Keen On America

Bent Flyvbjerg, renowned megaproject expert, discusses the surprising factors that determine project success. They explore defining 'big things' and the fascination with major projects. The shared interests of Steve Jobs and Elon Musk in scaling up and the Lego principle of achieving big things are also discussed.

EPISODE 1727: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Gary John Bishop, author of GROW UP,  on how to become the parent your kids deserveGary John Bishop is one of the world’s leading personal development experts, and the author of the million-copy New York Times and international bestseller Unfu*k Yourself. His no-frills, no “B.S.” approach has brought him a growing following drawn to the simplicity and real-world application of his work. His “urban philosophy” is part of a new wave of personal empowerment and life mastery that has led to miraculous results in the quality and performance of people’s lives. He lives with his family in Florida. More at https://garyjohnbishop.com 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

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

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

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 Carolina​​CORBAN 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

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

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

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

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

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