Sep 6, 2026 · 48 min · 18 segments
What was it like to interview Osama bin Laden in the Tora Bora caves? Who were the other terrorists behind the infamous 1998 fatwa? How did Monica Lewinsky derail the response to the East Africa…
Peter BergenGuest
Anita AnandHost
William DalrympleHostThis episode is brought to you by our friend Plaud, the world's number one AI notetaker brand.
Now, when it comes to research, we all have our own methods, sitting for hours in the archive, reading the secondary works, capturing every detail, grilling top scholars.
But often we have to lose material in order to remain engaged when doing an interview.
We've all been there, sitting there with our notes, uh, missing half the vital bits of conversation, and that no longer need happen ever again because now you just put Plaud on your collar, and bingo, it records everything you say and transcribes it into sensible action points that you can refer to afterwards.
I only picked up Plaud a few weeks ago, and already it's changing the way that I work.
With one press, the device transcribes those real conversations and turns them into clear actions.
It also has a brilliant feature called Ask Plaud, which calls up details of hazy, long-gone conversations in seconds.
Empire listeners can go to uk.plaud.ai/empire. That's uk.P-L-A-U-D.AI/empire, and use the promo code empire to get 10% off any Plaud device.
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This episode is brought to you by our friend Plaud, the world's number one AI notetaker brand.
Now, when it comes to research, we all have our own methods, sitting for hours in the archive, reading the secondary works, capturing every detail, grilling top scholars.
But often we have to lose material in order to remain engaged when doing an interview.
We've all been there, sitting there with our notes, uh, missing half the vital bits of conversation, and that no longer need happen ever again because now you just put Plaud on your collar, and bingo, it records everything you say and transcribes it into sensible action points that you can refer to afterwards.
I only picked up Plaud a few weeks ago, and already it's changing the way that I work.
With one press, the device transcribes those real conversations and turns them into clear actions.
It also has a brilliant feature called Ask Plaud, which calls up details of hazy, long-gone conversations in seconds.
Empire listeners can go to uk.plaud.ai/empire. That's uk.P-L-A-U-D.AI/empire, and use the promo code empire to get 10% off any Plaud device.
