Many entrepreneurs have lived this moment: a new hire crushes their first few weeks, a vendor’s first shipment comes back flawless, or a piece of software sails through every test you throw at it. You relax. You hand over more responsibility. You stop watching as closely. Cognitive scientist Gary Marcus, professor emeritus at NYU and an entrepreneur in his own right, has spent decades studying why that instinct gets smart people in trouble. In his conversation at the World Science Festival, which you can watch below, he shares a story that captures the problem. In the early days of self-driving …

The federal minimum wage hasn’t budged since 2009. Meanwhile, rent has gone up, groceries have gone up, everything has gone up. A full-time worker at $7.25 an hour can’t make ends meet anywhere, the argument goes, and certainly not in any major city. It’s a damning comparison, and it gets made constantly. Before accepting it at face value, though, it’s worth asking: who exactly is earning the federal minimum wage? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the answer is almost nobody. In 2024, workers earning at or below the federal minimum represented exactly 1 percent of hourly workers, down …

Every year or so, a report comes out detailing exactly how much money Americans gave to charitable causes the previous year. And every year, without fail, it kicks off the same conversation. According to Giving USA, Americans donated $592.5 billion in 2024. Nearly $600 billion-with-a-B. In a single calendar year. Only in the United States. That figure represents a 3.3% increase in real, inflation-adjusted dollars from the previous year—an increase driven pretty much entirely by individual donors and corporations. And yet, every single time reports like these come out, there’s inevitably some accompanying commentary boldly declaring that it isn’t enough. …

You’ve probably seen the headlines. Data center construction projects face protests and legal challenges from residents worried about noise, water usage, and property values. Social media platforms defend themselves in court against claims they’ve failed to protect teenagers from harmful content. Every major corporate expansion seems to trigger questions about environmental impact, community displacement, and social responsibility. And amid all this clamor, it’s a question that bears thinking about: What is the social responsibility of a business?  And of course, there’s a bare legal minimum that needs to be met. Was the property acquired through legal means? Is the marketing …

There’s a certain type of argument that surfaces whenever someone does well for themselves. You know the one. The successful business owner, the surgeon, the software engineer who took a risk on a startup that paid off. They’re making good money, maybe even great money, and someone inevitably steps forward to say: “Sure, but do they really need all that? Isn’t it a little greedy to keep so much when others have so little?” The framing is tidy. Almost intuitive. After all, if someone has more than they need and refuses to share, that sounds an awful lot like the …