Spencer Wells
Geneticist and National Geographic Explorer
On the podcast
Spencer Wells has appeared on the show twice.
On the record
In April 2020, weeks into the pandemic, Wells argued that COVID-19's economic shock — not the virus itself — would be the more lasting disruptor of American life, warning about mounting government debt and mass unemployment before those became dominant themes of pandemic-era policy debate.
In their own words
“Mobs start to develop an intelligence that is different than rationality. And the intelligence says this is the weak point that we can go push on to make something change. And we don't care how it changes. We just don't want this anymore.”April 2020, on the Vance Crowe Podcast, on the Vance Crowe Podcast
“What happens when governments run out of money? Because we came into this with a huge amount of debt. And so what happens when we add billions, trillions of dollars to that debt again, and we spend a 30 plus percent unemployment rate? I don't know what's gonna happen.”April 2020, on the Vance Crowe Podcast, on the Vance Crowe Podcast
“Policy makers are not guided by science. They're guided mostly by economics these days.”April 2020, on the Vance Crowe Podcast, on the Vance Crowe Podcast
Where this conversation traveled
Moments in later episodes where Spencer Wells's ideas and work resurfaced, drawn from the show's transcripts.
Vance referenced his conversations with Wells directly in later episodes — telling Nicole Williams he had begun following Wells's data commentary after the interview, and citing Wells's comparison of COVID's severity in an episode recorded the same morning as his talk with Lyle Benjamin.
Listen →Nicole Williams, May 2020; Lyle Benjamin, April 2020
Wells's population-genetics framing of the pandemic was echoed weeks later when Kevin Folta made a similar point about produce markets and supply chains, which Vance introduced by directly citing Wells's earlier appearance.
Listen →Kevin Folta, April 2020
If you valued this conversation
- Geoffrey West — recorded within days of Wells on the same subject — how the coronavirus pandemic would unfold
- Joscha Bach — recorded in the same one-month window of pandemic-focused episodes in spring 2020
- Kevin Folta — Vance directly cited Wells's analysis while interviewing Folta about food-supply disruption
Link to this page
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https://articulate.ventures/podcast/guest/spencer-wells
I spoke with Vance Crowe on the Vance Crowe Podcast. The full conversation and transcript are here: https://articulate.ventures/podcast/guest/spencer-wells
This page is maintained by Articulate Ventures as part of the permanent record of the Vance Crowe Podcast. Quotes are drawn from episode transcripts.