In this episode of pplpod, we explore the titanic life of George Orson Welles, a man voted the greatest film director ever by the British Film Institute. We trace his journey from a child prodigy in Kenosha, Wisconsin, to the "Boy Wonder" of New York theatre and radio, where his 1938 broadcast of The War of the Worlds famously panicked listeners who believed a Martian invasion was real,,.

We delve into his arrival in Hollywood, where he secured an unprecedented contract with RKO that granted him complete creative control to make Citizen Kane, a masterpiece consistently ranked as one of the greatest films of all time,,. The episode also covers his tumultuous relationship with the studio system, including the tragic editing of The Magnificent Ambersons and his eventual shift to becoming a pioneering independent filmmaker in Europe with works like Othello and his personal favorite, Chimes at Midnight,,,. Join us as we discuss the legacy of the "ultimate auteur," whose innovations in deep focus photography, nonlinear narrative, and sound design created a new vocabulary for cinema,,.

In this episode of pplpod, we dive into the life of Stephen "Woz" Wozniak, the engineering genius and prankster who co-founded Apple Computer. We explore his early partnership with Steve Jobs, which began with building "blue boxes" for free long-distance calls, and how his technical innovations led to the creation of the Apple I and the mass-market success of the Apple II,.

Beyond the circuit boards, we discuss Wozniak’s playful side—including the time he fooled Jobs with a brochure for a fake computer called the "Zaltair",—and the traumatic 1981 plane crash that resulted in temporary amnesia and a hiatus from the company. Finally, we look at his life after Apple, from funding the US Festivals and teaching grade school, to his competitive Segway polo playing and evolving views on the dangers of artificial superintelligence,.

In this episode of pplpod, we profile Dennis Ritchie, the pioneering computer scientist whose passing in October 2011 was largely overshadowed by the death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. We explore Ritchie's career at Bell Labs, where he created the C programming language and co-developed the Unix operating system alongside his long-time colleague, Ken Thompson,. Listen in to learn how Ritchie’s "under the radar" work provided the "DNA" for effectively every modern software product, including the technology foundation upon which Apple built its fortune,. From his "lost dissertation" at Harvard to winning the Turing Award, we uncover the legacy of the man whose code runs the modern world,.

In this episode of pplpod, we explore the groundbreaking life of Frances "Fran" Allen, an American computer scientist who revolutionized the way software speaks to hardware. Join us as we trace her journey from growing up on a farm in Peru, New York, to becoming a titan of the tech industry.

We discuss how a high school math teacher joined IBM in 1957 merely to pay off student loans, only to stay for a 45-year career that defined modern computing. Discover how Allen taught herself the brand-new language of Fortran and went on to pioneer the field of optimizing compilers, making code run faster and more efficiently on massive supercomputers.

Key topics covered in this episode:

• The Accidental Pioneer: How Allen’s temporary job at IBM turned into a lifelong pursuit of parallel computing and program optimization.

• Code Breaking: Her early, confidential work on the Harvest project with the National Security Agency.

• Shattering Ceilings: The story behind her becoming the first woman to be named an IBM Fellow in 1989 and the first woman to win the A.M. Turing Award—the "Nobel Prize of computing"—in 2006.

• Legacy of Mentorship: Her dedication to mentoring women in technology and pushing for diversity within IBM’s research teams.

• The Adventurer: Her life outside the lab as an avid mountain climber who established new routes across the Canadian Arctic.

In this episode of pplpod, we examine the turbulent life and legacy of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the charismatic founder of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) who served as both the fourth president and ninth prime minister of Pakistan. We trace his rise to power following the tragic 1971 civil war and the separation of East Pakistan, where he became the country’s first civilian Chief Martial Law Administrator.

We explore Bhutto's major political contributions, including his role as the architect of the 1973 Constitution and his diplomatic success with the Simla Agreement, which secured the release of 93,000 prisoners of war and regained territory from India. The episode also delves into his aggressive pursuit of national defense, earning him the title of the "father" of Pakistan's nuclear deterrence program, a project he declared a national priority even if the population had to "eat grass" to fund it.

Finally, we discuss his controversial socialist economic reforms, the internal unrest that plagued his final years, and his ultimate overthrow in a 1977 military coup led by General Zia-ul-Haq. Tune in to understand the dramatic trial and execution of the man known as Quaid-e-Awām ("The People's Leader"), a polarizing figure whose death sentence was widely condemned as a "judicial murder".

This week on pplpod, we dive into the life of Jane Jacobs, the journalist and activist who revolutionized our understanding of how cities work without ever earning a college degree. We explore how her seminal 1961 book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, challenged the "pseudoscience" of mid-century urban planning and introduced enduring concepts like "mixed primary uses" and "eyes on the street".

In this episode, we cover:

• The Battle for Greenwich Village: How Jacobs organized grassroots efforts to stop "Master Builder" Robert Moses from destroying her neighborhood and the area now known as SoHo with the Lower Manhattan Expressway.

• Top-Down vs. Bottom-Up: Why Jacobs believed that "urban renewal" and "slum clearance" destroyed essential social capital and community networks, arguing instead for cities as living ecosystems.

• The "Housewife" Critic: How she faced sexism and ad hominem attacks from the male-dominated establishment, who dismissed her as a "militant dame".

• Life in Toronto: Her 1968 departure from the U.S. to protect her sons from the Vietnam draft, where she continued her activism by helping to stop the Spadina Expressway.

• Economic Theories: Her later work on "import replacement" and the role of cities as the primary drivers of economic expansion.

Join us to learn how a woman who simply observed the "ballet of the sidewalk" changed the way we build and live in cities forever.

In this episode of pplpod, we explore the life and career of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Nigerian writer widely recognized as a central figure in postcolonial feminist literature. We trace her journey from her childhood in Nsukka, Nigeria, to her education in the United States and her rise as a literary star with novels like Purple Hibiscus and the Orange Prize-winning Half of a Yellow Sun, which depicts the trauma of the Biafran War,,.

We discuss how Adichie uses storytelling to examine themes of immigration, race, and cultural identity, particularly in her 2013 novel Americanah,. We also dive into her massive impact as a public speaker; her TED Talks, "The Danger of a Single Story" and "We Should All Be Feminists," have garnered millions of views and even influenced pop culture through samples by Beyoncé and fashion collaborations with Dior,,.

This episode also covers:

• Style and Beliefs: Adichie’s use of Igbo language in her writing, her "womanist" approach to feminism, and her views on fashion as a form of political agency,,.

• Controversies: The backlash regarding her public comments on transgender women and the subsequent debates within the literary community,.

• Personal Tragedy and Legacy: Her reflections on loss in Notes on Grief following the death of her parents, her 2025 novel Dream Count, and the tragic passing of her young son in 2026,,.

In this episode of pplpod, we explore the life of Lucila Godoy Alcayaga—better known to the world as Gabriela Mistral—the Chilean poet and educator who became the first Latin American author to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Join us as we trace her journey from a poverty-stricken childhood in the Andean village of Montegrande to her rise as a world-renowned diplomat and writer,. We discuss how a rural schoolteacher with no formal degree was invited to reform Mexico’s education system and how she eventually became a consul representing Chile across Europe and the Americas,.

Key topics in this episode include:

• Tragedy and Art: How the suicide of her first love and the later tragic death of her nephew, "Yin Yin," shaped the sorrowful and powerful themes in her major works like Sonetos de la muerte and Lagar,.

• The "Poet of Motherhood": An examination of her poetry collections Desolación and Ternura, which explore nature, betrayal, and a deep love for children,.

• A Private Life Revealed: The controversy surrounding her sexuality, her relationship with Doris Dana, and how the discovery of intimate letters in 2007 challenged the dictatorship’s portrayal of her as a symbol of "social order".

Tune in to learn about the woman whose face appears on the 5,000 Chilean peso banknote and whose voice "shook the world",.