Ways to Change the World with Krishnan Guru-Murthy

US Presidential candidate Dr Cornel West is a philosopher and prominent advocate for social and racial justice. He’s taught at some of the top universities in the US including Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, but has one major plan if he becomes President: to “dismantle the American empire”. The 71-year-old activist, who campaigned for Biden in 2020, has recently been vocal ag

Nobel Prize Laureate Joseph Stiglitz is one of the most influential economists in the world, having advised multiple Democratic Presidents of the US and the World Bank, where he worked as Chief Economist and senior Vice President. His latest book, called “The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society,” argues that the economic right’s concept of “freedom” doesn’t

Bassem Youssef thinks that he’s come on the wrong podcast. “People in power don't really care about any of our suggestions to change the world”, he tells Krishnan Guru-Murthy, “because if our ways to change the world affect their interests, they will stop you.” And he knows what he’s talking about, having fled his home country of Egypt after his TV comedy became no long

When lawyer turned playwright Suzie Miller created a one-woman show starring Jodie Comer for the West End and Broadway called ‘Prima Facie’, she wouldn’t have dreamt that her play would fuel real change in the legal system’s approach to sexual assault cases. The play has won multiple awards, has inspired efforts to change UK laws, and has also been turned into a book of t

Nikki Giovanni has spent more than five decades in the public eye, as an activist, poet and innovator. Born on the "wrong side of the tracks" in Knoxville, Tennessee, during the era of segregation, Giovanni came of age during the Black power and civil rights movements in 1960s in America. She came under the spotlight again in 2007, when the university she had been teaching at, Virg

Author Armistead Maupin is a pioneer - writing about AIDS and HIV for a mass audience and daring to include gay, lesbian, trans and queer lives when few others were. His ‘Tales of the City’ series, which started as a newspaper column in 1974, became worldwide best-selling novels and a Netflix series. It chronicles the lives of queer people in San Francisco and pokes fun at mo

“I don’t write fiction to preach my politics,” says Kiley Reid - an American author whose debut novel “Such a Fun Age” was longlisted for the 2020 Booker prize. The book gained recognition for its themes on race, privilege, and social dynamics in modern America. Fast forward to 2024, and Reid’s second novel, “Come and Get It” delves even further into the heart of so

How do you measure a business’s success? For James Timpson, CEO of the Timpson’s Group, it comes down to two things: the satisfaction of its staff, and what it gives back to society. His employees only have to “put money in the till and look the part”; for the rest, they have complete authority to do whatever they think is right to offer a quality service to customers. This

Bernie Sanders is the longest-serving independent senator in US congressional history and has brought income inequality, poverty and the “uber-capitalist” status quo into focus throughout his decades-long career. He nearly became the Democrats’ candidate for president, twice, and has recently been backing Joe Biden against Donald Trump, warning that Trump’s re-election coul

Crystal Hefner was 21 when she first entered the infamous Playboy Mansion in October 2008. Within months, she ascended its hierarchy to become the top girlfriend of Hugh Hefner, who was 60 years her senior, and went on to marry him in 2012. But she quickly discovered the house was not the glittering sanctuary she had believed, nor Mr Hefner’s Playboy was the place of freedom, exp