Talks at Google Talks at Google

Amy Larkin visits Google to discuss her book, "Environmental Debt."
For decades, politicians and business leaders alike told the American public that today's challenge was growing the economy, and that environmental protection could be left to future generations. Now in the wake of billions of dollars in costs associated with coastal devastation from hurricanes, rampant wildfires across the West, and groundwater contamination from drilling, it's becoming increasingly clear that yesterday's carefree attitude about the environment has morphed into a financial crisis of epic proportions.
Amy Larkin has been at the forefront of the fight for the environment for years, and in "Environmental Debt" she argues that the costs of global warming, extreme weather, pollution and other forms of environmental debt are wreaking havoc on the global economy. Synthesizing complex ideas, she pulls back the curtain on some of the biggest cultural touchstones of the environmental debate, revealing how, for instance, despite coal's relative fame as a 'cheap' energy source, ordinary Americans pay $350 billion a year for coal's damage in business-related expenses, polluted watersheds, and in healthcare costs. And the problem stretches far beyond our borders: deforestation from twenty years ago in Thailand caused catastrophic flooding in 2011, and cost Toyota 3.4 percent of its annual production while causing tens of thousands of workers to lose jobs in three different countries.
Provocative and hard-hitting, "Environmental Debt" sweeps aside the false choices of today's environmental debate, and shows how to revitalize the economy through nature's bounty.
Originally published in August of 2013.
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Globally recognized investor Simran Kaur visits Google to discuss her book “Girls That Invest: Your Guide to Financial Independence through Shares and Stocks.” The book is a step-by-step guide to financial independence from the creator of the investing education podcast, Girls That Invest.
With only 15 to 25 percent of women investing, Simran founded Girls That Invest, a multi-million dollar media company that has amassed over six million podcast downloads and has become the world’s #1 investing podcast for women. As a Forbes 30 under 30, Global Cartier Women in Business Fellow and finalist for Young New Zealander of the Year, Simran’s work has been featured on TEDx US, Forbes, Vogue, Business Insider, and a billboard in Times Square where she rang the NASDAQ opening bell for International Day of the Girl.
Her mission is simple: Putting money into the hands of women. Simran spoke at the UK Houses of Parliament for International Women's Day in March 2023. Her best-selling book, Girls That Invest, has topped charts in the USA, Canada, UK and New Zealand and her podcast is listened to in over 150 countries, demonstrating the need for more investing education tailored to help tackle the wealth gap women are facing.
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Sarah Miller Caldicott, the great grand-niece of Thomas Edison, visits Google to discuss her book "Innovate Like Edison: The Five Step System for Breakthrough Business Success."
Thomas Edison is counted among the greatest innovators in American history. Edison's focus on practical accomplishment set the stage for America's global leadership in innovation. Now, for the first time ever, "Innovate Like Edison" translates the best practices of this supreme American inventor into contemporary terms to help today's leaders harness their own innovative potential.
With her unique insight and expertise, Caldicott introduces a carefully researched, easy-to-apply system of five success secrets inspired by the creative methods of Edison himself. Presented in a step-by-step fashion, "Innovate Like Edison" provides the tools and strategies you need to compete and win in the business world and in everyday life. Whether you're an amateur or an executive, "Innovate Like Edison" is a powerful tool that will enable you to revamp and revitalize your own creative genius and thrive in today's culture of innovation.
Originally published in February, 2008.
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Professors Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao visit Google to discuss their book “The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder.” This book is a useful guide to eliminating the forces that make it harder, more complicated, or downright impossible to get things done in organizations.
Every organization is plagued by destructive friction. Yet some forms of friction are incredibly useful, and leaders who attempt to improve workplace efficiency often make things even worse. Drawing from seven years of hands-on research, Sutton and Rao teach readers how to become “friction fixers.”
Sutton and Rao unpack how skilled friction fixers think and act like trustees of each others’ time. They provide friction forensics to help readers identify where to avert and repair bad organizational friction and where to maintain and inject good friction. The heart of the book digs into the causes and solutions for five of the most common and damaging friction troubles: oblivious leaders, addition sickness, broken connections, jargon monoxide, and fast & frenzied people and teams.
Sound familiar? Sutton and Rao are here to help. They wrap things up with lessons for leading your own friction project, including linking little things to big things; the power of civility, caring, and love for propelling designs and repairs; and embracing the mess that is an inevitable part of the process.
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Sara Mednick visits Google to discuss her book, "Take a Nap! Change Your Life."
Imagine a product that increases alertness, boosts creativity, reduces stress, improves perception, stamina, motor skills, and accuracy, helps you make better decisions, keeps you looking younger, aids in weight loss, reduces the risk of heart attack, elevates your mood, and strengthens memory. Now imagine that this product is nontoxic, has no dangerous side effects, and, best of all, is absolutely free.
This miracle drug is, in fact, nothing more than the nap: the right nap at the right time. Sara Mednik’s book Take a Nap! details a scientifically-based breakthrough program that shows how we can fight the fatigue epidemic through a custom-designed nap. The book explains the five stages of the sleep cycle, particularly Stage Two, or Slow Wave Sleep, and REM, and the benefits each one provides; how to assess your tiredness and set up a personal sleep profile; and how to neutralize the voice in your head that tells you napping is a sign of laziness.
Using the unique Nap Wheel on the cover and interior graphs and charts, it shows us exactly when our optimal napping time is, and exactly how long we should try to sleep—even how it’s possible to design a nap to inspire creativity one day, and the next day design one to help us with our memory. There are tips on how to create the right nap environment, a 16-step technique for falling asleep, a six-week napping workbook, and more.
Originally published in November of 2007.
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Neuroscience specialist Stefanie Faye visits Google to discuss neurophysiology and its connection to mental health, drawing from her book Biomechanics of Human Communication: Neurophysiology, Regulation, and Systems Thinking.
Stefanie Faye is a neuroscience specialist with expertise in optimizing learning, performance, attentional control, cognitive flexibility, and emotional regulation using biofeedback, neurotechnology, cognitive training and frameworks that integrate childhood experiences and family systems. Her graduate degree from New York University focused on neuroplasticity, empathy and emotion regulation. She has worked as a counselor, cognitive trainer, reading therapist, research analyst, coordinator of learning programs, and has analyzed many physiological aspects of nervous system states and brain functioning including electric conductance of the skin, facial electromyography, heart rate variability and quantitative electro-encephalography. She integrates all of this with her experience training in monasteries with meditation masters from Vietnam, India and West Africa.
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