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People I (Mostly) Admire

SiriusXM Podcasts
  • 4.6 (1.9K)
  • SOCIETY & CULTURE
  • UPDATED BIWEEKLY

Freakonomics co-author Steve Levitt tracks down other high achievers for surprising, revealing conversations about their lives and obsessions. Join Levitt as he goes through the most interesting midlife crisis you’ve ever heard — and learn how a renegade sheriff is transforming Chicago's jail, how a biologist is finding the secrets of evolution in the Arctic tundra, and how a trivia champion memorized 160,000 flashcards. To get every show in the Freakonomics Radio Network without ads and a monthly bonus episode of Freakonomics Radio, start a free trial for SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.

  1. 6D AGO

    173. Steve Levitt Says Goodbye to People I (Mostly) Admire

    In the last episode of the podcast, Stephen Dubner turns the microphone on Steve Levitt. They talk about Levitt’s favorite — and least favorite — moments from the show’s five-year run, his quest to reform education, and his next podcasting gig.   SOURCES:Stephen Dubner, host of Freakonomics Radio, co-author of Freakonomics books.  RESOURCES:"How to Help Kids Succeed," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2025)."Feeling Sound and Hearing Color," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2024)."Richard Dawkins on God, Genes, and Murderous Baby Cuckoos," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2024)."Arnold Schwarzenegger Has Some Advice for You," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2024)."Werner Herzog Thinks His Films Are a Distraction," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2023)."Drawing from Life (and Death)," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2023)."Yuval Noah Harari Thinks Life is Meaningless and Amazing," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2022)."Is This the Future of High School?," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2022)."Does Death Have to Be a Death Sentence?," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2022)."Sal Khan: 'If It Works for 15 Cousins, It Could Work for a Billion People.'" by People I (Mostly) Admire (2021)."Jared Diamond on the Downfall of Civilizations — and His Optimism for Ours," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2021)."Amanda & Lily Levitt Share What It’s Like to be Steve’s Daughters," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2021)."How Rahm Emanuel Would Run the World," by Freakonomics Radio (2020).The Levitt Lab. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

    51 min

  2. DEC 13

    Ninety-Eight Years of Economic Wisdom (Replay)

    The late Robert Solow was a giant among economists. When he was 98 years old he told Steve about cracking German codes in World War II, why it’s so hard to reduce inequality, and how his field lost its way.    SOURCES:Robert Solow, professor emeritus of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  RESOURCES:"Secrecy, Cigars, and a Venetian Wedding: How the P.G.A. Tour Made a Deal with Saudi Arabia," by Alan Blinder, Lauren Hirsch, Kevin Draper, and Kate Kelly (The New York Times, 2023)."Global Assessment of Environmental-Economic Accounting and Supporting Statistics: 2020," by United Nations Committee of Experts on Environmental-Economic Accounting (2021)."Where Modern Macroeconomics Went Wrong," by Joseph E. Stiglitz (Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 2015)."As Inequality Grows, So Does the Political Influence of the Rich," (The Economist, 2018)."Big Bang Financial Deregulation and Income Inequality: Evidence From U.K. and Japan," by Daniel Waldenstrom and Julia Tanndal (VoxEU, 2016)."The Fall And Rise Of U.S. Inequality, In 2 Graphs," by Quoctrung Bui (Planet Money, 2015).Nobel Prize Biographical, by Robert Solow (1987).Principles of Political Economy, by John Stuart Mills (1848).  EXTRAS:"Is Economic Growth the Wrong Goal? (Update)," by Freakonomics Radio (2023). Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

    49 min

  3. DEC 6

    172. A New Kind of University

    Michael Crow is the president of Arizona State University, which U.S. News & World Report has called the most innovative school in the country for 11 years running. He tells Steve about why higher education needs to change, and how A.S.U. is leading the way. Plus: Steve has an announcement about the podcast.   SOURCES:Michael Crow, president of Arizona State University.  RESOURCES:The Fifth Wave: The Evolution of American Higher Education, by Michael Crow (2020)."College Admissions Shocker!," by Frank Bruni (New York Times, 2016).New American University.Dreamscape Learn.University Innovation Alliance.FYI.AI.  EXTRAS:"Chemistry, Evolved," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2025)."America’s Math Curriculum Doesn’t Add Up," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2021).Data Science 4 Everyone. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

    52 min

  4. NOV 22

    171. Measuring Pollution on Parallel Earths

    Michael Greenstone knows it’s corny, but he wants to make the world a better place — by tracking the impact of air quality, developing pollution markets in India, and … starting a podcast, which Steve says proves he’s over the hill.   SOURCES:Michael Greenstone, professor of economics at the University of Chicago.  RESOURCES:"New evidence on the impact of sustained exposure to air pollution on life expectancy from China's Huai River Policy," by Avraham Ebenstein, Maoyong Fan, Michael Greenstone, Guojun He, and Maigeng Zhou (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2017)."Evidence on the impact of sustained exposure to air pollution on life expectancy from China's Huai River policy," by Yuyu Chen, Avraham Ebenstein, Michael Greenstone, and Hongbin Li (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2013).Shocked, podcast.Air Quality Life Index (AQLI).Emissions Market Accelerator.Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF).  EXTRAS:"This Is Your Brain on Pollution," by Freakonomics Radio (2021)."The Simple Economics of Saving the Amazon Rainforest", by People I (Mostly) Admire (2020). Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

    56 min

  5. NOV 8

    170. Finding the God Particle

    Physicist and former pop star Brian Cox tells Steve about discovering the Higgs boson, having a number-one hit, and why particle physics research will almost certainly not create a black hole that destroys all life on earth.   SOURCES:Brian Cox, physicist at the University of Manchester.  RESOURCES:Black Holes: The Key to Understanding the Universe, by Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw (2023)."Higgs10: The Higgs boson and the rise of the Standard Model of Particle Physics in the 1970s," by John Ellis (CERN, 2022).Out of Silence, by Dare (2004)."WW scattering at the LHC," by J. M. Butterworth, Brian Cox, and J. R. Forshaw (CERN, 2002).A Brief History of Time, by Stephen Hawking (1998)."Gravitational Collapse and Space-Time Singularities," by Roger Penrose (Physical Review Letters, 1965)."The Value of Science," by Richard P. Feynman (Internet Archive, 1955)."Brian Cox Live." Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

    59 min

  6. OCT 25

    169. Decoding the World’s First Writing

    Irving Finkel is an expert on cuneiform — the oldest known writing system. He tells Steve the amazing story of how an ancient clay tablet unlocked the truth about Noah’s ark (and got Finkel in trouble with some Christians).   SOURCES:Irving Finkel, curator in the department of the Middle East at the British Museum.  RESOURCES:"How to write cuneiform," by Irving Finkel (The British Museum, 2021)."PBS Nova: Secrets of Noah's Ark," (2015).The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood, by Irving Finkel (2014)."Epic Hero," by David Damrosch (Smithsonian Magazine, 2007)."How Egyptian hieroglyphs were decoded, a timeline to decipherment," (The British Museum).  EXTRAS:"Jane Goodall, Who Chronicled the Social Lives of Chimps, Dies at 91," by Keith Schneider (New York Times, 2025)."Jane Goodall Changed the Way We See Animals. She’s Not Done." by People I (Mostly) Admire (2022)."D:Ream - Things Can Only Get Better," (1993). Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

    50 min

  7. OCT 18

    Is There a Fair Way to Divide Us? (Update)

    Moon Duchin is a math professor at the University of Chicago whose theoretical work has practical applications for voting and democracy. Why is striving for fair elections so difficult?   SOURCES:Moon Duchin, professor of mathematics at Cornell University.  RESOURCES:"Gerrymandering: The Origin Story," by Neely Tucker (Timeless: Stories from the Library of Congress, 2024)."Redistricting for Proportionality," by Gabe Schoenbach and Moon Duchin (The Forum, 2023)."The Atlas Of Redistricting," by Aaron Bycoffe, Ella Koeze, David Wasserman, and Julia Wolfe (FiveThirtyEight, 2018)."In a Comically Drawn Pennsylvania District, the Voters Are Not Amused," by Trip Gabriel (The New York Times, 2018).  EXTRAS:"State of Texas to begin calling witnesses in federal hearing over Trump-backed congressional map," by Blaise Gainey (KUT News, 2025)."Utah's Redistricting Battle Explained," (PBS Utah, 2025)."Is This the Future of High School?" by People I (Mostly) Admire (2022). Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

    1 hr

  8. OCT 11

    168. Chemistry, Evolved

    Frances Arnold pioneered the process of directed evolution — mimicking natural selection to create new enzymes that have changed everything from agriculture to laundry.   SOURCES:Frances Arnold, professor of chemistry at the California Institute of Technology.   RESOURCES: "Innovation by Evolution: Bringing New Chemistry to Life," by Frances Arnold (Nobel Lecture, 2018)."Bacteria taught to bond carbon and silicon for the first time," by Aviva Rutkin (New Scientist, 2016)."Directed evolution of cytochrome c for carbon–silicon bond formation: Bringing silicon to life," by S. B. Jennifer Kan, Russell D. Lewis, Kai Chen, and Frances H. Arnold (Science, 2016)."The Director of Evolution," by Jennifer Ouellette (Slate, 2013)."Engineered ketol-acid reductoisomerase and alcohol dehydrogenase enable anaerobic 2-methylpropan-1-ol production at theoretical yield in Escherichia coli," by Sabine Bastian, Xiang Liu, Joseph T. Meyerowitz, Christopher D. Snow, Mike M. Y. Chen, and Frances H. Arnold (Metabolic Engineering, 2011).Gevo.Provivi.  EXTRAS:"How to Help Kids Succeed," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2025).The Levitt Lab. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

    57 min
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About

Freakonomics co-author Steve Levitt tracks down other high achievers for surprising, revealing conversations about their lives and obsessions. Join Levitt as he goes through the most interesting midlife crisis you’ve ever heard — and learn how a renegade sheriff is transforming Chicago's jail, how a biologist is finding the secrets of evolution in the Arctic tundra, and how a trivia champion memorized 160,000 flashcards. To get every show in the Freakonomics Radio Network without ads and a monthly bonus episode of Freakonomics Radio, start a free trial for SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.

Information

  • Channel
    SiriusXM Podcasts
  • Creator
    Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2025
  • Episodes
    207
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2024 All Rights Reserved
  • Show Website
    People I (Mostly) Admire
  • Provider
    Sirius XM Radio Inc

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