0:00
I think people's minds are being opened to, well, maybe using genetic edits to make us less susceptible to viruses.
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0:07
Remind me again, what's wrong with that?
0:09
CRISPR is also being used more specifically for detection technologies.
0:14
Both Jennifer Doudna and his group and her competitors out in the Broad Institute at MIT and Harvard have produced these small at-home testing kits, which will roll out in the next few months, that can test for any genetic sequence.
0:34
Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world, thanks to each and every one of you that come back every week to listen, learn, and grow.
0:42
Now, it's not often that I get to sit down with someone whose work I've studied as deeply as our guest today, but some of the books that I recommend the most in my life that have been life-changing for all of you when you're saying to me, "Jay, what's your favorite books?"
0:59
Uh, a number of them come from today's author.
1:01
So, today's guest is none other than Walter Isaacson, who has been a journalist, an author, and professor of history at Tulane.
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He's the past CEO of the Aspen Institute, where he is now a distinguished fellow, and has been the chairman of CNN and the editor of Time magazine.
1:19
Walter is the author of best-selling biographies on Leonardo da Vinci, Einstein, and Steve Jobs, and has a new book out today, which is called The Code Breaker.
1:29
Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing and the Future of the Human Race.
1:34
Uh, Walter, I'm so excited to have you on the show.
1:36
Uh, like I said, your biographies on Steve Jobs and Einstein particularly uh, uh, go down as two of my favorite books of all time, and this one has been the most intriguing read.
1:46
I was not expecting you to do this, uh, but thank you so much for doing the show.
1:53
Jay, thank you for all you just said. Yeah, I'm every word.
1:55
Uh, I I put the Steve Jobs biography into my top three books of all time.
2:03
Well, that's because of Steve Jobs.
2:03
I just tried to report and he's the one who led the interesting life. No, absolutely.
2:09
But you you captured it splendidly and beautifully.
2:12
But I wanted to start somewhere a bit more wild card.
2:17
Walter, I wanted to ask you that I've noticed that you have a keen interest in basketball and you retweet these little basketball videos all the time.
2:24
When did when did you fall in love with the sport and who's your team?
2:28
Oh, no, I just actually like the New Orleans Pelicans.
2:29
So, I'm very much a New Orleans person and I'm in mourning about Drew Brees retiring from the Saints.
2:36
I love Zion and the Pelicans.
2:39
So, I can't really help you as being a brilliant I'm not going to do the final four for you and I'm not going to do any brackets.
2:50
Who's been your favorite player of all time?
2:52
You know, my favorite player in some ways was Bill Bradley for many reasons including a wonderful book about him that John McPhee wrote which is about a sense of place.
3:03
Well, yeah, no, I asked because we've we've had some incredible basketball players and athletes on the podcast before.
3:10
Kobe Bryant and Dennis Rodman were both both been on the show.
3:13
I mean obviously Michael Jordan when I was editor of Time and he was in that last it was going to be his last series of games and they were in the playoffs and it was a Sunday night game and Time magazine had to go to press on a Saturday night.
3:31
But I knew he was going to win.
3:34
I don't know if you remember that Sunday night.
3:35
I knew he was going to win and on Saturday night I did a cover we did a cover at Time and I you know, authorized it.
3:43
It's a beautiful picture of him and says we may never see his like again.
3:49
And then I had to stay up on Sunday night biting my fingernails, but of course he won the game in the last few seconds and uh I know I knew he would. That's incredible.
3:59
That's when you had to predict the news, right?
4:01
You had to predict the outcome uh when you were making decisions in papers.
4:04
You got it right, but there was plenty of interest interesting events of fake news then.
4:11
But I don't go on podcast and tell you all the times I made mistakes.
4:13
I'll just tell you the time I got it right with Michael Jordan. I love it. I love it, Walter.
4:18
Well, Walter, like I said before, you've written some incredible uh biographies and I can't wait to talk about The Code Breaker today as well.
4:25
But how did you get into actually writing about geniuses, icons, innovators?
4:31
Because it's it's a real task to get so intimately deep into someone's life and be able to share their life in such an authentic way.
4:42
How did you first find that fascination and then secondly develop the skill and the art of storytelling?
4:49
Well, I come out of Louisiana here and I had a mentor, a novelist named Walker Percy.
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Not that famous, but a great novelist.
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He said there are two types of people come out of Louisiana.
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Preachers and storytellers.
5:01
He said, "For heaven's sake, be a storyteller.
5:03
The world's got far too many preachers."
5:05
And I think that's the best way to tell story, even a story about gene editing and you know, uh RNA vaccines is not just doing an analytical story or opinion piece or whatever.
5:19
Is just instead say, "Let me tell you a story."
5:22
And you make it a journey of discovery.
5:24
And so what I like to write are journeys of discovery about creative people.
5:29
Now, you know, in my career I've known a lot of smart people, but at a certain point I realized smart people are dime a dozen.
5:35
They don't amount to much.
5:37
You have to be like Steve Jobs and think different.
5:39
And so what is it that makes people creative?
5:43
And so with any of my subjects, we go hand in hand on and journey and I'd almost call it an adventure in which we say, "Okay, you know, here we're going to go through this together. We're going to grow.
5:56
We're going to learn things and we're going to see how the creative process works.
5:59
So, if I have a aim, it's what is creativity and how do people achieve it?
6:07
And the best way to do it is not say, "Here's seven lessons to creativity" or the 12 secrets to creativity.
6:16
I don't Those books don't appeal to me.
6:19
What appeals to me is the way the Bible does it.
6:21
It's the way biographers have always done it.
6:23
Is let me tell you a story and you you explain creativity through the journey of a person, whether it be Ben Franklin, Steve Jobs, or Jennifer Doudna. Or Leonardo da Vinci. Yeah. That was a cool. Absolutely. No, I love that.
6:39
That's that's such a great answer and uh obviously some of these people you've actually spent time with and some of them, of course, you didn't spend time with.
6:48
What's the difference between that opportunity?
6:51
Like what's the difference in the process?
6:52
Because I can imagine that not spending time with someone and researching their life is far more difficult, but at the same time it's quite challenging to be so intimate with someone without judging and projecting your own view of them onto them.
7:03
So, how are you able to balance both of them?
7:07
Yeah, you do end up um when you spend a lot of time with somebody, you bond with them.
7:11
And in some ways, even though Steve Jobs had a lot of rough edges, I tried to put it in such a context cuz I so thought he was an amazing person that I said, "Okay, he drove people mad.
7:24
He drove them crazy, but he also drove them to do things that they never knew they would be able to do."
7:29
And when you're able to walk alongside somebody actually in real life like I did with Steve Jobs or with Jennifer Doudna, you know about a thousand times more than you can ever know about a Ben Franklin or Leonardo where you're, you know, looking through notebooks and looking through letters to figure out what happened.
7:50
I mean, Steve Jobs would spend hours going over his iPod playlist with me and why, you know, two different versions of, you know, Glenn Gould's variations or, you know, both sides now and the Joni Collins and Judy you know, I mean, Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell versions.
8:09
All these things and even like on the iPod, why the curves or the chamfers on the case were done the way it was for the fingers and each other.
8:19
So, I mean, I just knew a zillion things about everything he did.
8:22
The interesting thing about doing with Jennifer Doudna is we were doing it in real time.
8:28
It wasn't like me saying, "Explain to me, you know, what it was like to start Apple in the garage or what was Wozniak like when you first met him."
8:38
When I was doing Jennifer Doudna, things were happening in real time.
8:40
She had turned her attention, you know, to fighting the COVID epidemic and I would be with her in her lab or I'd be on her Slack channels or I'd be, you know, lurking at her Zoom meetings.
8:55
And so, the book actually, I hope, unfolds as if you're part of a drama that's unfolding for all of us in real time.
9:04
Yeah, that's such a special thing about this book actually because you're right that when we remember events or people in hindsight, it's it's always clouded with hindsight.
9:15
Like there's always a different skew or a different perception, whereas I definitely feel that's in this book.
9:20
You're absolutely right that with Jennifer Doudna and also an individual that we don't know so much about.
9:24
So, I remember seeing her TED Talk back in 2015.
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That's when I'd first come across her and then when I saw your book, I thought, "Oh, wow, this is this is incredible, but it's also someone that we all don't know much about outside of the fields that she's the number one expert and innovator in.
9:41
And that's why I felt like it was more of a discovery as well.
9:45
When did you start working with her and when did you get fascinated by her work?
9:49
Well, I got fascinated about 10 years ago with the life sciences cuz I had done the physics revolution with Einstein, the digital revolution with Steve Jobs, and I realized that the revolution that will affect, you know, the current time, the first half of the 21st century and our kids will not be the digital revolution, but the life sciences revolution.
10:08
So, as you said, around 2015 she was doing the TED Talk.
10:13
She also came to the Aspen Institute where I worked, and I realized she would be a very good central character cuz it was not just about the gene editing technology of CRISPR.
10:22
It was about the fact that even as a young girl she had been reading things like the double helix and wanted to become a scientist, but her school counselor says, "Well, no, girls don't become scientists."
10:32
And so, she pushes on that.
10:34
And everybody else in the 1990s, it seemed, in the field of biology was chasing DNA and the Human Genome Project.
10:43
And she and a few women like Jillian Banfield said, "Actually, RNA is the more interesting molecule."
10:49
And then when she discovers how you can use RNA as a guide to edit our own genes, she has this nightmare that Hitler summons her and wants to learn how to use it.
10:59
And so, she becomes one of the leaders in the moral and ethical and policy debate.
11:05
And the more I talked to her and the more I heard about her, I said, "Well, she's great as a central character."
11:11
Now, there are many other characters in the book.
11:15
There's Feng Zhang and there's George Church and there's Emmanuelle Charpentier.
11:18
But the Jennifer as a central character helps connect it back to the, you know, time when Watson and Crick wrote the double helix all all way through the current period where day by day we're trying to create these new antiviral technologies and detection technologies using CRISPR.
11:40
Yeah, I heard her talk about in that talk.
11:42
I remember she she was speaking about how scared she was about how gene editing could be misused and uh you know, used unethically, but we'll we'll get to that.
11:51
Let's start by you explaining to us what CRISPR is because I think for people to really understand the power of this book and the work that you're doing, they really do need to understand about how central this is going to be in the next revolution as you said.
12:09
Right, and it's a pretty simple system.
12:11
Bacteria have been using it for a billion years and they're not all that smart.
12:15
What they do is whenever they get attacked by a virus and that war between bacteria and viruses is a worse war than even our war against viruses.
12:23
So, whenever a virus attacks a bacteria or some of these bacteria, the bacteria take a small mugshot of some of the genetic code of the attacking virus and the bacteria puts it in its own genetic sequence in these clustered repeated sequences known as CRISPRs.
12:42
And so, if they ever have the virus attack them again, they got this mugshot and they can use a tiny snippet of RNA as a guide to go and use an enzyme to chop up the attacking virus.
13:00
So, in other words, it's a immune system that bacteria have developed and can adapt to each new wave of virus.
13:04
Well, that's really useful these days when it's happening to us.
13:10
But, what's also useful is that Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier, with their colleagues, figured out, oh, I can take that guide that's moving the enzyme to cut DNA and I can reprogram it.
13:25
And I can make it cut DNA wherever I tell it to.
13:32
And boom, that was an aha moment in the lab cuz they said it could be used as a gene editing tool on humans.
13:39
So when we talk about CRISPR now, we're talking about a pretty simple system that simply has a guide RNA and an enzyme that cuts DNA.
13:52
And it's a system that edit our DNA, a system to edit our genes.
13:59
And explain to us how that editing system was used during the pandemic or is being used right now because I think sometimes when you hear about these ideas, you kind of think, oh, that's a sci-fi movie.
14:08
Uh that's probably something that's going to happen in the future or a lot of people's minds will postpone that being practical, but it's being used right now.
14:16
It's being used in the last 12 months.
14:19
Well, it's been used recently to cure genetic diseases such as sickle cell anemia.
14:23
In my book, there's a wonderful person named Victoria Gray in Mississippi.
14:27
She's suffered sickle cell her whole life.
14:30
She had CRISPR used on her blood cells and she doesn't suffer from sickle cell now.
14:34
There's a young kid, David Sanchez, 17 years old, uh loves playing basketball except for when he doubles over with sickle cell.
14:41
And they say, okay, we could also edit your reproductive cells so your children will never have sickle cell.
14:49
In other words, we can make inheritable edit.
14:51
It'll be passed down throughout the species.
14:53
A Chinese doctor did that 2 years ago and made inheritable edits on embryos so that the resulting twin girls didn't have the receptor for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
15:06
Now, everybody, including Jennifer Doudna, was upset.
15:08
We don't want to be making inheritable edits yet.
15:12
We don't know if it's safe and we don't know if it's ethical.
15:15
But now that we're being hit with a virus pandemic, I think people's minds are being opened to well, maybe using genetic edits to make us less susceptible to viruses.
15:26
Remind me again, what's wrong with that?
15:30
So, we have to keep our minds open.
15:32
Now, in terms of the coronavirus, CRISPR's also being used more specifically for detection technologies.
15:40
Both Jennifer Doudna's group and her competitors out in the Broad Institute at MIT and Harvard have produced these small at-home testing kits, which will roll out in the next few months, that can test for any genetic sequence.
15:57
Uh, you know, in our saliva.
15:57
You just have to spit into a little cartridge.
16:01
And so, you you can say, do I have coronavirus?
16:02
Does my kid have strep throat?
16:05
Uh, is that cancer recurring?
16:05
Is uh, do I have a bacterial infection?
16:11
And, you know, my gut microbiome, you know, biome, should I be eating better yogurt?
16:16
It also can be used to directly kill viruses.
16:21
With vaccines, we're using our own immune system and kicking them into gear to fight a virus if we get infected.
16:29
That's okay, but our immune systems, as we are finding out, are rather tricky and it would be better just to have antivirals and to use CRISPR the way bacteria do, which is uh, let's just use it to directly chop up any viruses that we target in our system.
16:48
That's not quite ready yet, but it's working in the lab and will eventually be the better way we fight viruses.
16:56
What what are Jennifer's uh, pros and cons around CRISPR and gene editing?
17:01
Like, where does she feel it's adding value and where does she start to feel this is actually, as you said, you know, ethically challenged?
17:09
This this is posing a negative usage uh, challenges depending on whose hands this is in.
17:16
What are the pros and cons that she sees that you were able to observe?
17:18
And and what were you shocked and surprised by?
17:22
And what you what are you happy about as you uh saw this journey unfold? Right.
17:26
And that's a good way to put it cuz it was a journey that unfolded.
17:28
Uh what Jennifer feels now, just like what I feel now, and I hope what everybody feels now is a little different than we felt two or three or four years ago.
17:39
After she had the nightmare, she's gathering scientists and ethicists and religious leaders and saying, "How do we stop uh inherited gene editing?
17:45
How do we stop things uh unless they're really medically necessary?"
17:51
I think, and you'll read in the book, there's no final answer here. This is a journey.
17:59
So, instead of saying you can't just turn to the last chapter of my book and say, "Let me see the answer key here to tell me what we should do."
18:06
Uh I think all of us have to have a feel for this technology, have a feel for our own humanity, for our own children, our nephews and nieces, or you know, and say, "All right, how do I feel?"
18:17
And I think our thinking will evolve as even the pandemic has made it evolve.
18:22
As for Jennifer and for me, thinking has evolved somewhat.
18:27
I was totally against any uh germline, meaning inheritable, gene edit.
18:34
And I was very much against any genetic editing except for very clear, simple diseases.
18:40
But even before the pandemic, when Jennifer gave those talks you mentioned, like the TED Talk, or when I was talking about this in a chat room somewhere, I'd always have, and she'd always have, people come up afterwards or in the chat room, and they'd say something like, "You know, I have a 12-year-old granddaughter, and I think she's going to die in 3 years, I've been told.
19:04
She's got a degenerative nerve disease.
19:06
Can you get me in touch with Jennifer Doudna? Maybe she you fix it."
19:10
Or I've got a son, and the son has, you know, muscular dystrophy.
19:13
And it's a simple gene mutation. Can that be fixed?
19:18
So, I think sometimes, instead of saying, "Wouldn't it be immoral to use gene editing, you know, in certain cases?"
19:24
I also have to get my mind in the other direction and say, "Wouldn't it be immoral not to use it in some cases?"
19:35
So, uh I don't want to preach.
19:37
As I said, this story tells and preaches.
19:39
I'm just telling you a story.
19:41
But you're going to walk in this story with Jennifer Doudna and many other people and say, "All right. I get it. It's complicated.
19:49
Maybe we should do simple diseases like sickle cell and muscular dystrophy and cystic fibrosis and Tay-Sachs, Huntington's.
20:01
Maybe there are other things we can do, including making us less susceptible to viruses.
20:06
I think I would personally pause.
20:09
It'd be pretty easy to add height to your children or muscle mass.
20:11
I mean, myostatin, as you know, can be regulated genetically.
20:16
And so, you could have more muscular children if you decide.
20:21
I'd draw the line before doing that.
20:21
I think enhancements I think rich people buying better genes for their kids than poor people is a horror that we have to avoid, just like in Brave New World or Gattaca.
20:38
And I think editing out the diversity of our species.
20:40
I love the balcony behind me on Royal Street in the French Quarter here in New Orleans.
20:45
I just look down and see people tall and short and, you know, black and white and Creole and, you know, various hues and fat and skinny and gay and straight and trans and, you know, sighted and blind and, you know, and I think, okay, the diversity of our species is a really cool thing.
21:05
Let's not mess with that.
21:09
Yeah, that that's that's fascinating because yeah, as soon as you getting into the aesthetic enhancements, it's it's different for its use from uh serving.
21:19
But but yeah, it's such a subjective thing, Walter, you know, of what someone thinks is important and what is available to someone.
21:25
I One of the things that I love that you've helped me do personally and something that I like to encourage my listeners to do is to study people's lives.
21:37
Uh you know, I I really believe, as you were saying, that the religious texts, the spiritual texts, they regularly introduce us to stories of people that we can study.
21:45
I wonder, what have you learned from Jennifer Doudna beyond uh of course the ideas of CRISPR and gene editing?
21:54
What are some of the things you learned about the way she lives and the way she thinks that you may have started to imbibe yourself or something that you admire and that you're passing on.
22:01
What are some of those more softer aspects?
22:06
One of the things is that creativity is a collaborative effort and innovation is a team sport.
22:10
And I realized that like Steve Jobs, she's very good at creating teams.
22:16
Unlike Steve Jobs, she has a different method, uh which is she likes her teams to really like each other.
22:22
She always, if she's going to have somebody come into her lab or be a postdoc or be hired, they have to meet everybody else and there has to be a chemistry where they all click.
22:32
That's one form of leadership and team building and it works for her.
22:38
If you read Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals or about Franklin Roosevelt or Steve Jobs, they often like to have more creative tension within the team. Well, you know what? That works, too.
22:48
What I learned from Jennifer Doudna is you have to look inside yourself and say, "What is my best approach at being a collaborator, a creative team builder, and I'm going to do it my way, and and you know, be comfortable with it.
23:07
And I learned that I'm not a particularly great manager.
23:12
I like teaching, I like writing, but when they asked me to run a big company like CNN, you know, I I I I'm not good at being the boss every day, and managing a lot of high-maintenance people all the time.
23:27
So, I watched Jennifer Doudna, and I say, well, play to your strengths here.
23:31
Have creative small teams that get along well, and that's different from people who are going to be managing huge enterprises with a lot of creative tension, but each is a way to make a contribution to creativity.
23:45
I love that your answer is not singular.
23:48
It's not one-dimensional.
23:48
It's the idea that certain people like creative tension in teams, and that's how they succeeded, and other people like creative chemistry, and and that succeeded.
23:57
Because I often think it's so easy to be like, this is the only way that teams can thrive, and teams can be successful.
24:02
But you're seeing from two phenomenal individuals and their teams that actually both have worked before.
24:10
And I look at Ben Franklin.
24:10
You know, he wasn't the smartest of the founders, and he wasn't the you know, that was Jefferson and Madison, and he wasn't the most passionate.
24:18
That's Sam Adams or his cousin John.
24:23
But he was a team builder.
24:23
He's the one who can bring them all together.
24:27
And I you know, and as I said, I really don't like those books that have on that cover, you know, the seven secrets of building teams or something, or you know, creative team building and 12 easy lessons.
24:42
I think you have to learn that different people do it in different ways.
24:47
I did it differently at Time magazine and CNN than you know, other people did when they were running publications.
24:56
But I learned from Jennifer, make sure you understand what you're most comfortable with and lead with that strength.
25:03
That seems to be a recurring theme.
25:03
The idea of repeating strengths or emphasizing or going all in on your strengths seems to be a recurring theme.
25:13
What was What was it about Steve Jobs that you think rubbed off on you?
25:15
What What What part of that energy or or abilities or skills or or things you saw Did any of it if any of it rub off on you?
25:23
Well, there were many lessons from the book.
25:25
I I wish more of them had rubbed off on me.
25:27
I'd love to be more like Steve Jobs although perhaps kinder and gentler at times.
25:33
But one of the things that impressed me was his passion for perfection and for the product.
25:39
When he was a young kid, uh, his dad was building a fence around the backyard of the house and young Steve was helping with his hammer.
25:47
And his father said, "We have to make the back of the fence just as beautiful as the front."
25:52
And Steve said, "Well, it faces these woods and marshland. Nobody will ever see it. Nobody will know."
25:56
And his father said, "Well, you will know."
26:01
And so Steve Jobs, even when it came to the circuit board in the original Macintosh, wanted it to look beautiful even though he had made the Mac into an appliance that the ordinary user couldn't open.
26:11
I mean, you know, it didn't have it didn't have a screw you could open up the back and see the circuit board.
26:16
But Steve always felt that if you care enough about the beauty of the parts unseen, you're going to have a passion for making a great product.
26:25
I think far too often people are trying hard to make a profit or they're trying hard to get a product out the door.
26:37
They don't pause and say, "I could sacrifice a little of the profits and even sacrifice a little of the rush, but I can make it really beautiful." And even in a small way.
26:46
I mean, that's why I hold my books for a year, you know, longer than I need to cuz I just want to go over and over again each thing.
26:55
But in a small way, for example, the paper quality of the book.
26:59
I kept pushing the publisher.
26:59
I want color pictures throughout.
27:01
I don't want it to be this little insert of thing.
27:06
And I want high-quality paper.
27:06
I learned that with the Leonardo da Vinci book.
27:10
And so this book, I said, you know, take it out of my royalties.
27:13
We're going to split the cost of this, but I don't want you to charge more than most books.
27:21
I want it to be, you know, less than most books, but I want you to use high-quality paper, have color pictures throughout, a lot of pictures, because I just want people to feel the book and look at it and say, "Oh, that's a nice product."
27:35
Even if they, you know, leaving aside whether I got the words all right, I want the product to look good.
27:42
I want, as Steve Jobs said, even the parts unseen.
27:45
Most readers don't know the paper stock and the weight of the paper stock and the count and I know that from the magazine world, the matting and the, you know, the coating and stuff, but they sense, even the parts that they can't fully see, they sense, "Okay, you tried to make it high-quality."
28:04
That's what I did with this book.
28:06
And yeah, you don't charge more, but you just say it's going to be high-quality.
28:11
Yeah, you definitely feel that.
28:11
You You've done a fantastic job with Yeah, show the color pictures.
28:14
I don't know most people don't have color pictures in their books. like this. This is even Oh, yeah. Even this is stunning.
28:21
Yeah, even the end pages are supposed to be beautiful.
28:25
And uh here are some of the color pictures.
28:27
I do want people to see it.
28:28
It's It It's absolutely beautiful to see, you know, the half you people are on a podcast.
28:34
They're going to be looking at this.
28:35
Yeah, everyone who's listening to this, I am showing pictures of the book, so you have to get the book in order to see the pictures. This one's great. I love this picture.
28:44
Oh, yeah, her in a lab holding the test tube as a young woman.
28:47
Yeah, tell me a bit about her when it came to that moment in her life when she was told girls don't become scientists.
28:54
How does she genuinely remember that moment?
28:56
Was she someone just completely unaffected by it or Oh, no. She was affected by it. And you know what?
29:02
You'll see in the book, and I hope she'll forgive me for saying so, she's still got that streak of insecurity of having been a sixth grader and told, "No, you can't do this."
29:13
And when she's in college, you showed that picture of her holding the test tubes at the Pomona College chemistry lab, she thought, "Well, maybe I can't do it.
29:22
Maybe I should be a French major." But she persists.
29:23
And so, that's another lesson in this book.
29:27
And all the way through, we all overcome some obstacles.
29:33
We all feel like outsiders at times.
29:35
You know, maybe there are a few of us who don't have any insecurities, but I've not met any.
29:41
And so, I think we have to know the insecurities instead of ignoring them.
29:48
Well, I think that's what that's what really helped me when I was reading your work on on both Einstein and Steve Jobs was around the the number of failures and rejections and setbacks.
29:59
And not just the ones that make it onto movies or not just the ones that, you know, get glamorized in in Hollywood, but the deep understanding of just how crazy this is for someone to go through these events.
30:11
That's given me a lot of confidence that whenever I face failures and rejections, I'm I'm on the same path as as Steve Jobs.
30:16
It's like, you know, it's the same feeling of I I can relate as opposed to thinking, "Well, oh well, my life shouldn't have any challenges because Steve's didn't have any challenges." Often we're not aware.
30:26
When it comes to someone like Jennifer Doudna, what are the biggest challenges she's up against today from a from the world of science?
30:35
What are the challenges she's having to process from her own industry and her own work right now?
30:41
Well, she's having a good year right now having just won the Nobel Prize and somewhat of a surprise that came rather quickly.
30:48
It usually takes them decades to give a Nobel Prize to a field.
30:50
And she's really uh reduced the amount of rivalry and competition with her rival team at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard cuz they're both working on CRISPR detection technologies.
31:04
And I think it reminded all of us including all the scientists and I hope all the young readers and old readers of this book that sometimes when you're in a race, when you're in a rivalry, when you're being competitive, that's great. It spurs you on.
31:18
But then you get reminders that there's a noble reason you're doing this as well.
31:24
There's a higher calling, helping humanity.
31:26
And so I think that she is driven right now uh and her setbacks are she still doesn't have that home testing kit totally approved and ready to be bought at your local drugstore.
31:42
That the antiviral Cas13 it's called, yeah, CRISPR Cas13 is she's got it licked.
31:49
They know how to make it work, but it's hard to deliver it into the affected cells in the body.
31:53
So with science there's always another hurdle to overcome, but the cool thing about science and why I like writing about this is the scientific method reminds us you got to keep an open mind.
32:06
You're going to do an experiment and it's going to fail.
32:08
And that means you're going to have to revise your theories. Well, you know what?
32:14
We've been pretty bad at doing that in our politics and our civil discourse to be able to say, well, I actually have this belief and theory, but I'm seeing new evidence, so maybe I'll revise it.
32:26
You know, we used to do that. Ben Franklin did that.
32:29
That was the whole heart of his scientific method of forming a republic.
32:33
Uh nowadays we don't do that in our society as much or our cable TV shout shows as much.
32:39
That's why we have podcasts cuz people can actually think things through.
32:45
Yeah, I I love that as a cross-pollination of an idea and a methodology and of how things are processed and I I think that's such a deep lesson both from a micro and a macro level of thinking, whether we are talking about policy or government or whether we are talking about our own lives, the ability to review our own beliefs, to review our own patterns.
33:07
And and that is one of the reasons why I actually love podcasts because we can think things through and and not have to define and not have to make something def- definitive and allow ourselves to explore and experience something.
33:19
When I'm when you when you're writing these books and mapping out people's lives, at what kind of measures do you have to take to to not project your subconscious beliefs onto them and onto the book?
33:35
Because I find like that must be To me, that sounds like one of the most difficult things to do.
33:40
Uh, is to is to because you must have really learned the skill of realizing that there is no truth, there is only both people's perception of the experience.
33:51
Would you agree with that or would you say there's always a fact?
33:54
I'm not trying to agree with you on that.
33:56
I don't know that we'll ever get to absolute truth at all times and sometimes we think we get at the truth and we have to revise it, but I think that's your lodestar.
34:05
That's where you set your compass needle, which is there's going to be some truth in here somewhere and I just have to listen to all the different sides and look at all the different evidence.
34:17
Uh, I mean, I've got the patent battle uh, in my book between Jennifer Doudna and Feng Zhang.
34:25
Well, I spent a lot of time looking at evidence.
34:27
People may disagree with my conclusions about that epic battle they're going through over the patent for the use of this gene editing tool.
34:38
But, I hope I'm keeping my eye on the ball of trying to get to the truth on this.
34:46
And even though I may miss occasionally, I hope I keep enough of an open mind that somebody says, "Well, you actually missed this point. Here's some more facts." I'll recalibrate a bit.
34:58
But, I grew up in a tradition of journalism that now seems antiquated, which is it's not about me.
35:05
It's not about my opinions.
35:05
I got to make sure I keep my opinions as far as possible out of the way, except for when I'm forming my opinions based on my reporting and the facts.
35:16
So, I'm not trying to say I'm coming at this with a bias that I believe we should gene edit for Tay-Sachs and not sickle cell or something or vice versa.
35:30
I I feel that I've got to be objective.
35:34
And people say, "Well, there's no such thing as objectivity."
35:36
I go, "Yeah, there are actually things you can test and see what's right and what's wrong."
35:44
And even though we'll never get at absolute truth and we'll never get at being absolutely objective, we can always say, "That's what we're aiming for."
35:54
I think I think that's a a really good uh answer to to to a to a difficult area to understand.
36:01
When it comes to those skills, Walter, what are the What You do a lot of listening in your line of work.
36:08
When you're listening to people, you're observing people, you're researching.
36:11
Give us your best tip on listening and being present that people can actually use in their life, because that's a skill that you've obviously honed and developed to work with some of the most incredible people on the planet.
36:23
Uh how How you listening in such a way that you're truly understanding them?
36:28
I think that's a skill we all need to learn.
36:30
I think a skill that I have, if I may be so bold as to claim it, is I'm good at getting people to talk.
36:39
You know, whether it's a Jennifer Doudna or Henry Kissinger or you know, people I wrote about years and years ago or Steve Jobs who I just sit there, sit there by his bed when he was ailing and I can get him to talk.
36:52
And one secret is just let him talk.
36:57
You know, you don't have to ask a whole lot of long questions.
36:58
You can just say, "Tell me about it."
37:03
Secondly, you just have to be truly curious.
37:06
And all the creative people I know have a natural curiosity.
37:08
And I think I'm I may say I'm blessed with it, but so is everybody on the planet.
37:15
We're all blessed with curiosity.
37:18
It's just sometimes we outgrow our wonder years.
37:22
We lose our sense of curiosity. We think we know it all.
37:25
And I mean, I'm looking I can look out of my window now and the clouds have parted and the sky is blue.
37:32
And I still, like Leonardo da Vinci did, like Einstein did, am curious about why the sky is blue and why it gets a darker blue at a certain time.
37:42
And that curiosity causes me to ask questions.
37:49
And sometimes when a journalist asks a question, they got a goal in mind.
37:51
They want to play gotcha.
37:53
They asking a question to try to get a piece of news.
37:58
I try to make sure that every time I ask a question, it's a very simple question.
38:03
And I'm asking it cuz I'm actually curious to know the answer.
38:08
I you know, I I think that listening and understanding people are two of the hardest things that we do, but they're things that we have to do every single day.
38:16
And so, any tips we can take on that.
38:18
What about tips on asking questions?
38:19
Uh you said that asking simple questions.
38:21
What's probably the most interesting question you've asked someone?
38:25
Is it as simple as tell me about it or is there something more to that art of questioning that has allowed you to unlock someone's uh you know, their deeper essence through questioning? Short and simple.
38:39
And sometimes I'll ask a question of why did you do that?
38:44
And it could be an inventor, could be a hedge fund manager.
38:45
You know, somebody created an algorithm to you know, beat the market or whatever. I'll say, "Why? Why did you do that?"
38:53
And they say, "Okay, cuz I can make money this way, because I can do" I say, "Yeah, but why? Why did you do that?"
39:00
And I I I like peeling back the onion a bit so that people have to say, "Well, I hadn't really thought about deeper motivations or whatever."
39:11
Uh but the only way those questions work is if you're actually generally genuinely curious.
39:19
And um So, uh I I was reading recently just cuz there was this new movie about Woody Allen and if you're intrepid, you can go find it on the internet.
39:30
But when I was at Time magazine, that is when Woody Allen Soon-Yi Previn scandal broke or whatever.
39:38
And so I went some reason or another, you know, I'm going to get people to talk.
39:42
He said, "Come on over, I'll talk to you."
39:44
And he talked to me for like 2 hours.
39:46
The middle of the scandal was all breaking.
39:50
And at a certain point, I just asked, "Why did you do that? You know, come on."
39:57
And it was like and he got more and more reflective.
40:00
Uh he had one point said, "The heart wants what it wants."
40:06
And uh I just kind of remember that time because it wasn't that I was so smart about asking the questions.
40:13
I didn't go in with smart questions.
40:17
It's when I was looking at them I really became curious. I really wanted to know.
40:23
Excuse me, why did you What were you thinking? Why'd you do that?
40:27
The best part about that answer is that it's available to everyone as you said about curiosity is the skill is simply being curious as you rightly pointed out.
40:35
It's, you know, everyone can ask that question to their friend, their family member, or mentor, an interesting person.
40:41
We talk a lot about mentors on this podcast and being able to understand the most from our mentors and guides or or teachers and sometimes we think we have to have this phenomenal mind-blowing question to ask that's going to be earth-shattering and the truth is you don't.
40:58
The truth is you just simply want understand more curiously and I I love that and I want everyone who's listening and watching to to adopt that this week is to ask someone a simple short question in their life so that you can learn something new about them or or learn something different about them.
41:14
So I love how how accessible and practical that is.
41:18
Yeah, not all of us are going to ever have Einstein's mental processing power or Leonardo da Vinci's artistic talent.
41:27
But all of us, if we really want to, can be just as curious about things, about all the wonders around us.
41:34
And that pure curiosity led, you know, a graduate student in Spain to say, "Why do bacteria have these clustered repeated sequences?"
41:41
And Jennifer Doudna to say, "Well, what does the RNA do in order to get it to the right place to make the cut?"
41:54
And that wasn't done cuz they were trying to make a gene editing tool, they're trying to make a vaccine.
41:57
They were kind of curious, like, "Whoa, nature's beautiful.
42:02
Let's try to figure it out."
42:05
That that's really resonated with me because same with the other individuals you spoke spoke about and I've written about and Jennifer Doudna, too, they weren't trying to necessarily solve something for a particular goal.
42:16
It was the curiosity that led to it.
42:19
Do you think that that's an approach that we need to encourage more in education, in uh in the scientific and both spiritual fields?
42:31
Is that something that we're losing?
42:32
Is that something you saw more of when you were studying people of the past?
42:36
Or is that just a trait that comes along once in a while where you find an incredible icon like this who just thinks completely from a curious place as opposed to a consumer or a creative space of actually creating something tangible?
42:51
I think the most important application of that is in our policy, meaning, you know, government funding, university research, whatever.
42:58
Uh every now and then you get politicians who bark at uh research funding by the US government, which has happened since World War II.
43:09
And sometimes they make fun of like, "Oh, they're studying, you know, the DNA of bacteria.
43:14
Why are they doing that?"
43:17
And I think part of the message of this book is that basic research, curiosity-driven research, we don't know where it's going to lead, but that's where you got to begin.
43:30
And eventually it'll lead to discoveries, and those discoveries might lead to inventions, and those inventions might be useful.
43:39
When they were, you know, Einstein's uh colleagues were figuring out how do electrons dance on the surface of semiconducting materials and how does quantum theory apply to surface states, uh they weren't doing it to invent the transistor.
44:02
But eventually, when they figured out at Bell Labs, theoretical physicists, you know, like John Bardeen and William Shockley, who understand the quantum surface states of semiconducting materials, suddenly have changed the entire world by creating the transistor and then the microchip.
44:21
That's true of my book now, which is this adventure to figure out, you know, how are molecules working in our bodies leads us leads to things like editing tools and vaccines. Absolutely.
44:38
Walter Isaacson, thank you so much for spending time with us today to have this conversation.
44:42
I want to encourage everyone who's deeply fascinated, curious, and intrigued to go out and get a copy of The Code Breaker.
44:51
Uh it's available right now when you hear this episode, and I truly believe that, you know, Walter, you you're very humble and modest, and I I that makes me appreciate you even more.
45:03
Uh but you have a have a really unique ability to be able to really get into uh people's lives in a really deep and intimate way and take us on a journey through their life in a very 360 whole way.
45:13
I feel like you're great at telling us about the whole person rather than just the part that's often the most popular part, and I I really really value your approach and the way you do that.
45:23
Uh we end every interview with a final five, Walter, which is a fast five, so you have to answer each question in one word or one sentence maximum.
45:32
Uh so, if you're ready, this is your fast five. Are you ready?
45:37
Uh yeah, I'm not prepared, but I'm ready.
45:39
Yeah, definitely not prepared. Okay.
45:39
Uh if there's one person you could have dinner with that's no longer with us, who would it be? Leonardo da Vinci. Interesting.
45:48
Because he was the person who most wanted to know everything you could know about everything that was knowable, and it's like, "Whoa." Tell me about it, man.
45:56
What What do you think was the most interesting discovery he made through your research?
46:01
I think his uh most interesting thing he did was connect the arts and the sciences.
46:06
And that's an inspiration for Steve Jobs who convinced me to write about Leonardo da Vinci.
46:10
That's what Vitruvian Man, that naked guy doing the jumping jacks in the circle and square, is supposed to symbolize as the connection of art and science.
46:18
And that's why the Mona Lisa has the most amazing smile.
46:22
It's because he studied optics, he studied nerves, he studied perspective.
46:28
And he was able to meld art and science to make the greatest painting ever. I love that.
46:34
That was only one question by the way. I got excited. I got curious. I got curious.
46:38
So I yeah, when I when I get curious we can break the rules.
46:40
The second the second question, who alive would you most love to have dinner with? Probably Elon Musk.
46:47
Um I've now you know, I've actually because of what I do, I've been able to have dinner with really interesting people.
46:56
And I admire the hell out of uh Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, but I've actually been able to pick their brains before.
47:03
Elon, I I I'd like to figure him out. Nice.
47:07
And what what about what would you ask him?
47:08
What do you think's the most fascinating uh discovery you'd like to make there?
47:12
Or what are you curious about with him?
47:14
I would drill down on battery technology.
47:19
Because I often find that truly being curious about something they're curious about is a way to connect. Absolutely. Beautiful. I love that.
47:27
All right, the third question.
47:28
We're only on question three even though I've asked like four questions already.
47:31
Uh question number three is uh what's the biggest thing you learned about yourself in the last 12 months?
47:38
I I can't remember whether Aristotle or Plato said it, but you know, we're social animal.
47:45
And it's really hard for me uh to be locked down.
47:47
I was not great during this pandemic.
47:51
I still went out to dinner with friends outside, socially distanced.
47:59
But I need to be around other people.
47:59
I recharge my battery by listening to other people. Beautiful.
48:04
Question number four, as a prolific author, what's your favorite book?
48:08
And if you can't give me one, you can have three.
48:10
What are your top three favorite reads in your own life and your own journey?
48:15
The Moviegoer by Walker Percy, because it's about, like any great book, including non-fiction, it's about a person goes on a journey.
48:25
And uh we're all on a journey, and that book gets it.
48:28
And speaking of great journeys, um Moby Dick.
48:34
I think uh you could pick Huck Finn, but Moby Dick is the same sort of thing, and so is The Odyssey.
48:39
It's a person goes on a journey, and Moby Dick, it just grabs me because of the detail and the curiosity and the passion.
48:49
And uh third book, um Um let me pause.
48:56
I've answered too much, and I mean I've said too many sentences.
49:02
I love a lot of other books.
49:02
I'm not sure I want to put them in the pantheon with Moby Dick for me. That's fine. That's beautiful.
49:06
And the fifth and final Although I did just read for the you know, recently, James Baldwin I've gotten into.
49:12
And Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone.
49:15
My dad wanted me to read it before he died. Wow.
49:19
And um uh and I read Eddie Glaude's book on James Baldwin. Wow. That's beautiful. Thank you.
49:25
And then the fifth and final question, if you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be? Be nice. Be nice. I love it.
49:37
Uh everyone, Walter Isaacson, uh new book The Code Breaker available right now. Go and grab a copy.
49:44
We will put the link in the description.
49:47
Uh please please please go and read about Jennifer Doudna.
49:48
I promise you you won't regret it.
49:50
Uh and and to be honest, I do think this is probably the most uh challenging challenging one for me in in the sense that because it's happening right now.
50:02
Uh it presents so many more interesting conversations and questions in in a way that I've never been challenged before.
50:08
So, thank you so much for all the work you've done, Walter.
50:11
I remain a fan and supporter and really loved meeting you today and appreciate your energy through the screen.
50:16
I look forward to have dinner having dinner with you hopefully one day.
50:19
Uh and again, I appreciate you so much.
50:22
Is there anything else you'd like to share with our audience today that I haven't asked you about?
50:26
You're a great interviewer.
50:26
I think you know all the ways of being curious. So, thank you.
50:31
And also, you're good at following my one rule, which is you're very nice.
50:37
If you want even more videos just like this one, make sure you subscribe and click on the boxes over here.
50:41
I'm also excited to let you know that you can now get my book Think Like a Monk from thinklikeamonkbook. com.
50:51
Check below in the description to make sure you order today.