Uploaded February 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Rutger Bregman is a Dutch historian and best-selling author of Utopia for Realists and Humankind: A Hopeful History. In 2019, he went viral for his takedown of billionaires at the World Economic Forum and for a heated exchange with Tucker Carlson. Today, he joins the show to discuss his latest book, Moral Ambition, which he defines as the desire to use your available talents and resources to make the world a better place rather than focus solely on individual wealth. He argues the real question is whether the work you’ve chosen is ambitious enough in moral terms—whether your day-to-day life tackles the big problems facing humankind. He explains why “follow your passion” is often bad advice; why moral breakthroughs tend to come from small, disciplined groups rather than mass appeal; and why moral progress is neither automatic nor inevitable.
0:00- Intro
0:55-Rutger Bregman’s Intellectual Origins
4:12-Universal Basic Income, Reassessed
10:58-Infrastructure and the Limits of Cash
15:30-Defining Moral Ambition
16:07-Is ‘Follow Your Dreams’ Good Advice?
17:33-Who Has Done the Most Good?
23:31-American Abolitionism: Failure or Strategy?
32:56-Modern Slavery and the Use of Force
39:13-Bill Gates and the Arc of Ambition
43:35-Does Elon Musk Have Moral Ambition?
45:57-Why the Right Builds Institutions
48:43-Is Moral Ambition Harder Today?
50:59-When Moral Ambition Goes Wrong
59:30-Human Nature: Optimism or Illusion?
1:04:46-Your Highest Moral Ambition
Rutger Bregman is a Dutch historian and best-selling author of Utopia for Realists and Humankind: A Hopeful History. In 2019, he went viral for his takedown of billionaires at the World Economic Forum and for a heated exchange with Tucker Carlson. Today, he joins the show to discuss his latest book, Moral Ambition, which he defines as the desire to use your available talents and resources to make the world a better place rather than focus solely on individual wealth. He argues the real question is whether the work you’ve chosen is ambitious enough in moral terms—whether your day-to-day life tackles the big problems facing humankind. He explains why “follow your passion” is often bad advice; why moral breakthroughs tend to come from small, disciplined groups rather than mass appeal; and why moral progress is neither automatic nor inevitable.
0:00- Intro
0:55-Rutger Bregman’s Intellectual Origins
4:12-Universal Basic Income, Reassessed
10:58-Infrastructure and the Limits of Cash
15:30-Defining Moral Ambition
16:07-Is ‘Follow Your Dreams’ Good Advice?
17:33-Who Has Done the Most Good?
23:31-American Abolitionism: Failure or Strategy?
32:56-Modern Slavery and the Use of Force
39:13-Bill Gates and the Arc of Ambition
43:35-Does Elon Musk Have Moral Ambition?
45:57-Why the Right Builds Institutions
48:43-Is Moral Ambition Harder Today?
50:59-When Moral Ambition Goes Wrong
59:30-Human Nature: Optimism or Illusion?
1:04:46-Your Highest Moral Ambition
