Today’s guest is John Maeda – famed artist, designer, technologist, author, former MIT professor, and once President of the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design, among many other accolades – most recently as CTO at Everbridge.

He completed his bachelors and masters degrees in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at MIT where he would return to become Professor of Design and Computation and Head of Research. He also earned a PhD in Design and a Master’s in Business.

In this wide-ranging conversation, John and Danielle discuss his book How to Speak Machine: Computational Thinking for the Rest of Us as well as the leadership lessons he has learned throughout his career through good times and more importantly, the bad, how we can create a world of optimism akin to the Obama era and why we should all remain curious creatures.