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Est. listeners per new episode within ~30 days
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On the show
From 11 epsHost
Recent guests
Recent episodes
Why Too Much Freedom Is the Enemy of Success
May 1, 2026
49m 46s
Why the Iran War Is Tearing MAGA Apart
Apr 28, 2026
58m 21s
The Triple Crisis That’s Breaking Hollywood—and Changing the Future of Movies
Apr 24, 2026
1h 10m 58s
The Most Powerful and Dangerous AI Model Yet
Apr 21, 2026
1h 02m 21s
The Whole World Is Fighting About Energy
Apr 14, 2026
1h 04m 08s
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| Date | Episode | Topics | Guests | Brands | Places | Keywords | Sponsor | Length | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5/1/26 | Why Too Much Freedom Is the Enemy of Success✨ | freedomcreativity+4 | David Epstein | RangeInside the Box | — | freedomcreativity+5 | — | 49m 46s | |
| 4/28/26 | Why the Iran War Is Tearing MAGA Apart✨ | TrumpismIran War+4 | Ross Douthat | The Ringer | Iran | TrumpismIran War+6 | — | 58m 21s | |
| 4/24/26 | The Triple Crisis That’s Breaking Hollywood—and Changing the Future of Movies✨ | Hollywood crisismovie attendance+3 | Sean Fennessey | The RingerThe Wall Street Journal | — | Hollywoodmovie attendance+5 | — | 1h 10m 58s | |
| 4/21/26 | The Most Powerful and Dangerous AI Model Yet✨ | AI safetycybersecurity+3 | Kevin Roose | MythosAnthropic+3 | China | AI modelMythos+5 | — | 1h 02m 21s | |
| 4/14/26 | The Whole World Is Fighting About Energy✨ | energyIran conflict+4 | Nat Bullard | The RingerSpotify | Iran | energyIran+4 | — | 1h 04m 08s | |
| 4/10/26 | ‘The Job Market for Young People Is Brutal’✨ | job marketyoung workers+4 | Rogé Karma | The Atlantic | — | job marketyoung people+5 | — | 1h 07m 11s | |
| 4/8/26 | America's Religious Revival Is a Mirage✨ | religionsecularism+3 | Ryan Burge | The EconomistThe Washington Post+1 | — | religious revivalGen Z+3 | — | 1h 08m 53s | |
| 4/3/26 | Is China the Winner of the Iran War?✨ | Iran warChina's rise+5 | Alex Turnbull | The RingerYouTube+1 | ChinaIran+1 | Iran warChina+5 | — | 52m 14s | |
| 3/31/26 | Why We're Addicted to ‘Sh*tty Flow’✨ | valuesquantification+3 | C. Thi Nguyen | — | — | addictionvalues+3 | — | 48m 38s | |
| 3/27/26 | Anthropic Thinks AI Might Destroy the Economy. It's Building It Anyway.✨ | artificial intelligenceeconomic impact+3 | Jack Clark | Anthropic | — | AIAnthropic+3 | — | 1h 02m 34s | |
Want analysis for the episodes below?Free for Pro Submit a request, we'll have your selected episodes analyzed within an hour. Free, at no cost to you, for Pro users. | |||||||||
| 3/24/26 | America's Tax System Is Broken✨ | tax inequalitybillionaire tax avoidance+3 | Gabriel Zucman | Elizabeth WarrenBernie Sanders+1 | — | tax systembillionaires+5 | — | 1h 04m 50s | |
| 3/20/26 | ![]() The Casino-ification of America | In 2017, Americans legally bet about $5 billion on sports. Last year, that number rose to $160 billion. Gambling hasn’t just taken over sports. It’s invaded culture, politics, and even international warfare. Bettors have already made millions of dollars wagering on the precise dates and locations of bombing campaigns in Iran, and journalists have been hounded for reporting on events that can lose bettors money. It’s one thing to believe, as I do, that it would be foolish to entirely ban sports gambling in the U.S. It’s another to watch the warp-speed casino-ification of American life and not think, “Something has gone badly wrong here!” McKay Coppins, a staff writer at The Atlantic, joins the show to discuss his new cover story on how gambling conquered sports … and everything else. Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThompson If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: McKay Coppins Producer: Devon Baroldi Links: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/04/online-sports-betting-app-addiction/686061/ Source for all photos: Getty Images Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices | 1h 11m 46s | ||||||
| 3/17/26 | ![]() "Yes, AI Is a Bubble. There Is No Question." | The AI buildout continues to break records, as the hyperscalers pour hundreds of billions of dollars into chips and data centers, even as investors punish their stock prices. But the revenue side of the ledger is showing signs of takeoff. In the last few weeks, OpenAI and Anthropic have added billions of dollars of cash, on their way to becoming two of the fastest growing companies in history. Last year, Derek was convinced that AI was on its way to being one of the biggest bubbles in modern capitalism’s history. But the torpid rise of AI agents is starting to change his mind. So he wanted to bring someone on to test his evolving theory. The investor and writer Paul Kedrosky returns to the show to make his own case even more firmly: AI is a bubble, and the evidence is all around us. Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThompson If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Check out Paul's podcast 'The Nick, Dick and Paul Show' on YouTube and Spotify: https://www.youtube.com/@nickdickpaul https://open.spotify.com/show/6mxUS2hFE2hdaNx1sjhdYu?si=67add32695c546bf Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Paul Kedrosky Producer: Devon Baroldi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices | 1h 09m 45s | ||||||
| 3/13/26 | ![]() The Pill That Works Even When You Know It's Fake | Why do placebo effects work, even when patients know that they're taking a sugar pill? How do "nocebo" effects work, and why do some people hold onto beliefs that they suspect might bring them pain and suffering? What do the major world religions have to teach secular athletes and workers about the power of belief, and what does the psychological research tell us about the benefits of prayer, even for those who don't believe in God? Nir Eyal, bestselling author of the new book Beyond Belief, joins the show to talk about the research behind how our beliefs shape our lives. Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThompson If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Nir Eyal Producer: Devon Baroldi Today’s open is adapted from Derek’s Substack essay “If Placebos Work So Well, Why Not Prescribe Sugar Pills For Everything?” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices | 1h 11m 50s | ||||||
| 3/10/26 | ![]() The Economic Crisis of the Iran War Goes Far Beyond Oil | The Strait of Hormuz is the tiny bottleneck that could destabilize the global economy. As a critical passageway for crude oil, natural gas, and critical inputs for fertilizer, computer chips, and plastic, this small stretch of water is a tiny chokepoint for global trade, and the war in Iran has all but shut it down. What does this mean for the U.S. economy and other countries around the world? Geopolitical analyst Rachel Ziemba joins the show to discuss. Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThompson If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Rachel Ziemba Producer: Devon Baroldi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices | 55m 49s | ||||||
| 3/9/26 | ![]() "American Democracy as We Know It Might Not Survive This Technology" | What happens when the two biggest stories in the world—the Trump White House and the development of advanced artificial intelligence—collide? Well, nothing good, apparently. When contract negotiations broke down between the Pentagon and Anthropic, a leading AI lab, the Department of War took the extraordinary step of labeling Anthropic a "supply chain risk," a designation typically reserved for Chinese companies suspected of spying on American technology. It’s not just liberals like me that found this announcement jarring. The technology writer Dean Ball—who served as Senior Policy Advisor for AI at the White House as recently as last summer—said the decision amounted to a nearly tyrannical attack on private property. (After all, if the government can walk up to your company, make you a deal, and destroy your company if you say no, that certainly sounds like a world in which the state can destroy whatever it trains its eyes on.) So, I wanted to talk to Dean about what he sees—and why he thinks this episode is so important, and so terrifying. Today, we talk about the difference between Biden and Trump’s approach to artificial intelligence before diving into the Anthropic mess, and pulling out of it the bigger story, according to Dean: that Trump’s scattershot AI policy is just the latest sign that AI’s capabilities are growing faster than many people want to admit—this technology is going somewhere fast, and the the American government simply is not prepared for where it’s taking us. Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThompson If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Dean Ball Producer: Devon Baroldi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices | 1h 04m 16s | ||||||
| 3/6/26 | ![]() Trump Is Doubling Down on Iran. How Should Democrats Respond? | Donald Trump’s polling has continued to edge down week after week. And yet approval of the Democratic Party is still stuck near its all-time low, according to Gallup and other surveys. One interpretation of these polls is that the deep unpopularity of the party is an albatross around the neck of Democratic candidates. But there’s another interpretation that I think is more interesting—and perhaps more true. The fact that the party has no clearly defined national leader, and no clearly defined “brand” (sorry), is an opportunity for young Democrats to define themselves as individuals. Rather than act like a congregation all singing from the same hymnal, they can experiment, disagree, and adapt their message to their electorate. And that might ultimately prove to be a strength of the party heading into the 2026 midterms rather than a weakness. Senator Ruben Gallego (D-Arizona) joins the show to talk about the Iran war, immigration, affordability vs. aspiration, and the future of the Democratic Party. Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThompson If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek ThompsonGuest: Ruben GallegoProducer: Devon Baroldi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices | 42m 18s | ||||||
| 3/3/26 | ![]() The Four Ways That the Iran War Could End | Dramatic regime change. Moderate regime evolution. A calamitous regional conflict. Or … no change at all. Today we consider how the Iran conflict might evolve following the killing of Supreme Leader Khamenei with Karim Sadjadpour, an American policy analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThompson If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek ThompsonGuest: Karim SadjadpourProducer: Devon Baroldi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices | 55m 52s | ||||||
| 2/27/26 | ![]() How Metrics Make Us Miserable | The modern world swims in numbers: work metrics, fitness metrics, health metrics, social media metrics. Sometimes the quantification of life can make things better. But very often, I think they force us to play the games we can measure rather than the games we value. The quantified life has become a modern religion: a system of values that takes us over and keeps us from living the life we want. Today’s guest is the philosopher C. Thi Nguyen. He is the author of the book The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else's Game. We talk about metrics, the games of life, and how to listen to the parts of ourselves that cannot be reduced to numbers. Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThompson If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: C. Thi Nguyen Producer: Devon Baroldi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices | 1h 03m 49s | ||||||
| 2/24/26 | ![]() The Future of GLP-1 Drugs and AI Medicine, With Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks | The GLP-1 drug revolution has taken the medicine world by storm. I’ve done several episodes on the science of GLP-1s. But we’ve never done an episode like this before, where we talk to one of the most important people in charge of guiding the GLP-1 drug revolution. Our guest is Dave Ricks, the CEO of Eli Lilly, the largest pharmaceutical company in the world. First we talk about what makes the GLP-1 drug category special and the science that Lilly is doing to improve these drugs. Then, we talk about the pharmaceutical industry more broadly. How it works. How it could work better. And I don’t shy away from the question that I think Pharma CEOs need to take much more seriously: If the pharmaceutical industry is theoretically more devoted than any other economic category to saving people’s lives, why do Americans distrust it more than any other industry in the entire economy? Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThompson If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek ThompsonGuest: David RicksProducer: Devon Baroldi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices | 1h 07m 53s | ||||||
| 2/21/26 | ![]() The Supreme Court Strikes Down Trump’s Tariffs. Now What? | Donald Trump suffered a huge blow Friday when the Supreme Court struck down the centerpiece of his economic policy: his vast system of tariffs. So, what happens now? Harvard’s Jason Furman explains the implications for the U.S. economy, consumers, global trade, and Trump’s strategy of centralizing power in the executive branch and using trade policy as a means of wringing concessions out of other counties. Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThompson If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek ThompsonGuest: Jason FurmanProducer: Devon Baroldi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices | 41m 58s | ||||||
| 2/17/26 | ![]() The Media Theory That Explains “99% of Everything” | In the mid-20th century, a group of media and communications scholars proposed that the shift from spoken to written language—from orality to literacy—transformed our politics, our media, our social relations, and even our sense of consciousness. Today we’re undergoing another shift: from a literate culture to something stranger—a post-literate world awash in social media and digital communications in which oral traditions are making a comeback. Bloomberg’s Joe Weisenthal, the cohost of the Odd Lots podcast, has called this one of the most important trends in the world. Today he explains how he got hooked on orality theory and why it’s the skeleton key that unlocks so many oddities of the modern world. Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThompson If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Joe Weisenthal Producer: Devon Baroldi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices | 1h 03m 29s | ||||||
| 2/13/26 | ![]() "America Isn’t Ready for What AI Will Do to Jobs" | In his epic cover story for The Atlantic this month, staff writer Josh Tyrangiel spoke to dozens of economists, workers, tech CEOs, and AI experts about the danger that artificial intelligence might pose to the labor force. Is AI developing the capacity to automate and even replace millions of white-collar jobs, as many technologists and some economists predict? Or is this a normal technology that, like previous generations of technology, will have a much slower effect on the workforce? We cover several scenarios before asking: Why does it seem like nobody in politics is paying close enough attention to this story? Links: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/03/ai-economy-labor-market-transformation/685731/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThompson If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Josh Tyrangiel Producer: Devon Baroldi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices | 1h 06m 42s | ||||||
| 2/11/26 | ![]() The Meltdown at The Washington Post—and the Crisis in News | Hello! I’m back from paternity leave just in time to talk about the biggest media earthquake of the year (so far): the Washington Post meltdown. For decades, the Post was a journalistic gem with superior coverage of politics. Last week, billionaire owner Jeff Bezos decided to gut roughly a third of the staff after the paper lost hundreds of millions of dollars in the last few years. Today’s guest is Jim VandeHei, the cofounder of Politico and Axios and a former Post reporter. We talk about the decades-long rise and fall of the Post before zooming out to talk about the most important changes in news media over the past 20 years, the secret of 21st-century media success, and the coming storm of AI. To read more about Derek’s opening comments on how the future of the news industry is going back to past, check out his Atlantic article on the subject here: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/post-advertising-future-media/578917/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThompson If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Jim VandeHei Producer: Devon Baroldi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices | 1h 11m 12s | ||||||
| 2/3/26 | ![]() Plain English BEST OF: What’s the Matter With America’s Food? | Throughout December and January, we’ve been re-airing some of our favorite episodes of the past year and beyond, and today's episode marks the end of our "best of" series for this year! This list includes interviews that really stuck with me and some others that you guys had tons of feedback and thoughts on … including this one!“What’s the Matter With America’s Food?” originally aired September 26, 2025.If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com.Host: Derek ThompsonGuests: Julia Belluz and Kevin HallProducer: Devon Baroldi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices | 52m 49s | ||||||
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32 placements across 23 markets.
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32 placements across 23 markets.

