Épisodes

  • The Pod Has A New Name: After Amherst

    The Pod Has A New Name: After Amherst
    Aug 11 2026
    I've been interviewing exclusively people with an Amherst connection for several years now. It's time the podcast's name reflects that.
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    1 min
  • JoJo Thirasilpa Pushes His Learning To The Edges Of Land, Sea, And Sky

    JoJo Thirasilpa Pushes His Learning To The Edges Of Land, Sea, And Sky
    Aug 11 2026
    Like many people who pursue a liberal arts education, Jojo Thirasilpa has been drawn to learning and acquiring new knowledge and skills his entire life. Where and how he acquires knowledge and skill is rather unique, however. When not working in finance from his home in the United Kingdom, Jojo competes in Ironmans, has crossed the Sahara in arguably the most challenging footrace in the world, the Marathon des Sables, trained as a scuba instructor, and recently earned his pilot’s license. That means he seeks knowledge in places where many of us would find discomfort. Jojo reflects on how exploration, discipline, and endurance have shaped his entire life, and why pushing his physical, mental, and emotional limits through endurance sports has become a most unexpected classroom.
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    52 min
  • Tarleton Gillespie Transformed A Passion For Pop Culture Into His Life’s Work

    Tarleton Gillespie Transformed A Passion For Pop Culture Into His Life’s Work
    Aug 3 2026
    Tarleton Gillespie is a leading voice in how technology and culture shape each other. Like many guests on this pod, his journey features fascinating twists and turns: His near‑miss with the Amherst College application deadline. The honors thesis on Beavis and Butt‑Head and The Simpsons that the English department initially rejected. Tarleton shares how that early instinct to take pop culture seriously carried him into graduate school, studying intellectual property rights in the Napster era, a long run teaching at Cornell, and more than a decade at Microsoft Research. He proves it absolutely is possible to make a childhood fascination the foundation of a rewarding career.
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    1 h et 2 min
  • James Glazer Discovered What Matters After Losing What Mattered Most

    James Glazer Discovered What Matters After Losing What Mattered Most
    Jul 28 2026
    When I first decided to focus this podcast on fellow Amherst College graduates, my guest for this episode was the first person I thought of. That's because more than anybody else I know, James Glazer has lived intentionally, choosing his life rather than letting anyone else choose it for him. At the age of 30, James lost his father. Through that loss and grief, he came to recognize something that's true for all of us: the most finite resource any of us have is time. In that awakening, he rethought his career path, his definition of success, and the way he wanted to spend his time. Influenced by the Stoics, he built a life in northern New Hampshire centered on family, community, his work in medicine, and spending time outdoors. We talk about all that and so much more, including the joy he finds in working with his hands and the playful, eye‑roll‑inducing ways he shows love to his kids. James has crafted a roadmap for defining success for ourselves. It's a gift, especially for those of us on a certain side of the age of 50. Email James at jamesglazer@gmail.com.
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    1 h et 22 min
  • Keya Khayatian Found His Voice and the Power of Storytelling

    Keya Khayatian Found His Voice and the Power of Storytelling
    Jul 21 2026
    Keya Khayatian’s life reads like the kind of story he now champions in Hollywood: one shaped by the search for identity. Keya traces his journey from immigrating to the U.S. as a child fleeing Iran to becoming a partner and co‑head of Media Rights at UTA, where he represents some of the most influential filmmakers working today. He reflects on navigating his early experiences of feeling “othered” and discovering Amherst College, where he came into his own and developed the confidence that comes from failing and trying again. He shares what makes a storyteller’s voice unmistakable, how he advocates for artists in moments of creative conflict, and why the stories we tell ourselves matter as much as the ones we tell the world. Email Keya at khayatiank@unitedtalent.com. Show notes: Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams The Invite, Directed by Olivia Wilde and starring Wilde, Seth Rogan, Edward Norton, and Penelope Cruz
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    1 h et 7 min
  • Tarsha Echols Is A Portrait Of Resilience

    Tarsha Echols Is A Portrait Of Resilience
    Jun 23 2026
    Tarsha Echols has lived a life that refuses neat categories. She grew up, in her words, “a hood rat" from Memphis, graduated from Amherst College as a biology and French double major, and went on to build a 28‑year career as a flight attendant, where she has had a front‑row seat to humanity at 35,000 feet. But it’s what happened in 2021 that reshaped everything. What she thought was a bout of Covid turned out to be severe pneumonia and life‑threatening blood clots. She flatlined, slipped into a coma, and somehow came all the way back. Tarsha talks about the resilience she developed early in life, the shock of feeling “less than” for the first time in her life at Amherst, the joy she finds in animals and rescuing dogs, the scariest thing she has encountered mid-air, and the thrill and purpose that comes from surviving something you weren’t supposed to survive.
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    53 min
  • Jo Park Shows How Observation Becomes A Way of Seeing Ourselves

    Jo Park Shows How Observation Becomes A Way of Seeing Ourselves
    Jun 16 2026
    From the forest pansy redbud she studies each morning to the students she teaches at Penn, Jo Park talks about the power of observation as both a discipline and a source of meaning. She reflects on how gardening during Covid sharpened her ability to see patterns and small transformations, and how that same attentiveness informs her scholarship on Asian American literature and the frameworks that shape identity. We also explore Jo’s research into the creative work produced by Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II, including the rock gardens whose arrangements reveal how people create beauty even under duress. Across gardening, teaching, and historical study, Jo makes a strong case for the power of the humanities and developing our understanding of what it means to be human. Show note: William Carlos Williams' poem, To Elsie: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46485/to-elsie
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    54 min
  • Edward Lees Built A Life Balancing Markets, Nature, Poetry, And Self‑Discovery

    Edward Lees Built A Life Balancing Markets, Nature, Poetry, And Self‑Discovery
    Jun 9 2026
    Edward Lees, like many Amherst College graduates, has generally gravitated toward breadth. That first manifested in his academic journey from physics to neuroscience to European studies, and later in a career that has taken him through biotech hedge funds and today into environmental investing from his home in London. To complement that arc, he’s carved out space for the outdoors and for poetry, two practices that ground him and give him outlets for inspiration. Edward also reflects on a more personal dimension of the last several years: understanding autism within his family and recognizing some of those traits in himself. That realization has reframed how he remembers his Amherst years, including why small groups felt easier than large ones and why some friendships have lasted his adult life. Edward's experience sheds light on how we can come to understand ourselves over time and how the pieces of our lives can reveal a clear and intentional design, even if we haven't always been aware of it.
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    42 min