Thinking Inside the Box (with David Epstein)
5/11/20261 hr 11 min
What do the inventor of the periodic table, the novelist Isabel Allende, and the almost-creators of the iPhone have in common? Join author David Epstein and EconTalk's Russ Roberts to explore a counterintuitive idea: that boundaries, and not unlimited freedom, often make us more creative, productive, and fulfilled.
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First 90 secondsRuss Roberts· Host0:00
[upbeat music] Welcome to EconTalk, conversations for the curious, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty. I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Shalem College in Jerusalem and Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Go to econtalk.org where you can subscribe, comment on this episode, and find links to other information related to today's conversation. You'll also find our archives with every episode we've done going back to 2006. Our email address is mail@econtalk.org. We'd love to hear from you. [upbeat music] Today is April 16th, 2026, and before introducing today's guest, I wanna correct two errors from recent episodes. The name of the founder of NVIDIA is pronounced Jensen Huang. And I misquoted the line from the poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, and evidently I've done that before. The poem's title is, "As Kingfishers Catch Fire." The line, the correct line is, "What I do is me, for that I came." Now on to today's guest, author David Epstein. This is David's third appearance on EconTalk. He was last on the program in May of 2019 discussing his book, Range. Our topic for today is his latest book, Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better. David, welcome back to EconTalk.
David Epstein· Guest1:21
It's wonderful to be back.
Russ Roberts· Host1:23
What's the idea of Inside the Box and the power of constraints?
David Epstein· Guest1:27
I think the main idea is that it's never been