The Leaders: Recent Episodes
KARAN MEHTA
The Leaders is a self-help Podcast which will be including some of the greatest Sayings and Learnings of Actors, Actresses, Anthropologists, Artists, Authors, Broadcasters, Businessmen, Capitalists, Composers, Consultants, Critics, Designers, Educators, Engineers, Entrepreneurs, Essayists, Explorers, Founders, Generals, Geographers, Historians, Industrialists, Inventors, Investors, Managers, Models, Novelists, Ornithologists, Philanthropists, Philologists, Philosophers, Physicists, Poets, Politicians, Producers, Proprietors, Psychologists and many more... which are capable of inspiring us.
Diogenes, (born, Sinope, Paphlygonia—died c. 320 BCE, probably at Corinth, Greece), archetype of the Cynics, a Greek philosophical sect that stressed stoic self-sufficiency and the rejection of luxury. He is credited by some with originating the Cynic way of life, but he himself acknowledges an indebtedness to Antisthenes, by whose numerous writings he was probably influenced. It was by personal example rather than any coherent system of thought that Diogenes conveyed the Cynic philosophy. His followers positioned themselves as watchdogs of morality.
Sun Tzu (l. c. 500 BCE) was a Chinese military strategist and general best known as the author of the work The Art of War, a treatise on military strategy (also known as The Thirteen Chapters). He was associated (formally or as an inspiration) with The School of the Military, one of the philosophical systems of the Hundred Schools of Thought of the Spring and Autumn Period (c. 772-476 BCE), which advocated military preparedness in maintaining peace and social order.
Jared Diamond, Professor of Geography at the University of California, Los Angeles. He began his scientific career in physiology and expanded into evolutionary biology and biogeography. He has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical society. Among his many awards are the National Medal of Science, the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, Japan’s Cosmo Prize, a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and the Lewis Thomas Prize Honoring the Scientist as Poet, presented by Rockefeller University. He has published more than six hundred articles and his book, Guns, Germs, and Steel, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
In his brilliant but relatively brief career, Friedrich Nietzsche published numerous major works of philosophy, including Twilight of the Idols and Thus Spoke Zarathustra. In the last decade of his life, he suffered from insanity and died on August 25, 1900. His writings on individuality and morality in contemporary civilization influenced many major thinkers and writers of the 20th century.
Born in New York City on April 4, 1965, Robert Downey Jr. began acting as a young child. He made his first film appearances and was a cast member on Saturday Night Live in the 1980s, but his growing success was marred by years of struggles with drug abuse. Eventually turning his life around, he earned a resurgence of critical and popular acclaim, and is considered one of Hollywood's A-list actors.
Albert Einstein was a German mathematician and physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity. In 1921, he won the Nobel Prize for physics for his explanation of the photoelectric effect. In the following decade, he immigrated to the U.S. after being targeted by the German Nazi Party.
Elon Musk is a South African-born American entrepreneur and businessman who founded X.com in 1999 (which later became PayPal), SpaceX in 2002 and Tesla Motors in 2003. Musk became a multimillionaire in his late 20s when he sold his start-up company, Zip2, to a division of Compaq Computers.
At the age of 40, Harland Sanders was running a popular Kentucky service station that also served food—so popular, in fact, that the governor of Kentucky designated him a Kentucky colonel. Eventually, Sanders focused on franchising his fried chicken business around the country, collecting a payment for each chicken sold. The company went on to become the world's largest fast-food chicken chain, Kentucky Fried Chicken. Sanders died in Louisville, Kentucky, on December 16, 1980.
Oprah Winfrey is a talk show host, media executive, actress and billionaire philanthropist. She’s best known for being the host of her own, wildly popular program, The Oprah Winfrey Show, which aired for 25 seasons, from 1986 to 2011. In 2011, Winfrey launched her own TV network, the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN).
Warren Buffett demonstrated keen business abilities at a young age. He formed Buffett Partnership Ltd. in 1956, and by 1965 he had assumed control of Berkshire Hathaway. Overseeing the growth of a conglomerate with holdings in the media, insurance, energy and food and beverage industries, Buffett became one of the world's richest men and a celebrated philanthropist.
PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel became a venture capitalist and early investor in Facebook. He also cofounded CIA-backed big data startup Palantir, recently valued at around $20 billion. Thiel, the first big investor in Facebook, has sold most of his stake in the social network but still sits on the company's board. His Thiel Foundation gives a small number of young entrepreneurs $100,000 over two years to skip college and pursue their business dreams. Thiel moved to Los Angeles from San Francisco in early 2018 after calling Silicon Valley a "one-party state."
American industrialist John D. Rockefeller built his first oil refinery near Cleveland and in 1870 incorporated the Standard Oil Company. By 1882 he had a near-monopoly of the oil business in the United States, but his business practices led to the passing of antitrust laws. Later in life, Rockefeller devoted himself to philanthropy. He died in 1937.
John Paul Cusack is an American actor, producer, screenwriter, and political activist. He began acting in films during the 1980s and has since starred in more than 85 films, including Sixteen Candles (1984), Tapeheads (1988), Say Anything... (1989), Bullets over Broadway (1994), Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), Being John Malkovich (1999), High Fidelity (2000), Runaway Jury (2003), Igor (2008), Hot Tub Time Machine (2010), The Frozen Ground (2013) and Maps to the Stars (2014). He is the son of filmmaker Dick Cusack, and his older sisters are actresses Joan and Ann Cusack.
Entrepreneur and e-commerce pioneer Jeff Bezos is the founder and CEO of the e-commerce company Amazon, owner of The Washington Post and founder of the space exploration company Blue Origin. His successful business ventures have made him one of the richest people in the world. Born in 1964 in New Mexico, Bezos had an early love of computers and studied computer science and electrical engineering at Princeton University. After graduation, he worked on Wall Street, and in 1990 he became the youngest senior vice president at the investment firm D.E. Shaw. Four years later, Bezos quit his lucrative job to open Amazon.com, an online bookstore that became one of the Internet's biggest success stories. In 2013, Bezos purchased The Washington Post, and in 2017 Amazon acquired Whole Foods.
The son of a stationery business owner, Frank Abagnale entered the world of crime as a youngster with credit card and check schemes. He later impersonated various white-collar professionals, creating an overseas trail, and was arrested at 21 by the French police. Abagnale was eventually hired by the FBI as a consultant and then started his own agency, educating corporations, financial institutions and government organizations on how to detect and handle fraudulence. A portion of his life was the subject of the popular 2002 film Catch Me If You Can.
Nikola Tesla was an engineer and scientist known for designing the alternating-current (AC) electric system, which is the predominant electrical system used across the world today. He also created the "Tesla coil," which is still used in radio technology.
Richard Branson struggled in school and dropped out at age 16 — a decision that ultimately led to the creation of Virgin Records. His entrepreneurial projects started in the music industry and expanded into other sectors, including the space-tourism venture Virgin Galactic, making him a billionaire. Branson is also known for his adventurous spirit and sporting achievements, including crossing oceans in a hot air balloon.
Douglas Adams, in full Douglas Noël Adams, (born March 11, 1952, Cambridge, Eng.—died May 11, 2001, Santa Barbara, Calif., U.S.), British comic writer whose works satirize contemporary life through a luckless protagonist who deals ineptly with societal forces beyond his control. Adams is best known for the mock science-fiction series known collectively as The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Ronald Reagan initially chose a career in entertainment, appearing in more than 50 films. While in Hollywood, he worked as president of the Screen Actor's Guild and met his future wife, Nancy (Davis) Reagan. He later served two terms as governor of California. Originally a liberal Democrat, Reagan ran for the U.S. presidency as a Republican and won two terms, beginning in 1980, ultimately becoming a conservative icon over the ensuing decades. Having suffered from Alzheimer's disease in his later years, Reagan died on June 5, 2004.
Arianna Huffington studied economics at the University of Cambridge, eventually moving to the United States. She was a conservative commentator before switching to liberal politics and started the Web site The Huffington Post in 2005. The site, purchased by AOL in 2011, has gone on to become a popular and powerful online news platform. Huffington is also the author of more than a dozen books on topics ranging from feminism to corporate America to politics. In 2016, Huffington announced her departure from The Huffington Post to launch Thrive Global, a start-up company dedicated to health and wellness.
Sharon Stone worked as a model before launching into film, landing roles in features like Irreconcilable Differences and Total Recall. She created major buzz with her scintillating lead part in Basic Instinct, with later roles in Sliver, Gloria and If These Walls Could Talk 2. She was nominated for an Academy Award and won a Golden Globe for Casino.
PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel became a venture capitalist and early investor in Facebook. He also cofounded CIA-backed big data startup Palantir, recently valued at around $20 billion. Thiel, the first big investor in Facebook, has sold most of his stake in the social network but still sits on the company's board. His Thiel Foundation gives a small number of young entrepreneurs $100,000 over two years to skip college and pursue their business dreams. Thiel moved to Los Angeles from San Francisco in early 2018 after calling Silicon Valley a "one-party state."
Robert A. Heinlein, in full Robert Anson Heinlein, (born July 7, 1907, Butler, Missouri, U.S.—died May 8, 1988, Carmel, California), prolific American writer considered to be one of the most literary and sophisticated of science-fiction writers. He did much to develop the genre.
Al Gore served in both the House and Senate. He lost his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination to Michael Dukakis in 1988, before becoming President Bill Clinton's successful running mate in 1992 and again in 1996. Gore won the popular vote in his 2000 presidential campaign but eventually conceded defeat to Republican George W. Bush. Gore later devoted himself to environmental causes, winning a Nobel Prize for his efforts in 2007.
Larry Page is an internet entrepreneur and computer scientist who teamed up with grad school buddy Sergey Brin to launch the search engine Google in 1998. Who Is Larry Page? Born in Michigan in 1973, Larry Page's parents were both computer experts. Following in their footsteps, he studied computer engineering at Stanford University, where he met Sergey Brin. The duo developed a search engine that listed results according to the popularity of the pages and, with Page as CEO, Google became the world's most popular search engine after launching in 1998. Page and Brin later took charge of Google's new parent company, Alphabet, until stepping down from their everyday roles in late 2019.
Reed Hastings, in full Wilmot Reed Hastings, Jr., (born October 8, 1960, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.), American entrepreneur who was cofounder (1997) and CEO (1998– ) of Netflix, a media-streaming and video-rental company.
World-renowned for his work on marital stability and divorce prediction, John Gottman has conducted 40 years of breakthrough research with thousands of couples. His work on marriage and parenting has earned him numerous major awards, including:
Four National Institute of Mental Health Research Scientist Awards The American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy Distinguished Research Scientist Award The American Family Therapy Academy Award for Most Distinguished Contributor to Family Systems Research The American Psychological Association Division of Family Psychology, Presidential Citation for Outstanding Lifetime Research Contribution The National Council of Family Relations, 1994 Burgess Award for Outstanding Career in Theory and Research.
DAVID STEINDL-RAST was born Franz Kuno Steindl-Rast on July 12, 1926, in Vienna, Austria, and spent his early years there and in a small village in the Alps. He spent all of his teen years under the Nazi occupation, was drafted into the army, but never went to the front lines. He eventually escaped and was hidden by his mother until the occupation ended.
Sergey Brin is a computer scientist and entrepreneur. He met Larry Page at Stanford University, and the two created a search engine that would sort web pages based on popularity. Google became the most popular search engine in the world after launching in 1998, its overwhelming success turning the co-founders into billionaires. Brin and Page later became president and CEO of Google's parent company, Alphabet, before they stepped down from their roles in December 2019.
Elon Musk is a South African-born American entrepreneur and businessman who founded X.com in 1999 (which later became PayPal), SpaceX in 2002 and Tesla Motors in 2003. Musk became a multimillionaire in his late 20s when he sold his start-up company, Zip2, to a division of Compaq Computers.
Entrepreneur and e-commerce pioneer Jeff Bezos is the founder and CEO of the e-commerce company Amazon, owner of The Washington Post and founder of the space exploration company Blue Origin. His successful business ventures have made him one of the richest people in the world.
Aishwarya Rai is an Indian actress, model, and the winner of the Miss World pageant of 1994. While working in Bollywood films, she has also starred in various south Indian films. She has received several awards including two Filmfare awards and was also honored with Padma Shri in the year 2009. After marrying her co-star Abhishek Bachchan in 2007, Aishwarya took a break from acting owing to the birth of the couple's first child in 2011. She made her comeback to the silver screen in the year 2015 with the movie Jazbaa.
Emma Slade was once a high-rolling, high-stakes banker. The Cambridge graduate managed accounts worth upwards of $1 billion, and liked her Armani suits and heels. “I walked with a wobble,” she says. But her life was suddenly, irrevocably changed when she was robbed at gunpoint in her hotel room in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, in 1997. The culprit put the gun to her chest, his hand over her mouth, and pushed her to the carpet.
Born in Michigan in 1973, Larry Page's parents were both computer experts. Following in their footsteps, he studied computer engineering at Stanford University, where he met Sergey Brin. The duo developed a search engine that listed results according to the popularity of the pages and, with Page as CEO, Google became the world's most popular search engine after launching in 1998. Page and Brin later took charge of Google's new parent company, Alphabet, until stepping down from their everyday roles in late 2019.
Gwynne Shotwell has seen her share of success as the president and chief operating officer of SpaceX, the private aerospace company founded in 2002 by billionaire Elon Musk.
Jada Koren Pinkett Smith is an American actress, screenwriter, producer, talk show host, businesswoman, and an occasional singer-songwriter.
One of the most famous and prolific inventors of all time, Thomas Alva Edison exerted a tremendous influence on modern life, contributing inventions such as the incandescent light bulb, the phonograph, and the motion picture camera, as well as improving the telegraph and telephone.
Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, editor, and literary critic. He is best known for his poems and short stories, particularly his stories of mystery and murder. Poe is regarded for being one of the most famous authors to come from the Romantic period, he is also considered to be on of America’s first short story writer. Poe is also widely credited in inventing the detective/mystery fiction genre, as well as science fiction. He was on of America’s first authors to make a sole living off of his works, making his financial life very difficult.
Alexander the Great, also known as Alexander III or Alexander of Macedonia, (born 356 BCE, Pella, Macedonia [northwest of Thessaloníki, Greece]—died June 13, 323 BCE, Babylon [near Al-Ḥillah, Iraq]), king of Macedonia (336–323 BCE), who overthrew the Persian empire, carried Macedonian arms to India, and laid the foundations for the Hellenistic world of territorial kingdoms. Already in his lifetime the subject of fabulous stories, he later became the hero of a full-scale legend bearing only the sketchiest resemblance to his historical career.
Keith Haring was born on May 4, 1958 in Reading, Pennsylvania, and was raised in nearby Kutztown, Pennsylvania. He developed a love for drawing at a very early age, learning basic cartooning skills from his father and from the popular culture around him, such as Dr. Seuss and Walt Disney.
Pema Chödrön is one of the most beloved of American Buddhist teachers, Pema Chödrön has devoted her life to inspiring people to awaken and has changed many lives in the process. She is the author of many influential books, such as When Things Fall Apart, Living Beautifully, and The Places that Scare You. Her writing, which explores Buddhist concepts and offers paths to conquering subjects such as suffering, fear, and difficult times, has inspired people worldwide. Lion’s Roar has published many powerful teachings authored by Pema. Read below for some of our favorites and to learn about her life and work.
Steven Paul Jobs was an American inventor, designer and entrepreneur who was the co-founder, chief executive and chairman of Apple Computer. Apple's revolutionary products, which include the iPod, iPhone and iPad, are now seen as dictating the evolution of modern technology.
Henry Ford was an American automobile manufacturer who created the Model T in 1908 and went on to develop the assembly line mode of production, which revolutionized the automotive industry.
Dan Buettner is an explorer, National Geographic Fellow, award-winning journalist and producer, and a New York Times bestselling author. He discovered the five places in the world—dubbed Blue Zones—where people live the longest, healthiest lives. His articles about these places in The New York Times Magazine and National Geographic are two of the most popular for both publications.
Elon Musk is a South African-born American entrepreneur and businessman who founded X.com in 1999 (which later became PayPal), SpaceX in 2002 and Tesla Motors in 2003. Musk became a multimillionaire in his late 20s when he sold his start-up company, Zip2, to a division of Compaq Computers.
Glennon Doyle has written two best sellers, raised over $25 million for people in need through her nonprofit Together Rising, considers Oprah a teacher and friend, and has more than 700,000 Facebook followers. But sometimes even she is a disappointment.