To imagine that what started out as a spitballing exercise on California’s Highway 17 by two newly acquainted business associates could be turned into a media giant eclipsing the size of The Walt Disney Company in the span of a few decades is almost as fantastical as Disney’s creative works. And yet, it happened. Place yourselves in the shoes of Reed Hastings and our guest, Marc Randolph, trying to determine where their creative energies would take them next, and rather than customized dog food or hand made surfboards(they were considered), they settled on a video distribution service, which later became a streaming video service. And now their brainchild, Netflix, is the leading streaming service in an industry growing rapidly. Mr. Randolph’s book, ‘That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea’ walks us through the origin story of one of the most successful technology companies in history which was born out of a dying industry–the packaged DVD business. It’s a great romp and has lessons replete throughout about what contributed to that success from its early days and how you should never listen to those who tell you your idea won’t work. This is the first of two episodes of our podcast on the video streaming business.

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Most climate scientists say we have dragged our feet too long on addressing the harms that are, and will be, caused by climate change. Yet, for many, forest wildfires, powerful hurricanes and two 100 years storms in the space of five years, is not evidence enough to convince them that its effects are potentially devastating and that dramatic actions are needed. While America tamped down the Paris Climate Accords under the Obama Administration to allow the fossil fuel industry to maintain viability, that was not enough for the Trump Administration. They pulled America out of the agreement. In response, progressive politicians and citizen action groups have come forward with the Green New Deal. The question is whether it’s a big enough deal to address the continuing carbon-based warming of the planet, evidenced by the science. Enter Stan Cox, author of ‘The Green New Deal and Beyond: Ending the Climate Emergency While We Still Can’, who suggests that ‘to avoid disaster, we need a strict national emissions ceiling that delcines steeply year by year.’ He’s not looking to augment and ultimately replace the fossil fuel industry with green energy. He wants to supplant it–and fast. Of course, the implications are changes in lifestyle and consumption. Is America ready for that? What has the coronavirus epidemic told us about our willingness to sacrifice for public health? This episode should get you thinking.

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Today’s ways of working are not working–even for professionals in ‘good’ jobs. Responding to global competition and pressure from financial markets, companies are asking employees to do more with less, even as new technologies normalize 24/7 expectations. In their book ‘Overload’, Erin Kelly and Phyllis Moen document, with a study in the IT department of a Fortune 500 company, how this new intensification of work creates chronic stress, leading to burnout, attrition and under performance. Working on call, as it were, does not insure good results. In fact, the dominance of the immediate, with the constant barrage of texts, e-mails and shadow communications, often elevates trivial matters ahead of consequential ones. ‘Flexible’ work policies and lip service about ‘work-life balance’ don’t come close to solving the problem. On this podcast, MIT professor Kelly explains what can. And, yet, even as the study tries to help design a better approach to a more constructive work environment, the realities of these times intervene in real time. Listen in and find out what we mean.

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They came with their sleeves rolled up, ready to make some noise in numbers unimagined in the past. We’re talking about the new women members of Congress making up a group that author, Jennifer Steinhauer, calls ‘The Firsts’. This history-making class includes the youngest woman ever to serve; the first two Muslim women; the first two Native American women, one openly gay; a black woman from an all white Chicago suburb; and a Hispanic woman from a heavily Republican border region. Ethnic and racial diversity wasn’t the only trademark. Some progressives, like the ‘star’ of the class, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, beat a long time incumbent who was white, male and a member of her own party. Others defeated longstanding Republican male incumbents. And while AOC and ‘the squad’ made many of the headlines in a squabble with President Trump, the more moderate national security new arrivals were key to the President’s impeachment in the House. Given that they represent purple districts, Speaker Nancy Pelosi was reluctant to go forward with it until this group of potentially vulnerable freshman signed on. And while past wave elections in 1974 after Watergate and 1992 in the wake of the Clarence Thomas hearings, had certain special qualities, this one will be certain to be a big part of the Trump legacy. They ran, and won, in response to his election in 2016. We discuss their impact on the male dominated Congress(women are still only 25 percent of The House)and their political fortunes going forward.

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According to our guest, Sidney Powell, a former federal prosecutor and her co-author, attorney Harvey A. Silverglate, the answer is a resounding ‘yes’. In their book ‘Conviction Machine’, they focus on the federal courts, but Ms. Powell makes it clear that there is abuse rampant on all levels as proprietorial overreach is rampant everywhere. More than twenty million Americans have criminal convictions, while nearly one-third of Americans have a criminal record. What made our federal, and state, criminal justice system so dangerously effective at turning citizens into convicts? The Justice Department, the FBI, and Congress have all played a role in this and there are measures that can be taken to check the power to ‘indict a ham sandwich’, as the saying goes. Given that there is wide discretion given to prosecutors, particularly in grand jury settings, the FBI does not have to record interrogations and there are so many laws on the books which unwittingly we all run afoul of daily, it will not be an easy task to reform the system. With much criminal reform going on around the country, primarily at the state level, it would be nice to have many fewer wrongful convictions and unfair sentencing to dramatize in films over the next period in our history. Is it likely? Hear the discussion.

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Just as New York City has been the epicenter of the coronavirus scourge, West Virginia and to be more precise, the little town of Kermit, in many ways, has been the epicenter of the opioid crisis. We can’t forget that this has been the primary public health concern in the United States prior to COVID-19. How did 12 million pills end up in a town with a population of 382 people over a three year period? A hint is that it could not have happened if a lot of people hadn’t looked the other way and if others hadn’t been profiteering from it all. Thankfully while there are many villains in this story, including the state’s Attorney General, the drug companies, the suppliers and the doctors and pharmacists who knew the damage being done, there were some conspicuous heroes, too. One of them is Eric Eyre, a reporter for the Charleston Gazette-Mail at the time and the author of ‘Death in Mud Lick: A Coal Country Fight Against the Drug Companies that Delivered the Opioid Epidemic’. For his newspaper, Eric won the coveted Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting., making the paper the smallest ever to win the prize in that category. We trace the roots of the opioid crisis, get updates on where it is today and discuss the state of the local newspaper industry, much beleaguered before the COVID-19 crisis and almost decimated since.

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Today’s Major League Baseball lives and dies by its ‘new school’ numbers.  Over the last few decades, newly established statistics and on-field measurable have become so influential that they have infiltrated front offices, baseball operations departments, player development and scouting and have significantly changed the game’s landscape.  These measures now rely less and less on baseball experience and wisdom established riding the minor league buses from Altoona to Harrisburg.  The power dynamic has changed.  Stats and algorithms are now king.  And Bill Ripken, former major league infielder and Emmy Award winning MLB Network analyst is none too happy about it.  He’s also a member of the legendary baseball family, with his father Cal Ripken, Sr. the designer of the Ripken Way of baseball and his brother, Cal Ripken, Jr. the Hall of Fame player for the Baltimore Orioles.  Ripken discusses with Rifkin how saber metrics and moneyball got a foothold in the big leagues and what’s worth understanding about it and what has little value from an old school standpoint.  He reminds us that it’s still the same old game with some measures and approaches that are timeless and needed to be honored and preserved.

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Dr. Stanley Plotkin developed the rubella vaccine for what was commonly called the German measles at the Wistar Institute back in the 1960’s.  It helped to eradicate the disease in the United States and has become the R in what is known as the MMR vaccine.  He also worked on vaccines for anthrax, polio, rabies and rotavirus.  At the age of 87, he is still trying to save lives as he consults with pharmaceutical companies working to stem the scourge of COVID-19.  He is very succinct and precise in explaining the differences in technologies then and now and how the process is unfolding.  He is hopeful that this effort will bear fruit, but believes we will need more than one vaccine to do the job.  He also has a word for the boisterous anti-vax movement in America today.

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At the end of 2019 and the early part of 2020, the record number of CEO’s of major companies in America leaving their posts clearly represented a trend. In fact, one business journal described it as a ‘great exodus’ of newsworthy proportions. Did they know something we didn’t know about what was ahead? Or after 10 years of a growing economy and stock values, upon which much of their compensation is based, did they decide why tempt fate and decide take the the money and run? There’s no one answer to the question. In fact, there were cases in which the #MeToo movement and their continuing spotlight on misbehavior was a key element. It is just an amazing story when you see the companies on the list, from Disney to Boeing(another issue there, perhaps) to Alphabet, Wells Fargo and United Airlines. James Guilkey, PhD, and author of ‘M-Pact learning: The New Competitive Advantage-What All Executives Need to Know’ joins us to discuss the implications of these departures and how their successors’ skill sets may be very different as they take the helm of major companies at a time of great dislocation economically in America.

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By any measure, politicians throughout our history have played fast and loose with the electoral process, trying to make it easier for some and harder for others to vote.  It took the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution to unrig practices put in place to deny the vote to African Americans.  Yet, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was still necessary to further reinforce those protections.  In truth, there’s never been a golden era of voting rights in this country.  One step forward is often met with new forms of resistance to the advancement of one group or another.  Need we be reminded that barely one hundred years ago, women were not allowed the franchise in this country.  So where are we today?  Poll taxes and literacy tests are gone, for sure, but new approaches, facilitated by new technologies and put forward by old fears of new groups of voters amassing power are afoot across the country.  In his previous book, David Daley, of fairvote.org, documented the clever, but mischievous, approach to gerrymandering in 2010 Operation RedMap which was meant to insure that a minority of voters could amass a majority of Congressional seats in many states throughout the decade.  Republican strategists  drew up districts in a majority of states designed to insure outcomes at variance with how the majority in those states voted.  In his new book, ‘Unrigged’, Daley describes the push back by ordinary Americans to make the vote fairer throughout the land.  It is important to understand how we got here and how greater access and fairness are being pushed forward against continuing resistance.  This episode is a great primer.

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