Ted C. Fishman is a global expert on populations, demographics and emerging markets. When we met up in Chicago, he slipped through the crowded hotel lobby to greet me, in a wonderful Indonesian batik shirt - like a covert character from a Graham Greene spy novel. Ted is a veteran journalist, essayist and former member and trader of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. His most recent book, Shock of Gray, The Aging of the World’s Population and How it Pits Young Against Old, Child Against Parent, Worker Against Boss, Company Against Rival, and Nation Against Nation looks at how the aging of the world is propelling globalization, redefining nearly every important relationship we have and changing life for everyone young and old. He also wrote the international bestseller, China, Inc.: How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World, which describes the effects of China's emergence as a world power on the lives and businesses of people across the globe. In this podcast, we had a wide-ranging chat about the future impact of shifting population demographics on global growth, the rapid urbanization of China and how technology has impacted daily life there, as well as Ted’s latest journeys and insights about the Indonesian market.

I met up with Christian Hernandez at his offices located at Second Home, the eclectic co-working space that has become ground zero for all things creative and entrepreneurial in London. Christian is the managing partner, and co-founder of White Star Capital, one of Europe’s leading venture capitalists. He previously held senior roles at Facebook, Google and Microsoft and started his career in technology at MicroStrategy, a start-up he joined prior to its 1999 IPO. We spoke about the explosive growth of the London startup scene, the cultural and commercial challenges of launching Facebook in Europe, the evolution of data as an asset, backing machine intelligence startups, and new potential applications of computer vision and big data from printing lost keys to disrupting the health market.

David Epstein is the New York Times bestselling author of The Sports Gene, an investigative journalist, and a long time contributor for Sports Illustrated where he co-authored the report that Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez had used steroids. He has also been a crime writer, has lived in the Sonoran desert, on a ship in the Pacific Ocean, and in the Arctic. Fortunately, it was in Soho, New York City that I was able to meet up with him where we talked about the intersection of sports and genetics, the physiology of elite athletes, why Kenyans are such great marathon runners, Belgian Blue cattle, the origins of cognitive ability, and how to find the world’s best fighter pilots or bob sled drivers.