Wavemaker Conversations: A Podcast for the Insanely Curious
by Michael Schulder
In-depth conversations with the most creative thinkers, respected leaders, and preeminent authors in a wide variety of fields including sports, the arts, parenting, psychology, medicine & more -- conversations that take us to places where curiosity meets hope. For regular updates, please subscribe to the Wavemaker Conversations Newsletter: https://michaelschulder.substack.com/subscribe
Episodes
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Formula One 101 feat. Alara Altun
The Formula 1 U.S. Grand Prix takes place this Sunday in Austin TX. The motor sport has a growing global fan base among young people. My guest, Alara Altun, is one of them. But she’s much more than a fan. Alara Altun is a senior strategist with VaynerMedia, and is a key player in that company’s...
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Jesus on Death Row
In light of Tennessee’s failed execution of Christa Pike, who tortured and murdered a classmate when she was 18 years old, there will be a court battle over whether the state should be permitted to try again. Which makes this Wavemaker Conversation. It was conducted in 2015, during the penalty...
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AI & Cybersecurity: From the Situation Room to the Living Room feat. Laura Galante & Tal Feldman
As AI reshapes power, two leading cybersecurity minds join me to map the terrain of national security, business and daily life. Laura Galante is the former Director of the U.S. government’s Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center. Tal Feldman is an AI and National Security scholar with a…
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John Urschel’s Unreasonable Goals: From the NFL to MIT
Former NFL offensive lineman John Urschel fell in love with math before he fell in love with football. He pursued both fields with equal intensity. How he has succeeded in both (his mother played an important role) is an inspiring story - and as good a reason as any to bring back this 2015...
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Sebastian Junger: Escape from the tyranny of self-interest
Sebastian Junger and I discuss his search for purpose as a young man; his 1997 best-seller, The Perfect Storm, that put him on the map; his high risk years as a war reporter; the aneurism that nearly killed him; becoming a father late in life; and what he calls the “escape from the tyranny of...
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Spencer Glendon: Our Probable Futures - part 2
Find part 1 of this conversation HERE Spencer Glendon's work on climate change is driven by this question: How can we, together, "increase our chances that the future is good?" Glendon is answering that question through his nonprofit organization Probable Futures, which has created a suite of...
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Spencer Glendon: Our Probable Futures - part 1
Spencer Glendon, one of the most brilliant guys I've ever heard speak, is the creator of Probable Futures, an ambitious project focused on what he calls climate literacy. I've brought back this conversation of ours from 2022 in light of the extreme wildfires and heat waves in Europe and the...
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America @ 250 feat. David Blight, Peter Baker, & Susan Glasser live in conversation at the Dreamland Theatre
Joining Michael for this conversation about America’s past, present, and future, on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, are: David Blight - Yale History Professor. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his biography of Frederick Douglass Peter Baker - Chief White House...
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Evan Osnos: The Haves & Have Yachts - live in conversation at the Dreamland Theatre
Michael’s conversation with The New Yorker’s Evan Osnos Live at Nantucket’s Dreamland Theatre from July 2025. The New Yorker’s Evan Osnos has spent years diving deep into the world of the ultra-rich. His jaw-dropping reporting, in The Haves and Have Yachts, sheds light on why so much wealth in...
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Talk to Strangers (and other paths to wellness)
Michael delves into how the body, mind and spirit impact wellness with three featured guests at this summer’s Nantucket Wellness Festival. We can’t beat the guest introductions delivered by the Festival’s co-founder, Joann Burnham: Dr. Shieva Ghofrany, MD: “We knew we had to have a gorgeous…
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Timothy Snyder: On Tyranny & Freedom
Timothy Snyder is one of the world’s leading historians of fascism. His bestseller, On Tyranny, is a palm-sized North Star for democracy — featuring twenty lessons from the 20th century for how each of us can resist authoritarianism and protect our republic — all of which feel doable. He and I…
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Liaquat Ahamed: Boom, Bubble, Bust
When it comes to the global economy — and its impact on politics and society — Liaquat Ahamed has an eagle eye for pattern recognition. Ahamed won a Pulitzer Prize for Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke The World — his history of the Great Depression, and its aftermath. This past weekend, at...
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What Moved Clive Davis
In this conversation with legendary music executive Clive Davis, Michael tries to figure out how one man, with no musical background, managed to identify, shape and guide so many stars in so many different genres over half a century. Davis died this week at the age of 94. What did he experience...
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Liaquat Ahamed: 1873 & 2026 - a short preview
Liaquat Ahamed, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his history of the Great Depression is out with a prequel called 1873, the story of the breathtaking, first, truly global economic boom, and the bust that followed. I'll be in conversation with Ahamed at The Nantucket Book Festival on June 14th. I...
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Robert Malley live in conversation at the Dreamland Theatre
Robert Malley is a veteran U.S. Middle East peace negotiator, and, as I’ve come to learn, an inspired and devoted teacher. He has participated in multiple U.S.-brokered Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. He was on the team that negotiated the Iran nuclear inspection deal in 2015, and more recently...
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Min Jin Lee: Time Is Our Teacher
I’m always on the lookout for an inspiring graduation speech. Last weekend, at Yale College, I heard one that I can’t stop thinking about. Min Jin Lee, the Korean-American author of Pachinko, a Yale graduate who, as a student, had far more B’s than A’s, channeled the ancient Greeks, and her own...
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Laura Galante: Cyber Attackers v Cyber Defenders
AI is shifting the ground beneath us in many fields. When the ground shifts in the world of cyber security, Laura Galante is a great person to have on your side. Galante served as the U.S. government’s Director of the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center from 2022 to 2025. She has...
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Random Encounters: feat. Nurse Betty
Sometimes my favorite conversations are the ones I never expected to have – encounters made possible by serendipity. I didn’t expect to meet my featured guest, Nurse Betty Long – at least not on this day. But when she appeared, and we started talking, I suspected that because of the difficult…
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Azar Nafisi: Reclaiming Iran's Identity
Azar Nafisi, author of the internationally acclaimed memoir Reading Lolita in Tehran, addresses the question: Where do Iranians who have stood up to their ruthless government get their courage? I reached out to Nafisi following Iran’s traditional 40-day mourning period for the thousands of people...
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The Olympian In You: maximizing performance under pressure - feat. Noa Kageyama
When American figure skating phenom and gold medal favorite Ilia Malinin imploded on the ice at this Winter Olympics, I wanted to discover what we could all learn — and possibly apply to our own lives — from that heartbreaking failure. So I called Noa Kageyama — a veteran performance psychologist...
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A Librarian's Valentine - feat. Becky Hickman
Actionable intelligence for spouses, parents, teachers, and students - on Valentine's Day and every day - with Nantucket's inspiring middle school librarian Becky Hickman.
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Julie Ioffe live in conversation at the Dreamland Theatre
35 years ago, Julia Ioffe and her family arrived in the U.S. as refugees from the former Soviet Union, having fled their homeland upon rumors of a planned pogrom against the Jews of Moscow. Julia was only seven. Today, Julia Ioffe — a happy American accident, as she has called her life — has…
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Dr. Irvin Yalom part 2: Still Rippling (from 2017)
At the end of Michael’s first Wavemaker Conversation with psychiatrist Irvin Yalom, in 2015, Michael extracted a promise: that Dr. Yalom would join him for another conversation after Yalom completed his memoir. Two years later, Dr. Yalom released his memoir, and kept his promise. Irvin Yalom is a...
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Dr. Irvin Yalom: 50,000 Hours Of Therapy (from 2015)
Oh, what some people would give to have just one therapy session with Dr. Irvin Yalom. Dr. Yalom is a legendary figure in modern psychotherapy and a best-selling author. Over half a century, he has spent roughly 50,000 hours working with patients, and many more researching, writing, and teaching…
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Lois Jenson: The Silence Breaker From North Country
Lois Jenson’s courage and tenacity have made her a historic figure in the battle against sexual harassment. She was the lead plaintiff in the first class-action sexual harassment lawsuit -- a case that inspired the 2005 movie North Country. I spoke with her in 2018, at the height of the #MeToo...
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Elie Wiesel: A Messenger To Mankind (from The Wavemaker Archives)
My conversation with Elie Wiesel -- Holocaust survivor, author, and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize -- was recorded in 2013 for the 20th anniversary of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial and Museum. Our wide-ranging conversation includes memories of his childhood village in Hungary, his experience in…
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Catching Up With Chris Matthews
The former Hardball anchor on the upcoming midterms; Trump vs. DeSantis; who to watch if Biden doesn't run; the power of humor in politics; and more … In his recent memoir, This Country, Chris Matthews shares an old rule of politics: the shape of the field decides the winner. I sat down with...
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Spencer Glendon: The Probable Futures of Climate Change
The latest climate change developments make it feel like we are on a runaway train that will flatten the dreams of our children. With this episode of Wavemaker Conversations, I hope to play a small part in slowing down that train. My guest, Spencer Glendon, is a former Partner at the...
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The Stanley Cup For The Hockey Novice
With the 2022 Stanley Cup playoffs in full swing, I’m bringing one of my favorite sports conversations out of the archives -- my conversation with legendary hockey maven Stanley Fischler. He has written more than 90 books on the sport. The backstory: In 2013 I stumbled upon the thrilling Stanley...
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A Smartphone-Free Campus: The Buxton Leap
In September 2022, The Buxton School, in Williamstown, Massachusetts, is becoming a smartphone-free campus. No smartphones at all. Not for students. Not for teachers. Not for administrators. In this Wavemaker Conversation with Buxton's Director Emeritus, Franny Shuker-Haines, we discuss the…
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Processing Ukraine with Kevin Powers: Novelist, Poet, Iraq War Veteran
In order to help us process the horror being inflicted on Ukraine, and the courage exhibited by its people and president, I have reached out to Kevin Powers. Powers, author of the highly acclaimed war novel, The Yellow Birds, is a veteran of the Iraq War, who has used his powers of prose and…
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Dr. Sanjay Gupta: Unplugged
A rare opportunity to hear Dr. Sanjay Gupta unplugged — removed from the rush of breaking news. In my recent conversation with the neurosurgeon and CNN chief medical correspondent, we discuss the latest science on keeping your brain sharp — well into old age; how he weighs risk and reward; the...
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Prof. Loretta J. Ross: Calling In the Calling Out Culture
Spreading the spirit, and hard-earned wisdom, of Prof. Loretta J. Ross on "Calling In the Calling Out Culture" - her inspiring alternative to canceling.
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The Power Of Regret: Daniel Pink (& Dr. Irvin Yalom)
Searching for New Year's inspiration, I spoke with Daniel Pink about his new book, The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward — paired with what legendary psychotherapist Dr. Irvin Yalom told me about how he uses regrets of the past to help people live a more regret-free future....
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Rachel Held Evans: The Girl With A Magic Book
This is my conversation with Rachel Held Evans – RHE – from 2012, after the publication of her A Year of Biblical Womanhood, a provocative and entertaining account of her experiment living the Bible’s instructions for women as literally as possible. Evans died on May 4th, 2019 at the age of 37....
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Introducing the Feminist on Cellblock Y
This is the story, and backstory, of a workshop on feminism, led by men, for men, in an all-male prison. The Feminist on Cellblock Y is an immersive and memorable CNN documentary shot inside a California state prison. In this episode, we speak with the two inspired journalists behind the doc –...
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Calling All Leaders Part 2: From Zero to Hero
What is your superpower? Is it writing, speaking, communicating with power? It could be if you listen to this conversation with Joseph Romm, author of How To Go Viral and Reach Millions: Top Persuasion Secrets from Social Media Superstars, Jesus, Shakespeare, Oprah, and Even Donald Trump. This...
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How to Watch Super Bowl 53 Better Than Your Friends (feat. Terez Paylor)
@YahooSports Senior NFL Writer and Hall of Fame Voter Terez Paylor joins me in Atlanta for a Super Bowl seminar and Football 101 combined – making it the perfect prep for those across the football spectrum: from super-novices to those who follow the NFL all year – all in under 25 minutes.…
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Yoka Verdoner & The Child Separations
Yoka Verdoner was separated from her parents when she was only 8 years old. Now 84, her life story is a window into the trauma that has been inflicted on so many migrant children separated from their parents at the southern border of the U.S. I spoke with Yoka over the summer, at the height of...
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Charlottesville (feat. Prof. Henry Abraham)
A Charlottesville, VA jury today convicted a white supremacist of first-degree murder for killing Heather Heyer. He intentionally drove his car into a crowd of counter-protestors at the “Unite the Right” rally for neo-Nazis and white nationalists. A week after that rally, in August 2017, I…
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Calling All Leaders (feat. Admiral William McRaven)
America is hungry for the voice of an honorable leader. So Wavemaker brings you the voice of Retired Admiral William McRaven, former Navy SEAL and Commander of all U.S. Special Operations Forces. He was the architect of the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden. This episode features McRaven’s viral...
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The Environmental Voter Project (feat. Nathaniel Stinnett)
Environmentalists don’t vote. At least not nearly as much as the general population. They have a turnout problem. By Nathaniel Stinnett’s estimate, 10.1 million registered voters who consider climate change or the environment as one of their top two priorities, sat out the 2016 presidential...
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Jane Alexander: Live @ The Nantucket Book Festival
Jane Alexander’s illustrious acting career was launched in 1968 by her breakthrough performance in the Pulitzer Prize winning play (and later movie) The Great White Hope. She then took the political stage as Chairperson of the National Endowment for the Arts, when the NEA was on the political...
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Punching Up (feat. Pete Dominick)
Standup comic Pete Dominick joins me to dissect Michelle Wolf’s routine at the recent White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Why now? Because this Sunday, May 27th, Wolf’s new series, The Break, debuts on Netflix. That’s just as good an excuse as any. Dominick, with Wolf as a launching point, helps...
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Michelle Wolf: Raw
Here is Michelle Wolf’s entire performance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Most people have only heard clips. Here is all of it – 19 minutes and roughly 50 jokes – unedited. This is the beginning of a broader mission on Wavemaker: exploring the deeper significance of comedy – from...
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Boots on The Hill (feat. Jeremy Teigen)
There’s a new surge of military veterans running for Congress. And they’re split about evenly between Democrats and Republicans. Do veterans have a competitive edge over those who have not served in the military? Are they better equipped for the job? Can they help bridge the hyper-partisan…
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Paper Ballots, Or Else… (feat. Barbara Simons)
Some people recognize potential threats to our democracy before others. My guest, Barbara Simons, is one of those people. 15 years ago, not long after the infamous “hanging chads” threw the Bush v Gore vote count into turmoil and computerized voting became the new rage, Simons, a computer...
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Arming Teachers: A Good Guy With A Purple Heart Weighs In
Introducing former Army Sergeant Matt Martin, author of “I’ve Been Shot In Combat. And As A Veteran, I’m Telling You: Allowing Teachers To Be Armed Is An Asinine Idea.” Since writing it two weeks ago for his new hometown’s website, CharlotteFive.com, Martin’s story has been viewed more than...
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"Show More Cleavage" – Stories from Sexual Harassment’s Front Lines
Introducing Saru Jayaraman. Millions of Americans caught a glimpse of her at this year’s Golden Globes, where she was Amy Poehler’s guest – recognized for her role in the battle against sexual harassment in the restaurant industry. Jayaraman, who was accepted to Harvard at the age of 16 and said…
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Lois Jenson: A Silence Breaker’s Echo – Stories from Sexual Harassment’s Front Lines
Lois Jenson is a historic figure in the battle against sexual harassment – the lead plaintiff in the field’s first class action lawsuit. As one of the first four women miners in a northern Minnesota mine, Jenson shares what one judge called the “record of human indecency” that she and the other...
About this show
In-depth conversations with the most creative thinkers, respected leaders, and preeminent authors in a wide variety of fields including sports, the arts, parenting, psychology, medicine & more -- conversations that take us to places where curiosity meets hope. For regular updates, please subscribe to the Wavemaker Conversations Newsletter: https://michaelschulder.substack.com/subscribe
Hosted by
Michael Schulder