WWSG Exclusive
President of the University of Florida, Former U.S. Senator for Nebraska, New York Times National Best-Selling Author
Ben Sasse, former U.S. Senator for Nebraska, joined the University of Florida as professor and 13th president of the 170-year-old institution in February 2023.
A two-time New York Times national best-selling author, Ben’s career has spanned the private and public sectors. As a turnaround guy working for the Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey and Company, and private equity firms, Ben has built dozens of teams that built winning strategies. Having taught at Yale, the University of Texas, and Midland University in his Nebraska hometown, Professor Sasse has won teaching awards and holds a history PhD from Yale, where his dissertation won both the Egleston and Theron Rockwell Field best dissertation prizes.
The AI revolution is becoming an everyday part of life—from streamlining traffic patterns to tackling complex scientific questions. AI’s impact will only become greater. Over the past few years, more data has been produced than in all of human history prior. The scope and depth of what we know is only going to grow larger and more actionable with the help of AI.
In a speech examining the impact of tech and AI on our society, Ben Sasse dives into:
Many historians are comparing current times to the Cold War. What’s different now than the Cold War, for good and for ill, is the intertwining of commerce between the two largest economies the world has ever known. This time around weapon systems will still matter, but far less than the economic and technological race of 2030 and beyond. In this address, Ben Sasse explores:
As Mark Twain knew well, there has been a market for making fun of the U.S. Congress for as long as there has been a U.S., but is the institution objectively more dysfunctional now? In this thought-provoking address, Ben Sasse, best-selling author of Them: Why We Hate Each Other and How to Heal, reflects on his extensive knowledge of history and eight years of experience in the U.S. Senate to investigate the questions:
Once upon a time, war was centrally about atoms – about physical violence and breaking stuff. In the future, there will be two kinds of war: digital-only and hybrid. But there will never again be a war between modern nations that is exclusively about atoms. It will now and forever be primarily about bits. For example:
In this interesting speech, Ben Sasse illustrates this concept using his experience at the top levels of U.S. government and provides audiences with insight that is relevant to their industry.
Most Americans have a sense of the cultural, familial, and sexual changes from stereotypical 1950s America to the 1960s and beyond, yet few are able to intuit how those changes interact with economics, and how those changes played out very differently for different classes. Our stunning income inequality is less between the top and the bottom than between the top and the middle. In this engaging and eye-opening address, Ben Sasse discusses:
Ben Sasse, former U.S. Senator for Nebraska, joined the University of Florida as professor and 13th president of the 170-year-old institution in February 2023.
A husband, father, historian, Uber driver, and football addict, Ben is committed to guiding Gator Nation through this era of rapid change in the nature of work, technology, and higher education.
A two-time New York Times national best-selling author, Ben’s career has spanned the private and public sectors. As a turnaround guy working for the Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey and Company, and private equity firms, Ben has built dozens of teams that built winning strategies. Having taught at Yale, the University of Texas, and Midland University in his Nebraska hometown, Professor Sasse has won teaching awards and holds a history PhD from Yale, where his dissertation won both the Egleston and Theron Rockwell Field best dissertation prizes.
In the U.S. Senate, his work on the intelligence, finance, and judiciary committees focused on the future of work, the future of war, and the First Amendment. A sharp critic of our increasing tribalism, he became both the most censured officeholder in the history of Nebraska – and by far the highest vote-getter in the history of Nebraska.
Ben believes in pluralism, free speech, and the power of ideas to build strong and vibrant communities in our digitally disrupted future. In his Senate farewell address, he praised Americans’ tradition as “builders” – of churches and synagogues, schools and little leagues, businesses and “the million and one other associations and organizations and clubs and groups through which we live and pass along our life together.”
Ben and his wife, Melissa, have two college-age daughters and an 11-year-old son — who collectively seek to force their parents to keep adopting pets.
“Mr. Sasse’s experience as a senator in a time of hyperpartisanship gives his analysis a special poignancy… [his] remedies are wise and well-expressed… his prose has a distinctively cheerful warmth throughout. Perhaps at last we have a politician capable of writing a good book rather than having a dull one written for him.”
– The Wall Street Journal
“Sasse is highly attuned to the cultural sources of our current discontents and dysfunctions. … Them is not so much a lament for a bygone era as an attempt to diagnose and repair what has led us to this moment of spittle-flecked rage. …a step toward healing a hurting nation.”
– National Review
