The Art of Being Unreasonable: Lessons in Unconventional Thinking

In conversation with Jim Newton
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
00:47:07
Listen:
Episode Summary

How have unreasonable principles —from negotiating to risk-taking, from investing to hiring— helped billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad in founding two Fortune 500 companies, funding scientific research and education reform, and building some of the world’s greatest contemporary art museums? Why is he drawn to the unreasonableness of contemporary artists like Richard Serra and Robert Rauschenberg? What can we learn from the wisdom of an unreasonable man?


Participant(s) Bio

Eli Broad is a renowned business leader who built two Fortune 500 companies from the ground up over a five decade career in business. He is the founder of both SunAmerica Inc. and KB Home (formerly Kaufman and Broad Home Corporation). Eli Broad and his wife, Edythe, are devoted to philanthropy as founders of The Broad Foundations, which they established to advance entrepreneurship for the public good in education, science and the arts. Over the past four decades, the Broads have built two of the most prominent collections of postwar and contemporary art worldwide: The Eli and Edythe L. Broad Collection and The Broad Art Foundation.

Jim Newton is a veteran journalist who began his career as clerk to James Reston at the New York Times. Since then he has worked as a reporter at the Atlanta Constitution and as a reporter, bureau chief, and editor at the Los Angeles Times, where he presently is the editor at large and the author of a weekly column. He is also an educator and author of two biographical books, Justice for All: Earl Warren and the Nation He Made, and most recently, Eisenhower: The White House Years.



Credits

Sponsors

Top