Sean McManus
Executive Editor
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Weekend Reads: How to Get Your Mojo From Chip Conley
At the age of 26, with no industry experience, Chip Conley transformed a seedy San Francisco motel into The Phoenix, a world-renowned “rock ‘n roll hotel” catering to celebrities from David Bowie to Linda Ronstadt. Now yo… Read More
May 10, 2009 | In Business & Economics
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Weekend Reads: The Life and Times of Lynda Resnick
Lynda Resnick was only 19 years old when she founded a full-service advertising agency and is now the co-chairman of Roll International, the parent company of such lovable brands as POM Wonderful, Fiji Water and Teleflora. Now she has a new book. Read More
May 10, 2009 | In Business & Economics
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Founder of AIG Financial Products Has a Plan to Rescue Global Banking System
Howard Sosin was the kind of Wall Street dealmaker who flourished in the footloose days of the mid-80s. As the founder of AIG Financial Products, he invented many of the complex financial instruments blamed for changing the rules of risk and wrecking the global economy. Now Sosin says he has a plan to fix America’s banks and restore confidence in the markets. Can a guy who got rich structuring derivatives save the global economy? Read More
May 8, 2009 | In Business & Economics
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Ziggy Marley in the Big Think Studio Today
Ziggy Marley, the four time Grammy Award-winning musician and leader of the band Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers, is in the Big Think studio today promoting his new album Family Time. Has Ziggy gotten even softer? Email your questions for Ziggy to sean@bigthink.com. Read More
May 7, 2009 | In Arts & Culture
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Welcome to the New 1-2-10 Media Interface
Nick Bilton, a designer, user interface specialist, technologist, journalist, hardware hacker, who is currently the design integration editor and user interface specialist at The New York Times and The Times Research & Development Lab, has a few things to say about media integration. Read More
May 6, 2009 | In Science & Tech
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Big Think's Guide to Recession Entrepreneurship
When economies melt, entrepreneurs reign and start-ups are the new blue chips. Big Think asked Creative Commons CEO Joi Ito, Freelancers Union Founder Sara Horowitz, Harvard Business School Professor Nancy Koehn, Fabrice Grinda, who writes the Musings of an Entrepreneur blog, Lisa Price of Carol's Daughter—and dozens of other experts, including Muhammad Yunus of Grameen Bank, Blake Mycoskie of TOMS shoes, and Cliff Schorer of Columbia Business School—on smart ideas for starting a business in a recession. Read More
April 24, 2009 | In Business & Economics
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John Micklethwait Diagrams the State of Religion in America and the World
John Micklethwait Diagrams the State of Religion in America and the World. Read More
April 17, 2009 | In Belief
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Get Inspired in 7 minutes 30 seconds
Susan Boyle, an aspiring singer, rocks the house on Britains Got Talent 2009. Read More
April 14, 2009 | In Arts & Culture
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The World Is Relying On The Virtue Of Mark Zuckerberg To Protect Us From Facebook
"Facebook is going to try to be a monopoly, why would it not?" asks Columbia University law professor and information monopoly expert Tim Wu. "Fortunately, it's a monopoly of social networking. It's not like it's bread or something." Read More
April 13, 2009 | In Arts & Culture
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Big Think and the Berkman Center present a live stream debate on the future of digital monopolies. Read More
April 13, 2009 | In Politics & Policy
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Underground House Churches Now Largest NGO In China
Big Think interviewed the editor-in-chief of the Economist John Micklethwait yesterday. He's promoting a book called God Is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith Is Changing the World. But is it? Read More
April 10, 2009 | In Belief
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Gapminder Celebrates World Health Day
This cross-cultural data from think tank Gapminder will blow your mind. Read More
April 7, 2009 | In Health & Medicine
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Interview With Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk
One Silicon Valley's most innovative entrepreneurs on his new Tesla electric car, whether we should bail out the Big Three, and the world's most powerful laser. Read More
April 6, 2009 | In Science & Tech
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Big Think spoke with Robert Kaplan, former vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs and current professor at Harvard Business School, about regulating hedge funds, the issue of bonuses, and why he's happy with the Geithner Plan. Read More
March 31, 2009 | In Business & Economics
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Smart Protest: The Rise of we20
If you thought the G20 could change the world, try the we20--the people's answer to the G20 group of nations. The grassroots organization announced the launch of its website at we20.org on Sunday, enabling individual people and groups anywhere in the world to host their own G20 summits and formulate plans for economic recovery. Read More
March 30, 2009 | In World
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Harvard Business School Professor Explains Hedge Fund Greed Machine
We asked Harvard Business School Professor Robin Greenwood about new regulations of the financial services industry, the future of hedge funds, and what Wall Street will look like in five years. Read More
March 30, 2009 | In Business & Economics
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It's Sunday, Better Hit the Brain Gym
The Wall Street Journal weekend edition discusses a new trend among senior citizens -- brain gyms. But can computer games and green tea really ward off dimentia? Read More
March 29, 2009 | In Health & Medicine, Science & Tech
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Hedge Fund Manager Says 'Regulate Me!'
Sure, Geithner and Barney Frank are idiots, and regulators are by nature "slow moving," but one hedge funder, who works at an "already registered" fund, says it would be a mistake to fight inevitable regulations, arguing that regulators can't stop top talent from making huge money, and hedge funds don't have anything to hide anyway. Read More
March 27, 2009 | In Business & Economics
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Debate Over the Nonprofit Newspaper Model Lands in the Senate
Conor Clarke in the Atlantic's business blog today, reports on Senator Benjamin Cardin's plan to make it easy for newspapers to become nonprofits. But do we really want newspapers that promote the agendas of private foundations? Read More
March 25, 2009 | In Media & Internet
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Stem Cell Debate Provides Lens into Waning American Influence
The contrast is sharp. There are two important stories about stem cells today. The first, from FoxNews is entitled "States Consider Harder Line on Stem Cell Research." It's about how state legislators are moving to block expanded stem cell research following Obama's move to loosen restrictions. Smart! Read More
March 24, 2009 | In Health & Medicine, Science & Tech, World
Sean McManus is Program Director of the Ideas Economy Project at The Economist Group in New York where he oversees a series of offline events and edits the Ideas Economy website. Prior to that, he was executive editor of Big Think where he oversaw all editorial operations and led the production of over 400 interviews with experts and thought leaders from around the world. Earlier, Sean was an editor at 02138 magazine. His work has appeared in the New York Times, New York magazine, Worth, and Details. He is a graduate of Washington & Lee University and earned a masters degree in American History from the University of North Florida, where he was the teaching assistant for a visiting professor from South Africa named Desmond Tutu.
