#AcademicRunPlaylist - 11/12/25

Author

Ben Waber
November 12, 2025

A selfie of me in front of a window looking out onto a monorail track. I’m a bald, middle-aged, white man with a red beard flecked with white. I’m wearing black sunglasses and a black shirt with the gold and blue Japan People Analytics Association logo on it.

I had a loooong trip back to the US, which gave me lots of time to listen to talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was an interesting talk by Aram Sinnreich on the many roles of consumer data in powering surveillance systems at the Stanford Tech Impact and Policy Center https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTo3Uak_COk

Next was a fantastic discussion between friends of the playlist Ann Lipton and Michael Levin on the convoluted, fascinating legal and financial questions underlying the Pfizer-Novo-Metsera M&A triangle on the Shareholder Primacy Podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I13XymgiQd4

Next was a great talk by Ernest Lim on the responsibility of corporate directors to consider externalities at the Cambridge Faculty of Law https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSmkxnK5KSI

Next was a compelling discussion between Daniel Solove and Woodrow Hartzog on why the scraping of public data might not actually be legal in the US https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxW7bZ0hvh0

Next was an engaging pair of talks by Matthew Gaughan (impact of open source project contribution guideline documentation on participation) and Igor Steinmacher (impacts of organizational interventions on open source projects) at the Community Data Science Collective https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnamt6B6Z9U

Next was an engaging panel on the paradox of “meritocracy” with Keith Bevans, Emilio J Castilla, and Cindy Pace https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw61dKlctPw

Last was “Chemistry and Our Universe” by Ron Davis. This is an absolute firehose of information on the fundamentals of chemistry, and while it demands multiple run-throughs and certainly benefits from some background in the field, this is an excellent resource to get up to speed on the basics. I was primarily interested in this so I can become more knowledgeable on battery technology and some biological processes, and this was definitely a good refresher. A lot of the later chapters are less useful from this perspective, as Davis spends more time with chemistry’s effects in the natural world, so depending on your interests your mileage will vary on these sections. Highly recommend https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/chemistry-and-our-universe-how-it-all-works