3 Takeaways™

Our brains run the show and determine how we relate to the world. Discoveries from the front lines of neuroscience show our brains are creators (as opposed to spectators) of reality and also creator of our emotions. Don’t miss this enlightening talk with Lisa Feldman Barrett, one of the world’s most cited scientists for her groundbreaking research in psychology and neuroscience.

Why will tech and automation never lead to the demise of human work? What qualifies as “good” work? What role will robots and AI play in the fast-approaching future? David Autor, MIT professor and co-chair of the MIT Task Force on The Work of The Future, provides answers in this riveting and enlightening conversation. 

It’s counter-intuitive but true: letting go of being a good person is key to becoming a better one, and often times it starts with acknowledging our unconscious bias. Social scientist and best-selling author Dolly Chugh offers phenomenal insight that can benefit us both at home and in the workplace.

Harvard economics professor and former IMF Chief Economist Ken Rogoff is one of the world’s preeminent economic thinkers. Here he brilliantly dissects today’s U.S. economy and bluntly explains what must happen to tame inflation and sustain growth – and the major role China may play. He is the co-author of This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly.

Learn how scarcity of anything - money, food or social connections - affects our daily lives and leads us astray. Scarcity reduces both intelligence and control. Having too little preoccupies and taxes the mind, making life much harder. "Even smiling and being pleasant is hard when your mind is taxed. The employee snaps at rude customers ... The parent snaps at the child ... The server rings up the wrong item.” Find out about the latest cutting edge behavioral science and how we can all manage scarcity for better satisfaction and success with Princeton behavioral scientist Eldar Shafir. 

Lawrence Bacow, President of Harvard University, shares how he sees the future of education and the values he leads by at Harvard. Learn the role of universities in a democracy, the importance of teaching students to think critically and why he believes the value of a liberal education is higher than ever. 

Of the 10,000 business plans Bill Sahlman has read, only 3 companies met their plan. Find out what it takes to succeed.  Entrepreneurs have to be really good at running tests and execution trumps idea. Jeff Bezos is the most effective experimentalist in history. Bill Gates did not invent word processing, the spreadsheet, or presentation graphics; rather he took ideas and out executed everyone else.

The deck is still stacked against women in the workplace. Learn how some women dramatically defy the odds, and what both men and women can learn from them to succeed. Don’t miss this eye-opening conversation with CNBC Senior Correspondent Julia Boorstin.

Technology is advancing at exponential speed, and humanity is having serious trouble keeping up. Azeem Azhar, a tech seer who has founded and sold four companies, shares his unique insights into what he calls the “exponential gap” and its impact on business and society.

He’s been called “a successor to Einstein.” Here you’ll see why, as physicist Brian Greene offers profound insights into our place in the universe, how the world ends, the possibility of a parallel universe, and the cosmic pursuits of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. Don’t miss this brilliant and deeply stimulating conversation.