Sean McManus
Executive Editor
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.
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Susan Boyle, an aspiring singer, rocks the house on Britains Got Talent 2009. Susan Boyle – Singer – Britains Got Talent 2009Uploaded by moovieblog
“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 […]
Big Think and the Berkman Center present a live stream debate on the future of digital monopolies.
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. If you were CEO […]
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 […]
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 […]
Discoveries about neuroplasticity--the brain's ability to rewire itself throughout life by creating neural connections in response to mental activity--has led to the new brain centers, which "promise to keep older minds sharp with computer, walnuts and green tea."
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
I interviewed a retired hedge fund manager who voted for Barack Obama about the bonus tax last week. Here’s what he said: Everyone is outraged by AIG’s actions, but the […]
Ever since influencial D.C. blogger Ana Marie Cox twittered that Twitter is now a search engine, I searched the micro-blog site for bonus chatter. Here’s what I found: sstroeer: Guys […]
The Global Billionaires Club may be getting smaller by the minute, but there are still pockets of heavy growth. For example, Mexican drug lords are doing well. That’s why Forbes […]
Hooman Majd, the Iranian-American journalist who wrote “The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran” will be in the Big Think studio today answering questions about how the […]
Stephen Wolfram, the computer genius who authored the computational software Mathematica in 1998 and wrote A New Kind of Science in 2002, has built a new search engine. It’s called […]
Brian Doherty, a senior editor at Reason magazine and the author of This is Burning Man and Radicals for Capitalism, reflects on whether the hero of the new graphic novel […]
The Cato Institute today asks whether the increasingly private industry-loving El Salvador is the new Central American Tiger. Is it possible that capitalism works great in some places but not […]
Big Think will be live blogging from Harvard Law School today, and it’s a seminar you wont want to miss. Entitled “Internet: Ideas at the Frontier,” the seminar hosted by […]
The Real Truth, a website produced by a Christian organization called The Restored Church of God, may not be where you go to get your news and analysis, but they’ve […]
People these days are staying in and watching movies instead of going out and spending money. Does that mean no more football games? Ben Casselman in the Wall Street Journal […]
Daniel Dennett, the philosopher, evolutionary biologist, and cognitive scientist who is co-director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University, will be in the Big Think studio on Friday. […]
George Tech’s expertise in “human-factors issues” is really paying off for the law enforcement establishment. Engineers are helping an Atlanta start-up build cop cars that function like jet fighters. According […]
In a radical and risky move, the Bank of England today decided to start printing money to combat the economic crisis, according to the London Times. While this might be […]
It’s crisis time again and that means boom time for gold! In December, an ounce of gold was selling for about $800. By the third week in February, it was […]