Sean McManus
Executive Editor
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 you can learn how he did that--and much more.Building on transformational ... Read More
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.A marketing genius and former owner of Franklin Mint ... Read More
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 ... Read More
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
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.Bilton was ... Read More
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 ... Read More
Economist editor John Micklethwait says religion has reemerged as a potent force in global politics. Read More
Susan Boyle, an aspiring singer, rocks the house on Britains Got Talent 2009. Susan Boyle - Singer - Britains Got Talent 2009Uploaded by moovieblog Read More
"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."But the potential for Facebook to have the world's monopoly on ... Read More
Even before Facebook hit 200 million global users last week, making its population larger than that of Brazil and Japan, it became a global monopoly on par with Google. For centuries, monopolies have been perceived as antagonistic to functioning capitalist systems. But can monopolies actually be a ... Read More
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?The polymath Micklethwait who is an expert on globalization and is currently updating his tongue-in-cheek ... Read More
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 of GM, what would you do? First would be to cut costs. Then try to build a compelling product. The big automakers are ... Read More
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.BT: How is the landscape shifting relative to boutique investment banks, are we ... Read More
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 ... Read More
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.BT: What types of new financial services regulations are most likely to be enacted in the coming months ... Read More
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?Discoveries about neuroplasticity--the brain's ability to rewire itself throughout life by creating neural connections in response to ... Read More
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 ... Read More
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?The nonprofit model has been floated ever since it was revealed that ... Read More
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 ... Read More
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 congressional response is problematic for the following reasons.1. It is effectively revisionist history and makes it impossible ... Read More
About Sean McManus
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.