make the most of college: Ben Wildavsky on the art of using college to build a career
EPISODE 1845: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Ben Wildavsky, author of THE CAREER ARTS, about how to use college to successfully build a careerBen Wildavsky is a veteran higher education writer, strategist, and speaker, host of the Higher Ed Spotlight podcast and author of The Career Arts: Making the Most of College, Credentials, and Connections. A frequent keynote speaker and moderator at education conferences and retreats, Ben cuts through the noise and anxiety surrounding this issue to offer sensible, clear-eyed guidance for anyone who is making decisions about education and career preparation with a view to getting ahead in the workforce. He has held senior roles at the Brookings Institution, the College Board Policy Center, Strada Education Network and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. He is currently a visiting scholar at the University of 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

Nov 6, 2023 • 38min
Why the American mass incarceration system is jarringly unamerican: Ben Austen on parole, prison and the near impossibility of change in the current American criminal justice system
EPISODE 1844: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Ben Austen, author of CORRECTION, about parole, prison and the near impossibility of change in the current American criminal justice systemBen Austen is a writer from Chicago. He is the co-host of the podcast Some of My Best Friends Are and the author of High-Risers: Cabrini-Green and the Fate of American Public Housing. High-Risers was long-listed for the Andrew Carnegie Medal of Excellence in Nonfiction, shortlisted for the Goddard Riverside Stephan Russo Book Prize for Social Justice, and named one of the best books of 2018 by Booklist, Mother Jones and the public libraries of Chicago and St. Louis. A former editor at Harper’s Magazine, he is a story consultant on the podcast The City and a senior fellow at the Invisible Institute. His feature writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Wired, GQ, The Best American Travel Writing, and many other publications. 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

Nov 3, 2023 • 30min
In defense of literary flyover country: Peter Slen on Willa Cather's "My Antonia", the 1918 novel that captured the ideal of immigrant middle America
EPISODE 1843: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Peter Slen, Executive Producer of the C-SPAN series BOOKS THAT SHAPED AMERICA, about Willa Cather's "My Antonia", the 1918 novel that nailed the ideal of immigrant middle AmericaPeter Slen is the senior executive producer and a host at C-SPAN, a television and radio network known for its unbiased coverage of government proceedings.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

Nov 3, 2023 • 38min
Orwell and his women: Bethanne Patrick on new feminist takes on George Orwell - the man , the husband and the writer.
EPISODE 1842: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Bethanne Patrick, book critic at the Los Angeles Times, about new feminist takes on George Orwell, the man and the writer.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

Nov 3, 2023 • 36min
Guilty by seven crimes and death by a thousand verticals: Keith Teare on Sam Bankman-Fried and Palo Alto, Elon Musk and Rishi Sunak, and Space X and X
EPISODE 1841: In our weekly KEEN ON wrap of tech news with Keith Teare, author of the THAT WAS THE WEEK newletter Keith talks about Sam Bankman-Fried and Palo Alto, Elon Musk and Rishi Sunak, and Space X and X Keith 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 the founder at the Palo Alto incubator, Archimedes Labs. Archimedes was the original incubator for TechCrunch and since 2011 has invested, accelerated or incubated many Silicon Valley startups including Around (sold to Miro), Millicast (Sold to Dolby), 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. 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

Nov 2, 2023 • 32min
How to get more women in science right now: Lisa Munoz on implicit bias, leaky pipelines, tokenization and other explanations for the persistent gender gap in science
EPISODE 1840: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Lisa M.P. Munoz, author of WOMEN IN SCIENCE NOW, about implicit bias, leaky pipelines, tokenization and other explanations for the persistent gender gap in scienceAs president of SciComm Services, Inc., Lisa Munoz develops, leads, and executes communication strategies for science groups, including VC funds, sci-tech startups, scientific societies and academic research groups, international organizations, and other institutions. She has more than 20 years of experience translating complex science into digestible stories for broad audiences. Lisa started her career in radio and then print journalism, as a reporter and then managing editor of Geotimes, a geoscience magazine. She is a former Press Officer for the World Meteorological Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, and former Chief of Staff and Communications Director for the OS Fund. Lisa has an engineering degree from Cornell University with a specialty in science writing. Lisa’s expertise spans cognitive neuroscience and the behavioral sciences, synthetic biology, climate and energy, and the geosciences. She has extensive experience developing, writing, editing, and placing Op-eds and articles in high-profile publications, such as the New York Times, USA Today, Huffington Post, and Scientific American. Lisa has created videos showcasing cutting-edge science, and has developed content for a European royal, a UN secretary general, and others. Lisa was publicist and outreach producer for the independent documentary film Picture a Scientist and has written a book about gender equity in science, to be published by Columbia University Press in October 2023. Lisa lives in the Washington, D.C., area with her husband and two daughters. She loves exploring new places, listening to radio in all forms, and consuming sci-fi/fantasy books and movies.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

Nov 2, 2023 • 37min
Did the KGB really invent the idea of the Palestinian nation in the 1960s? Pierre Rehov on Iranian financed sleeper-cells in US universities and why he admires Hamas' "evil mind"
EPISODE 1839: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to the French-Israeli filmmaker and writer Pierre Rehov what he believes are Ianian financed sleeper-cells in US universities and why he admires Hamas' "evil mind"Pierre Rebov is a French-Israeli novelist, journalist and documentary filmmaker. Born in Algiers, he had to flee his native country with his family in 1961, at the end of the French-Algerian war. Established in Paris, and later in New York, he graduated from Assas law school and studied counter-terrorism at IDC Herzliya. Since 2000, he produced and directed 13 documentaries on the Middle Conflict. He now lives in Tel Aviv.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

Nov 2, 2023 • 44min
Overcoming the politics of black grief and white grievance in America today: Juliet Hooker on why American democracy is in desperate need of an radical expansion of its political imagination
EPISODE 1838: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Juliet Hooker, author of BLACK GRIEF/WHITE GRIEVANCE, about why American democracy is in desperate need of an radical expansion of its political imaginationJuliet Hooker is Professor of Political Science at Brown University. She is a political theorist specializing in racial justice, Latin American political thought, Black political thought, and Afro-descendant and indigenous politics in Latin America. Before coming to Brown, she was a faculty member at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of Race and the Politics of Solidarity (Oxford, 2009); Theorizing Race in the Americas: Douglass, Sarmiento, Du Bois, and Vasconcelos (Oxford, 2017); and editor of Black and Indigenous Resistance in the Americas: From Multiculturalism to Racist Backlash (Lexington Books, 2020). Theorizing Race in the Americas was awarded the American Political Science Association’s 2018 Ralph Bunche Book Award for the best work in ethnic and cultural pluralism and the 2018 Best Book Award of the Race, Ethnicity, and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association. Her current book, Black Grief/White Grievance: Democracy and the Problem of Political Loss, is forthcoming in 2023 from Princeton University Press. Prof. Hooker served as co-Chair of the American Political Science Association’s Presidential Task Force on Racial and Social Class Inequalities in the Americas (2014-2015), and as Associate Director of the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin (2009-2014). She has been the recipient of fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the DuBois Institute for African American Research at Harvard, and the Advanced Research Collaborative at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.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

Nov 1, 2023 • 38min
A remarkable American hero at a time in which many Americans are no longer comfortable with the heroic ideal: Ronald C. White on the life of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, the unlikely hero of Gettysburg
EPISODE 1837: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Ronald C. White, the author of ON GREAT FIELDS, about the life of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, the unlikely hero of Gettysburg.Ronald C. White is the author of two New York Times bestselling presidential biographies. USA Today said of A. Lincoln: A Biography [2009], “If you read one book about Lincoln, make it A. LINCOLN.” American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant [2016] won the William Henry Seward Award for “Excellence in Civil War Biography.” He has also written Lincoln’s Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural [2002], a New York Times Notable Book, The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words [2005], a Los Angeles Times bestseller, and Lincoln in Private: What His Most Personal Reflections Tell Us About Our Greatest President [2021], recipient of the 2021 Barnondess/Lincoln award. He is the narrator of the Random House Audiobook for Lincoln in Private. His new biography, On Great Fields: The Life and Unlikely Heroism of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, will be published by Penguin Random House on October 31, 2023.White is a graduate of UCLA and Princeton Theological Seminary and received a Ph.D. from Princeton University. He is a Senior Fellow at the Trinity Forum in Washington, D.C. He has taught at UCLA, Whitworth University, Colorado College, and Princeton Theological Seminary. He has lectured at the White House and been interviewed on the PBS NewsHour. He has spoken on Lincoln in England, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, and New Zealand. He lives with his wife Cynthia in Pasadena California.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

Nov 1, 2023 • 50min
The problem with stories about the Holocaust is that they are told by the survivors: Daniel Finkelstein on the extraordinary coincidences enabling the survival of his mum and dad from both Hitler and Stalin
EPISODE 1836: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Daniel Finkelstein, author of HITLER, STALIN, MUM AND DAD: A FAMILY MEMOIR OF MIRACULOUS SURVIVAL, about the extraordinary coincidences enabling the survival of his family in World War TwoDANIEL FINKELSTEIN is a weekly political columnist at The Times of London. Formerly an adviser to Prime Minister John Major, he was appointed to the House of Lords in 2013. He recently became a director of Chelsea Football Club. He is married with three children and lives in Pinner, a suburb of London. He is grandson of Dr. Alfred Wiener, founder of the Wiener Library, the world’s oldest Holocaust archive, where he is a patron.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


