The Etan Ilfeld Podcast

From founding billion-dollar companies to reshaping debates on technology and governance, Joe Lonsdale has spent his career at the frontier of progress. Recorded in June 2025 with Etan Ilfeld, this episode dives into the future of AI, national resilience, and what it takes to build and protect the civilization of tomorrow.

Terence Stamp passed away on August 17, 2025.
Recorded a decade earlier, this episode is both a time capsule and a tribute to a legendary actor, artist, and seeker.
On July 26, 2015 in London, Etan Ilfeld sat down with Stamp for an intimate and wide-ranging conversation. Best known for films such as Billy Budd, The Collector, Superman II, and The Limey, he spoke candidly about his life on and off the screen—his collaborations with icons like Marlon Brando and Laurence Olivier, his reflections on figures from Winston Churchill to the Queen Mother, and his years of spiritual exploration in India and beyond.
He also shared insights on health, discipline, voice, and the daily practices that shaped his outlook—wisdom later distilled into his memoir The Ocean Fell into the Drop, published by Watkins.
This conversation is shared in memory of an extraordinary artist and human being.

This interview took place on March 13, 2024. David Lynch is a writer and director of groundbreaking films like Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive. In this interview, he discusses the power of Transcendental Meditation (TM), which he's done every day for over 50 years. He also shares his outlook on life and synchronicity. His creative endeavours include building and designing furniture, recording a solo album, and much more. This interview also references his autobiography Room to Dream published in 2017.

Stephen Wolfram is one of a kind, he's a mathematician, computer scientist, and theoretical physicist. He's also the founder and CEO of Wolfram Research, which includes Mathematica and Wolfram alpha. He's written numerous books, including A New Kind of Science, which delved into the mystery of cellular automata, and most recently, What is ChatGPT Doing and Why Does it Work?

Etan Ilfeld and Stephen Wolfram discuss a wide range of topics from the future of artificial intelligence to open source versus proprietary software, to the evolution of culture and the future of education.

Many have studied it, written about it and even died for it and yet, it appears, we are mostly blind to the essence of love. Dr Liat Yakir takes us on a fascinating journey through the evolution of love in history and in modern times, showing the importance of hormones, neurons and genes that dictate who we’ll fall in love with and who we’ll reject.

A Brief History of Love is Dr Liat Yakir's first book.