Danny is also a columnist for Bloomberg View and he’s the author of more than ten books. Here are three that I highly recommend: his history of the State of Israel, entitled Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn, his biography of Menachem Begin: The Battle for Israel’s Soul, and more recently We Stand Divided: The Rift Between American Jews and Israel.
News just out of the CDC has created fresh opportunities for normal, communal time together, indoors — just like we did pre-Corona. One of the rituals I have missed over the past year has been attending synagogue. But long before the Covid-19 pandemic, participation in organized religion – across all walks of religious life – was on the decline. Americans had become less engaged in religious institutions, whether it was regular attendance or membership and donations to their local congregation.
Did the pandemic arrest these trends? Did virtual platforms provide new opportunities for religious and communal engagement?
Today we’re doing something… different. After 15 months of avoiding business travel, I boarded a plane to attend meetings in Israel. When I landed, it felt more like I boarded a DeLorean and time-traveled ahead to the era of Post Corona – a land far, far away. With 85% of Israelis, 16 and older, inoculated, and with hospitals emptying out, it was clear that as far as Israelis are concerned – the pandemic is now just another chapter in history. Life in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem felt like a movie trailer for the rest of the world – coming soon to a theater near you. I wanted to capture this intangible energy and bring it to your ears. So I called up Tuli, a Tel Aviv sound engineer and friend of ours who usually works on Israel’s leading films and television shows. He joined me for an afternoon of conversations at the heart of Tel Aviv’s bustling streets. I started with Amit Aronson, a well-known restaurant critic in Israel, a television journalist, blogger and writer. Then I met with Yonatan Sagiv, a PhD in Literature and novelist who has written three popular Hebrew language detective novels. A few blocks away I met with Yaara Keydar, a fashion historian and curator, who is now working on her doctorate at Hebrew University. I wrapped up the day with my old pal Danna Starn, who is Managing Director of YES Studios and — according to The Hollywood Reporter — has a knack for turning “hyper-local shows like ‘Fauda’, ‘On the Spectrum’ and ‘Shtisel’ into international hits”. These conversations paint a picture of life in Post-Pandemic Israel… A picture that could be our reality in a few months.
That phrase – going to the movies – that shared experience in a movie theater full of strangers already makes me nostalgic, like listening to vinyl records.
Before the pandemic, the movie theater business was an 11-billion dollar industry in the US alone. In 2020, there were approximately 40,000 screens in 5,798 theaters that employed over 115,000 people.
The price of college has been skyrocketing over the past few decades, escalating far higher and faster than the rate of inflation. According to one study, the cost of tuition at many schools is up by well over 1000% in less than a half century. For what? What about the product offering has actually changed? That’s a question that came into sharp focus as millions of students last March flocked to Zoom University…overnight.
As recently as three years ago, one of my favorite business school professors, the late Clay Christensen, predicted half of all colleges in the US would close some time this decade…that their business models would be unsustainable and would be disrupted. And, then, of course, there was the pandemic.
Before joining The Times, Maggie Haberman was a reporter at Politico, The New York Post and The New York Daily News. She’s a lifelong New Yorker. According to a profile piece about Maggie, she’s written or co-written more than a story a day, and stories with her byline have accounted for hundreds of millions of page views last year alone. That’s more than anyone else at The Times.
Jim is the former editor of Popular Mechanics, where he helped reposition that century-old brand to become a major voice on contemporary tech issues. He currently co-hosts the How Do We Fix It? podcast and is working on a book about man-made disasters. Previously, Jim was executive editor at National Geographic Adventure. He’s the monthly tech columnist for Commentary Magazine and is with the Manhattan Institute, the most important urban policy think tank in the U.S.
John recently published his third book, the New York Times Best-Seller The Hardest Job in the World: The American Presidency. John’s a long-time and award-winning television and print journalist. He was previously co-anchor of CBS This Morning. Before that, he was the anchor of “Face The Nation”. John is also a contributing writer to The Atlantic and co-host of Slate’s “Political Gabfest” podcast and host of the Whistlestop podcast. John has also moderated presidential debates. And was a long-time correspondent for Time Magazine, where he covered the White House.
Bret is a Pulitzer Prize winner and an op ed columnist for the Times, where his column appears Thursdays and Saturdays.
Bret is the author of “America in Retreat: The New Isolationism and the Coming Global Disorder”. He was raised in Mexico City, he has studied at the University of Chicago and the London School of Economics. In recent years he and his family were splitting their time living between New York City and Hamburg.
How will we know when we actually arrive at the Post-Corona phase? This is the second part of a two part conversation on this question, the first of which was when we looked at Israel (Vaccination Nation).
Today, we’ll talk about the US — when we will arrive at post-corona and what is standing in our way? To help us understand what is happening in the US, we welcome Scott Gottlieb, who served as the 23rd commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Gottlieb is currently on the boards of Pfizer and Illumina and a special partner with the venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates.
We’ve had a public health shock, followed by an economic shock, followed by a civic and societal shock. An emerging crisis in public security looms over the Coronavirus era… here in New York City, and in cities across the country.
Is the connection between the breakdown in public health and the breakdown in public safety causation or correlation? Was this crime wave inevitable and Covid simply accelerated it? What do we need to do to bring basic safety back to our Cities?
As we post this podcast, the US has vaccinated about 2 percent of its population, Canada is at 0.5 percent, France is at 0.001 percent, and Israel? 20 percent. By the end of this week, Israel will have vaccinated two-thirds of its population over 60 years old and most of the country’s medical staff, at which point they will all be called back for their second vaccination.
According to international studies, Israel’s healthcare system has been ranked among the most efficient in the world. And due to big data and AI, the Israeli health system is certainly one of the most digitally advanced.
After a macro conversation on the societal effects of shifts in the workforce, Dan sits down with Adam Grant to understand the implications of remote work on individuals. As a professor of organizational psychology at Wharton, Adam dives into the potential long-lasting effects of a new work from home culture.
What are some of the benefits of remote work that we’d want to continue after the pandemic is over? How will the fusion of personal and professional life affect our habits, identity, and culture?
When the global economy came to a halt this spring, tens of millions of American workers found themselves working from home – and millions more found themselves unemployed. Derek explains the potential long term implications of an economy with a large “telepresence.”
How might this shift out of offices and even out of cities affect America’s cultural and economic future? Dan and Derek sit down to discuss what a Post Corona world might look like.
Is New York over? It’s a question that’s hotly debated these days. We will return to this question from time to time over a number of episodes in the months ahead. Last week we hosted two experts from the Manhattan Institute to look at the future of subways. On this episode, we take a look at Broadway. The industry of live theater and arguably the beating heart of midtown Manhattan, Broadway has become big business — and a big employer; it’s central to New York City’s economy.
But on March 12, the lights on Broadway went dark. The ecosystem of employees and employers that populate this live theater ecosystem scattered.
To call 2021 a historic year is an understatement. But what’s less obvious is how to put the pandemic of 2020 in a historical context. What lessons can be learned about our response to past public health crises? Can these lessons be applied to the one we’re living through now, and what may lie ahead, post-Corona?
As we transition from this most unusual year, Dan checks in with Niall Ferguson. Niall is a historian and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and he’s the managing director of Greenmantle, a macroeconomic and geopolitical advisory firm. Niall is also the author of 15 books including The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook.
Dan sits down with Billy Beane, who became famous outside the world of sports when Brad Pitt portrayed him in the film adaptation of Michael Lewis’s bestselling book, Moneyball.
Since March, Billy has been thinking a lot about how the Coronavirus will change sports. Why does this matter? Well, global sports is estimated to be a half-a-trillion dollar industry and growing. That’s until Covid 19 made its debut, earlier this year.
