Big Questions with Cal Fussman
As a bestselling author, speaker and one of the greatest interviewers of this generation, Cal Fussman has sat down with some of the world's most influential individuals: Muhammad Ali, Mikhail Gorbachev, Serena Williams, Jeff Bezos, Jack Welch, John Wooden, Al Pacino and hundreds of others, digging deep into their hearts and delivering their wisdom to the rest of the world. Now, in Big Questions, Cal continues his journey. Uncovering the heart, head, and soul of his guests in thoughtful, deep and entertaining conversations.
All episodes(50)
- StandardSummaries onlyWelcome To Authentic AI
Published Jul 7, 2026
For the first time, you can ask Cal what you want to know about asking better questions. About your next podcast. A business move. A personal situation. Cal will get back to you personally with the help of AI. AI Cal isn't trained on the internet. It's trained on Cal. On five decades of conversations with U.S. presidents, world leaders like Nelson Mandela and Mikhail Gorbachev, Muhammad Ali, Serena Williams, Robert De Niro, Kobe Bryant, and thousands of others who've shaped how he thinks about q
- StandardSummaries onlyYou Are Stronger Than Steel
Published Jun 30, 2026
The change in front of all of us right now may be the most radical humans have ever faced. Who do you want guiding you through it? Courtney Harrison would be an intriguing choice. She's a rare breed of HR leader — one who doesn't just advise organizations on change, but who puts people inside the experience of it and shows them they're capable of far more than they believed. She once strapped corporate leaders into Olympic bobsleds hurtling at 90 miles an hour while gravity made their bodies fee
- StandardSummaries onlyThe AI Teaching Template
Published Jun 23, 2026
Every teacher struggling with AI use in the classroom needs to hear this episode. Jamie Metzl has a Ph.D. from Oxford, a law degree from Harvard, and has run 60 marathons. He spent nine years writing his first book. When he sat down to co-write The AI Ten Commandments with GPT-5 he didn't surrender his thinking, creativity or his soul. Jamie doubled down by documenting the process. It's the first major published book to list a human and an AI as co-authors. Steve Wozniak, one of the founders of
- StandardSummaries onlyLearn Faster. Remember More. (Part 2)
Published Jun 16, 2026
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- StandardSummaries onlyYour Job Just Got Bigger. So Did You.
Published Jun 9, 2026
Charles Gaudet has coached thousands of CEOs over the years. Yahoo Finance has called him "The CEO Whisperer." In this episode, Cal asks him to turn what he's learned toward a big question: What can everybody do to protect their jobs in the age of AI? Charles has some answers. The employees who thrive will be the ones who use AI to make themselves more valuable by leveling up their productivity. Here's the best part. To do so, you don't need the right answers. You just need to come up with the r
- StandardSummaries onlyYOUR BRAIN. YOUR GUT. YOUR EDGE.
Published Jun 2, 2026
Graduation stages across America erupted in boos this spring when AI came up. That anxiety isn't just for new grads. It's felt by anyone wondering whether they still have a place in a world being reshaped by technology. This episode of Big Questions: The Future of Work tackles that fear head-on. Cal brings in Jay Samit — former Independent Vice Chairman of Deloitte Digital and bestselling author of Disrupt You, Future Proofing You, and most recently Second Act Advantage — for a conversation that
- StandardSummaries onlyBig Questions: The Future Of Work
Published May 25, 2026
Big QuestionsIn an age when AI has everyone asking what's next for humans, Cal goes looking for answers. He finds them in some unexpected places. A five-year-old girl who walked through a Transylvanian forest to save her sister's life. A New York publicist who followed a hunch to Charlotte and built something nobody had ever seen before. And a guy with a borrowed bicycle who turned a single crazy idea into a quarter-century movement that has raised $31 million for cancer victims. These aren't tech stories. T
- StandardSummaries onlyWhere Grief Meets Promise
Published May 18, 2026
Cal opens this deeply personal episode of Big Questions with a flood of remarkable medical breakthroughs. 3D-printed windpipes. A pancreatic cancer drug that doubles survival rates. Nanotechnology clearing toxic proteins from the body. And he explains why he's sharing them: to balance the grief of losing his friend Sally, a highly-ranked senior tennis player taken too soon by gallbladder cancer. Out of that grief, Cal finds promise. From a man who rode a bike for 24 straight hours 25 years ago w
- StandardSummaries onlyOld School Rules, New Age Tools.
Published May 12, 2026
A professor at an elite university noticed something alarming: every student's work was flawless . . . and nearly identical. All of it generated by AI. So she did the unthinkable (for the students, anyway). She banned devices and allowed only pen and paper. What happened next surprised everyone, including her students. But going Old School isn't the overall point of this episode. Cal uses this story to give a taste of the evolution of his podcast Big Questions: The Future of Work. In this episod
- StandardSummaries onlyThe Man Who Wanted to Live Forever . . . And The $3 AI That Might Let Him
Published May 5, 2026
Cal stumbles on a Chinese company offering to digitally resurrect the dead for three dollars. His first thought? Larry King would have loved this. In this episode, Cal sits down with Larry King Jr. to explore what it really means to preserve a life. The stories. The voice. The questions. From Larry Sr's relentless chase for immortality. To the Larry King Cardiac Foundation that literally saved hundreds of hearts. To the bobblehead-sized AI facsimile that might one day let your great-great- grand
- StandardSummaries onlyHe Could Be Golfing. Instead, He's Upgrading Your Brain.
Published Apr 28, 2026
What if AI didn't replace you — it made you a better you? Dr. David Bach, Harvard-trained neuroscientist and founder of Optios, is using artificial intelligence to help people think faster, learn better, retain more, and perform at their peak. He's stepping into what is his most consequential work yet while others his age are out on the golf course. From walking on fire to unlocking the science of "the zone" this conversation offers something rare in the age of AI: genuine hope. Cal says: If you
- StandardSummaries onlyThe Stranger Inside of You
Published Apr 21, 2026
Cal was 12 years old, bored out of his mind in junior high science class, waiting for the bell to ring. He had no idea his wandering brain was doing exactly what it was built to do – tell stories. We all carry the most extraordinary thing in the known universe around with us every day — and never really stop to look into it. This episode of Big Questions does just that. Cal sits with Claude — Anthropic's AI — for a chat about consciousness, memory, gut intelligence, and what the brain is actuall
- StandardSummaries onlyWhat? A Cowgarithm?????
Published Apr 14, 2026
What do Clint Eastwood, a Montana snowstorm, and a herd of cattle have to do with artificial intelligence? Cal starts with the romance of the old cattle drives and the sound of the old show Rawhide, remembers the pull of the open range and a freezing night that made him question whether he'd even make it to the ranch alive. Then he finds something on the internet that stops him cold. No cowboys. Just cows . . . being guided by AI. The technology inside a cow collar is being called a "Cowgorithm.
- StandardSummaries onlyThe Theater That Taught Me How To Survive AI
Published Apr 7, 2026
Cal Fussman walks into a theater expecting to see a documentary about artificial intelligence. He walks out with a new understanding of the future of work. Through a surprising connection to Super Mario, a landlord named Mario Segale, and the power of human serendipity, he uncovers a simple truth: The people who adapt will thrive. The ones who don't may disappear. If you've ever wondered whether AI is something to fear—or something to grow with—this story will change how you see what's coming ne
- StandardSummaries onlyFounder vs. Cancer: A Real-Life Hail Mary
Published Mar 31, 2026
After watching Project Hail Mary, Cal sees more than a sci-fi story about saving the stars—he sees a blueprint for how humans might survive the age of AI. That insight leads him to a real-life story even more extraordinary. When tech founder Sid Sijbrandij is diagnosed with a rare, aggressive cancer, the traditional medical system eventually runs out of answers. Most people would accept that outcome. Sid does the opposite. He treats his own disease like an open- source problem—gathering data, bu
- StandardSummaries onlyWho Buys the Future If AI Takes Your Job?
Published Mar 24, 2026
The headlines keep leading us to believe that AI is coming for your job. But Cal Fussman poses a question no one else is asking. If humans stop earning… who's left to buy what AI and the machines produce? As companies race toward automation, Nvidia's Jensen Huang insists new human jobs will be created. Cal believes him. The catch? Many of those jobs may not exist just yet. This episode points to the evolution of Big Questions into something bigger. Big Questions: The Future of Work. A place to s
- StandardSummaries onlyRyan Gosling At Work In The Age Of AI
Published Mar 17, 2026
Cal plans to go out to the theater to watch the actor save the universe in Project Hail Mary. Cal doesn't know exactly what's going to happen, but he sees the plot as the perfect metaphor for how humans must look at the work in the age of AI. Gosling plays a middle school science teacher who wakes up in a rocket and can't remember, only to use the skills he has to save the universe. We're all going to have to step and find the best in ourselves as we look at work going forward. The movie may be
- StandardSummaries onlyBeating The Airport Security Lines
Published Mar 10, 2026
An electric razor is mistaken for a bomb. Security lines explode in Houston, New Orleans and Charlotte. TSA workers are on the job without pay. So Cal flips the script. Show up hours early and turn airport stress into productive work time that can create a bestseller and more. It's not whistling while you work. But in March 2026 . . . it works.
- StandardSummaries onlyA Tale Of Two Futures
Published Mar 3, 2026
One future says the most human people win. The other says your job costs too much. Gary Vaynerchuk believes that as we become more "AI-ed out," the most human brands and people will dominate. Citrini Research predicts something far colder: Within two years, a Claude agent may do the work of a $180,000 product manager for $200 a month. And when that happens? The top 10% may control over half of all consumer spending. So which future is real? The one where humanity becomes more valuable? Or the on
- StandardSummaries onlyThe Asset AI Can't Create
Published Feb 24, 2026
One of the richest men in the world quietly became the largest private owner of farmland in America. Why? Is Bill Gates retreating from technology? Or is he making the most important AI bet of all? In this episode, Cal reads from an article that reframes everything. Gates' farmland strategy isn't nostalgia. It's a blueprint for the next economy. AI will build the digital world for free. But every digital system still depends on something finite. Land. If you want to understand where the 21st-cen
- StandardSummaries onlySomething Big Is Happening
Published Feb 17, 2026
As the world worked on last week, something exploded online. An article about AI by Matt Shumer was posted on X. It has already been downloaded more than 80 million times. The title? Something Big Is Happening. The implications couldn't be more personal. Your job. Your family. Your future. Instead of summarizing it or debating it, Cal does something simple and Old School on Big Questions. He reads it aloud. Not as commentary. But as a marker in time. If you haven't come across Something Big Is H
- StandardSummaries onlyMike Tyson's Most Unexpected Knockout
Published Feb 10, 2026
Fifteen of the 66 Super Bowl ads this year featured artificial intelligence. Then Mike Tyson appeared on screen. . .and ate an apple. No algorithms. No spectacle. Just a former heavyweight champion telling America to stop consuming what's destroying it. In a culture addicted to speed, processed food, and machine-enhanced everything, Tyson's message was about discipline. Bringing up a Big Question: What if the most disruptive force in 2026 isn't artificial intelligence? What if it's human restrai
- StandardSummaries onlyGetting To The Top Of The World
Published Feb 3, 2026
What does it really take to reach your peak? The answer lies in the Netflix documentary Skyscraper Live, as climbing legend Alex Honnold scales Taipei 101, the tallest building in Taiwan, one move at a time. Watching him ascend the 1,667-foot glass and steel tower as if he were Spider-Man reveals a deceptively simple formula for mastery: Total focus on making your next best move.
- StandardSummaries onlyWeathermen & The Storms
Published Jan 27, 2026
Larry King used to tell me: "Nobody loves a hurricane like the weatherman." I learned exactly what he meant during the last winter storm — when the forecast was certain… and reality had other plans. It's why I've stopped trusting forecasts the way I trust people.
- StandardSummaries onlyWalking With The Monks
Published Jan 20, 2026
A brief encounter with Buddhist monks on their walk for peace from Fort Worth to Washington, D.C., leads Cal to wonder what Martin Luther King Jr. might have thought if he'd seen the large crowd of Americans gathered in gratitude for their journey.
- StandardSummaries onlyAn 18 Year Old Just Showed Us The Future
Published Jan 13, 2026
A high school student named Matteo Paz uses old NASA data and new AI to find 1.5 million objects never noticed before in space (including planets in other solar systems). AI can now predict 130 diseases (including heart ailments, kidney failure and strokes) based on studying one night of sleep. And a school called Alpha uses only AI tutors, teaches core academics for only two hours a day and achieves top scores. Don't be late for the future.
- StandardSummaries onlyPlay It Forward | 2026
Published Jan 6, 2026
Play It ForwardIn the age of artificial intelligence, it isn't a machine that stops Cal in his tracks—it's a deeply human idea. What if playing a video game could help fight cancer? Thanks to Travis Jennings and a small group of friends, a chain reaction begins—turning gamers with little money of their own into philanthropists. A breakout company called Besitos matches their winnings with donations to the American Cancer Society and bridges the cause to the $60 billion video game industry.
- StandardSummaries onlyThe Year A Genius Couldn't Keep Up
Published Dec 30, 2025
Imagine a mind that can solve a Rubik's Cube in 17 seconds. A mind that contributed to the development of OpenAI. A mind that directed AI for Elon Musk at Tesla. A mind named one of Time Magazine's Top 100 in artificial intelligence. Now imagine that same mind encountering recent, almost "alien" advances in programming—so startling they prompted a public admission: "I have never felt so behind." If someone like that can't keep up, what does it mean for the rest of us? We're entering a world we m
- StandardSummaries onlyThe First Job – After AI
Published Dec 23, 2025
When Cal visits an old mentor, he's struck by two realizations. First: Some of the most profound moments in a young person's life can happen in entry-level jobs, when the right person takes you in, opens a door, and points you on the right path. Second: As artificial intelligence wipes out many of those first jobs, it will also erase those connections and moments. What disappears isn't just work. It's mentorship. It's the quiet bonds that shape confidence, character, and destiny. What will happe
- StandardSummaries onlyThe AI Argument: 2026
Published Dec 16, 2025
There are those believe artificial intelligence will cure cancer, reverse global warming, and unlock human potential. There are others who believe it will end everything we know. For the first time in history, both sides may be right. We are living inside the most consequential argument humanity has ever had — and the clock is ticking.
- StandardSummaries onlyCal Finds His Destiny
Published Dec 9, 2025
When Cal returns to Tampa's Ybor City to speak, he keeps a ritual that's become almost sacred: a meal at the legendary 120-year-old Columbia Restaurant, followed by a quiet moment of thanks to the man who first sent him there — Muhammad Ali's doctor, the renowned Ferdie Pacheco. Ferdie wasn't just the "Fight Doctor." He was an artist, a storyteller, and a man with a taste for a good practical joke. After his meal, Cal goes to pay tribute to Ferdie through his painting that hangs near The Columbi
- StandardSummaries onlyAI Job Advice: Look Back, Leap Forward
Published Dec 2, 2025
The future may not be hiding in Silicon Valley. It could be hidden in your childhood. When a bright young grad sits down at Cal's Thanksgiving table worried about AI layoffs and disappearing careers, Cal offers an unexpected roadmap: Don't try to predict the future . . . remember it. Some of the greatest innovators didn't choose their path — their childhood chose it for them. In this episode, Cal shows how a single moment from your early life can reveal where you're meant to go next in an AI-sha
- StandardSummaries onlyTill Tech Do Us Part
Published Nov 25, 2025
Here is a question Cal never thought he'd ask. Let's just say a human marries an AI and they get divorced. Does ChatGPT get the alimony? This is the way we need to begin thinking after news came out that a Japanese woman married an AI bot. Buckle your seatbelts. It's the groundswell of statistics on the romantic mingling between humans and AI that will raise your eyebrows to the middle of your forehead.
- StandardSummaries onlyBoredom Never Stood A Chance
Published Nov 18, 2025
When Cal looks back on his life, he sees a relentless drive that's guided him to his 69th birthday: Never be bored. His past reveals a simple truth. Boredom ends where curiosity begins.
- StandardSummaries onlyYour Best Thanksgiving
Published Nov 11, 2025
Cal looks over a bountiful breakfast menu and remembers the statistics he heard about kids going hungry in Tampa Bay — a city that, through his traveler's eyes, appears to be flourishing. When you hear the numbers, you'll understand how giving just a little can make this your best Thanksgiving ever.
- StandardSummaries onlyTurning Fandom Into Family
Published Nov 4, 2025
When Kobe Bryant watched the Eagles win Super Bowl 52 on television, he wasn't alone — he was holding his 1-year-old daughter, Bianka, in his arms. That moment, captured on home video, wasn't just about football. It was about the way a team becomes a language between generations. Rewatching that clip sends Cal into a reflection of his own: the passion for sporting events his father passed on to him, and the emotions he passed on to his son. This episode is about the deep inheritance that lives i
- StandardSummaries onlyYour Future Life: When Love Outlives Death
Published Oct 28, 2025
Your Future LifeAfter actress and author Suzanne Somers passed away, her husband couldn't let go — so he brought her back. Not in memory. But as an AI twin. He created a life-like humanoid to converse with in her voice and keep her spirit alive. When Cal hears the story, questions linger: Is this a way to deal with grief? Or is it evolution? And are there advantages to passing on the lessons and wisdom of a life for generations through something we can build to look and sound just like us?
- StandardSummaries onlyJohnny Depp, Hemingway, And The Question That Changes
Published Oct 21, 2025
Everything An unexpected e-mail sends Cal spiraling back to a conversation with the actor Johnny Depp — and to Ernest Hemingway's brush with death in back-to-back plane crashes. When Cal opens a book titled What Do You Want to Do Before You Die? he encounters a question that awakens our wildest dreams and forces us to look in the mirror.
- StandardSummaries onlyThe Future Of Policing Has Four Wheels – And No Cops
Published Oct 14, 2025
A police van that drives itself, launches drones, reads license plates, and streams live infrared video straight to headquarters. Miami-Dade just unveiled it. A cruiser with no cops inside. Cal explores the next wave of law enforcement: part innovation, part surveillance. It's the kind of technology that makes some people uneasy — but after learning that 1 in 93 Americans die in traffic accidents, Cal is all in if the cruiser can help get reckless drivers off the road.
- Intelligent ReportSam Altman Shoplifting & Other Strange Sights
Published Oct 7, 2025
In a week when companies propose growing human eggs from male skin and gestating babies inside robots, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is seen in a viral video shoplifting at Target — bringing laugher to some and raising a chilling question to others: what if we can no longer trust our eyes? We're entering a moment where biotech, AI, and deepfakes collide — and our sense of reality begins to blur. Cal asks: Have we stepped into a world where nothing is real? Or a world where everything is unreal?
- StandardSummaries onlyDon't Be 1 in 93
Published Sep 30, 2025
Roughly 1 in 93 Americans will die in a car accident. According to the National Safety Council, that's the math—even after seatbelts, airbags, sensors, and the smartest cars we've ever built. Cal found that out the hard way, after being rear-ended by a cement truck on a Connecticut highway. The crash led him to uncover not just some shocking statistics, but also a simple, overlooked way we can fight back against a killer on our roads: distraction.
- StandardSummaries onlyTurbulence, Tranquility & Central Park
Published Sep 23, 2025
Cal comes upon a book called The Fourth Turning Is Here which suggests that we're in a historical cycle of crisis when institutions collapse and a new world order emerges. Then he walks through the natural institution known as Central Park and sees a world view that couldn't be better. A short message to think about . . .
- StandardSummaries onlyApril 20, 1999, September 10, 2025, And The Future
Published Sep 16, 2025
Two dates. Separated by decades. Bound by a thread we'd all prefer didn't exist. Cal revisits the first—a day etched in memory that too many now treat as common behavior. He weighs the second—fresh in the headlines, heavy in the heart—and wonders if it's a shadow of what lies ahead. The connections aren't obvious. They aren't supposed to be. But once you hear them, you won't forget.
- StandardSummaries onlyGreat Advice From George Raveling
Published Sep 9, 2025
Raveling passed away early this month at 88 after living a life shaped by being in the right place at the right time — and knowing what to do when he got there. As a boy, after losing his father and seeing his mother institutionalized, he found stability at a Catholic boarding school. That path led him to become the first African-American basketball player at Villanova … to meet coaching legend Bobby Knight … to join the U.S. Olympic coaching staff in 1984, where he met a young Michael Jordan's
- StandardSummaries onlyBillie Eilish & My Friend Phillip
Published Sep 2, 2025
Billie Eilish was just 13 when she recorded the song Ocean Eyes in the bedroom of her home and her brother Finneas uploaded it to SoundCloud. Within weeks, hundreds of thousands had listened to it. That's how one haunting voice changed pop forever. Now, Cal's friend Phillip is a finalist for SoundCloud's Tomorrow's Breakthrough Artist Award. He's not the next Billie — he's the first Phillip. And his story will stop you cold and make you want to root for him.
- StandardSummaries onlyOld Is New In The Age of AI
Published Aug 26, 2025
Cal was ready to dump his storage bins of CDs, tape cassettes, and DVDs — until he discovered a twist: the world is racing back to the very things he was about to throw away. Parents are pulling out old DVD players so their kids can choose movies without being spoon-fed by algorithms. Taylor Swift just announced her next album will also drop on cassette. And suddenly "Old School Cal" looks like he's ahead of the curve. In this episode, Cal explores why physical media is making a comeback in the
- StandardSummaries onlyThe Last Book Written By A Human
Published Aug 19, 2025
Cal sits down with Jeff Burningham, author of The Last Book Written by a Human, to unpack the AI tidal wave about to hit classrooms, boardrooms, governments, and even religions. This isn't doomscrolling—it's a positive roadmap through the disruption ahead. If you want to become wise in the age of AI, start here.
- StandardSummaries onlyIf The NFL Can Overlook Shedeur Sanders, What Are Algorithms Doing To You?
Published Aug 12, 2025
The NFL passed on Shedeur Sanders — son of Deion "Prime Time" Sanders — through the first four rounds of its 2025 draft, despite the quarterback's two electric seasons in college with Heisman trophy winner Travis Hunter. It felt eerily like the way algorithms reject qualified people in the job market. Shedeur's notoriety and connections got him a shot . . . and his exhibition season debut with the Cleveland Browns proved doubters wrong. Here's what his story can teach you about surviving in a wo
- StandardSummaries onlyJim Carrey's $10 Million Lesson
Published Aug 5, 2025
Jim Carrey's $10 Million Lesson Cal has an epiphany as he's giving one of his storytelling workshops. He's able to tie the thought to the moment in 1985 when a down and out actor named Jim Carrey wrote a check to himself for $10 million to be cashed 10 years later when he became a film star. The $10 million did come to Carrey ten years later with the release of the hit Dumb and Dumber. Cal wonders how to visualize the most out of yourself even when you don't believe you're talented in a particul
- StandardSummaries onlyFirst A Scam, Then The Future Of Trust
Published Jul 29, 2025
On a sunny Sunday morning, Cal shares breakfast with friends—when a woman reveals how a shady third-party travel site jacked up her airline ticket price. It was no fluke: The company is flooded with complaints on Yelp. The story sparks a deeper question in Cal: what's happened to trust in our time? That question is answered by billionaire investor Mark Cuban: "In three years, AI will flood us with so much fake video, we won't know what's real anymore. That's why face-to-face meetings, events and