Introducing “People I (Mostly) Admire”

A rich life isn't a straight line to a destination on the horizon.

Sometimes it takes an unexpected turn with detours, new possibilities,

and even another passenger.

Two or three.

And with 100 years of navigating ups and downs, you can count on Edward Jones to help guide you through it all because life is a winding path made rich by the people you walk it with.

Let's find your rich together.

Edward Jones, member SIPC.

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It won't take you long to figure out that I'm not your regular interviewer.

I'm not very polished.

I'm not very articulate, but I just think differently than other people.

Hey there, it's Stephen Dubner and that's my Free Economics friend and co-author Steve Levitt.

He's an economist at the University of Chicago.

I've worked for two decades on the edges of economics, studying strange phenomena, human behavior in weird circumstances.

But now Levitt is ready to try something different.

I've gotten really interested in trying to figure out how to leave the world a better place.

And that's how I spend my days now, not writing academic papers.

Levitt is now ready to start his own podcast.

It's called People I Mostly Admire.

And one of the things I hope to do with this podcast is to get these interesting, smart, insightful, offbeat people to offer advice, not necessarily about their expertise and their profession, but about general things in life.

Sometimes they're going to give great advice.

Sometimes they're going to give terrible advice.

And I think that's part of the fun.

Why should you listen to the show?

I would say listen to this show because I think we're going to have some of the most interesting people come on and talk.

And some of them are going to be household names, and some of them are going to be people that you would never hear of otherwise.

For instance, the old-time Jeopardy champion, Ken Jennings.

Just don't neglect the thing about you that makes you weird.

And one of the savviest book agents in publishing, Suzanne Gluck, who happens to be Levitt's agent and mine.

HarperCollins hired McKinsey to consult on how to be more profitable and they said, just publish the bestsellers.

If we only knew.

The perfect guest for me is someone who's not only wildly intelligent, but also a little bit off the rails.

I was in this terrible psychological state where I was claustrophobic, seasick.

I really had to go to the bathroom and we were all throwing up left and right.

And then finally, finally, finally, finally, the cameras roll.

Someone who thinks differently and who doesn't care at all how the world perceives him or her.

Whenever I'm flying in an area that has fish farms, I always look out and I think, those could be saving us from hurricanes.

And I try to ask them all the questions I could never ask in a regular conversation without seeming really rude.

But because I'm on a podcast, I can ask them whatever I want.

Were you kind of bad at that job?

It doesn't seem like you have a lot of the traits that would make someone a good computer programmer.

Do you have some insight into what makes you such a quitter?

I'd never framed it the way you do it, but I like the in-your-face descriptor of quitter.

On People I Mostly Admire, you'll hear how someone who grew up in a village in Guyana went on to run the Yale School of Management.

I talked to my mother every day.

She taught me the importance of being open to new experiences and people, because one does not know, as one traverses one's life where a helpful relationship will form, where an insight will come from.

And how a public intellectual like Steven Pinker picks his battles.

Human conflict is inevitable.

We don't all want the same things.

But I do manage my controversy portfolio carefully.

You'll hear Levitt in conversation with some of the most interesting unorthodox people around, from actresses to athletes, authors to inventors.

Was Was it your idea to skip all those grades or was it your mom's?

Oh, it was my idea.

It was just so damn boring otherwise.

What you did was fearless and really ruthless in a way that I'm not accustomed to.

I think my superpower is that I'm an emotional influencer.

So if I'm excited about something, I can get other people excited about it.

People I Mostly Admire is part of the Freakonomics Radio Network and it debuts on August 21st.

Subscribe now to People I Mostly Admire on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

So, one thing I know for sure is: I'm no Stephen Dubner.

I forget a lot of things, but when I meet somebody unusual who says things to me that I've never thought before, who changes my mind, I never forget those people.

We're interrupting this podcast to ask you a very important question.

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