15 Questions with Joel Mokyr, Nobel Laureate

Longevity and Mentorship

• 💡 Professor Mokyr has maintained remarkable longevity in his personal and professional life, being married for 56 years and employed at Northwestern University for 51 years.
• 🤝 He emphasizes the importance of being nice to students and has supervised around 65 dissertations, fostering lasting relationships where former students still send him their papers.
• 🎓 His approach to mentorship is so impactful that it's been said he "doesn't have former students, he only has students," highlighting his ongoing connection with them.

Optimism for the Future

• 🚀 Mokyr believes the best time to be born in human history is 2025, asserting that life today is significantly better than in the past, despite existing problems.
• 📈 He points to measurable improvements in material conditions, such as rising income per capita and increased average human height, reflecting better nutrition and health.
• ✅ These advancements demonstrate a continuous improvement across the board, from communications and medicine to coping with global challenges like climate change.

Career Advice and Adaptability

• 🧠 He stresses the critical need for flexibility and agility in a rapidly changing world, advising students to "learn how to learn."
• ⚠️ Mokyr warns that fields like radiology and journalism could see significant disruption or replacement by AI and algorithms, urging preparedness for career shifts.
• 🎯 Undergraduates should keep an open mind and be ready to adapt their skills to new demands, rather than relying on a single, static career path.

Post-Nobel Life and Routine

• 📚 Despite winning the Nobel Prize, Mokyr plans to continue teaching two courses and working on new books, with one recently published.
• 📧 He faces the challenge of a massive backlog of unanswered emails (up to 1,400 at one point) due to the increased attention from the prize.
• ☕ His daily routine includes coffee, email, walking his dog, and his long-standing responsibility of cooking dinner for his wife.

Personal Interests and Passions

• 🍲 Mokyr is an avid cook, specializing in heavy soups like Dutch pea soup, which he has been making since he got married.
• 📰 He describes himself as a "news addict" who follows daily events closely, often watching CNN, despite finding it frustrating and depressing.
• 🎶 A lifelong enthusiast, he has listened to classical music for 65 years and believes he could teach a course on it, demonstrating a deep, amateur knowledge beyond common pieces.
• 🎬 He recommends Milos Foreman's films (Amadeus, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Hair) and Jonathan Hughes's book on American economic history as significant cultural works.