John Green on solving big medical problems | ReThinking with Adam Grant

You may know John Green as the best-selling author of The Fault In Our Stars or the co-creator of the popular YouTube education channel Crash Course. In this episode, John joins Adam for a live conversation at the Authors@Wharton series to discuss his book Everything is Tuberculosis and his mission to fight diseases of injustice. The two also explore strategies for finding motivation and creativity, address John’s banned books, explain how writing is like playing Marco Polo, and uncover John’s favorite Hank Green invention. Follow Host: Adam Grant (Instagram: @adamgrant | LinkedIn: @adammgrant | Website: adamgrant.net/) Guest: John Green (Instagram: @johngreenwritesbooks | TikTok: @literallyjohngreen | Website: johngreenbooks.com/) Links Crash Course YouTube Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green Authors@Wharton Program Subscribe to TED Instagram: @ted YouTube: @TED TikTok: @tedtoks LinkedIn: @ted-conferences Website: ted.com Podcasts: ted.com/podcasts The TED Audio Collective is a collection of podcasts for the curious. The TED Audio Collective videos may be used for non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons License, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives (or the CC BY – NC – ND 4.0 International) and in accordance with our TED Talks Usage Policy (https://www.ted.com/about/our-organiz...). For more information on using TED for commercial purposes (e.g. employee learning, in a film or online course), please submit a Media Request at https://media-requests.ted.com. 00:00 Intro 00:45 Everything Is Tuberculosis 02:09 Meeting a tuberculosis patient 04:35 Why haven't we cured tuberculosis? 07:16 Taking on Big Pharma 11:57 John's fight with Hank 12:40 How writing is like Marco Polo 15:25 OCD and disease 17:22 Confronting irrational beliefs 18:32 Banned books 20:34 Dealing with writer's block 21:43 Learning from bad books 22:27 Finding value in creating 23:43 John's favorite Hank Green invention 25:22 Why humanity is worth saving 27:06 Sibling relationships 28:00 Motivational quotes 30:27 Lightning round

John GreenguestAdam Granthost

Jul 18, 202535mWatch on YouTube ↗

EPISODE INFO

Released: July 18, 2025
Duration: 35m
Channel: Re:Thinking with Adam Grant
Watch on YouTube: ▶ Open ↗

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

You may know John Green as the best-selling author of The Fault In Our Stars or the co-creator of the popular YouTube education channel Crash Course. In this episode, John joins Adam for a live conversation at the Authors@Wharton series to discuss his book Everything is Tuberculosis and his mission to fight diseases of injustice. The two also explore strategies for finding motivation and creativity, address John’s banned books, explain how writing is like playing Marco Polo, and uncover John’s favorite Hank Green invention. Follow Host: Adam Grant (Instagram: @adamgrant | LinkedIn: @adammgrant | Website: adamgrant.net/) Guest: John Green (Instagram: @johngreenwritesbooks | TikTok: @literallyjohngreen | Website: johngreenbooks.com/) Links Crash Course YouTube Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green Authors@Wharton Program Subscribe to TED Instagram: @ted YouTube: @TED TikTok: @tedtoks LinkedIn: @ted-conferences Website: ted.com Podcasts: ted.com/podcasts The TED Audio Collective is a collection of podcasts for the curious. The TED Audio Collective videos may be used for non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons License, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives (or the CC BY – NC – ND 4.0 International) and in accordance with our TED Talks Usage Policy (https://www.ted.com/about/our-organiz...). For more information on using TED for commercial purposes (e.g. employee learning, in a film or online course), please submit a Media Request at https://media-requests.ted.com. 00:00 Intro 00:45 Everything Is Tuberculosis 02:09 Meeting a tuberculosis patient 04:35 Why haven't we cured tuberculosis? 07:16 Taking on Big Pharma 11:57 John's fight with Hank 12:40 How writing is like Marco Polo 15:25 OCD and disease 17:22 Confronting irrational beliefs 18:32 Banned books 20:34 Dealing with writer's block 21:43 Learning from bad books 22:27 Finding value in creating 23:43 John's favorite Hank Green invention 25:22 Why humanity is worth saving 27:06 Sibling relationships 28:00 Motivational quotes 30:27 Lightning round

SPEAKERS

John Green
guest
Author and YouTube creator (Vlogbrothers/Crash Course) known for his advocacy and writing on tuberculosis and global health.
Adam Grant
host
Organizational psychologist and professor at Wharton, host of the podcast ReThinking.

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Re:Thinking with Adam Grant, featuring John Green and Adam Grant, John Green on solving big medical problems | ReThinking with Adam Grant explores john Green on tuberculosis injustice, pharma pressure, and meaning-making creativity Tuberculosis remains the world’s deadliest infectious disease largely because global systems do not value all human lives equally, despite the fact that TB is curable with existing tools.

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