2024 Aspen Ideas Festival Speaker Preview

On the 20th year of the Aspen Ideas Festival, you will hear the conversations that matter from people who inspire. The 2024 speaker lineup is stacked with nearly 300 tech and media innovators, artists, policymakers, scientists, activists, and global thought leaders, including the names below. Explore the full lineup here.

Academy Award winning actor, producer, author, and activist Jane Fonda will speak about earning hope through climate action.

Artist and activist John Legend will speak about transforming the justice system.

Actor and comedian Julia Louis-Dreyfus will join podcast host Sam Fragoso for a live taping of “Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso” — where people sound like people. 

Bill Maher, host of Real Time with Bill Maher, will share his iconoclastic views on all things politics and pop culture and discuss his just-released book, What This Comedian Said Will Shock You.

Writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists, will talk about life, literature, and the power of storytelling.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson will sit down with President and COO of SpaceX Gwynne Shotwell for a conversation about new space frontiers. 

Open AI CEO Sam Altman and Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky will talk about designing artificial intelligence for our lives.

Columnist, podcast host, and author of Burn Book Kara Swisher will give us the unvarnished truth about what she has seen from her front-row seat reporting for 30 years on tech's most powerful players.

Oscar-winning director and composer Kris Bowers will join Juilliard School President Damian Woetzel for an evening of performance, conversation, and serious hope.

Sherrilyn Ifill, former President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, will discuss the 14th amendment with Jeffrey Rosen, President and CEO of the National Constitution Center.

Co-Founder of PayPal and Palantir Technologies Peter Thiel will sit down with Andrew Ross Sorkin.

Bestselling author Michael Lewis will discuss his latest book, "Going Infinite," about the rise and fall of Sam Bankman Fried.

68th U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, having just left his role as President Biden’s climate envoy, shares notes from the field on how global leaders are tackling climate inaction.

Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard Henry Louis Gates Jr.and actor Joe Manganiello will unpack what it means to find your roots and know your past.

New York University Law Professor Melissa Murray reviews the status of women in post-Roe America and the many high-stakes decisions expected from the U.S. Supreme Court by the end of June.

Explore the intersection of arts, society, and identity with conceptual artist Hank Willis Thomas.

Utah Governor Spencer Cox and Colorado Governor Jared Polis come from opposite sides of the aisle, but as chair and vice chair of the National Governors Association, they make the case that healthy disagreements can lead to better policy.

How would a China-Taiwan crisis unfold? Historian Niall Ferguson, Milbank Family Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and a senior faculty fellow of Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, games it out.

Journalist Katie Couric will interview game changers and culture shapers.

Bill Browder, Head of the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign and bestselling author of Red Notice and Freezing Order, will give us his insider thoughts on Putin’s war chest and next moves.

Eddie S. Glaude Jr., James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor at Princeton University, will weigh in during a discussion about the flashpoints of the 2024 election.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd will dive into Shakespeare and politics with two leading historians. 

Speakers will be joined on stage by NBCUniversal New Group media personalities, including CNBC Squawk Box anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin and Jenna Bush Hager, co-host of “TODAY with Hoda & Jenna.”