What It Takes is a podcast series featuring intimate, revealing conversations with towering figures in almost every field: music, science, sports, politics, film, technology, literature, the military and social justice. These rare interviews have been recorded over the past 25 years by The Academy of Achievement. They offer the life stories and reflections of people who have had a huge impact on the world, and insights you can apply to your own life. Subscribe to the What It Takes podcast...

When the rest of the world was just waking up to the possibility of cell phones and the Internet, Tony Fadell was already creating the technology behind the smartphone. Author of more than 300 patents, he sold a microprocessor startup to Apple just as he was leaving college. He spent the next decade pioneering mobile technology for the leading electronics companies, but none would fully commit to marketing the devices he created. When investors passed on Fadell's idea for a pocket-sized...

This podcast features two of the visionaries of today's world of Internet commerce and social media. Reid Hoffman has been called "the most connected man in Silicon Valley," the "uber-investor" who "has had a hand in creating nearly every lucrative social media startup." He was the originator of the PayPal online commerce tool and is the founder and Chairman of LinkedIn, as well as an early investor in Facebook, GroupOn and Airbnb. Joi Ito, a social media entrepreneur in his own right, is now...

This podcast features two of the visionaries of today's world of Internet commerce and social media. Reid Hoffman has been called "the most connected man in Silicon Valley," the "uber-investor" who "has had a hand in creating nearly every lucrative social media startup." He was the originator of the PayPal online commerce tool and is the founder and Chairman of LinkedIn, as well as an early investor in Facebook, GroupOn and Airbnb. Joi Ito, a social media entrepreneur in his own right, is now...

Barry Scheck has been honored as the most outstanding criminal defense lawyer in America. A pioneer of the use of DNA evidence, he co-founded the Innocence Project at Cardozo Law School in New York City. In the past decade, the Project has helped secure the exoneration of more than 200 men previously convicted of crimes they did not commit, many of whom would have faced execution but for the intervention of Scheck and his associates. He describes many of these cases in his book, Actual...

Anthony Romero had led the ACLU for only four days when the attacks of September 11, 2001 presented civil libertarians with their greatest challenge in decades. Since then, Romero and the ACLU have waged a continuous struggle in the nation's courts to ensure that the Constitution does not become a casualty of the war on terror. A son of Puerto Rican parents, and the first member of his family to graduate from high school, Romero earned law and public policy degrees at Stanford and Princeton....

Anthony Romero had led the ACLU for only four days when the attacks of September 11, 2001 presented civil libertarians with their greatest challenge in decades. Since then, Romero and the ACLU have waged a continuous struggle in the nation's courts to ensure that the Constitution does not become a casualty of the war on terror. A son of Puerto Rican parents, and the first member of his family to graduate from high school, Romero earned law and public policy degrees at Stanford and Princeton....

Anthony Romero had led the ACLU for only four days when the attacks of September 11, 2001 presented civil libertarians with their greatest challenge in decades. Since then, Romero and the ACLU have waged a continuous struggle in the nation's courts to ensure that the Constitution does not become a casualty of the war on terror. A son of Puerto Rican parents, and the first member of his family to graduate from high school, Romero earned law and public policy degrees at Stanford and Princeton....

Dr. Francis Collins has dedicated his career to mapping and identifying genes that cause human diseases including cystic fibrosis and Huntington's disease. For 15 years, he served as Director of the National Center for Human Genome research, one of the largest undertakings in the history of science. Under his leadership, this effort charted the entire human genome, and is on its way to unlocking all of the mysteries of human heredity. In 2009 Dr. Collins was sworn in as the 16th Director of...

Dr. Francis Collins has dedicated his career to mapping and identifying genes that cause human diseases including cystic fibrosis and Huntington's disease. For 15 years, he served as Director of the National Center for Human Genome research, one of the largest undertakings in the history of science. Under his leadership, this effort charted the entire human genome, and is on its way to unlocking all of the mysteries of human heredity. In 2009 Dr. Collins was sworn in as the 16th Director of...

Dr. Francis Collins has dedicated his career to mapping and identifying genes that cause human diseases including cystic fibrosis and Huntington's disease. For 15 years, he served as Director of the National Center for Human Genome research, one of the largest undertakings in the history of science. Under his leadership, this effort charted the entire human genome, and is on its way to unlocking all of the mysteries of human heredity. In 2009 Dr. Collins was sworn in as the 16th Director of...

Dr. Francis Collins has dedicated his career to mapping and identifying genes that cause human diseases including cystic fibrosis and Huntington's disease. For 15 years, he served as Director of the National Center for Human Genome research, one of the largest undertakings in the history of science. Under his leadership, this effort charted the entire human genome, and is on its way to unlocking all of the mysteries of human heredity. In 2009 Dr. Collins was sworn in as the 16th Director of...

A graduate of the University of Virginia and Stanford Business School, Jacqueline Novogratz began her career in international banking with Chase Manhattan Bank before founding Duterimbere, a micro-finance institution in Rwanda. She initiated and led The Philanthropy Workshop and The Next Generation Leadership program at the Rockefeller Foundation. In 2001, Novogratz founded the Acumen Fund to finance small-scale businesses that supply life-changing goods and services to underserved...

A graduate of the University of Virginia and Stanford Business School, Jacqueline Novogratz began her career in international banking with Chase Manhattan Bank before founding Duterimbere, a micro-finance institution in Rwanda. She initiated and led The Philanthropy Workshop and The Next Generation Leadership program at the Rockefeller Foundation. In 2001, Novogratz founded the Acumen Fund to finance small-scale businesses that supply life-changing goods and services to underserved...

Anthony Romero had led the ACLU for only four days when the attacks of September 11, 2001 presented civil libertarians with their greatest challenge in decades. Since then, Romero and the ACLU have waged a continuous struggle in the nation's courts to ensure that the Constitution does not become a casualty of the war on terror. A son of Puerto Rican parents, and the first member of his family to graduate from high school, Romero earned law and public policy degrees at Stanford and Princeton....

Anthony Romero had led the ACLU for only four days when the attacks of September 11, 2001 presented civil libertarians with their greatest challenge in decades. Since then, Romero and the ACLU have waged a continuous struggle in the nation's courts to ensure that the Constitution does not become a casualty of the war on terror. A son of Puerto Rican parents, and the first member of his family to graduate from high school, Romero earned law and public policy degrees at Stanford and Princeton....

Born and raised in South Africa, Nadine Gordimer published her first short story in a children's magazine in 1937 at the age of 16. She left college without a degree and continued publishing short fiction in South African journals. She drew attention outside her country in 1951, when her stories began appearing in The New Yorker magazine. She published her first novel, The Lying Days in 1953. In her short stories and novels such as Burger's Daughter and July's People, she explored...

For nearly 30 years, Paul Farmer has done what others thought impossible, bringing first-rate medical care to the poorest people on earth. He first traveled to Haiti as a young medical student to volunteer in the poorest part of the most disease-ridden country in the western hemisphere. He continued his studies long distance, earning doctorates in both medicine and anthropology while treating more types of illness and injury than most physicians encounter in a lifetime. He built a world-class...

For nearly 30 years, Paul Farmer has done what others thought impossible, bringing first-rate medical care to the poorest people on earth. He first traveled to Haiti as a young medical student to volunteer in the poorest part of the most disease-ridden country in the western hemisphere. He continued his studies long distance, earning doctorates in both medicine and anthropology while treating more types of illness and injury than most physicians encounter in a lifetime. He built a world-class...

The songs Brian Wilson created as leader of the Beach Boys combined the rhythms of rock and roll with Baroque counterpoint and jazz harmony to create an exhilarating sound that has become the perennial soundtrack of the American summer. Despite near deafness in one ear, Brian Wilson began experimenting with music and tape recorders as a teenager in Hawthorne, California. Forming the Beach Boys with his two younger brothers, a cousin, and a neighbor, he recorded their first single at home...

Three panelists bring unique points of view to a discussion of 21st century Africa. The President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, is the first woman to serve as the elected leader of an African nation. The Harvard-trained economist survived death threats, exile and imprisonment in her 25-year struggle to bring peace and democracy to her country. Since her election in 2005, President Johnson Sirleaf has moved decisively to repair the damage done by decades of dictatorship and...

Three panelists bring unique points of view to a discussion of 21st century Africa. The President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, is the first woman to serve as the elected leader of an African nation. The Harvard-trained economist survived death threats, exile and imprisonment in her 25-year struggle to bring peace and democracy to her country. Since her election in 2005, President Johnson Sirleaf has moved decisively to repair the damage done by decades of dictatorship and...

Three panelists bring unique points of view to a discussion of 21st century Africa. The President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, is the first woman to serve as the elected leader of an African nation. The Harvard-trained economist survived death threats, exile and imprisonment in her 25-year struggle to bring peace and democracy to her country. Since her election in 2005, President Johnson Sirleaf has moved decisively to repair the damage done by decades of dictatorship and...

One day in 1993, a lost mountain climber, starving and disoriented, stumbled from the slopes of the treacherous peak known as K2 into an isolated Pakistani village. The impoverished villagers sheltered and fed him until he was well enough to move on. When he learned they had no school for their children, he vowed to return and build them one. In the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan, war and poverty have limited education for all, while custom and prejudice have denied education to women...