In the introduction to his latest book, How to Feed the World, Vaclav Smil writes that “numbers are the antidote to wishful thinking.” That one line captures why I’ve been such a devoted reader of this curmudgeonly Canada-based Czech academic for so many years. Across his decades of research and writing, Vaclav has tackled some of the biggest questions in energy, agriculture, and public health—not by making grand predictions, but by breaking down complex problems into measurable data.

Now, in How to Feed the World, Vaclav applies that same approach to one of the most pressing issues of our time: ensuring that everyone has enough nutritious food to eat. Many discussions about feeding the world focus on increasing agricultural productivity through improved seeds, healthier soils, better farming practices, and more productive livestock (all priorities for the Gates Foundation). Vaclav, however, insists we already produce more than enough food to feed the world. The real challenge, he says, is what happens after the food is grown.

This kind of argument is classic Vaclav—questioning assumptions, forcing us to rethink the way we frame problems, and turning conventional wisdom on its head. His analysis is never about the best- or worst-case scenarios; it’s about what the numbers actually tell us.

And the numbers tell a striking story: Some of the world’s biggest food producers have the highest rates of undernourishment. Globally, we produce around 3,000 calories per person per day—more than enough to feed everyone—but a staggering one-third of all food is wasted. (In some rich countries, that figure climbs to 45 percent.) Distribution systems fail, economic policies backfire, and food doesn’t always go where it’s needed.

I’ve seen this firsthand through the Gates Foundation’s work in sub-Saharan Africa, where food insecurity is driven by low agricultural productivity and weak infrastructure. Yields in the region remain far lower than in Asia or Latin America, in part because farmers rely on rain-fed agriculture rather than irrigation and have limited access to fertilizers, quality seeds, and digital farming tools. But even when food is grown, getting it to market is another challenge. Poor roads drive up transport costs, inadequate storage leads to food going bad, and weak trade networks make nutritious food unaffordable for many families.

And access is only part of the problem. Even when people get enough calories, they’re often missing the right nutrients. Malnutrition remains one of the most critical challenges the foundation works on—and it’s more complex than eating enough food. While severe hunger has declined globally, micronutrient deficiencies remain stubbornly common, even in wealthy countries. One of the most effective solutions has been around for nearly a century: food fortification. In the U.S., flour has been fortified with iron and vitamin B since the 1940s. This simple step has helped prevent conditions like anemia and neural tube defects and improve public health at scale—close to vaccines in terms of lives improved per dollar spent.

One of the most interesting parts of the book is Vaclav’s exploration of how human diets evolved. Across civilizations, people independently discovered that pairing grains with legumes created complete protein profiles—whether it was rice and soybeans in Asia, wheat and lentils in India, or corn and beans in the Americas. These solutions emerged from practical experience long before modern science could explain why they worked so well.

But just as past generations adapted their diets to available resources, we’re now facing new challenges that require us to adapt in different ways. Technology and innovation can help. They’ve already transformed the way we produce food, and they’ll continue to play a role. Take aquaculture: Once a tiny industry, it’s grown over the past 40 years to supply more seafood for the world than traditional fishing—a scalable way to meet global protein demands. The Green Revolution is another example. Beginning in the 1960s, innovations in higher-yielding crops, more effective fertilizers, and modern irrigation prevented widespread famine in India and Mexico. These changes were once seen as unlikely, too.

New breakthroughs could drive even more progress. CRISPR gene editing, for instance, could help develop crops that are more resilient to drought, disease, and pests—critical for farmers facing the pressures of climate change. Vaclav warns that we can’t count on technological miracles alone, and I agree. But I also believe that breakthroughs like CRISPR could be game-changing, just as the Green Revolution once was. The key is balancing long-term innovation with practical solutions we can implement immediately.

And some of these solutions aren’t about producing more food at all—they’re about wasting less of what we already have. Better storage and packaging, smarter supply chains, and flexible pricing models could significantly reduce spoilage and excess inventory. In a conversation we had about the book, Vaclav pointed out that Costco (which might seem like the pinnacle of U.S. consumption) stocks fewer than 4,000 items, compared to 40,000-plus in a typical North American supermarket.

That kind of efficiency—focusing on fewer, high-turnover products—reduces waste, lowers costs, and ultimately eases pressure on global food supply, helping make food more affordable where it is needed most.

How to Feed the World had a lot to teach me—and I’m sure it will teach you a lot, too. Like all of Vaclav’s best books, it challenges readers to think differently about a problem we thought we understood. Growing more and better food remains crucial—especially in places like sub-Saharan Africa, where there simply isn’t enough. But as the world’s population approaches 10 billion, increasing agricultural productivity alone won’t solve hunger and malnutrition. We also need to ensure that food is more accessible and affordable, less wasted, and just as nutritious as it is abundant.

After all, the goal isn’t to make more food for its own sake—it’s to feed more people.

I picked either the best time or the worst time to read Doris Kearns Goodwin’s new memoir. As I finished it, I was also deep in the writing of my first autobiography. On one hand, reading a book as thoughtful and well written as An Unfinished Love Story inspired me to push myself even more as an author. On the other hand, Goodwin sets a daunting example. Trying to write as well as she does is like trying to sing along with Lady Gaga.   

I’m a big fan of Goodwin’s—Team of Rivals is one of my favorite history books ever—so I wasn’t surprised that An Unfinished Love Story was so compelling. It starts with a clever conceit. Doris was married for 42 years to Dick Goodwin, a policy expert and White House speechwriter who played a crucial role in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations of the 1960s. Toward the end of Dick’s life, he and Doris started going through 300 boxes of papers and memorabilia he had collected—an exercise that led them to reopen an old debate about the relative merits of the two presidents, and especially the question of which man deserves more credit for the accomplishments of the Great Society.  

The book is partly about Doris and Dick’s decades-long relationship, and partly about a pivotal time in American history. It works on both fronts.  

I had never heard of Dick Goodwin before I read the book. I did know about Ted Sorensen, who had a major influence on Kennedy’s thinking and speeches; Dick Goodwin, it turns out, was just as important. He helped shape the Great Society, the most dramatic shift in America’s public safety net since Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. He was a senior advisor on Bobby Kennedy’s presidential campaign, and many years later, drafted Al Gore’s statesmanlike concession speech after the 2000 election. (Goodwin also led the investigation in the real-life game-show scandal that was the subject of the movie Quiz Show; he’s played by Rob Morrow.) 

The book left me with more admiration for both Kennedy and Johnson. When the Goodwins began the project of going through Dick’s papers, each had clear opinions on the two presidents: Dick was a Kennedy guy who quit the Johnson administration in protest over the Vietnam war and the president’s domineering style, while Doris preferred Johnson’s political savvy and ability to get things done. She worked at the White House during the latter’s administration and became a confidante; after he left office, she went to Texas to help him with his memoir. 

Sadly, the Goodwins’ project was cut short by Dick’s death in 2018. In the end, he and Doris came to see both presidents in a more nuanced way. After reading the book, so did I. Doris takes you behind the scenes so you can watch the two presidents and their teams figure out how to move their agenda forward, recruit good people, and explain their plans to the public. At the same time, she doesn't shy away from the contradictions and flaws in their characters, particularly in LBJ's case.  

Doris’ personal experiences, and her retelling of Dick’s, make the history feel more real. She’s not just reporting on what happened—she can tell you what it was like to be there, using intimate personal details to bring the era to life in a way I hadn’t seen before. In one funny and revealing moment, Johnson complains that Dick Goodwin is getting too much attention from the media—to the point that he tells a reporter that no one by that name even works at the White House. 

I think this book will resonate with a lot of different readers. For one thing, it’s hard to deny the similarities between the 1960s and today—a time of political upheaval, generational conflict, and protests on college campuses. Whether you already know a lot about the ’60s or you’re just dipping your toe into those waters, whether you want a deep dive into the art of political writing or a charming story about a married couple who adored each other, you’ll get it from An Unfinished Love Story.

Growing up, I was always going down rabbit holes to explore whatever caught my interest or captured my curiosity. When I felt restless or bored—or got in trouble for misbehaving—I would disappear into my room and lose myself in books or ideas, often for hours without interruption. This ability to turn idle time into deep thinking and learning became a fundamental part of who I am. 

It was also crucial to my success later on. At Microsoft in the ’90s, I began taking an annual “Think Week,” when I would isolate myself in a cabin on Washington’s Hood Canal with nothing but a big bag of books and technical papers. For seven days straight, I would read, think, and write about the future, interacting only with the person who dropped off meals for me. I was so committed to uninterrupted concentration during these weeks that I wouldn’t even check my email. 

Reading Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation has made me wonder: Would I have developed this habit if I had grown up with today’s technology? If every time I was alone in my room as a kid, there was a distracting app I could scroll through? If every time I sat down to tackle a programming problem as a teenager, four new messages popped up? I don’t have the answers—but these are questions that everyone who cares about how young minds develop should be asking. 

Haidt’s book, about how smartphones and social media have transformed childhood and adolescence, is scary but convincing. Its premise—that starting in the early 2010s, there was a “great rewiring” of an entire generation’s social and intellectual development—was interesting to me in part because I saw it happen in my own house. When my oldest daughter (a pediatrician who recommended the book to me) was in middle school, social media was present but not dominant. By the time my younger daughter reached adolescence six years later, being online all the time was simply part of being a pre-teen.  

What makes The Anxious Generation different from other books on similar topics is Haidt’s insight that we’re actually facing two distinct crises: digital under-parenting (giving kids unlimited and unsupervised access to devices and social media) and real-world over-parenting (protecting kids from every possible harm in the real world). The result is young people who are suffering from addiction-like behaviors—and suffering, period—while struggling to handle challenges and setbacks that are part of everyday life.  

My childhood was marked by remarkable freedom—something that might surprise people who assume I spent all day glued to a computer indoors. I went hiking on trails that would terrify today’s parents, explored endlessly with neighborhood friends, and ran around Washington D.C. during my time as a Senate page. When I was in high school, Paul Allen and I even lived on our own for a few months in Vancouver, Washington, while working as programmers at a power company. My parents didn’t know where I was half the time, and that was normal back then. While I got hurt on some of these adventures and got in trouble on many others, these experiences were more beneficial than bad. They taught me resilience, independence, and judgment in ways that no amount of supervised, structured activity could replicate. 

It wasn’t all fun and games, but I had what Haidt calls a play-based childhood. Now, a phone-based childhood is much more common—a shift that predated the pandemic but solidified when screens became important tools for learning and socializing. The irony is that parents these days are overprotective in the physical world and strangely hands-off in the digital one, letting kids live life online largely without supervision.  

The consequences are staggering. Today’s teenagers spend an average of six to eight hours per day on screen-based leisure activities—that is, not for schoolwork or homework. The real number might actually be much higher, given that a third of teenagers also say they’re on a social media site “almost constantly.” For the generation Haidt writes about, this has coincided with sharp spikes in anxiety and depression, higher rates of eating disorders and self-harm, plummeting self-esteem, and increased feelings of isolation despite more around-the-clock, on-demand connection than ever. Then there are the opportunity costs of a phone-based childhood that Haidt documents: less (and worse) sleep, less reading, less in-person socializing, less time outside, and less independence. 

All of this is concerning, but I’m especially worried about the impact on critical thinking and concentrating. Our attention spans are like muscles, and the non-stop interruptions and addictive nature of social media make it incredibly difficult for them to develop. Without the ability to focus intensely and follow an idea wherever it leads, the world could miss out on breakthroughs that come from putting your mind to something and keeping it there, even when the dopamine hit of a quick distraction is one click away. 

Another alarming finding in the book is the significant gender divide at play here. Severe mental health challenges seem to have hit young women especially hard in recent years. Meanwhile, young men’s academic performance is worsening, their college attendance is dropping, and they’re failing to develop the social skills and resilience that come from real-world interaction and risk-taking. In other words: Girls are falling into despair while boys are falling behind.  

The solutions Haidt proposes aren’t simple, but I think they’re needed. He makes a strong case for better age verification on social media platforms and delaying smartphone access until kids are older. Literally and figuratively, he argues, we also need to rebuild the infrastructure of childhood itself—from creating more engaging playgrounds that encourage reasonable risk-taking, to establishing phone-free zones in schools, to helping young people rediscover the joy of in-person interaction. Achieving this won’t come from individual families making better choices; it requires coordination between parents, schools, tech companies, and policymakers. It also demands more research into the effects of these technologies, and the political will to act on what we learn.

The Anxious Generation is a must-read for anyone raising, working with, or teaching young people today. With this book, Haidt has given the world a wake-up call about where we’re headed—and a roadmap for how we can change course.