Can a kind word change your life? I know from experience that it can. More than three decades ago, during the summer vacation at the end of my first year at university, I received a handwritten letter ...

William McGonagall’s poems are something else. The jarring meter, the banal imagery, the awkward rhymes: they made him a laughing stock in 19th Century Scotland and are still derided to this ...

Johnny Echols, lead guitarist for the 1960s rock band Love, is a fount of stories. In a podcast interview with superstar producer Rick Rubin a few years ago, he talked about happy accidents in the ...

This episode is released exclusively on Pushkin+. Episodes are released on the main feed each Friday. Robert Propst is more than an inventor: he is a visionary, an innovator dreaming up how to ...

Pepsi twice ended up in court after promotions went disastrously wrong. Other big companies have fallen into the same trap – promising customers rewards so generous that to fulfil the promise might… ...

Why did audience members fail to flee a deadly fire… despite being told to escape? Flames are spreading through a Cincinnati hotel. The staff know it, the fire department is coming, and the people … ...

Acclaimed author Michael Lewis discusses his time with Sam Bankman-Fried and why he thinks both high finance and Effective Altruism shaped the ‘Crypto King’s’ worldview, ultimately landing him in jail ...

A radical thought experiment transforms the lives of a new breed of philanthropists, as they follow the logic of altruism to extraordinary lengths. The most famous convert to the Effective Altruism ...

George Price is on a mission to prove that human kindness is real. He’s seen the latest research suggesting any altruism is ultimately selfish and finds it deeply depressing. George decides to learn ...

Steven Spielberg thought his career was finished. He was behind schedule, his actors were fighting, the crew were mutinous and worst of all, his shark was broken. It looked like Jaws was destined for ...

This episode is released exclusively on Pushkin+. Episodes are released on the main feed each Friday. The sewing machine was once thought to be an impossible invention. It was such a complicated ...