A podcast co-hosted by Alejandro Juárez Crawford and Mim Plavin-Masterman.
A show about everyday people reimagining the way things work—and tackling the obstacles they face.
We explore adventures in democratizing innovation—how the chance to try one’s hand at something new affects people and even organizations, what “powers” they discover and what challenges they face along the way.
We dig into access: what determines who gets the chance to try and disrupt the way things work? We examine obstacles in specific industries and communities, and go deep with people working to break through them.
We look closely at the role of tech—how it can equip or disempower people to build experiments of their own—and society: what leads us to accept a role as consumers of the way things work, and what it means to discover our powers to ask in practice, “What if instead?”
Producer of the What If Instead? Podcast: Srijan Banik
How to Maintain the Oldest Democracy in the World | Michelle Schenandoah
What can we learn about democracy from Indigenous matrilineal wisdom?
For more than 1,000 years, the Haudenosaunee have sustained one of the world’s oldest continuing representative-based democracies, rooted in principles of peace, shared responsibility, and respect for women’s authority and insights. Their enduring system offers a powerful perspective on how we might rethink leadership, representation, and the balance of power today.
Michelle Schenandoah, founder of the nonprofit Rematriation, joins Alejandro and Mim to share the principles she grew up with at the heart of Haudenosaunee democracy. Through her work, Michelle is on a mission to revitalize Indigenous wisdom and bring the teachings of her ancestors into contemporary conversations about leadership, governance, and social change.
Together, they explore what it means to build systems that recognize women’s voices, value collective wisdom, and prioritize peace. They also examine how Indigenous matrilineal traditions can serve as an active blueprint for rebalancing power and imagining new possibilities for democracy.
Democracy isn’t just about how we vote or who holds office. It’s also about whose voices are heard, how decisions are made, and what becomes possible when we build systems grounded in respect, shared responsibility, and peace.
15 Sept 2026
Why an Experimental Mindset Matters in Leadership and Innovation
What does it really take to innovate?
For entrepreneurs and organizations, the pressure to get things right can sometimes become the very thing that holds innovation back. Fear of failure, fear of making mistakes, and the desire to appear like you have all the answers can make it harder to take the risks that meaningful innovation requires.
Steve Brookstein, Professor of Entrepreneurship and Management of Innovation at the Saunders College of Business at RIT, has a simple philosophy: it takes someone very big to be small.
Being willing to admit what you don’t know, learn from mistakes, listen to the people closest to a problem, and experiment along the way isn’t a weakness. It’s a critical part of building something that works.
In this episode, Steve sits down with Alejandro and Mim to explore the growth mindset behind innovation and why failure can be one of an entrepreneur’s most valuable teachers.
They dig into the principles of bottom-up innovation, looking at how ideas can emerge from the people closest to the work rather than always coming from the top. They also explore the stories of entrepreneurs and visionaries who transformed setbacks and failures into the foundations for extraordinary success.
Innovation doesn’t happen when everything goes according to plan; it happens when entrepreneurs are willing to listen, experiment, fail, and try again.
3 Sept 2026
Changing the World of Non-Fiction | Ramona Liberoff
If you haven’t been able to make it through a long-form nonfiction book lately, you’re not alone. In a world of endless notifications, short-form content, and AI-generated summaries, our attention spans are getting shorter; but our curiosity hasn’t gone anywhere.
So how do we bridge the gap?
That’s where Gist comes in.
Ramona Liberoff is building a new company called Gist to create a bridge between people’s natural curiosity and their ability to engage with long-form nonfiction. Rather than turning books into bite-sized summaries or creating a watered-down version of the original, Gist is exploring how technology and engaging new formats can help people build the attention and curiosity needed to go deeper.
Because the problem with nonfiction today isn’t that people don’t want to learn. It’s that the systems designed to help us discover and engage with ideas aren’t working.
Cliff Notes, SparkNotes, and now AI-powered summaries have made it easier than ever to get the “gist” of a book without ever actually reading it. But knowing what a book says isn’t the same as experiencing the ideas, following an argument, making unexpected connections, or letting your curiosity take you somewhere new.
Gist is trying to change that.
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
6 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
4 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 33 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
43
Social presence
0
YouTube
0
Engagement
60
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