StarZero All shows Try the podcast clipper →

Walter Isaacson

Professor, Tulane University · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

authorjournalistacademicexecutive@WalterIsaacson ↗isaacson.tulane.edu ↗Wikipedia ↗

Walter Isaacson is a biographer best known for authoring biographies of figures including Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein, and Leonardo da Vinci. He previously served as the chairman and CEO of CNN and managing editor of Time magazine.

29statements → 14claims → 11claims resolved → 73%fully supported → 3.83/5average certainty → 1.86/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 4said about them ↓

8 supported 2 partly supported 1 contradicted 3 not checkable as stated how the 14 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 13 assertions · 3 opinions · 11 insights · 1 disclosure · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 14 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 11 are resolved, and 3 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Walter argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Isaacson: Feng Zhang Beat Doudna's Team by Two Weeks to Human CRISPR Patents
“And after Jennifer and Emmanuel discover how CRISPR can be engineered to be a tool to cut DNA, a race ensues to say who can make it work and show how it works in human cells first. And it takes them both six months along with some other labs. It's a race that …”
Walter Isaacson Oct 5, 2021 ▶ 59:11 #121 Walter Isaacson: Curiosity Fuels Creativity

Their most notable contradicted claim

Assertion Contradicted
Isaacson: Steve Jobs delayed original Mac launch over circuit board aesthetics
“Something that he shared with Steve jobs who would hold up shipping the original Macintosh because the circuit board inside was not beautiful enough.”
Walter Isaacson Oct 5, 2021 ▶ 35:30 #121 Walter Isaacson: Curiosity Fuels Creativity

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Walter Isaacson on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

Everything Walter Isaacson said on the Knowledge Project that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Assertion Supported
Isaacson: Leonardo designed the Mona Lisa's smile using optical science
“If you look at the very detail directly at the corner of the lips of the Mona Lisa, they actually aren't turned up. But as you move your head a little bit, and you catch the shadows and the colors better, the lips seem to turn up. So it becomes an interactive …”
Walter Isaacson Oct 5, 2021 ▶ 39:15 #121 Walter Isaacson: Curiosity Fuels Creativity
Assertion Supported
Isaacson: Alan Turing's work directly responded to Ada Lovelace's objection
“Alan Turing, a century after Ada Lovelace writes her notes on the different the analytical engine, writes his paper called Can Machines Think? And he writes about what he calls Ada Lovelace's objection, Lady Lovelace's objection, he calls it, which is that mac…”
Walter Isaacson Oct 5, 2021 ▶ 43:39 #121 Walter Isaacson: Curiosity Fuels Creativity
Assertion Supported
Isaacson: Jennifer Doudna Pursued Chemistry After Reading 'The Double Helix'
“When she was in middle school, Jennifer Doudna came home one day and found on her bed the book, The Double Helix, by James Watson, and she read it, and she saw Rosalind Franklin, this biochemist in it and she said, oh, I didn't know women could become scientis…”
Walter Isaacson Oct 5, 2021 ▶ 1:04:14 #121 Walter Isaacson: Curiosity Fuels Creativity
Insight
Isaacson: Editing Writing on Paper Reveals Flaws Missed on Screen
“We know things look different on paper than they do on the screen, and when you see it on paper in the next morning, you're able to find those sentences or those phrases that don't quite track or that read kind of clunkily. You see where the whole thing is klu…”
Walter Isaacson Oct 5, 2021 ▶ 4:09 #121 Walter Isaacson: Curiosity Fuels Creativity
Assertion Supported
Isaacson: Leonardo da Vinci and Albert Einstein Both Experimented on Why the Sky Is Blue
“And what amazed me when I saw that in Leonardo's notebooks was boom, it's in Einstein's notebooks. He writes, why is the sky blue? They both do experiments. Leonardo sprays water in the air and shines light through it. Einstein, you know, is using Lord Rayleig…”
Walter Isaacson Oct 5, 2021 ▶ 30:04 #121 Walter Isaacson: Curiosity Fuels Creativity

The other half of the tape: Walter Isaacson's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 3 times in 2 episodes on the Knowledge Project. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Robert Greene 2John Mackey 1

Statements about Walter Isaacson, by other people (1)

Opinion
Greene: Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs was rushed and shallow.
“You know, I like Walter Isaacson. I think he's a very fine biographer, but You know, even like the Steve jobs that he's rushed, he's got to write it because she just died. And like, I don't really feel like when I read that book, I understand the man, Steve jo…”
Robert Greene Jun 27, 2018 ▶ 14:11 #35 Robert Greene: Alive Time vs. Dead Time

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
0011212018201920202021202220232024episodesmentions
0112018201920202021202220232024episodes it came up in
0010.5212018201920202021202220232024episodesmentions per episode
2024 1 mention in 1 episode
2018 2 mentions in 1 episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
#121 Walter Isaacson: Curiosity Fuels Creativity Oct 5, 2021 52m
Made with StarZero

Turn any episode into a week of clips.

This entire site, over 200 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable, runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.

Try the podcast clipper Learn more