Keen On

It’s the fantasy of countless Wall Street analysts. Amran Gowani traded his lucrative career in hedge funds for the scarily solitary world of novel writing. His debut satirical novel Leverage draws from his insider experience at investment banks and hedge funds, exposing the toxic culture and perverse incentives that drive corporate America's financial sector. In this bracingly frank conversation, Gowani confesses his transformation from organic chemistry PhD dropout to pharmaceutical marketing executive to Wall Street analyst, and finally to full-time novelist. He reveals the harsh economic realities of publishing fiction, the challenges of first-time novel writing, and how he channeled his corporate experiences into satirizing the very system that employed him. 1. Publishing Economics vs. Wall Street Profits "The money I made in the mid 2010s on my Wall Street Bank dwarfs the money I made on the advance I got for my novel and that's and I actually got a pretty good advance... You don't write novels because

How can anyone forget those photos of Trump’s sons celebrating over the carcasses of dead animals that they shot in Africa? Fortunately, not all sons of American Presidents behave so tastelessly in the wild. As Nathalia Holt argues in her new history, The Beast in the Clouds, Teddy Roosevelt’s sons found redemption - and regret - in their (peaceful) 1928 quest for the giant panda in northwestern China. Holt argues that their remarkable expedition marked a pivotal moment in conservation history, transforming scientific thinking from hunting endangered species to protecting them, while simultaneously offering the troubled Roosevelt brothers their greatest achievement and deepest source of remorse. We should all give thanks for Teddy and his boys. Where would the wilderness or endangered species be without them?1. The expedition transformed scientific thinking from hunting to conservation"The story that I'm telling is all about the birth of conservation biology and how scientists changed their minds, how they we

The last time Peter Wehner, who I’ve always imagined as America’s conscience, appeared on the show to talk about the “ethical darkness” that has fallen upon America, I suggested that this was an “important” interview. Today’s conversation is much more important than being simply important. Based on Wehner’s recent Atlantic piece about why MAGA evangelicals have turned their back on PEPFAR, the American relief agency saving the lives of millions of Africa’s AIDS victims, this is a conversation about America’s heart of moral darkness. It’s not just Trump who has African blood on his hands, Wehner argues, but most of his evangelical supporters who are unmoved by the destruction of PEPFAR. For the first time in my many conversations with Wehner, he was visibly moved by both the cruelty of Trump and the indifference of his supposedly Christian supporters. 1. Trump's Destruction of PEPFAR is "Wanton Cruelty" "This to me was an act of wanton cruelty. You really had to go out of your way to think how can I kill milli

From suburban swimming pools and SUVs to White Lives Matter rallies, the Johns Hopkins anthropologist Anand Pandian has been exploring the everyday walls of American life. In his new book, Something Between Us, Pandian travels across the United States in his search to both climb and overcome these walls. What he finds is a nation tragically at war with itself. Through intimate portraits of communities divided by race, class, and ideology, Pandian reveals how ordinary public spaces have become literal battlegrounds for identity and belonging. From gated suburban neighborhoods in Florida to online echo chambers, his ethnographic journey exposes the invisible barriers that shape American social life. But he concludes with a degree of optimism. We can overcome those walls, he says, with the kind of collective political action that brings people of different ideological persuasions together.1. Anthropological Method Reveals America's Hidden Divisions"Ethnographic research is based on the idea that the best way of

So what, exactly, is the AI wedge? According to Ewan Morrison, author of For Emma, an already acclaimed novel about our dystopian biotech future, it means a “V-shaped” force that starts small but gradually drives people apart, replacing human connection with technological mediation."It starts off really small. You end up with something like internet dating... it begins as a novelty and then people become dependent on it," Morrison explains. What seemed harmless in the 1990s has evolved to the point where 60-70% of people now use dating apps, with younger generations saying they "don't wanna meet anyone outside of using an app because they don't trust anyone." But the wedge doesn't stop there. The final stage, Morrison warns, is the replacement of the humans completely by AI friends, partners, even therapists. The metaphor captures how each technological "solution" creates new dependencies while eroding our capacity for direct human interaction. As Morrison puts it, technology "removes that sort of tactile sen

You've heard it before and you'll hear it again. AI is a gold rush. It will change everything. But 2025 is different, That Was The Week tech newsletter publisher Keith Teare argues. This is the year that the AI gold rush is changing everything. In our reflection of the first six months of 2025, Keith argues that we're witnessing a fundamental "phase shift" - not just another tech cycle, but an inflection point where scale becomes a necessity for survival. From Meta's $100 million developer deals to the consolidation of 80% of venture capital into just five firms, from Cloudflare's revolutionary "toll booth" economy replacing advertising models to the tokenization of private markets through platforms like Robinhood, the rules of Silicon Valley are being rewritten. As graduates face an employment crisis and AI superstars command unprecedented compensation, Keith and I debate whether this transformation represents capitalism's natural evolution or a dangerous concentration of power that could reshape the global

On July 4, 2025, is America still worth the fireworks? For Paul Orgel, producer of America 250, C-SPAN's upcoming celebration of 250 years of independence, the answer is a full stars 'n stripes YES! But even this C-SPAN veteran acknowledges the complexity of celebrating America in 2025. "We're not just going to be celebratory," Orgel admits, "but realistic to the good, the bad and the ugly of our country's history." As America stands one year away from its 250th birthday, the question isn't whether national independence deserves to be celebrated—it's whether Americans can still find common ground in their shared experiment. With political divisions deeper than ever and historical narratives under fierce debate, Orgel's mission feels both urgent and impossible: reminding a fractured nation why it's still worth celebrating together.1. C-SPAN’s America 250 Will Address the "Good, Bad and Ugly:" "This effort of ours will not just be celebratory, but will be realistic to the good, the bad and the ugly of our count

Few people have spent more of their lives thinking about the Nazis than the English filmmaker and writer Laurence Rees. In his new book, The Nazi Mind, Rees offers a lifetime of knowledge about the Nazis to warn about today’s fragility of democracy. Borrowing from his extensive interviews of both former Nazis and Holocaust survivors, Rees discusses how Nazi ideology developed, why democracy proved so vulnerable in 1930s Germany, and what modern societies must understand about the enduring appeal of authoritarianism. Institutions we take for granted, he warns, can be far more fragile than we imagine.1. Democracy is More Fragile Than We Think"Everything is fragile and often a great deal more fragile than we think. That's the recurring theme of many of the interviewees that I met. Never saw this coming... You can have the most fragile piece of glass on your mantelpiece and it can stay there for 50 years, but someone can just touch it and it breaks." Democratic institutions require constant vigilance to survive.2

If the American dream died in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963, then who killed it? According to the crime novelist Terrence McCauley, the JFK assassination was carried out by organized crime. That’s the heart of his new novel, Twilight Town, in which McCauley reexamines the JFK assassination in Dallas. But this wasn't Oliver Stone style CIA or shadowy government conspirators, pulling well-oiled strings from their deep state offices. Instead, McCauley argues it was something far more mundane yet chilling: a street-level contract hit executed by mob-connected criminals with intelligence ties. These were the same underworld figures who ran guns to Cuba, operated training camps for Bay of Pigs veterans, and had both the means and motive to eliminate a President they saw as soft on communism and hard on organized crime. In McCauley's vision, America's Camelot ended not through some grand operatic conspiracy, but through the banal efficiency of professional killers.1. The JFK Assassination Was a "Street Crime," N

If everything is propaganda (even this show), then we are forever engaged in a war to control other people's minds. That, at least, is the view of the self-described “freedom fighter”, Connor Boyack, the libertarian author of the best-selling Tuttle Twins series of children books. In his latest piece of Tuttle Twins propaganda, A Guide to the World’s Worst Ideas, Boyack argues against all forms of government welfare, drug prohibition and foreign military engagement. And yet there's one institution that the Utah based Boyack religiously supports. The family, he says, offers protection for children and should be actively protected by the government. Children of the world unite, some might respond, you’ve got nothing to lose but your parents. 1. Everything is Propaganda - And That's Fine "Tuttle twins, quote me now, is libertarian propaganda. And I use that word intentionally because what is propaganda? Propaganda is just propagating an idea from one person's mind to another. It is persuasion. It is education. E

As we transition from the social media age (the internet of trolls) to the AI epoch (the internet of tolls), has the publishing apocalypse finally arrived? That’s the question Keith Teare and I discuss in our That Was the Week summary of tech news. Two major court cases this week—Getty Images vs. Stability AI and the Anthropic lawsuit—have fundamentally shifted the legal landscape around AI and copyright. The courts ruled that AI systems can legally "learn" from published content without copying it, essentially giving artificial intelligence a free pass to consume human creativity at scale. Meanwhile, publishers are scrambling to find new business models as search traffic evaporates and AI “answers” replace traditional web browsing. From CloudFlare's proposed toll system to the rise of AI browsers like DIA, Keith and I explore how traditional link economics are being completely reimagined—and whether human creators can survive the transformation. Dead Links Walking everyone. It’s going to be a bloody entertai

Yesterday’s show was on the Great White Hoax of manufactured racism in America. Today’s is on Black Capitalists, the title of a provocative new book by Rachel Layrea. But is this a great black hoax? Or might her focus on race and class really be a blueprint for a more ethical 21st century capitalism? Laryea, who holds a PhD from Yale and works in wealth management at JPMorgan Chase, argues that Black capitalists can strategically use the tools of capitalism to create social good, not just profit. But in a week when Jeff Bezos's lavish Venice wedding sparked protests about wealth inequality, can any kind of capitalism - either black, brown or white - ever truly serve social justice? And with the dismantling of DEI initiatives across America, is Booker T. Washington's style self-reliance the only path forward for Black economic empowerment?1. Black capitalism means using wealth-building strategically for social good, not just profit . Laryea:"To be clear, a Black capitalist is someone who identifies as a Black

There’s something fishy about what Philip Kadish calls The Great White Hoax. It’s his new book about America's long con - how racist scientific hoaxes have shaped two centuries of racist politics. From the 1840 Census Scandal to Henry Ford to George Wallace, Kadish exposes the conmen who have tried to sell racism to America. But here's the chilling twist: many of these fraudsters knew exactly what they were doing. They weren't true believers - they were cynical opportunists who saw profit in peddling fake science to justify white supremacy, creating elaborate deceptions that sometimes fooled even legitimate scientists. 1. Many racist "scientific" theories were deliberate, cynical frauds, not misguided beliefs"The thing that really characterizes the particular thread that I am following in my book and things that I was finding is that they all involved varying degrees of a kind of cynical, very self-aware, purposeful deception."2. The 1840 Census created the template for American scientific racism through know

Next month, America will celebrate the centenary of the Scopes Trial, the so-called 1925 “Monkey Trial” on evolution that riveted a nation. Although perhaps celebrate is the wrong word to describe the Tennessee trial that not only riveted America but also divided it. According to the historian Brenda Wineapple, author of Keeping The Faith: God, Democracy, and the Trial that Riveted a Nation, the Scopes trial is as relevant to America in 2025 as it was in 1925. According to Wineapple, the trial wasn't really about science versus religion at all. Neither side truly understood Darwin's theory of evolution, which had been settled science for decades. Instead, the Scopes trial served as a cultural battleground where deeper American anxieties played out—fears about immigration, racial integration, women's suffrage, and rapid social change in the post-World War I era. The real combatants weren’t evolution and creationism, or even the courtroom celebrities Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, but competing vis

Don’t blame women. Men are failing spectacularly and it’s totally their own fault. In What Is Wrong with Men, cultural critic Jessica Crispin borrows from Michael Douglas movies to dissect how masculinity devolved from Seventies style vulnerability into today's aggressive displays of insecurity. While billionaires like Musk compulsively impregnate women and Zuckerberg learns jujitsu to feel "manly," basement-dwelling incels worship sex traffickers like Andrew Tate. The old patriarchy died in the 1980s, Crispin argues, but men refuse to adapt, expecting the world to revolve around them instead of building female-style support systems. It’s the Michael Douglas Trap. From Gordon Gekko's greed to crypto-gambling bros, modern masculinity has degenerated into a grotesque performance of insecurity—and it's getting worse. 1. Modern masculinity is trapped between dead patriarchy and refusal to adapt Crispin argues that traditional patriarchal structures collapsed in the 1980s, but men still expect the world to revolve

So I get why Jeff Bezos isn’t popular in Venice this week. But why would Africans in general, and Kenyans in particular, not love Bill Gates after the philanthropist pledged to give away $200 billion of his fortune to Africa? According to Tablet staff writer, Armin Rosen, it’s because Gates’ top-down, metrics-driven approach often ignores what Africans actually want. Drawing from extensive on-the-ground reporting in Kenya, Rosen highlights how Gates' Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa pushed unwanted agricultural technologies onto Kenyan farmers, while his foundation received controversial diplomatic immunity from Kenya's unpopular President Ruto. Though acknowledging Gates' successes in vaccination programs, Rosen questions whether billionaire-led development truly helps or undermines local agency and democratic governance. Maybe Gates should, instead, pledge his billions to Venice to enable the sinking city to outlaw tasteless American celebrity marriages. 1. Gates' philanthropy often imposes unwante

Are Donald Trump and Steven Miller terrorists? Pakistani-American lawyer and author Rafia Zakaria argues that their willfully cruel immigration policies reflect what she describes as an "architecture of terror." In her June Liberties Quarterly piece "Silencings", Zakaria argues that these policies represent a deliberate strategy to terrorize communities and systematically dismantle the American democratic public sphere. Drawing on her experience both in practicing immigration law and as a naturalized American citizen, she connects domestic enforcement tactics to broader patterns of dehumanization affecting brown people globally—from detention centers in California to the US/Israeli bombing campaigns of Iran to what she dubs the “historical shame” of orchestrated mass starvation in Gaza. 5 key takeaways and quotes1. Immigration Enforcement as Deliberate Terrorism Zakaria argues that the Trump administration's immigration policies are intentionally designed to terrorize entire communities, not j

In today’s age of authoritarian plutocracy, the UCLA political theorist Natasha Piano argues that we need to rethink the supposed “elitist” school of Italian thinkers like Vilfredo Pareto and Gaetano Mosca. In her intriguing new book, Democratic Elitism, Piano suggests Pareto, Mosca and even the Marxist Antonio Gramsci were actually "democratic theorists of elitism" who warned that electoral institutions can often enhance elite domination. Piano contends that American political science created a "founding myth" by misrepresenting these Italian thinkers to legitimize electoral democracy during the Cold War. And in our current political climate she says, their warnings about plutocracy are particularly prescient. Five takeaways1. Flipped Interpretation of Italian Elite TheoristsPareto, Mosca, and Gramsci weren't "elite theorists of democracy" but rather "democratic theorists of elitism" - they studied elite power to expose its dangers, not endorse it.KEY QUOTE: "They investigated eli

Yes, there still are some well meaning folks in Silicon Valley. Take, for example, Jimmy Chen, founder and CEO of Propel, an app designed to simplify food assistance for 41 million of the poorest Americans. Growing up food insecure himself, the Stanford educated Chen left lucrative jobs at Facebook and LinkedIn to build technology that actually serves those who need it most, proving that some Valley entrepreneurs are driven by social rather than financial ambition. Propel replaces the outdated 1-800 number system that food stamp recipients previously had to use to check their benefits, while connecting users to additional online resources and discounts. Chen's story challenges the conventional narrative that all tech founders are solely profit-motivated, and demonstrates how growing up in poverty can fuel mission-driven entrepreneurship. Five Key Takeaways1. Silicon Valley's Echo Chamber Problem Tech companies typically build for people like themselves - affluent, educated use

Can we ever really know Primo Levi? We know his books, of course, especially If This Is A Man, the astonishing account of his survival from Auschwitz. But what, then, of his apparent suicide in 1987? How can a man who miraculously survived Auschwitz take his own life forty years later? That’s one of the questions that Joseph Olshan asks in Milo’s Reckoning, a new novel about Levi, suicide and our own unknowability. Olshan, himself deeply affected by Primo Levi's death when he first heard the news during a newspaper interview in Italy, explores the profound mystery of human nature and the limits of what we can truly understand about others, even those, like Levi, whose experiences have been supposedly laid bare in their autobiographical work. 5 takeaways1. Suicide is often impulsive, not premeditated Most suicides happen in the spur of the moment when people "snap" under pressure, rather than being carefully planned decisions. The majority don't even leave notes, contrary to popula