JD

Jared Diamond

Things Jared Says on Podcasts

Where to Find Them

Jared Diamond writes The Michael Shermer Show . They have also been a guest on Passion Struck with John R. Miles (2 times) , WSJ Tech News Briefing , Conversations with Tyler , In Our Time (BBC) , Conversations with Coleman , The Journal. , The Interview , Huberman Lab and Discovery .

Recently: “Do Great Men Actually Matter? With Jared Diamond” on Conversations with Coleman (October 2026); “What Makes Great Leaders & How to Live an Extraordinary Life | Dr. Jared Diamond” on Huberman Lab (October 2026); “Jared Diamond on Leaders, Luck, and Irreplaceability” on Conversations with Tyler (September 2026); “When Do Leaders Actually Matter?” on Passion Struck with John R. Miles (September 2026); “World-Renowned Historian: When Leaders Actually Change History | Jared Diamond - EP 815” on Passion Struck with John R. Miles (September 2026); “How Gamblers Are Rigging College Basketball” on The Journal. (March 2026).

What They Said

“We expect everybody to be equal to John Wooden, and that's impossible. So we fired coach after coach, although their winning records have been 60 or 70%, which any university other than UCLA would have been thrilled with, with the result that UCLA is now $150 million in debt in its athletic department because I'm having to buy out all these contracts. Again, my chancellor should have read my book.” — Jared Diamond, Conversations with Coleman

Diamond's new book asks how much leaders really matter. Hughes offered NBA coaching as a natural experiment, and Diamond estimates a coach is about 30% of the explanation. He then turns to his own university's habit of firing basketball coaches. The debt figure is his own claim.

Conversations with Coleman · 2026-10-19 Permalink → Listen →
Conversations with Coleman Around 40:53 into the episode
Jared Diamond

No, I have not looked at that case, and I would defer to your opinion on it.

Coleman Hughes

…then why did it still work the second year when he was gone for half of the season? Maybe it's the case that like a sports coach can like set the strategy and set it and forget it and can leave the room and his impact is still felt. In any case, it's a really rich example for you to look at.

Jared Diamond

It's a great example. My first thought is that coaches make a difference, but they're not 100% of the explanation. They're 30% of the explanation. And so in your case, in that first half of the year, maybe something else happened. A coach is not omnipotent, but good coaches like John Wooden. So John Wooden didn't do well for the first 14 years, and then he did well thereafter. Interestingly, my university, UCLA, we fired all of our basketball coaches since John Wooden, although their winning records have been 60 or 70%, which with which any university other than UCLA would have been thrilled. But we expect everybody to be equal to John Wooden, and that's impossible. So we fired coach after coach with the result that UCLA is now $150 million of debt in its athletic department because I'm having to buy out all these contracts. Again, my chancellor should have read my book.

Coleman Hughes

All right. Thank you so much, Jared Diamond. Everyone should go purchase the book. It's Profits, Profits, Coaches, and Kings. Thank you so much, Jared.

Speaker 1

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Coleman Hughes

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Speaker names from our own diarization · position estimated from where the line sits in the episode
“Of the major leaders of the world since World War II, interestingly, there were only two who stepped down voluntarily, Nelson Mandela and Lee Kuan Yew. All others were voted out of office or they died. Evidently, once you have succeeded in high office and have gotten a good opinion of yourself, you are not likely to change that opinion and step down.” — Jared Diamond, Conversations with Coleman

Coleman Hughes asked whether a benign dictator is possible and whether Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew was one. Diamond says yes, and notes that leaving voluntarily is unusually rare among successful leaders. Hughes then offers a possible third case, Jerry Rawlings of Ghana.

Conversations with Coleman · 2026-10-19 Permalink → Listen →
Conversations with Coleman Around 34:04 into the episode
Jared Diamond

…politician. Like de Gaulle and like Roosevelt, he got people to do things that they did not want to do. And my guess is that if Lincoln had not been assassinated, the period after the Civil War would not have been as unhappy a period as it was at least for the remainder of Lincoln's term in office.

Coleman Hughes

…the case of Lee Kuan Yew, I mean, I don't know much about him, but I know anytime I talk to someone from Singapore, they have almost only good things to say about what he did for the country. So I guess two questions here. One, is there such a thing as a benign dictator? And was Lee Kuan Yew that?

Jared Diamond

Yes, of course, there are benign dictators, just as there are benign democratic presidents and there are evil democratic presidents. And yes, Lee Kuan Yew is an outstanding example. Lee Kuan Yew was the founding prime minister of Singapore. Singapore did not seek independence. Singapore was expelled from Malaysia. And when Singapore became independent, Singapore had big problems, risk, tiny statelet, risk of invasion by Indonesia and by Malaysia, no armed forces of its own, ethnic polarization between Chinese and Malays. Lee Kuan Yew trained as an economist. He recognized that if he let anybody open their mouth and say anything that they wanted, then Singapore would quickly be occupied by Indonesia and Malaysia. Free-for-all democracy was not going to work in Singapore. He had the trappings of a democracy. In some respects, Singapore was democratic. He was very successful in that Singapore rather quickly became a first world state. But I visited Singapore for the first time in 1979, a decade or so after its independence. And it was a joke that people said in Singapore, not only does the government tell you not to have standing water…

Coleman Hughes

I believe there was Jerry Rawlings of Ghana might be a third example with an asterisk because he was a dictator and then he was elected and then he chose not to run, but he could have, he kind of chose to turn Ghana into a democracy. So in spirit, similar, but maybe not technically quite the same.…

Jared Diamond

Margaret Thatcher, again, the biographic, biographic method, but I believe a strong argument could be made that she made a difference. British people today are divided between those who admire what she did and who hate what she did. But virtually everybody agrees that she made a difference. She…

Coleman Hughes

So the final thing I want to ask you about is the case of sports coaches. And in the book, you, you know, obviously we're talking about politics and religious leaders in the book, which we haven't covered here. But you defend sports coaches as a particularly useful example of how to study this…

Speaker names from our own diarization · position estimated from where the line sits in the episode

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