Talks at Google

Award-winning actress and singer Danielle Brooks visits Google to discuss her journey, career, and her Oscar nominated performance as Sofia in the highly acclaimed film “The Color Purple.”

Danielle rose to prominence for her portrayal of “Taystee” on the popular Netflix series Orange Is The New Black, for which she was nominated for an NAACP Image Award. In 2019, Danielle released her four-track EP entitled Four. She co-wrote the four songs, including “Seasons,” which was featured in the series finale of Orange is the New Black. In 2022, she co-founded “Black Women on Broadway” and held its inaugural awards, which honors the legacy of Black Women’s contributions to theater.

She currently stars in “The Color Purple,” the feature film adaption of the distinguished Broadway musical. Danielle reprises her iconic role of ‘Sofia,’ portraying another powerhouse, memorable performance that has garnered her Golden Globe, Critics Choice Award, SAG Award, BAFTA Film Award, and Academy Award nominations for “Best Supporting Actress.”

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Dr. Shanna Swan visits Google to discuss her book "Count Down: How Our Modern World Is Threatening Sperm Counts, Altering Male and Female Reproductive Development, and Imperiling the Future of the Human Race".

In 2017, Dr. Shanna Swan and her team of researchers completed a major study, finding that over the past four decades, sperm levels amongst men in Western countries have dropped by more than 50%. They came to this conclusion after examining 185 studies involving close to 45,000 healthy men. The result sent shockwaves around the globe—but the story didn’t end there. It turns out our sexual development is changing in broader ways, for both men and women and even other species, and that the modern world is on pace to become an infertile one.

How and why could this happen? What is hijacking our fertility and our health? Shanna’s book unpacks these questions, revealing what Swan and other researchers have learned about how both lifestyle and chemical exposures are affecting our fertility, sexual development and general health as a species.

Originally published in August of 2021.

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Vivian Tu visits Google to discuss her book "Rich AF: The Winning Money Mindset That Will Change Your Life." This book is a guide filled with the tools and knowledge to not only help you understand the financial landscape, but to build a financial strategy of your own.

Vivian Tu is a former Wall Street trader-turned-educator, public speaker, host, entrepreneur, media powerhouse and the founder and CEO of the financial equity phenomenon, “Your Rich BFF.” In January 2021, she developed and launched the “Your Rich BFF” blog and social media handles as a passion project to destigmatize and make the rules of personal finance accessible and digestible to non-experts and marginalized communities. Her dedication to promoting financial literacy and ability to bridge the gap between finance and the mainstream have earned her cross-platform fame, having garnered nearly 6 million followers, as well as honors on both the Forbes’ ‘30 Under 30’’ and inaugural ‘Top Creators’ lists.

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Iza Calzado is an award-winning Filipina actress, television host, dancer and model best known for her role as Amihan in the fantasy drama television series Encantadia. She was a former homegrown artist of the GMA Network for ten years. Iza is also the co-founder of “She Talks Asia”, through which she has proven to be a powerful advocate for female empowerment, particularly in raising awareness of the importance of physical, emotional and mental well-being.

Originally published in September of 2021.

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Bestselling author Min Jin Lee visits Google to provide a masterclass on writing. In addition, she speaks about representation in media, fiction, non-fiction and her views on the evolving Asian-American identity.

In 2019, Apple ordered a television adaptation of Min’s New York Times bestselling book Pachinko. President Barack Obama selected Pachinko for his recommended reading list, calling it “a powerful story about resilience and compassion.” Lee’s debut novel Free Food for Millionaires was listed on the Top 10 Books of the Year for The Times of London, NPR’s “Fresh Air,” and USA Today, and was a national bestseller.

Lee’s work has also appeared in The New Yorker, NPR’s Selected Shorts, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, Conde Nast Traveler, The Times of London, and The Wall Street Journal.

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Lang Lang visits Google to perform pieces from his new album, “The Chopin Album”. This album includes the second set of Chopin's Études, the Andante spianato & Grande Polonaise, and a selection of shorter works that he has long enjoyed performing, including three Nocturnes and the Waltz op. 64 no. 1, popularly known as the "Minute" Waltz.

Chopin has accompanied Lang Lang throughout his career. One of the first pieces he learnt was the Grande Valse brillante in E-flat major, and it was Chopin's music that also carried him through a number of career-changing competitions. And it was with the Chopin Études that Lang Lang made his now-renowned Beijing Concert Hall recital at age 14 -- a performance that led to his studying with Gary Graffman at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia.

Originally published in October of  2012.

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Global development leader, professor and author Edward ‘Ted’ Miguel visits Google to discuss how open science is transforming poverty reduction and global development.

What really works in the fight to empower the world's poorest people?  What's the science behind traditional development programs, cash grants, and tech transfer efforts? Ted shares his learnings from his years leading UC Berkeley's Center for Effective Global Action, or CEGA.

Ted’s main research focus is African economic development, including work on the economic causes and consequences of violence; the impact of ethnic divisions on local collective action; interactions between health, education, environment, and productivity for the poor; and methods for transparency in social science research. He has conducted field work in Kenya, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, and India.

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Shelby Ivey Christie visits Google to discuss the history of how the music industry has influenced Black fashion, how Black artists and costume designers influenced style for musical artists worldwide, and how Black fashion became and continues to be mainstream culture today.

An ardent Fashion & Costume historian, Shelby Ivey Christie has a passion for articulating how Black History intersects and affects the cultural climate, economics, and most importantly, fashion. Her expertise has frequently been called upon to examine fashion through the lens of race, class & culture.

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Mel B visits Google to discuss her career journey, her memoir “Brutally Honest”, and her experiences as a person of mixed heritage.

Melanie Brown is one-fifth of the most successful girl band on Earth, the Spice Girls. As ‘Scary Spice’, she became one of the most recognisable women in the world. She went on to carve out a global career as a television entertainer, theater performer, and movie actress.

Since the Spice Girls split in 2000, Melanie went on to carve a new career as a host of television shows. Consistently voted ‘most popular’ judge on shows from America’s Got Talent to The X Factor UK, she embraced a whole new generation to become one of the most recognised faces on television. She has appeared in London’s West End and on Broadway in Rent and most recently as Roxie Hart in Chicago, winning massive acclaim from audiences. Mel B was awarded an MBE by the Queen for her services to survivors of domestic abuse.

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Nikole Hannah-Jones is an award-winning investigative reporter covering racial injustice for the New York Time Magazine. Nikole has spent the last five years investigating how official policy creates and maintains racial segregation in American public schools.

In 2016, Nikole helped found the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, a training and mentorship organization geared towards increasing the number of investigative reporters of color. She has also authored a book that discusses school segregation entitled, "The Problem We All Live With.” In 2020, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for her work on “The 1619 Project”.

Originally published in May of 2017.

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Michael Smith visits Google to discuss his book “The Abundant University: Remaking Higher Education for a Digital World.”

For too long, our system of higher education has been defined by scarcity: scarcity in enrollment, scarcity in instruction, and scarcity in credentials. In addition to failing students professionally, this system has exacerbated social injustice and socioeconomic stratification across the globe. In “The Abundant University”, Smith argues that the only way to create a financially and morally sustainable higher education system is by embracing digital technologies for enrolling, instructing, and credentialing students—the same technologies that we have seen create abundance in access to resources in industry after industry.

“The Abundant University” explains how we got our current system, why it’s such an expensive, inefficient mess, and how a system based on exclusivity cannot foster inclusivity. Smith challenges the resistance to digital technologies that we have already seen among numerous institutions, citing the examples of faculty resistance toward digital learning platforms. While acknowledging the understandable self-preservation instinct of our current system of residential education, Smith makes a case for how technology can form greater educational opportunities and create changes that will benefit students, employers, and society as a whole.

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Math is boring, says the mathematician and comedian Matt Parker.

Part of the problem may be the way the subject is taught, but it's also true that we all, to a greater or lesser extent, find math difficult and counterintuitive. This counterintuitiveness is actually part of the point, argues Parker: the extraordinary thing about math is that it allows us to access logic and ideas beyond what our brains can instinctively do―through its logical tools, we are able to reach beyond our innate abilities and grasp more and more abstract concepts.

In his book, “Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension”, Parker sets out to convince his readers to revisit the very math that put them off the subject as schoolchildren. Starting with the foundations of math familiar from school, he takes us on a grand tour, from four dimensional shapes, knot theory, the mysteries of prime numbers, optimization algorithms, and the math behind barcodes and iPhone screens to the different kinds of infinity―and slightly beyond.

Originally published in December of 2014.

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Andrew Keen visits Google to discuss his book “The Cult of the Amateur.” The book discusses the grave consequences of today’s new participatory internet and reveals how it threatens our values, economy, and ultimately the very innovation and creativity that forms the fabric of our societies.

According to Keen, our most valued cultural institutions are being overtaken by an avalanche of amateur, user-generated free content. Keen claims that “cut-and-paste” online culture, in which intellectual property is freely swapped, downloaded, remashed, and aggregated, threatens over 200 years of copyright protection and intellectual property rights, preventing artists, authors, journalists, musicians, and producers from earning a decent living.

In today’s self-broadcasting culture, where amateurism is celebrated and anyone with an opinion can publish a blog, post on YouTube, or change an entry on Wikipedia, the distinction between trained expert and uninformed amateur has become dangerously blurred. When anonymous bloggers and videographers can alter the public debate and manipulate public opinion, truth becomes a commodity to be bought, sold, packaged, and reinvented.

The very anonymity that the Web 2.0 offers calls into question the reliability of the information we receive and creates an environment in which predators and identity thieves can roam free. Keen’s book urges us to consider the consequences of blindly supporting a culture that endorses plagiarism and piracy and that fundamentally weakens traditional media and creative institutions.

Originally published in June of 2007.

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Ray Jackendoff visits Google to discuss "The Peculiar Logic of Value", which centers on how humans conceptualize systems of value. 

Jackendoff hypothesizes that value is conceptualized as an abstract property attributed to objects, persons, and actions. There are several distinct types of value - Affective value, or “does it feel good or bad?” Utility, or “is it good for me?”; Prowess, or “is someone good at doing something”; Normative value, or “is it good of someone to do something?”; Personal Normative value, or “is someone a good person?”; and Esteem, or “does someone have a good reputation?”. Each of these kinds of value plays a different role in the ecology of our value systems.

Ray Jackendoff is a Professor of Philosophy and the Codirector of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. He is the author of many books, including "Foundations of Language”.

Originally published in August of 2007.

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Lily Gladstone visits Google to discuss her journey, her career, and to celebrate Native American Heritage Month.

Lily was raised on the Blackfeet Reservation in Northwestern Montana and is from the Blackfeet and Nez Perce Tribal Nations. Lily stars in Martin Scorsese’s critically acclaimed film “Killers Of The Flower Moon”, opposite Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert DeNiro. Her breakout role in Kelly Reichardt's “Certain Women”, earned her multiple nominations, including Best Supporting Actress at the Independent Spirit Awards and Best Breakthrough Actor at the Gotham Awards. She was named Best Supporting Actress of 2016 by the Los Angeles Critics Film Association.

She also appeared as ‘Hokti’ in Sterlin Harjo’s acclaimed FX series “Reservation Dogs” and will soon star in Samir Mehta and Quinn Shephard’s limited series “Under the Bridge.”

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Sri M is a spiritual guide, social reformer and educationist. His transformational journey – from a young boy to a living yogi – is a fascinating story. He recently completed a Walk of Hope – a 15 month long padayatra, or “walking on foot”, in 2016, from Kanyakumari to Kashmir, spanning 7500 kilometers across 11 states of India for peace, harmony and tolerance.

In his Talk, he describes his journey, learnings and gives practical techniques for Mindfulness.

Originally published in November of 2016.

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Nick Lane visits Google to discuss his new book “Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death.”

What brings the Earth to life, and our own lives to an end?

For decades, biology has been dominated by the study of genetic information. Information is important, but it is only part of what makes us alive. Our inheritance also includes our living metabolic network, a flame passed from generation to generation, right back to the origin of life. In Transformer, biochemist Nick Lane reveals a scientific renaissance that is hiding in plain sight —how the same simple chemistry gives rise to life and causes our demise.

Lane reveals the beautiful, violent world of the Krebs cycle, where hydrogen atoms within our cells are stripped from the carbon skeletons of food and fed to the ravenous beast of oxygen. Yet this same cycle, spinning in reverse, also created the chemical building blocks that enabled the emergence of life on our planet. Now it does both. How can the same pathway create and destroy? What might our study of the Krebs cycle teach us about the mysteries of aging and the hardest problem of all, consciousness?

Transformer unites the story of our planet with the story of our cells—what makes us the way we are, and how it connects us to the origin of life. Enlivened by Lane’s talent for distilling and humanizing complex research, Transformer offers an essential read for anyone fascinated by biology’s great mysteries.

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Acclaimed author George Saunders visits Google to discuss his book “The Braindead Megaphone.”

"The Braindead Megaphone", George Saunders's first foray into nonfiction, is comprised of essays on literature, travel, and politics. At the core of this unique collection are Saunders's travel stories, such as the mysteries of Nepal’s so-called "Buddha Boy", the extravagant pleasures of Dubai, and his attempts to join the minutemen at the Mexican border. Saunders expertly navigates the works of Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, and Esther Forbes, and leads the reader across the rocky political landscape of modern America. Emblazoned with his trademark wit and singular vision, Saunders's endeavor into the art of the essay is testament to his exceptional range and ability as a writer and thinker.

George Saunders's writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, GQ, and The Guardian. A professor at Syracuse University, he has won the National Magazine Award for fiction and an O. Henry Award.

Originally published in September of 2007.

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Reba McEntire visits Google to discuss her memoir “Not That Fancy: Simple Lessons on Living, Loving, Eating, and Dusting Off Your Boots.” This new photo-driven book is filled with the stories, recipes, and Oklahoma-style truths that guide her life.

Multimedia entertainment mogul Reba McEntire has become a household name through a successful career that includes music, television, film, theater, retail, and hospitality. This Country Music Hall of Famer and Hollywood Bowl member has more than 50 award wins under her belt, earning honors from the Academy of Country Music Awards, American Music Awards, People's Choice Awards, CMA Awards, and GRAMMY® Awards.

Reba has celebrated unprecedented success, including 35 career number-one singles and more than 58 million albums sold worldwide. Reba earned her 60th Top 10 on the Billboard Country Airplay charts, extending her record for the most Top 10 hits among female artists. Reba's Top 10 successes span five straight decades, landing her in the singular group with only George Jones, Willie Nelson, and Dolly Parton.

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Julie Andrews visits Google with her daughter Emma Walton Hamilton to share reflections on her astonishing career, including such classics as Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music, and Victor/Victoria.

In her first memoir “Home,” Julie Andrews recounted her difficult childhood and her emergence as an acclaimed singer and performer on the stage.

With this second memoir, “Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years”, Andrews picks up the story with her arrival in Hollywood and her phenomenal rise to fame in her earliest films--Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music. Andrews describes her years in the film industry, from the incredible highs to the challenging lows. Not only does she discuss her work in now-classic films and her collaborations with giants of cinema and television, she also unveils her personal story of adjusting to a new and often daunting world, dealing with the demands of unimaginable success, the end of her first marriage, and falling in love with the brilliant and mercurial Blake Edwards.

Cowritten with her daughter, Emma Walton Hamilton, and told with Andrews's trademark charm and candor, “Home Work” takes us on a rare and intimate journey into an extraordinary life that is funny, heartrending, and inspiring.

Originally published in October of 2019 and moderated by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

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