Big Questions with Cal Fussman

When Cal returns to Tampa's Ybor City to speak, he keeps a ritual that's become almost sacred: a meal at the legendary 120-year-old Columbia Restaurant, followed by a quiet moment of thanks to the man who first sent him there — Muhammad Ali's doctor, the renowned Ferdie Pacheco. Ferdie wasn't just the "Fight Doctor." He was an artist, a storyteller, and a man with a taste for a good practical joke. After his meal, Cal goes to pay tribute to Ferdie through his painting that hangs near The Columbia's kitchen. Only this time, the painting is gone, and it feels to Cal like an old friend has vanished. What happened next left Cal with a twist he couldn't see coming — and a hint that destiny sometimes whispers through the strangest openings. Listen in to hear the story unfold.

The future may not be hiding in Silicon Valley. It could be hidden in your childhood. When a bright young grad sits down at Cal's Thanksgiving table worried about AI layoffs and disappearing careers, Cal offers an unexpected roadmap: Don't try to predict the future . . . remember it. Some of the greatest innovators didn't choose their path — their childhood chose it for them. In this episode, Cal shows how a single moment from your early life can reveal where you're meant to go next in an AI-shaken world. If you're wondering what job will survive the robots, why not start with the kid you used to be, then project forward.

Here is a question Cal never thought he'd ask. Let's just say a human marries an AI and they get divorced. Does ChatGPT get the alimony? This is the way we need to begin thinking after news came out that a Japanese woman married an AI bot. Buckle your seatbelts. It's the groundswell of statistics on the romantic mingling between humans and AI that will raise your eyebrows to the middle of your forehead.

When Cal looks back on his life, he sees a relentless drive that's guided him to his 69th birthday: Never be bored. His past reveals a simple truth. Boredom ends where curiosity begins.

Cal looks over a bountiful breakfast menu and remembers the statistics he heard about kids going hungry in Tampa Bay — a city that, through his traveler's eyes, appears to be flourishing. When you hear the numbers, you'll understand how giving just a little can make this your best Thanksgiving ever.

When Kobe Bryant watched the Eagles win Super Bowl 52 on television, he wasn't alone — he was holding his 1-year-old daughter, Bianka, in his arms. That moment, captured on home video, wasn't just about football. It was about the way a team becomes a language between generations. Rewatching that clip sends Cal into a reflection of his own: the passion for sporting events his father passed on to him, and the emotions he passed on to his son. This episode is about the deep inheritance that lives inside sports — identity, loyalty and love. The Los Angeles Dodgers recent World Series win shows Cal how the games can outlive us in the hearts of the people we leave behind.

After actress and author Suzanne Somers passed away, her husband couldn’t let go — so he brought her back. Not in memory. But as an AI twin. He created a life-like humanoid to converse with in her voice and keep her spirit alive. When Cal hears the story, questions linger: Is this a way to deal with grief? Or is it evolution? And are there advantages to passing on the lessons and wisdom of a life for generations through something we can build to look and sound just like us?

Everything An unexpected e-mail sends Cal spiraling back to a conversation with the actor Johnny Depp — and to Ernest Hemingway’s brush with death in back-to-back plane crashes. When Cal opens a book titled What Do You Want to Do Before You Die? he encounters a question that awakens our wildest dreams and forces us to look in the mirror.

A police van that drives itself, launches drones, reads license plates, and streams live infrared video straight to headquarters. Miami-Dade just unveiled it. A cruiser with no cops inside. Cal explores the next wave of law enforcement: part innovation, part surveillance. It’s the kind of technology that makes some people uneasy — but after learning that 1 in 93 Americans die in traffic accidents, Cal is all in if the cruiser can help get reckless drivers off the road.

In a week when companies propose growing human eggs from male skin and gestating babies inside robots, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is seen in a viral video shoplifting at Target — bringing laugher to some and raising a chilling question to others: what if we can no longer trust our eyes? We’re entering a moment where biotech, AI, and deepfakes collide — and our sense of reality begins to blur. Cal asks: Have we stepped into a world where nothing is real? Or a world where everything is unreal?

Roughly 1 in 93 Americans will die in a car accident. According to the National Safety Council, that’s the math—even after seatbelts, airbags, sensors, and the smartest cars we’ve ever built. Cal found that out the hard way, after being rear-ended by a cement truck on a Connecticut highway. The crash led him to uncover not just some shocking statistics, but also a simple, overlooked way we can fight back against a killer on our roads: distraction.

Cal comes upon a book called The Fourth Turning Is Here which suggests that we’re in a historical cycle of crisis when institutions collapse and a new world order emerges. Then he walks through the natural institution known as Central Park and sees a world view that couldn’t be better. A short message to think about . . .

Two dates. Separated by decades. Bound by a thread we’d all prefer didn’t exist. Cal revisits the first—a day etched in memory that too many now treat as common behavior. He weighs the second—fresh in the headlines, heavy in the heart—and wonders if it’s a shadow of what lies ahead. The connections aren’t obvious. They aren’t supposed to be. But once you hear them, you won’t forget.

Raveling passed away early this month at 88 after living a life shaped by being in the right place at the right time — and knowing what to do when he got there. As a boy, after losing his father and seeing his mother institutionalized, he found stability at a Catholic boarding school. That path led him to become the first African-American basketball player at Villanova … to meet coaching legend Bobby Knight … to join the U.S. Olympic coaching staff in 1984, where he met a young Michael Jordan’s and helped guide Jordan toward a Nike contract that would change sports, culture, and business forever. But Raveling’s greatest “right place, right time” moment? Standing at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had just finished speaking. Raveling asked for a copy of the speech — and King handed him the original “I Have a Dream” manuscript. A lesson to all of us on how to get the most out of our moments.

Billie Eilish was just 13 when she recorded the song Ocean Eyes in the bedroom of her home and her brother Finneas uploaded it to SoundCloud. Within weeks, hundreds of thousands had listened to it. That’s how one haunting voice changed pop forever. Now, Cal’s friend Phillip is a finalist for SoundCloud’s Tomorrow’s Breakthrough Artist Award. He’s not the next Billie — he’s the first Phillip. And his story will stop you cold and make you want to root for him.

Cal was ready to dump his storage bins of CDs, tape cassettes, and DVDs — until he discovered a twist: the world is racing back to the very things he was about to throw away. Parents are pulling out old DVD players so their kids can choose movies without being spoon-fed by algorithms. Taylor Swift just announced her next album will also drop on cassette. And suddenly “Old School Cal” looks like he’s ahead of the curve. In this episode, Cal explores why physical media is making a comeback in the Age of AI, what it says about trust, choice, and control — and how sometimes the stuff we think is obsolete becomes in vogue all over again.

Cal sits down with Jeff Burningham, author of The Last Book Written by a Human, to unpack the AI tidal wave about to hit classrooms, boardrooms, governments, and even religions. This isn’t doomscrolling—it’s a positive roadmap through the disruption ahead. If you want to become wise in the age of AI, start here.

The NFL passed on Shedeur Sanders — son of Deion “Prime Time” Sanders — through the first four rounds of its 2025 draft, despite the quarterback’s two electric seasons in college with Heisman trophy winner Travis Hunter. It felt eerily like the way algorithms reject qualified people in the job market. Shedeur’s notoriety and connections got him a shot . . . and his exhibition season debut with the Cleveland Browns proved doubters wrong. Here’s what his story can teach you about surviving in a world where the first gatekeeper isn’t human: Make sure you’re connected.

Jim Carrey’s $10 Million Lesson Cal has an epiphany as he’s giving one of his storytelling workshops. He’s able to tie the thought to the moment in 1985 when a down and out actor named Jim Carrey wrote a check to himself for $10 million to be cashed 10 years later when he became a film star. The $10 million did come to Carrey ten years later with the release of the hit Dumb and Dumber. Cal wonders how to visualize the most out of yourself even when you don’t believe you’re talented in a particular area. The answer applies to everyone and you might want to use it. Check out the episode.

On a sunny Sunday morning, Cal shares breakfast with friends—when a woman reveals how a shady third-party travel site jacked up her airline ticket price. It was no fluke: The company is flooded with complaints on Yelp. The story sparks a deeper question in Cal: what’s happened to trust in our time? That question is answered by billionaire investor Mark Cuban: “In three years, AI will flood us with so much fake video, we won’t know what’s real anymore. That’s why face-to-face meetings, events and jobs will explode.” Could AI be pushing us back toward face-to-face connections and a renaissance in trust? Listen up!