Jeff Wilser

Explorer, Idea generator, Journalist, World traveler, Writer/Editor

I'm a journalist and author who keeps ending up in unusual rooms. I've stared into an iris-scanning Orb in Berlin for a story about Sam Altman's most controversial startup. I've ridden the back of a fire truck in St. Louis to understand what first responders actually do between the sirens. I've spent months inside the archives of The Explorers Club, reconstructing the story of an Arctic expedition where men's frozen feet fell off their ankles without them noticing, and the story of a Mars rover named Oppy who outlived her 90-day mission by 5,021 days before sending a final message that loosely translated to: "My battery is low and it's getting dark." I write about the places where curiosity meets consequence. My work has appeared in The New York Times, WIRED, Fast Company, GQ, and New York Magazine. I'm the author of eight books (HarperCollins, Penguin), including Alexander Hamilton's Guide to Life and two Explorers Club volumes — the most recent of which was selected by J.P. Morgan for its annual Next List. I've written under my own name and under a pseudonym (a GQ investigation into the global hair transplant industry, which required going undercover in Istanbul and letting a stranger cut 4,250 holes in my head). These days, most of my curiosity is aimed at AI. I host AI-Curious, a weekly long-form interview podcast named by Inc Magazine as one of the "best ways to get AI-savvy," with 100+ conversations ranging from the CEO of Upwork to IBM's Chief Scientist to the philosopher who thinks we're all doomed. I co-created the AI & Leadership Salon at The Explorers Club, convening leaders from LinkedIn's Chief AI Officer to chief AI critics — our Davos edition was featured on the front page of The New York Times. I also produce and host AI events, including the AI Summit at Consensus. I'm at TED 2026 because I'm still figuring out what all of this means. The AI story is the biggest story I've ever covered, and I don't think we're anywhere close to the end of it. I'm here to listen, to ask the questions I haven't thought of yet, and to find the people whose ideas will challenge mine. Based in Denver. Formerly Brooklyn, which I still miss. UT Austin grad. I have a Havanese puppy named Mojo who gets more compliments than anything I've ever written.

Finding the stories that make complex things feel human. I spent a decade writing books about subjects ranging from Alexander Hamilton's financial genius to what it's actually like to ride a fire truck in St. Louis to a Mars rover that outlived her mission by 14 years. Now I'm doing the same thing with AI — not the technical specs, but the people, the decisions, and the consequences. I'm passionate about the question behind the question: not "what can AI do?" but "what does it mean for the rest of us?" I'm also passionate about the craft of long-form conversation. After 100+ podcast episodes I've learned that the best interviews happen when you shut up and follow the thread you didn't plan for. And I'm passionate about tennis, though passionate is doing a lot of heavy lifting given the quality of my backhand.

The people best positioned to lead us through AI aren't the ones who understand the technology most deeply. They're the ones who stay curious most stubbornly. Every major technological shift — from the printing press to electricity to the internet — was ultimately shaped not by its inventors but by the people who asked better questions about what it meant for the rest of us. AI is no different. The gap right now isn't technical. It's human. Organizations have access to the same tools, the same models, the same tutorials. What separates the ones that thrive from the ones that freeze is culture: whether people feel permission to experiment, to fail small, to ask the question that sounds stupid but turns out to be the one that matters. Curiosity isn't soft. It's the most practical skill a leader can build right now, because it's the one thing AI can't replicate and the one thing every AI strategy depends on.

AI and Leadership, Artificial Intelligence, Exploration, Journalism, Narrative Nonfiction, Podcasting, Science Communication, Tech and Culture

Honestly? I've been a TED fan since long before I had any business being in the room. The talks I kept coming back to were the ones that took something I thought I understood and made me realize I'd been thinking about it wrong — Brené Brown on vulnerability, Hans Rosling on global health data, Jill Bolte Taylor on her own stroke. Those talks worked not because the speakers were experts (though they were) but because they were storytellers first. That's been the through line of my whole career: the belief that any subject, no matter how complex or esoteric, can be made to feel like it belongs to everyone. I've tried to do that with Alexander Hamilton's financial system, with Arctic survival, with a Mars rover that became a member of the family, and now with AI. TED 2026 feels like the right room at the right moment. The theme is "All of Us," and the question I keep asking on my podcast is basically the same one: what does AI mean for all of us? Not just the builders. Not just the boardroom. Everyone. I'm here to find out what I'm missing.

Ghostwriting. On top of the eight books under my own name, I've ghostwritten four others for people you'd recognize — a former CEO of a major media conglomerate, an actor from one of the biggest sitcoms on television, a fashion mogul, a national TV correspondent. I can't say more than that, which is sort of the point. The skill is disappearing into someone else's voice while making them sound like the best version of themselves. I'm also good at crossing the border between journalism and business. I spend most of my week interviewing CEOs and AI leaders for my podcast, but I also run AI and leadership workshops where I bring that same curiosity into the room — helping executive teams build a shared framework for AI when nobody agrees on where to start. The journalist lens turns out to be a surprisingly effective leadership tool: ask better questions, cut through jargon, find the story that makes the strategy click. And I once wrote an entire GQ feature about hair transplants in Istanbul under a pseudonym, which required actually getting a hair transplant in Istanbul. Commitment to the bit.