David Kushner, a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, has written for The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Wired and The Atavist.

"The minute you see an incredible character, you know. The only thing I can compare it to is bowling, not that I'm much of a bowler. On the few times I've thrown a strike, you know it before it hits the pins."

Thanks to TinyLetter and ProFlowers for sponsoring this week's episode.

Sponsor: "The Second Machine Age"

Our sponsor this week is The Second Machine Age, the New York Times bestseller that Kevin Kelly calls "the best explanation of the technology revolution yet written."

From Google's autonomous cars to machines that can diagnose diseases more accurately than doctors, MIT's Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee—two thinkers at the forefront of their field—reveal the forces driving the reinvention of our lives and our economy. Drawing on years of research and up-to-the-minute trends, Brynjolfsson and McAfee identify the best strategies for survival and offer a new path to prosperity.

A fundamentally optimistic book, The Second Machine Age will alter how you think about issues of technological, societal, and economic progress.

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Sponsor: OZY

Our sponsor this week is OZY, a new kind of media site. OZY doesn't just catch you up on the news, it vaults you ahead. Every day, OZY offers up short, thoughtful profiles of "the new and the next" — new people, places, things, trends and ideas that you won't be reading about anywhere else for months.

On top of that, every morning OZY sends out the Presidential Daily Brief, a great newsletter giving you a smart, sharp snapshot of the top 10 stories you absolutely need to know today. Curated by OZY's team of editors all around the world — and sometimes by luminaries such as Bill Gates and Tony Blair — the Presidential Daily Brief is a super easy way to find out what happened, why it matters, and what's next. Subscribe today.