TED Talks
2765 articlesHow to get past the "messy middle" of a big change | Mary Martin
Did progress on your next big project stall out? Transformation expert Mary Martin refers to this moment as the "messy middle" — the frustrating gap between starting and finishing …
A street librarian's quest to bring books to everyone | Storybook Maze (re-release)
As a self-proclaimed radical street librarian, Storybook Maze makes books appear where they're scarce. Through initiatives like free, public book vending machines and street corner…
How I built a machine that feeds millions | Felix Brooks-church
If you ate bread this week (or cooked with salt and oil), you probably benefited from something millions miss out on: food fortification. Social entrepreneur Felix Brooks-church is…
Why Big Tech is incompatible with democracy | Bruno Giussani
Most of the technology powering life in Europe today — chatbots, the cloud, digital infrastructure — is owned by companies in the United States. Writer and curator Bruno Giussani m…
Why AI is an even bigger deal than you think | Reed Hastings
Netflix cofounder and Anthropic board member Reed Hastings joins TED's Sal Khan to give a look inside the race to build AI. Hear his take on how the technology could accelerate edu…
Sunday Pick: Why you should try improv comedy (w/ Rick Andrews) | How to Be a Better Human
What do radio personality Ira Glass, New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani, and your host Chris Duffy have in common? They all have practiced an unexpected skill that makes them more …
The Mystery of Sea Creatures (1/5): A coral reef love story | Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
Over the course of hundreds of scuba dives, marine biologist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson fell in love -- with a fish. In this ode to parrotfish, she shares five reasons why these creat…
The Mystery of Sea Creatures (2/5): A giant Jurassic sea dragon, unearthed | Dean R. Lomax
Among the dinosaurs, giant sea dragons roamed the ancient ocean. Millions of years later, paleontologist Dean R. Lomax and his team freed the remains of one of these colossal creat…
The Mystery of Sea Creatures (3/5): Could an orca give a TED Talk? | Karen Bakker
What if we could hear nature's ultrasonic communication -- and talk back? From a bat's shrill speech to a peacock's infrasound mating call, conservation technology researcher Karen…
The Mystery of Sea Creatures (4/5): Are we interrupting the kinky sex lives of fish? | Marah J. Hardt
The ocean plays host to a peculiar party of wild, marine sex life that's perhaps quirkier (and kinkier) than you can fathom. But is human behavior interrupting these raunchy reprod…
The Mystery of Sea Creatures (5/5): The fantastically weird world of photosynthetic sea slugs | Michael Middlebrooks
Meet the fantastically colorful and astonishingly adaptable sea slugs that found a way to photosynthesize (or create energy from sunlight) like plants. Diving deep into these often…
The power of imagination — onstage and off | Suki Hillier
When professional child actor Suki Hillier landed the title role in "Matilda The Musical," she thought she would have to learn how to become someone else. Instead, she realized she…
Can a camera on every corner make us safer? | Garrett Langley
Garrett Langley founded Flock because he believed it was too easy to get away with crime in the US. His solution? A network of license plate readers, cameras, drones and audio sens…
Why AI will never replace a great teacher | Matt Wu
What's the most powerful tool in any classroom? In the age of AI, education advocate Matt Wu still believes it's the people. In this hopeful talk, he discusses the nonprofit he lea…
How AI is discovering athletes that human scouts miss | Richard Felton-Thomas (re-release)
What if the next Lionel Messi or Simone Biles is out there right now ... but no one knows? Sports scientist Richard Felton-Thomas shows how new AI tools are expanding the reach of …
How surveillance tech erodes your privacy | Jen Golbeck
You've probably heard the warnings about digital privacy: read the terms of service, think before you share, be careful what you click. But AI ethicist Jen Golbeck says the problem…
Sunday Pick: Finding Purpose: Why you should stop chasing your “dream job” (w/ Emily the Recruiter) | Fixable
Does your “dream job” really exist? You may know Emily Durham as Emily the Recruiter on social media, where she shares practical, refreshingly honest career advice and coaches peop…
Why depression isn't what you think | Lisa Monteggia
The idea that depression comes from a chemical imbalance in the brain has shaped treatment for decades. Neuroscientist Lisa Monteggia shares research suggesting that's not the whol…
The deadly threat affecting millions — and how to prevent it | Drew McCartor
Lead poisoning robs the world's kids of millions of IQ points a day and kills more people than wars, natural disasters and road accidents combined — yet we treat it as a problem we…
Why winning doesn't always equal success | Valorie Kondos Field (re-release)
Valorie Kondos Field knows a lot about winning. As the longtime coach of the UCLA women's gymnastics team, she won championship after championship and has been widely acclaimed for…