Zoe Weil

06/14/2026

Like many (most?) people, I have a hard time wrapping my brain around big numbers, so when Elon Musk became a trillionaire, (a word that is being underlined as misspelled by FB, perhaps because it's not been an applicable word until now), I wanted to know what that translated to in daily spending.
If Elon lives to be 90; if his money is invested in a typical way; and not factoring in taxes, this is what he will have to spend every day to use it up by the time he dies.

~$214 million per day
~$8.9 million per hour around the clock
~$148,000 per minute

Leaving aside the ethics of a single human having this much wealth (saving that for an essay), and just as a thought experiment, how would you spend $214 million each day?

06/13/2026

What we eat is never only personal. In this episode, Dotsie Bausch shares how her path from Olympic silver-medal cyclist to founder of Switch4Good led her to challenge the myths, policies, and defaults that keep dairy at the center of our food system. Her story offers a powerful example of how compassion can become a practical and hugely powerful force for change.

Watch and listen to episode 17 of Solutionary Voices. Links below 🔗👇

06/02/2026

What if we understood the opioid crisis not as a failure of individual people, nor as the outcome of a couple of profiteering drug companies, but as a failure of multiple interconnected systems? My guest in this episode of Solutionary Voices is Dr. Andrew Kolodny, an expert on the opioid epidemic. Andrew helps us look clearly at the role of overprescribing, medical education, and pharmaceutical influence, fentanyl, and treatment access, with one goal in mind: finding a path to relieve suffering and prevent further harm.

05/21/2026

From working on Wall Street to becoming an MTV rap star to leaving "success" behind to work with children living in poverty in India, Nimo Patel is a force for love, service, and the power of music for transformation. This was one of my favorite Solutionary Voices episode, and I think you'll love it! Plus, the end! Enjoy! (Links in comments)

05/04/2026

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝟭,𝟬𝟬𝟬𝘁𝗵 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗘𝗮𝗿𝗻𝘀 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗦𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗠𝗶𝗰𝗿𝗼-𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗮𝗹!

When we launched the pilot for the Solutionary Micro-credential Course (SMC) with 12 teachers in 2021, 1,000+ completers felt very far away. Just five years later, thanks to these SMC graduates, tens of thousands of students around the world are using solutionary thinking to address problems they care about and learning that they can make positive change.

These students are tackling a wide range of challenges, from bullying, food waste, animal cruelty, and deforestation, to infrastructure challenges, single-use plastics, high carbon footprints, loneliness, and fast fashion.

Here are a few details about the SMC grads preparing this solutionary generation:

🌍 42.5% are from 26 states across the U.S., with Maine leading the count.
🌍 30% teach in Central/South America and Mexico—many took the course in Spanish thanks to our LATAM facilitation team.
🌍 130 are from 18 African countries, with 60+ currently enrolled in cohorts based in Kenya, Uganda, and Malawi.
🌍 They are supporting students to implement solutionary projects in all types of schools—rural and urban, public and private, well-resourced and under-resourced.

Check out the map below to see how far solutionary thinking has spread, and stay tuned for more details on the worldwide celebratory showcase of solutionary teachers and students we’re planning for June.

Learn more about the SMC here: https://lnkd.in/d2cUgP7v

05/01/2026

When social media hit the world, we didn't have the foresight to address its downsides. Now there's AI, which is unfolding at breakneck speed. This time we know we cannot wait to address these downsides. My friend Michelle Culver, founder of The Rithm Project, is building a rapidly-growing network of people working to ensure human connection in the age of AI. I was thrilled to have her as a guest on my Solutionary Voices podcast (links in comments). If you are concerned about AI's impacts, especially on youth, and want to know how to address them, tune into the episode and feel free to share it with others.

04/22/2026

Rudy Karsan, an immigrant from Kenya and a serial entrepreneur who experienced repeated bankruptcies before selling a company to IBM for more than $1 billion, describes a turning point where achievement no longer provided meaning. In that recognition, he began to reorient his life toward joy, curiosity, and human connection. Through the creation of FunCon, he now cultivates spaces where people can engage in deep conversations and feel seen, supported, and fully present with one another. His perspective offers a redefinition of success as something that arises in loving relationships rather than material accumulations

Links to platforms below 👇

04/07/2026

A poem for this moment, April 7, 2026:

"A whole civilization will die tonight" if demands aren't met –
Which is what happens when we run on
“Paleolithic emotions,
Medieval institutions,
And godlike technology”
As EO Wilson presciently quipped.

Meanwhile Victor Glover,
Cramped inside his capsule,
Loops home from the moon
And looks back at a small blue and white circle,
Our shimmering marble,
Our “oasis in the vast emptiness”
Reminding us that we get to exist
Together.

A human shield surrounds Iran's nuclear power plant,
As if a circle of humans can stop a missile,
As if a missile can stop a nuclear reactor without a meltdown,
As if a meltdown respects borders,
As if our oasis is invisible.

"Can't you just get along? Can't you just clean up your room?"
How many exasperated parents
Have asked their children these questions?
How many parents never learned how to answer them?

Gandhi refused to hate.
Desmond Tutu refused to hate.
Martin Luther King, Jr. refused to hate.
Buddha refused to hate.
I refuse to hate.
Refuse. To. Hate.

Don't call us naive.
Don't describe the complicated calculus.
Unearth another way.
Harness every ounce of love
To get along,
To clean up our only room,
Our oasis,
Before it's too late.

04/07/2026

Mary Pat Champeau, Director of the Humane Education graduate programs with the Institute for Humane Education and Antioch University, brings decades of global teaching experience spanning education with refugees, cross-cultural learning, and systems-based pedagogy. Her work focuses on preparing individuals to think critically, ethically, and systemically in response to complex global challenges. This conversation underscores why education must evolve beyond knowledge delivery into a practice that cultivates awareness, responsibility, and transformative thinking.

Link in the comments 👇

03/19/2026

How can we harness AI for collective well-being? This is one of the most important questions of our time, and I'm excited to share this Solutionary Voices podcast episode with Doug Alexander who answers it. You can find the episode on Apple Podcasts, iHeart Radio, & YouTube. Here's the link to Spotify

Solutionary Voices · Episode