A Winston Churchill for our TikTok age? Simon Shuster on Volodymyr Zelensky, the workaholic improv politician who needs to be loved by his Ukrainian people

EPISODE 1939: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Simon Shuster, author of THE SHOWMAN, about Volodymyr Zelensky, a workaholic improv politician who needs to be loved by his Ukrainian peopleSimon Shuster has reported from Russia and Ukraine for 17 years, most of that time as a staff writer for Time Magazine. His coverage of the war began in 2014, when he was the first foreign journalist to arrive in Crimea as Russian troops took over the peninsula. In 2019, he met and interviewed Volodymyr Zelensky for a profile of his presidential campaign, then continued covering his administration in the years that followed, first traveling to the war zone with the President in April 2021, as the Russians gathered their armies at the border. When the full-scale invasion began the following year, Simon spent months embedded with the President’s team, securing unparalleled access to their compound in Kyiv, where he wrote The Showman, his first book.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe