On Musk with Walter Isaacson

<p>A single scientific breakthrough changed the future of humanity, setting off the third great revolution of modern times. As with any revolution, things didn&rsquo;t happen neatly or quietly. One figure stood at the center of it all: Jennifer Doudna, the Nobel Prize-winning biochemist who co-created CRISPR. Her invention signified the arrival of a newfound ability to edit our genes, as simply as we edit a sentence, with a word processor.</p> <p>From Walter Isaacson - the bestselling biographer behind Musk, Einstein and Steve Jobs &ndash; and journalist Evan Ratliff (Mastermind, co-host of the beloved Longform podcast) comes a behind the scenes look at the story of Jennifer Doudna.</p> <p>Her personal trajectory, and that of her collaborators and competitors, tells the story of how we arrived at this new frontier of gene editing. It&rsquo;s a story filled with global stakes and fiery competition. And a story that touches upon the ethical considerations that gene editing brings.</p> <p>Season 2:&nbsp;</p> <p>He didn&rsquo;t have a role in&nbsp;Hamilton, but America wouldn&rsquo;t be the same without him!&nbsp;</p> <p>From Walter Isaacson&ndash; the bestselling biographer behind&nbsp;Musk,&nbsp;Einstein&nbsp;and&nbsp;Steve Jobs&ndash; and journalist Evan Ratliff (Mastermind, co-host of the beloved&nbsp;Longform&nbsp;podcast) comes a behind the scenes look at the story of Ben Franklin, and how his genius shaped our national character.&nbsp;</p> <p>From Franklin&rsquo;s adventures as a mischievous apprentice, to his evolution over 84 years into&nbsp;America&rsquo;s best writer, inventor,scientist, diplomat, and business strategist&hellip; as well as Founding Father, Isaacson covers everything from the wit behind&nbsp;Poor Richard&rsquo;s Almanac&nbsp;to the wisdom behind the&nbsp;Declaration of Independence; not to mention, how a former slave owner evolved into the shepherd of a near-perfect&nbsp;Constitution.&nbsp;</p> <p>In this intimate behind the scenes interview, Isaacson provides a look at how he came to understand Franklin&rsquo;s remarkable life, how it shaped America&rsquo;s national identity, and why Ben Franklin matters so much right now.&nbsp;</p> <p>Season 1:&nbsp;</p> <p>What is it like to shadow Elon Musk for two years? To sit courtside as he builds a rocket? Or tears apart an engineer? Or couch surfs at the homes of billionaires? And how on earth do you make sense of it all? Walter Isaacson is the biographer of giants: DaVinci, Franklin, Doudna, Jobs...and now Musk, former enfant terrible, rocket launcher, electric car innovator, and Twitter&mdash;er, X&mdash;disruptor, to put it gently.&nbsp;</p> <p>In this four-part series, author Evan Ratliff (&ldquo;Mastermind,&rdquo; &ldquo;Longform&rdquo; Podcast) sits down with Isaacson to draw out the behind-the-scenes stories of this epic biography, and what the writer has learned as an outsider inside Silicon Valley. &nbsp;</p>