For decades, the country has witnessed police shootings of Black people and grappled with a question: Are police racist? Are police departments racist? Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff and his team are finding answers using cold, hard data, and using it to reform the idea of what a police department is. Goff is a psychologist, a data scientist and the co-founder and CEO of the Center for Policing Equity. As a professor at Yale University, he’s also the rare academic who loves his job — and sees it...

Leigh Bardugo is among the most celebrated young adult novelists of our time. She’s the author of - among many novels - 'Shadow and Bone,' a fantasy series with over 2.5 million books sold. It’s now a Netflix hit that became the most streamed show in the U.S. earlier this year, according to Neilson. But getting to that promised land was not easy. On Art of Power, Bardugo tells host Aarti Shahani about her many ups and downs: an absent father, an awkward adolescence, the loss of her editor at...

Evanston, Illinois is the first city in the United States to fund a reparations program for black residents with local tax dollars. That’s thanks to Robin Rue Simmons. She was a graduate of Evanston Township High School, just a one-term city council member, and a local official with a plan: keep it simple, keep it focused, and offer no apologies. She tells Aarti Shahani how reparations came to be, the obstacles the program had to overcome, and why the story didn’t make national news “until...

Fred Swaniker is CEO of the African Leadership Group. He's been named one of the world’s most influential people by Time Magazine. And the entrepreneur from Ghana has the ambitious goal of educating 3 million young people over 50 years. On Art of Power, Swaniker tells Aarti Shahani about his journey from child refugee to McKinsey management consultant to educator-activist, building schools across the continent of Africa, where almost 60% of the population is under 25. He also explains how...

Randi Weingarten is the first openly gay president of a labor union in America. The president of the American Federation of Teachers, Weingarten represents 1.7 million teachers, healthcare workers and support staff across the country. Decades into organizing teachers, she represents more people than some governors do. An intensely private person, she talks with Art of Power host Aarti Shahani about when she chooses to let her personal life come into the public eye. They revisit her coming...

Justin Baldoni is best known for his role as Rafael, the bad boy heartthrob from the TV series ‘Jane The Virgin.’ In the real world, Baldoni is on a very public mission to “undefine” a version of masculinity he says is hurting men “far more than it’s helping us.” He’s doing it by telling deeply personal stories — about losing his virginity (it was without his consent, he says), about his battle with addiction to pornography, and about the insecurities he faced while working with actor Gina...

Stacey Abrams, one of the highest profile democracy activists on the planet, is many other things: politician, entrepreneur, lawyer, novelist, even TV producer. She nearly became the first Black woman to govern a state in the U.S. In a wide-ranging conversation with Art of Power host Aarti Shahani, Abrams opens up about her inner wiring. She believes victory and defeat are rarely decisive, so stamina is key in efforts to protect the ballot. Part of her work is to give citizens a reason to...

The political divisiveness of the 2016 election led Katie Fahey to write a Facebook post. “I’d like to take on gerrymandering in Michigan,” she said. “If you’re interested in doing this as well please let me know.” Over the next two years, she found herself on an emotional, political and financial rollercoaster that was successful beyond anyone’s expectations. And it teaches an invaluable lesson: If there’s an intractable problem that needs solving, there’s also a perfect time to solve it....

Kevin Chou, who could definitely be retired, is definitely not. He’s on a mission to wrest power away from the handful of companies that seemingly own the Internet. Chou is the founder of Kabam, a video game company behind dozens of popular mobile games. A gamer turned gaming mogul, Chou tells Art of Power host Aarti Shahani why he was initially reluctant to follow his childhood passion. He dissects how a screenshot of Elon Musk sold for $25,000 (he had a hand in that). By the end of our...

What matters inside the halls of Congress is not how many retweets you get, it’s how many votes you control. Elected to Congress in 2016, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., has established that power with remarkable speed. She is chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which has 93 House members — over a third of House Democrats. She got her start as an activist protesting the Bush administration in the wake of 9/11. Now she’s one of the most powerful members of Congress. Jayapal tells Art...

Ezra Klein, founder of Vox.com, is now a New York Times columnist and podcaster. He wants to fix the broken system that is Congress, yet he finds himself operating from inside another broken system: mass media. Ezra talks with Art of Power host Aarti Shahani about how he’s trying to promote structural analysis — as opposed to character-driven stories — in politics. Ezra and Aarti revisit his days as a poor student — and the moment when he nearly got cancelled for a tweet. Ezra also talks...

Educating is hard work. And for the people who work for Geoffrey Canada — the man who created one of the most ambitious education models in existence — burnout is real. “It sounds glib when I say this work is not for everybody, but it’s not for everybody for their entire life,” Canada says on Art of Power. “When you’ve served well and it’s time for you to move on, I want to give you nothing for respect and love, because you did what you could do for as long as you could do it.” In this...

Reshma Saujani used to be a Big Tech evangelist. She raised a lot of money to build Girls Who Code, a celebrated organization that’s trained nearly half a million girls and young women in tech. But in recent years, she’s come to question if companies like Google have the will to change. For the first time, she goes on the record to talk about retaliation she believed she experienced for publicly questioning Google’s values.

Ai-jen Poo’s life’s work involves bringing dignity and fairness to domestic workers, often women of color, who care for our children and elders and clean our homes. She has mentored and employed leading activists, including a founder of Black Lives Matter. She’s a hidden force in American politics. Her decades-long crusade has made the “care economy” part of President Joe Biden’s agenda. And as a woman of privilege leading a constituency with far less of it, she has grappled her entire life...

Sal Khan challenged the education model we’ve been using for centuries. In so doing, he created the largest school in existence. He explains how he wanted Khan Academy to offer a world class education — like a Harvard or an Oxford — except online and free for everyone. He succeeded. And in this episode, we make him explain how he had the confidence to be a revolutionary.

Former President Barack Obama tells ‘Art of Power’ that society has made progress in recognizing the most toxic elements of bad behavior by men. Now, he wants to flip the focus. “What are the positive values that we're trying to instill in our boys?” Obama tells host Aarti Shahani. “Showing compassion is not weakness. Listening is as important as talking.” Hear the former president explain his experience balancing ambition with family obligations, how he wants to expand the definition of...

David Collins, creator of the Netflix hit ‘Queer Eye,’ used reality TV to push for cultural acceptance of the LGBTQ community. The idea for the show? It was born at a wine and cheese party.

Geoffrey Canada had a crazy idea: If you want to help kids in poor communities, you have to invest in both the kids and the communities. He tells Art of Power host Aarti Shahani about how he grew up in poverty, broke out with the help of a good education, witnessed the lives of the well-to-do, and then came back home to build a school system in Harlem that at one point earned 100% of his students college acceptance letters.

Dr. Mary Trump is niece of The Donald. For a long time, her closest friends had no idea. She was a super private citizen. But then, she went mega-public to talk about her uncle’s cruelty during his presidency. She was the source for a Pulitzer-prize winning investigation in The New York Times into the Trump family’s finances. And her tell-all family memoir sold more copies in one week than Donald Trump’s Art of The Deal sold in its lifetime. It made bestseller history. Mary Trump isn’t used...

Mean Girls, the 2004 movie and later the 2018 Broadway musical, has made more than a quarter billion dollars in ticket sales. But the author of the original source material, Rosalind Wiseman, reveals for the first time on Art of Power that she did not reap the significant financial benefits attached to her creative work. In her contract with Paramount Pictures, Wiseman was promised 5% of net proceeds. Paramount claims the blockbuster film is in the red and has not paid her not a single penny...

Just seven years into his career as a doctor, Vivek Murthy became Surgeon General. His rise happened not because he checked the boxes. He broke the rules and chased a feeling in his spine.

The first Black woman to serve in the U.S. Senate talks about her time in the public eye. She didn’t let society’s low expectations keep her down. She also paid a price she didn’t expect. For anyone who wants to break a glass ceiling, it’s an inspiring — and challenging — listen.

Gaby Pacheco walked 1,500 miles — in the wrong shoes — to force the hand of President Obama. The result: legal protection for nearly 1 million people. Meet the young woman behind DACA.

Art of Power. They changed the world. So can you. Each week, award-winning journalist Aarti Shahani meets fascinating humans who've done big things. They answer two questions: (1) How does power work in the real world, anyway? (2) How has wielding power changed you? The movement begins here. Listen now. Let your volcano erupt.