Elyce Cole and Daniel Burka interview people who are working on the world's hard and meaningful problems.
Elyce Welcome to the first episode of the Hard Problems Podcast.
Daniel Elyce and I started this podcast because we’re inspired by people who work on the hard, meaningful problems of the world. I’m always impressed when I meet people who are tackling challenges like global warming and the environment, financial security, poverty and inequality, global health, medical advancements that helps people live longer healthier lives, and good political governance (to name a few).
These problems just seem so… well… hard. It’s often hard to know where to even start. And when you get off the ground, any measure of success takes a long long time. So long that It’s hard to see progress along the way. And, they require coordination of many people to have large-scale impact.
Elyce Often, the stories told about people who work on hard problems are heroes’ stories. Stories about one incredible individual who overcame adversity to change the world. But we know that’s not the whole story. Real, long term advancements on hard problems only happens through the successful effort of teams. A handful of people might win the Nobel prize, but hundreds of people had to work together to realize the success.
Daniel Many podcasts interview famous people who write books and win prizes. We might talk to some of those people, but we want to focus on the people in the trenches who do the long term difficult work. And, we want to talk to them about what it takes to rally teams to succeed.
Elyce I’m Elyce Cole, an organizational psychologist with a Masters from Columbia, working on my graduate studies. I’m particularly interested in what makes a great team.
Daniel I’m Daniel Burka, a technologist and designer. I worked at Google’s venture capital arm for five yeats and For the last year I have been working on a global health project to improve the treatment of cardiovascular disease to save 100M lives over the next 30 years. At Google Ventures, I had the opportunity to talk to a lot of entrepreneurs who were working on audacious challenges. At Resolve to Save Lives, I’ve had the chance to talk to some incredible people working a massive challenges in global health.
Elyce We are so impressed with people who have put years of work into huge, seemingly insurmountable challenges. Whether that’s eradicating TB, negotiating peace in the Middle East, building a financial product to help people save for their futures, or curing degenerative diseases… there’s something special about these people.
Daniel Elyce and I want to interview some of these people and learn what makes them tick. Why do they stick with it? How do they know if they’re making a difference? What motivates them? How do they manage successful teams? What advice would they offer to people who are looking to work on more meaningful problems?
Elyce So, we started this podcast. This is a work in progress. We would love your suggestions on who to interview next. Who inspires you to work on hard problems?
Daniel So! What do you think Elyce, should we get into it?
Elyce Ha, sure. Our first guest is Dhruv Saxena… the director of design at a design agency called Uncommon in Bangalore, India.
Dhruv Saxena Hi guys. Uncommon is a design agency in Bangalore, India.
This podcast is a work-in-progress. What does a "hard problem" mean and who should we interview? What are the important questions to ask our guests? How can we bring attention to the problems and people who matter most? Give us your feedback and help us make this into a special project.
Please email us or (even better) post a tweet that mentions @_hardproblems to tell us who you think we should interview and why they would make a great guest. What about the hard problem they're working on inspires you?
Please contact us if you would like to get in touch:
[email protected]