Vantage Point - the podcast for critical thinkers.

In 1976 Queen Elizabeth II sent an email over ARPANET. The United States Postal Service - an organization whose entire business was carrying messages - watched the future arrive and did nothing. Then it handed out free AOL discs on its own counters, letting customers walk in to mail a letter and walk out with the tools to stop needing one. Eli traces the most expensive failure of critical thinking in modern business, and closes with the man who built the web and gave it away: Tim Berners-Lee.

In this episode
['Why the US Postal Service missed the email revolution', 'How Queen Elizabeth II became the first head of state to use email', 'The story behind Tim Berners-Lee and the World Wide Web', 'What happened when the post office gave away free email kits', "The financial impact of the postal service's failure to adapt", 'Aphorisms on letting go of who we are to become who we might be']

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. More at eliamdur.com.

Vantage Point - the podcast for critical thinkers.

Anyone can learn Excel. The superstar you hire today could be your CEO by 2050 — and hire the CEO who leads your company into the 22nd century. So why are we still hiring for skills, when it is traits that will decide who is in the driver's seat?

In this episode
A hard look at hiring for traits instead of skills, plus 3 of Eli's aphorisms, Benjamin Franklin from great minds, and a "What If?" about Thomas Paine to ponder.

Eli’s Aphorisms
“Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, and the pig likes it.”
“Price, quality, speed: select any two. You can never get all three.”
“Some things in life are no more complicated than this: get up, dress up, show up.”

From Great Minds
“In wine there is truth, in beer there is freedom, and in water there is bacteria.” — Benjamin Franklin

What If?
What if there had been no Thomas Paine? Ask a room of a hundred people who he was and most hands would stay down, yet any list of the ten most important people of the Revolutionary period has to include him. An immigrant from England and an exceptional thinker and writer, he was a pamphleteer — we don't have pamphleteers anymore; we have podcasters, which is pretty much the same thing. "These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country." His pamphlets sold in numbers that were astonishing for the size of the colonies. Somebody was going to do it? Stuff that good doesn't go to just somebody. As the saying from the period has it: without the pen of Thomas Paine, the sword of Washington would have been wielded in vain. That is one hell of a what-if.

This episode is supported by Vantage Point's Executive Sponsor, Stephen Bozer, SVP of Human Health at Flavine.

Also supported by Major Sponsor Bergen Volunteers, neighbors serving neighbors across 70 towns in Bergen County since 1966.

Also supported by Major Sponsor Kardam Consulting, strategic counsel for the business of making medicine.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. More at eliamdur.com.

Vantage Point - the podcast for critical thinkers.

Would you hire this candidate? Eli runs the hiring thought experiment an executive search committee would use for the biggest job on the planet, to show how we keep making the same bad call, no matter which side of the aisle it comes from.

In this episode
• Why do we make decisions that work against our own best interests
• What would happen if you hired a CEO with no relevant qualifications
• What are the six elements of a real leader
• Why is inspiring people better than motivating them
• Why do some people resent the idea of being woke
• How do cuts to public education kill critical thinking
• Which states rank highest in educational achievement and why it matters

This episode is supported by Vantage Point's Executive Sponsor, Stephen Bozer, and by Major Sponsor Kardam Consulting.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. More at eliamdur.com.