675. Has the New York Times Become a Games Company?
15 May - 57 minsNot exactly. But their runaway success with games like Wordle says something bigger about the way we live now. (Part one of a series, “We Are All Gamers Now.”)
SOURCES:
Alex Hardiman, chief product officer at The New York Times.
Jonathan Knight, S.V.P. and general manager for New York Times Games.
Eric Zimmerman, game designer, professor of game design at the N.Y.U. Game Center.
RESOURCES:
"Wordle Is a Love Story," by Daniel Victor (New York Times, 2022).
The Rules We Break: Lessons in Play, Thinking, and Design, by Eric Zimmerman (2022).
Thinking Inside the Box: Adventures with Crosswords and the Puzzling People Who Can't Live Without Them, by...
Series Episodes
Are You Really Allergic to Penicillin? (Update)
Like tens of millions of people, Stephen Dubner thought he had a penicillin allergy. Like the vast majority, he didn’t. This misdiagnosis costs billions of dollars and causes serious health problems, so why hasn’t it been fixed? We find out in this update of a 2025 episode.
1 hour 5 mins
17 July Finished
How a Great Architect Thinks, with Bjarke Ingels | Better in Person
Is the oxymoron really “the secret sauce to everything”? That’s the case Ingels makes in this debut episode of our new video show Better in Person, filmed in Stephen Dubner’s living room. If you'd like to see the video version of Better in Person, watch it on YouTube or Apple Podcasts.
43 mins
14 July Finished
681. How to Host a Talk Show, with Dick Cavett
Stephen Dubner had an idea for a new project. So he drove to Connecticut and knocked on the door of the master. Dubner’s new TV talk show Better in Person launches July 14 on the Freakonomics YouTube channel.
43 mins
9 July Finished
680. Can Universities Win Back Our Trust?
Dartmouth president Sian Beilock, a psychologist by training, made her name studying why people choke. Now she’s applying those insights to one of the most scrutinized jobs in America. No pressure!
49 mins
3 July Finished
679. Why Does Vanderbilt Keep Winning?
It’s a hard time to run a university: public trust is low, political pressure is high, and finances are fragile. But Daniel Diermeier, who trained as a political scientist, has Vanderbilt humming. How? He says the key is choosing magnets over wedges.
1 hour 4 mins
26 June Finished
The World Is (Still) Drowning in Sludge
Insurance forms that make no sense. Subscriptions that can’t be cancelled. A never-ending blizzard of automated notifications. In this update of a 2025 episode, Stephen Dubner discovers where all this sludge comes from — and how much it’s costing us.
54 mins
24 June Finished
