Search
Latest Videos
A library of interviews with the world’s biggest thinkers.
2mins
Daniel Altman explains the origins of the European Union and why it’s in so much trouble today.
2mins
Activist investor, hedge-fund manager, and Floating University lecturer Bill Ackman explains the importance of investing over the long run.
2mins
Coming from an upper middle class family, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita says, he could have afforded to pay some tuition. Instead, he was the beneficiary of the tax dollars of […]
4mins
Particle physics. Human self-determination. Evolution. According to Renaissance scholar Stephen Greenblatt, we owe these modern ideas to an ancient Roman poem, rediscovered in 1417.
3mins
In this portion of his Floating University lecture, activist investor William Ackman talks about investing in the kind of company that you can own forever. In other words, what is […]
3mins
According to physician and former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, the major problem with health care in the U.S. is the country spends twice as much on health care as […]
3mins
In addition to demotivating talented workers, an opaque and dictatorial leadership style can silence innovation from below, leaving the leader in charge of coming up with all the great ideas.
2mins
The Floating University’s first course, Great Big Ideas: An Entire Undergraduate Education While Standing On One Foot, is being used to teach courses at Harvard, Yale, and Bard this fall […]
4mins
A new online course that is currently being offered at Harvard, Yale and Bard is threatening to disrupt higher education as we know it. As tuition costs continue to skyrocket, […]
2mins
The average student graduates with $23,000 in debt. “That’s a lot of debt for a 22-year-old,” says Michael Ellsberg – and when you combine it with astronomical rates of unemployment […]
2mins
To be a successful investor you have to be able to avoid some natural human tendencies to follow the herd. You have to have a stomach to withstand the volatility […]
2mins
When will we be able to enter a room and create an imaginary scenario so realistic that it seems as if we are really there? Sooner than you think, says […]
5mins
Sarah Kay is an up-and-coming artist who has worked as a performance poet since age 14. In this video, she performs at the inaugural Nantucket Project event, a festival of […]
1mins
“I was fighting a lot of people’s expectations of what comedy was and who should be delivering the jokes,” says Margaret Cho. But if you really want to do something, […]
3mins
Neuroscientist Joy Hirsch talks about the new frontier of brain imaging.
4mins
Today's video is part of a series on female genius, in proud collaboration with 92Y's 7 Days of Genius Festival.
2mins
The CEO of IDEO, a global design consultancy, explains how to use design to facilitate creativity, collaboration, and engagement at work.
43mins
With the global financial crisis ongoing, the concept of “short-termism” has emerged as one underlying explanation for our current woes. As the argument goes, the increasing emphasis on quarterly reports […]