STEVEN GREENHOUSE covered labor at the New York Times for 19 years. When we last spoke in the early days of the Biden administration, workers’ share of income had slid to its lowest level since the 1940s and the percentage of workers in unions was the lowest in over a century. But unions are winning these days – winning contracts, winning strikes when necessary, and perhaps most critically in the big picture – winning popular support, especially among young people. He’s author of Beaten Down Worked Up: The Past Present and Future of American Labor.

MICHAEL LEWIS’s new book, GOING INFINITE, the story of Sam Bankman-Fried and the rise and fall of crypto exchange FTX, is the #1 Selling book on Amazon. Here’s my 2010 conversation with Lewis about another #1 best-seller, THE BIG SHORT. In telling the story behind the Oscar nominated film, one of the great “explainers” defines a lot of terms – securitization, derivatives, credit default swaps – you remember. I think it’s one of my favorite episodes.

I believe minority rule to be one of the most dangerous challenges facing American society with enormous impact for the fate of the world. I’m excited to engage with Daniel Ziblatt, about his latest book, TYRANNY OF THE MINORITY:Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point, co-authored with Stephen Levitsky. Their previous book, How Democracies Die, was described by The Economist magazine as “the most important book of the Trump era.” You can learn more at scholar.harvard.edu/dziblatt. This episode was recorded as a LiveTalksLA event September 21, 2023 – link to video.

JONATHAN TAPLIN’s new book THE END OF REALITY picks up where MOVE FAST & BREAK THINGS left off. It documents how – rather than confront and solve the critical challenges we face – some of our wealthiest and most powerful men are plotting their escape – from transparency and regulation with crypto, from real life with the metaverse, from planet earth with colonies on Mars, and from death itself with transhumanism and cyborgs. This fantasy/nightmare is being sold by four billionaires – Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Marc Andreeson, and Peter Thiel.

JONATHAN TAPLIN is former tour manager for Bob Dylan and The Band, producer of two Martin Scorsese films, MEAN STREETS and THE LAST WALTZ, and Director Emeritus of the USC Annenberg Innovation Lab. Next week I’ll talk with him about his new book, THE END OF REALITY: How Four Billionaires Are Selling a Fantasy Future of the Metaverse, Mars, And Crypto. How better to warm up for that than by replaying our 2018 conversation about his earlier book MOVE FAST AND BREAK THINGS: How Facebook, Google and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy. You can learn more at jontaplin.com