Keen On

Andrew Keen
  • 4.1 (75)
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Keen On

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

  1. Episode 2295: Paula Whyman on how to save the American environment - one wild mountaintop at a time

    20 HR. AGO

    Episode 2295: Paula Whyman on how to save the American environment - one wild mountaintop at a time

    Paula Whyman's journey from bug-obsessed city kid to mountaintop conservationist is an inspiring environmental tale. Now the owner of a 200-acre Virginia mountaintop, she's traded her childhood fascination with cicadas for an ambitious ecological restoration project. Her new book Bad Naturalist chronicles this transformation. Despite the self-deprecating title, Whyman is dead serious about her mission. She's working to restore native plants and wildlife to her Virginia mountaintop, fighting invasive species, and challenging the notion that nature only exists in national parks. With 85% of American grasslands privately owned, she argues that individual landowners have a crucial role in conservation. Though she finds the concept of land ownership "weird" – questioning if she really owns the beetles and lichens – Whyman embraces her responsibility as a steward. Her regenerative agricultural project might seem idealistic, but each small victory, from a patch of restored meadow to the call of a bog quail, fuels her optimism for America's environmental future. Paula Whyman’s first book of nonfiction is Bad Naturalist. Her earlier book, You May See a Stranger, is an award-winning linked short story collection. Her writing has also appeared in The Washington Post and The American Scholar, and in journals including McSweeney’s Quarterly, Virginia Quarterly Review, Ploughshares, and The Hudson Review. She was awarded residencies by MacDowell, Yaddo, VCCA, The Studios of Key West, and Oak Spring Garden Foundation. Her work on this book was supported in part by the Maryland State Arts Council. She spends her time on a mountain in Virginia with her husband and a mercurial standard poodle. Visit Paula online at paulawhyman.com Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. 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

    42 min
  2. Episode 2294: Larry Downes' non-MAGA plan to shrink the Federal bureaucracy

    1 DAY AGO

    Episode 2294: Larry Downes' non-MAGA plan to shrink the Federal bureaucracy

    It’s not just the MAGA crowd who are concerned with government waste and inefficiency. In a convincing Wall Street Journal op-ed, best-selling tech author Larry Downes questions the need for a thousand Social Security offices around the country. Downes argues that the federal government's resistance to digital transformation has resulted in staggeringly low user satisfaction rates - just 12% for federal government services. Despite more than 85% of federal workers being based outside Washington, there have been few serious attempts to modernize these services through e-government initiatives. While the incoming Trump administration's "Doge" team has talked about reforming government, Downes remains skeptical about implementation, citing political obstacles rather than technical challenges. He notes that while Estonia and Denmark offer successful e-government models, American reform efforts face unique hurdles, including congressional resistance to closing local offices and bureaucratic procurement processes that often outlast technology cycles. Downes suggests that modernization could significantly improve service delivery while reducing costs, though it would impact federal employment. He emphasizes that this isn't about privatization but rather bringing government services into the digital age - something that could potentially serve as a safeguard against authoritarian overreach by systematizing government processes in transparent, digital systems. Larry Downes is the author of five books on the impact of technology on business, society, and the law. His first book, “Unleashing the Killer App” (Harvard Business School Press), was an international bestseller, with over 200,000 copies in print. The Wall Street Journal named it one of the five most important books ever published on business and technology. His most recent book is “Pivot to the Future” (Public Affairs), co-authored with Omar Abbosh and Paul Nunes of Accenture. It has been nominated for the 2019 Thinkers50 Strategy Award. Downes writes the “Innovations” column for The Washington Post and is a regular contributor to Harvard Business Review. He was previously a columnist for Forbes, CNET and The Industry Standard. He has written for a variety of other publications, including The New York Times, USA Today, Inc., The Economist, Wired, MIT Sloan Management Review, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Recode, The Hill, Congressional Quarterly, Slate, The European Business Review, The Boao Review, and The San Francisco Chronicle. Downes has held faculty appointments at The University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the University of California—Berkeley, where he was Associate Dean of the School of Information. From 2006-2010, he was a Fellow with the Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society. From 2015-2019, he was Project Director at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy at the McDonough School of Business. Downes testifies frequently before Congress on issues related to the regulation of technology, including those dealing with antitrust, privacy, communications policy, media law, and the role of the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission in the 21st century. He holds a B.A. from Northwestern University and a J.D. from the University of Chicago. From 1993-1994, he served as law clerk to the Hon. Richard A. Posner, Chief Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. He lives in Berkeley, CA. 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

    41 min
  3. Episode 2293: David Masciotra on why Kamala Harris should have gone on the Joe Rogan show

    2 DAYS AGO

    Episode 2293: David Masciotra on why Kamala Harris should have gone on the Joe Rogan show

    Remember that time in 1977 when Jesse Jackson debated KKK grand wizard David Duke on national tv? As David Masciotra reminds us, it was one of those now forgotten moments from the recent past that can help bring some clarity to today’s American politics. In particular, Masciotra argues, the 1977 debate underlines the idiocy of Kamala Harris’ refusal to go on Joe Rogan show. As Masciotra explains, this primetime tv debate in which Jackson crushes Duke shows why progressives like Harris should always take on ideological enemies Joe Rogan. Civil argument matters, Masciotra insists. Even if it involves jousting with people whose views you consider beyond the pale. David Masciotra is an author, lecturer, and journalist. He is the author of Exurbia Now: The Battleground of American Democracy (Melville House Publishing, 2024) I Am Somebody: Why Jesse Jackson Matters (I.B. Tauris, 2020), Mellencamp: American Troubadour (University Press of Kentucky), Barack Obama: Invisible Man (Eyewear Publishers, 2017), and Metallica by Metallica, a 33 1/3 book from Bloomsbury Publishers, which has been translated into Chinese and Greek. In 2010, Continuum Books published his first book, Working On a Dream: The Progressive Political Vision of Bruce Springsteen. Masciotra writes regularly for the New Republic, Washington Monthly, Progressive, the Los Angeles Review of Books, CrimeReads, No Depression, and the Daily Ripple. He has also written for Salon, the Daily Beast, CNN, Atlantic, Washington Post, AlterNet, Indianapolis Star, and CounterPunch. Several of his political essays have been translated into Spanish for publication at Korazon de Perro. His poetry has appeared in Be About It Press, This Zine Will Change Your Life, and the Pangolin Review. 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

    43 min
  4. Episode 2292: Chris Schroeder on how America now swims in an ocean of black swans

    3 DAYS AGO

    Episode 2292: Chris Schroeder on how America now swims in an ocean of black swans

    Avid reader, global investor and German Marshall Fund chair Chris Schroeder, who devoured around 150 books in 2024, engages in a spirited New Year discussion about literacy, geopolitics, and the power of deep reading. Despite hand-wringing about America's reading decline, Schroeder remains optimistic about young entrepreneurs' intellectual curiosity, particularly in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Discussing his favorite 2024 reads, including Annie Jacobsen's chilling nuclear war scenarios and Oscar Jonsson's analysis of Russian military thinking, Schroeder illuminates how books offer a dramatically richer understanding of the contemporary world’s complexity than social media's soundbites. Pivoting to China's rising influence, the Washington DC based Schroeder notes how Chinese businesses are outcompeting Western rivals through superior service and pricing. His key message: America must focus on competitiveness rather than containment in an increasingly multipolar world swimming in what he calls "an ocean of black swans." As the co-founder of VC partnership Next Billion Ventures, Chris Schroeder invests in tech startups in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. The latter is an ecosystem he knows well, having dedicated a year of his life to exploring it when writing the book Startup Rising: The Entrepreneurial Revolution Remaking the Middle East. Schroeder, who is also a startup advisor, knows the role of CEO inside out, having occupied it three times over. Schroeder started his career working for the U.S. government, before making the switch to a business development role at The Washington Post in 2000, where he would become CEO and publisher three years later. Schroeder has also served as the CEO of business-to-business data, analysis, and news provider Legi-Slate, and health and wellness platform HealthCentral, which he co-founded, grew to over 15 million unique monthly users and then sold in 2011. 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

    48 min
  5. Episode 2291: Michael Scott-Baumann on the hopelessness of the Palestinian situation

    4 DAYS AGO

    Episode 2291: Michael Scott-Baumann on the hopelessness of the Palestinian situation

    While most of us can at least hope for a happy new year in 2025, the same can’t be true for the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank. That, at least, is the view of Michael Scott-Baumann, author of The Shortest History of Israel and Palestine. Given the ineffectiveness of the United Nations and the unwillingness of the United States to rethink its alliance with Israel, Scott-Baumann suggests, nothing is likely to change this year. So while there will be lots of talk of an Abraham Accords 2.0 under Trump, he predicts, the world’s most intractable problem will only become more miserably intractable in 2025. Indeed, given the increasing power of Netanyahu’s right flank and Trump’s indifference to the human suffering in Gaza and the West Bank, Scott Baumann suggests, things will probably only get worse for the Palestinians this year. Michael Scott-Baumann is a graduate of Cambridge University and has an MA from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. He has 35 years’ experience as a history teacher and lecturer. He has traveled widely in the Middle East and worked as a volunteer under the auspices of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, with whom he conducted field work on the West Bank. He lives in Cheltenham, England. 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

    47 min
  6. Episode 2290: Marshall Poe on why 2024 was a bad year for most podcasters

    5 DAYS AGO

    Episode 2290: Marshall Poe on why 2024 was a bad year for most podcasters

    Marshall Poe runs the New Books Network, a podcasting platform incorporating over 25,000 individual podcasts from thousands of podcasters and many millions of downloads. 2024, he acknowledges, was a bad year for podcasting because Apple changed their metrics so that the audience numbers for most podcasts fell precipitously overnight. And 2025, he suggests, probably isn’g going to be much better with winner-take-all podcasters like Joe Rogan hogging most of the audience and profits. How could the internet be made more democratic again so that podcasters on platforms like the New Book Network and entrepreneurs like Marshall Poe can make a living from their work? Poe isn’t particularly hopeful, but suggests that a reform of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 might represent a beginning to restoring the leveling promise of the digital revolution. Marshall Tillbrook Poe is an American historian, writer, editor, and founder of the New Books Network, an online collection of podcast interviews with a wide range of nonfiction authors. He has taught Russian, European, Eurasian, and world history at various universities including Harvard, Columbia, University of Iowa, and, currently, the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Poe is the author or editor of a number of books for children and adults. 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

    41 min
  7. Episode 2289: Gary Marcus on how Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is, in the long run, inevitable

    6 DAYS AGO

    Episode 2289: Gary Marcus on how Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is, in the long run, inevitable

    Gary Marcus is amongst the world’s leading skeptics on the AI revolution. So it’s worth taking note when Marcus admits that “of course we are getting to AGI eventually”. No, he says, artificial general intelligence (AGI) won’t take place in 2027 or perhaps even 2050. But it will happen, he confidently predicts, by 2100. So that only underlines Marcus’ argument, made in his acclaimed 2024 book Taming Silicon Valley, of the desperate need to regulate AI before it regulates us. And it also contextualizes our short term preoccupation with corporate pioneers of generative AI technology like OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepMind and xAI. As Marcus argues, it’s likely that the dominant AI technology that will get us to AGI by the end of the 21st century hasn’t even been invented yet. Gary Marcus is a leading voice in artificial intelligence, well known for his challenges to contemporary AI. He is a scientist and best-selling author and was founder and CEO of Geometric.AI, a machine learning company acquired by Uber. A Professor Emeritus at NYU, he is the author of five previous books, including the bestseller Guitar Zero, Kluge (one of The Economist's eight best books on the brain and consciousness), and Rebooting AI (with Ernest Davis), one of Forbes's seven must-read books on AI. 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

    42 min
  8. Episode 2288: Simon Kuper on the chilling parallels between MAGA America and Apartheid South Africa

    12/30/2024

    Episode 2288: Simon Kuper on the chilling parallels between MAGA America and Apartheid South Africa

    Is it entirely coincidental that some of the leading figures in the MAGA movement - including Peter Thiel, Elon Musk and David Sacks - all grew up in Apartheid South Africa? Not according to Simon Kuper who raised the alarm about “Musk, Thiel and the shadow of apartheid South Africa” in a bracing September Financial Times column. But this is a reactionary shadow, Kuper warns, not just haunting the United States but most of the world. Kuper’s faith in globalization, he acknowledges, seems to be in retreat everywhere. And 2025, he laments, is only going to deliver more depressing news for those us who still consider ourselves liberals. So if the progressive age of global politics is over, I asked Kuper, then what is left for us to cherish in the new year? Simon Kuper is a journalist who writes for the Financial Times and publishes in newspapers and magazines around the world. He is one of the world’s leading writers on soccer. His book Football Against the Enemy won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award. His works are also widely read in translation. Born in Uganda, Kuper spent most of his childhood in the Netherlands and now lives in Paris. Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. 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

    45 min
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4.1
out of 5
75 Ratings

About

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

Information

  • Creator
    Andrew Keen
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2025
  • Episodes
    999
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © andrew
  • Show Website
    Keen On

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