This commentary originally appeared in the Washington Post. The views expressed are the authors’ own. President Donald Trump has presented himself as a strong champion and consistent supporter of artificial intelligence. Upon returning to the White House, one of his first acts was to issue an executive order to “sustain and enhance America’s dominance in AI.” On his second day in office, he announced the Stargate Project, calling it “the…
The arrival of the smartphone has changed the way we watch TV. Instead of being glued to the big screen, you might watch a show for a few minutes, check your text messages, return to the TV, and then get distracted by a game on your phone. These shifts in our viewing habits have raised concerns for advertisers who are shelling out big bucks to run commercials. “What are they…
Howie and Harlan discuss the alarming healthcare cuts proposed in the budget bill currently moving through Congress, recent breakthroughs in HIV prevention and diabetes treatment, and the stark contrast between scientific progress and the deep structural flaws in the U.S. healthcare system. Links: The Budget Bill H.R.1—119th Congress (2025-2026) “A List of Nearly Everything in the Senate G.O.P. Bill, and How Much It Would Cost or Save” “Senate passes Trump’s…
This commentary originally appeared in Time. The views expressed are the author’s own. The sweeping victory of the charismatic Zohran Mamdani in the Democratic New York mayoral election has the business community alarmed, if not downright distressed. Immediately after the election, many New York CEOs and financiers predicted an accelerated flight of capital to lower tax states like Texas and Florida. Mamdani’s victory fits the emerging pattern of angry…
Howie and Harlan discuss health and healthcare issues making headlines, including public attitudes toward the Medicaid cuts in the budget bill making its way through Congress, a one-time gene therapy that could cure high cholesterol, “ambient” AI in the exam room, and the replacement of the the CDC’s entire vaccine advisory board. Links: Remembering Atul Butte “Atul Butte, a biomedical and bioinformatics pioneer, dies at 55” Marina Sirota on LinkedIn…
In 2018, when Zhen Lian, then a PhD student at Cornell, started working on a research project about self-driving cars, the technology still seemed like “a futuristic topic,” she says. Just five years later, while traveling in Phoenix, she was able to hail a self-driving car—also known as an autonomous vehicle (AV)—to get a ride from her hotel to the airport. . The incorporation of AVs into the ride-hailing industry…
A third of doctors trained in Ghana now live abroad, as do 91% of Ethiopian-born PhD holders and two-thirds of graduates from the top Canadian software engineering programs. Statistics like these have long prompted concerns that large, rich nations are depriving less populous, less wealthy ones of their native-born talent. If most of the skilled workers leave, the thinking goes, small countries and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) will struggle…
This commentary originally appeared in Time. The views expressed are the author’s own. Thursday’s escalating explosions between President Donald Trump and Elon Musk are only a prelude. It is the start of a hot war, and it could soon get far worse for Musk while doing Trump little good‚ other than to have a convenient scapegoat now for the unpopular DOGE with its over-promised $2 trillion of government savings. This…
In this season finale, we do something a little different. Instead of featuring an outside guest, we bring you behind the scenes—with the voices and minds who help design and deliver the very work this podcast explores. Dr. Heidi Brooks is joined by her colleagues David Tate and Stacey Casamassima for a candid, deeply human conversation that essentially doubles as a real team meeting. This is the team that teaches…
This commentary originally appeared in Fortune. The views expressed are the authors’ own. What do the names H. Ross Perot, Lee Iacocca, Bob Iger, Mark Cuban, Mike Bloomberg, Carly Fiorina, Doug Bergum, Andrew Yang, Tom Styer, Herman Cain, and Howard Schultz all have in common? First, they are prominent businesspeople who have either run for office or considered a presidential candidacy. And second, not one of them is JPMorgan Chase…
New York is the birthplace of gridlock—of the word “gridlock,” that is, which emerged in the Big Apple in the 1970s. Now, one solution to gridlock is charging vehicles to enter the city center, especially during business hours. Fewer cars, less noise, faster deliveries, less pollution. You may know the solution by the name “congestion pricing.” It’s rooted in economic theory, and there are real-world examples of it working. London,…
What’s the best way for a company to talk about a price increase caused by something outside their control? When prices have to go up because of something like a government tariff or a global supply issue, it’s important that customers understand why. People are much more accepting of price changes when they believe the reason is fair and unavoidable. So instead of just saying, “Our prices are increasing,” it…
In a special episode recorded at Connecticut’s largest entrepreneurship event, Howie and guest host Megan Ranney, the dean of the Yale School of Public Health, welcome four Yale innovators: entrepreneur and YSPH lecturer Kaakpema “KP” Yelpaala; Basmah Safdar, director of Women’s Health Research at Yale; Kayla Wooley, a YSPH graduate and the founder of two nursing home staffing companies; and Yale College student Laurie Jimenez, founder of FulcrumCare, a value-based…
Competition in digital markets is a topic that seems omnipresent right now. What are the elements that have emerged that make this into an issue that needs a lot of discussion? The platforms are extremely important for growth and innovation in GDP, and for how we live our lives as a practical matter. Keeping up with friends and family, shopping, searching for information, maps, etc. I carry around an iPhone…
Where does your company sit in the supply chain? I had never heard of it, but now I’m thinking I probably eat food all the time that arrives because of your product. We manufacture and supply stainless steel tubing, valves, and fittings that are used primarily in food processing and production. If you look at an industrial-scale bakery making potato chips, all the guts of that facility would be stainless…
What does it mean to create something that didn’t exist before—and to do so with a sense of possibility, even in the face of constraint? In this episode, artist Mario Moore joins Dr. Heidi Brooks to reflect on art as agency, the power of process, and the untold stories behind his Yale-commissioned painting Black Governors. Together, they explore the tension between presence and invisibility, and what it means to embed…
When the home audio company Sonos released a disastrous update to its app last year, one of the agents fielding angry calls from customers was an multi-modal chatbot from the AI startup Sierra. Sonos is one of many companies that are using AI for customer service, taking advantage of the technology’s growing ability to successfully navigate unpredictable conversations with human beings. If AI can handle being on the receiving…
How would you characterize the political and economic situation in Bangladesh today, several months after the Monsoon Revolution? The key word is “uncertainty.” The previous government was increasingly autocratic and centralized a lot of power, and then the revolution was led by students who weren’t politicians or administrators. It was a very decentralized revolution; established opposition parties really did not play a frontline role in toppling the government. This…
If you accidentally stumbled into a solution for a major problem at work, would you turn down an employee-of-the month award? What if you spent hours of work on something trivial, and your boss offered a free lunch as a reward? Yale SOM marketing professor Corey Cusimano wondered if there are patterns to when people feel they have earned a reward. Does hard work alone justify being compensated, or…
Tell me about Fair Haven Community Health Care and who it serves. Fair Haven Community Health Clinic, as it was called then, was founded in 1971 by a group of women activists. This has long been an immigrant community—go back 70 or 80 years, and it was largely Irish and Italian. By the early ’70s it was becoming more Hispanic. A group of women got a $5,000 grant from the…
This commentary was adapted from a commencement address delivered at Sacred Heart University and originally published in the Hartford Courant. The views expressed are the authors’ own. A few days ago, the College of Cardinals convened to select a successor to the beloved Pope Francis—a very challenging reign for any human to follow. It would be presumptuous for me to suggest the leadership qualities needed for this daunting role, but…
In a time marked by anxiety, division and disconnection, the path forward lies not in fixing the past but in expanding our freedom to imagine what’s next. In this episode of Learning Through Experience, Dr. Heidi Brooks is joined by Suzi Tucker, a writer, teacher and pioneer of Family Constellations work. Together, they explore how our personal and ancestral stories shape the patterns we repeat—and how stepping into those patterns…
If you’ve ever been denied a promotion or award you believed you earned, you know the sting can linger—as can the glow of unexpectedly receiving recognition. In fact, such instances of misrecognition may influence how you evaluate others in the future, according to new research from Yale SOM’s Tristan L. Botelho, with co-authors Mabel Abraham of Columbia and James T. Carter of Cornell. The researchers found that, whether positive…
This commentary was adapted from episode 172 of the Health & Veritas podcast. The views expressed are the author’s own. Subscribe for weekly doses of expert insight on health and the healthcare industry. The Papanicolaou test, or Pap smear, was introduced in the 1940s. Its use over the eight decades since has saved many lives from cervical cancer. Our progress against this disease, which kills hundreds of thousands worldwide. accelerated…
Howie and Harlan are joined by Joel Bervell, a recent medical school graduate who uses social media platforms to combat misinformation and explain racial biases in healthcare. Harlan discusses his new Wall Street Journal commentary highlighting the link between viral infections and chronic diseases; Howie reports on powerful new evidence for the effectiveness of the HPV vaccine and warns of the dangers of a vaccine-skeptical presidential administration. Links: Viral Infection…
In just a few years, AI has transformed how many people draft emails and résumés, compose music, and even share their deepest feelings. It’s also reshaping the economic landscape. Investors are deploying vast amounts of capital to finance data centers and other AI infrastructure; global powers are racing to develop the most sophisticated and cost-effective models; and companies must decide how to utilize a technology with the potential to change…
How can storytelling deepen our understanding of emotional connection in turbulent times? Join Heidi Brooks for a powerful and special episode of Learning Through Experience featuring returning guest Marc Brackett, along with filmmakers Horacio Marquínez and Kirill Myltsev. Together, they explore the extraordinary journey behind their documentary, America Unfiltered: Portraits and Voices of a Nation, a film born out of curiosity, human connection and the transformative power of experience. Listen…
What does it take to cultivate joy—not as a fleeting feeling, but as a steady presence—even in times of deep uncertainty? In this luminous conversation, Dr. Heidi Brooks is joined by psychologist and author Emma Seppälä and artist Clara Nartey to explore the resilient, regenerative power of joy. With insights drawn from neuroscience, personal experience and artistic practice, Emma and Clara reflect on how inner sovereignty—the ability to return to…
There are two different logics that we bring into our job search. One tells us to use our social ties, and the other tells us that using those ties would constitute an unearned advantage, so we have an icky feeling about it. Everyone knows relationships can go a long way in a job search: a family member or a former colleague puts in a call, and your CV makes it…
This commentary originally appeared in Fortune. The views expressed are the authors’ own. We have presciently warned for a year, and earlier this week in Fortune, that Trump’s economic policies and this week’s “Liberation Day” tariffs announcement would prove to be a cataclysmic event. Like frat boys in denial that the driver of their car is dangerously drunk, Trump acolytes such as Peter Navarro, who ludicrously implored “trust in Trump,”…
This commentary was adapted from episode 168 of the Health & Veritas podcast. The views expressed are the author’s own. Subscribe for weekly doses of expert insight on health and the healthcare industry. Now is a good time to explain what we know about the early policy and personnel changes of the new administration and what they mean for health and healthcare. This is neither meant to be exhaustive nor…
Does the drop in discussions of sustainability on earnings calls represent a real shift in companies’ activity, or just a change in emphasis in their public statements? Let’s dive into the structure of an earnings call. The call usually begins with some prepared remarks by the company and then Q&A for investors. Sustainability topics tend to be strategic and not a major part of the quarterly reporting (if sustainability is…
Howie and Harlan are joined by Alexi Nazem, a Yale-trained internist who co-founded the healthcare staffing company Nomad Health and now leads healthcare investments at AlleyCorp. Harlan reports on new research from the American College of Cardiology meeting; Howie examines the consequences of vast staffing cuts in the federal healthcare infrastructure. Links: Research from the American College of Cardiology Meeting “Semaglutide and walking capacity in people with symptomatic peripheral artery…
Consumers who want to submit a complaint to an agency such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau face a task that, for some, can be daunting: they must fill out a form that requires them to explain the issue, clearly and convincingly, in their own words. Those who are not native English speakers or simply don’t regularly communicate in writing may lack the skills needed to convincingly make their cases.…
In 2013, the state of Washington gave the aerospace company Boeing a massive subsidy package worth $8.7 billion, including tax breaks and reimbursements for worker training costs. That eye-popping price tag isn’t typical—the Boeing subsidy is believed to be the largest in U.S. history—but state subsidies have become more common over the last couple of decades, as government officials try to lure firms to set up shop in their area…
Hosted by Blake Eskin A few weeks ago, I got a message from my bank. Hello, this is Fraud Prevention Services. You know the kind. More than $1,000 charged in three different states in less than an hour. And I am not a sneakerhead. It is important that you call us back at your earliest convenience. Thank you and goodbye. I canceled my debit card, and the bank promised to…
What if the challenges you’re facing aren’t obstacles—but invitations to grow? In this episode, Heidi Brooks and leadership expert Jennifer Garvey Berger explore how we grow through uncertainty, not just survive it. They also discuss why change is essential for leaders, how to turn everyday challenges into opportunities for growth and why embracing imperfection might be the key to thriving in an anxious world. Sharing insights from her book Changing…
Howie and Harlan check in on health issues in the news, including the big bet that went wrong for Walgreens, prohibited words at federal health agencies, the weaknesses of a much-discussed study suggesting that people age in bursts, and the long-term impact of the HPV vaccine. Links: Walgreens “Walgreens to Be Bought by Private Equity Firm in $10 Billion Deal” “Walgreens is heading down a risky path” “Walgreens to Be…
I work on trying to understand the motivations and the drivers of investors’ preference for green investment. I try to understand how can investors use the financial insurance that they have access to better ensure themselves against potential climate change damages or damages from regulation of climate change. I think, by now, most people realize that climate change could have potentially very large implications for the economy, and financial…
Unlike parents in many other high-income countries, American parents are largely on their own until their kids are old enough for kindergarten when it comes to childcare and schooling. But over the past two decades or so, municipalities around the country have started rolling out public pre-kindergarten that is available to all children, usually at age three or four, regardless of income level—what has become known as universal pre-kindergarten (UPK).…