The Joe Walker Podcast
Joe Walker hosts refreshingly in-depth conversations with founders, scientists, scholars, economists, and public intellectuals. (Formerly 'The Jolly Swagman Podcast'.)
Episodes
Laura Deming is a technologist and venture capitalist focused on anti-ageing and life extension. At 17, she founded The Longevity Fund (followed by age1), the first VC firm dedicated to longevity biotech, after being selected in the initial cohort of Thiel fellows (2011). Today she is also CEO and co-founder of Cradle, a startup pursuing human whole-body reversible cryopreservation.
I speak with Laura at Cradle’s San Francisc...
I share the 8 biggest things I learned from my Australian policy series. The conversations totaled more than 12 hours of discussion.
Grateful to my guests and to everyone who attended the live events. Was really fun to meet and hang out with you all!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This episode is the seventh instalment of my Australian policy series, recorded live in Sydney on April 29, 2025.
I speak with Ken Henry—former Treasury Secretary and chair of the landmark Henry Tax Review—about why Australia hasn’t achieved major economic reform since the GST, and what must change to restart it.
We discuss how AGI could reshape the public service, intergenerational unfairness in the t...
This episode is the sixth instalment of my Australian policy series, recorded live in Sydney on February 26, 2025.
I speak with Sam Roggeveen—Director of the Lowy Institute’s International Security Program, and a former senior analyst at the Office of National Assessments—about why the United States won’t fight China for dominance in Asia, and what that means for an Australia long r...
This episode is the fifth instalment of my Australian policy series, recorded live in Sydney on February 12, 2025.
I speak with Peter Tulip—Chief Economist at the Centre for Independent Studies, and a former senior researcher at both the Reserve Bank of Australia and the US Federal Reserve.
We go deep into what's driving Australia's housing crisis, the problems with heritage rules and he...
Australia stands alone among English-speaking democracies with its compulsory, preferential voting system. But why?
This episode is the fourth instalment of my Australian policy series. It was recorded in Melbourne on March 6, 2025.
I speak with Judith Brett—Emeritus Professor of Politics at La Trobe University and author of the canonical history of Australia's electoral system, From Sec...
This episode is the third of my live policy salons. It was recorded in Sydney on February 5, 2025.
We explore the concept of state capacity—the ability of governments to achieve their policy goals—and ask why Australia outperforms almost every other country in the world in this domain.
For the conversation, I'm joined by two of Australia's great public policy economists.
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This episode is the second of my live policy salons. It was recorded in Sydney on January 29, 2025.
What is the relationship between economic equality and egalitarianism in the cultural sense? Where does Australia's egalitarian tradition come from? Are we too egalitarian? Is economic inequality increasing? What's been driving it? And does it even matter?
We sit down with Andrew Leigh to discus...
This episode is the first of my live policy salons. It was recorded in Melbourne on January 23, 2025.
In this salon, we go deep into Australia's immigration policy with Abul Rizvi, former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Immigration. Abul managed Australia’s migration program from 1995 to 2007 and played a crucial role in the 2001 policy changes that massively increased the intake of skilled migrants—most notably b...
This episode is a little different: I’m the one being interviewed—and my interlocutor is Andy Matuschak, an independent applied researcher focused on "tools for thought" (ways to augment human intelligence). Andy founded and led Khan Academy’s Research and Development Lab, and prior to that, he was a senior engineer at Apple where he helped build iOS. I first discovered Andy’s work in 2021, and ...
Eugene Fama is a 2013 Nobel laureate in economic sciences, and is widely recognised as the "father of modern finance." He is currently the Robert R. McCormick Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago.
Full transcript available at: https://josephnoelwalker.com/eugene-fama-156/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Richard Butler AC is a retired Australian diplomat. He served as Australia's first Ambassador for Disarmament (1983-1988), Australian Ambassador to the United Nations (1992-1997), and Chair of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) to inspect Iraq for weapons of mass destruction (1997-1999). He also served as Chair of the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.
Earlier in his car...
Larry Summers is a former US Treasury Secretary (1999-2001), Chief Economist at the World Bank (1991-1993), and Director of the National Economic Council under President Obama (2009-2010). He also served as President of Harvard University (2001-2006).
Currently, he is the Charles W. Eliot University Professor at Harvard University, and he sits on the board of directors at OpenAI, one of the fastest-growing...
Nassim Taleb is trader, researcher and essayist. He is the author of the Incerto, a multi-volume philosophical and practical meditation on uncertainty.
Full transcript available at: https://josephnoelwalker.com/nassim-taleb-158/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Robert Boyd and Peter Richerson are anthropologists based in America. Their partnership was central to the development of Dual-Inheritance Theory, a framework that applies Darwinian evolution to culture and explains how genes and culture have intertwined to shape our species.
This is their first ever joint interview.
Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/boyd-and-richerson/
See omn...
Lucy Turnbull is an urbanist, businesswoman and philanthropist.
She was the first female Lord Mayor of Sydney, from 2003-4.
From 2015-20, she was the inaugural Chief Commissioner of the Greater Sydney Commission, tasked with delivering strategic planning for the whole of metropolitan Sydney.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Bryan Caplan is Professor of Economics at George Mason University. A bestselling author, his books include The Case Against Education, Open Borders, and Build, Baby, Build: The Science and Ethics of Housing Deregulation.
Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/bryan-caplan-155
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In this special episode, the tables are turned as I'm interviewed by a listener of the show, DJ Thornton from Sydney. We reflect on the progress of the show in 2023, what I learned from this year's guests, and what's in store for 2024.
Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
David Deutsch & Steven Pinker (First Ever Public Dialogue) — AGI, P(Doom), & The Enemies of Progress
At a time when the Enlightenment is under attack from without and within, I bring together two of the most thoughtful defenders of progress and reason, for their first ever public dialogue.
Steven Pinker is the Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. I think of him as providing the strongest empirical defence of the Enlightenment (as seen in his book Enlightenment Now).
David ...
Shruti Rajagopalan is an Indian-American economist. She leads the Indian political economy research program and Emergent Ventures India at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. She also hosts the Ideas of India podcast.
Full transcript available at: jnwpod.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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