(1:40) Mitch introduces Greg LeRoy, Executive Director of Good Jobs First. (3:13) Greg notes that America's state and city governments spend roughly $70B/yr in economic development incentives to corporations, who often use those incentives in turn to pay no taxes on property or income over the course of their local operation, thus failing to deliver returns on the public's investment. He cites a depression-era Mississippi scheme as the origin of America's "tax break industrial complex", coincidi...
Jun 23, 2021•35 min•Ep. 13
(1:38) Mitch introduces Ben Sharp, the force behind progressive metal act Cloudkicker. (3:09) Ben reflects on the influences and innovations that shaped his "bedroom music" hobby -- a classification barely old enough to drink, as it references the 21st century transition from traditional lo-fi homemade music to the studio-grade technologies that place the means of music production almost entirely within reach of anyone owning a home computer. Among other influences, Ben cites the creation of EZd...
Jun 03, 2021•32 min•Ep. 12
(1:22) Mitch introduces Genevieve Miller, Director of Advocacy at Indy Hunger Network. She gives us the lay of the land regarding how millions of Americans, many of whom are located smack in the middle of high-density urban areas, find themselves unable to access food. She cites USDA's official definition of a food desert as a community with 20%+ poverty & 33%+ located a mile or more away from a grocery store. (4:45) Genevieve calls out the distinction between food access and food security, ...
May 05, 2021•36 min•Ep. 11
(1:18) Mitch introduces Dr. David Zetland, economics professor at Leiden University College. (2:16) David briskly walks us through humanity's drive to get useful water on demand, whether it be at the root of an irrigated crop, or at the 30th floor of the Bellagio in Vegas. (7:44) We approach water markets from David's "2x2" mental model: understanding how to manage water based on whether it is a) inclusive vs. exclusive, and b) rival vs. non-rival (or, subtractive vs. sharable). He shares how th...
Apr 21, 2021•38 min•Ep. 10
(1:29) Mitch introduces Jenn Sydeski, Founder of Connect Wolf. She speaks to prior advancements in mommy autonomy that not only replaced the need for non-stop in-person vigilance, but also helped distribute the communal parenting load from people to objects and algorithms. (7:43) We talk specifically about Jenn's product and vision, wherein she explains how her long-term goal of solving for affordable & equitable healthcare is currently being manifested through her first product, which uses ...
Apr 08, 2021•32 min•Ep. 9
(1:25) Mitch introduces Alex Cherones, Partner and head of Cybersecurity at Headstorm. He paints a picture of information security before the days of cloud computing and wifi and iPhones... and how the progression of business communication tech has added more and more attack vectors to spread risk. (7:14) Mitch and Alex discuss the dilemma of ultimately putting best-laid security plans in the hands of "carbon-based life forms" -- consistently the weakest link of any system. We talk about how and...
Mar 24, 2021•37 min•Ep. 8
(1:24) Mitch introduces Dr. Brett Stoudt, head of the CUNY Graduate Center's PhD program in Critical Psychology. He rattles off a handful of the NYPD's latest and shadiest technologies, exponentially increasing the power with which law enforcement can bring the city to its fingertips. He points out that some of these use cases are blatant 4th Amendment rights violations, simply basking in the salad days of unsophisticated policy. Examples include surveillance towers, stingrays, LRAD, x-ray vans ...
Mar 10, 2021•33 min•Ep. 7
(1:44) Mitch introduces Veronica Ahern, fresh off her career move at Oracle. We compress a hundred years of advertising into one brief recap -- revealing how the industry progressed from transporting their ads to physical destinations all over the built environment, to now focusing primarily on one tiny screen and the manipulative factors that dictate whether showing an ad will provide a return on investment. (6:52) We rag on the old-school industry performance metric of "circulation", a hilario...
Feb 24, 2021•41 min•Ep. 6
(1:30) Mitch introduces Gary Walker, creator of "Ready for Remote" and Digital Director at Distribute. (4:45) Gary lays out some of his process around aligning employers to the optimal working environment for their staff & departments... one tell-tale sign informing his consideration for taking any job remote is when 75% of its labor occurs over digital tools or virtual interaction. He states that in large part, successful shifts in team structure and virtual engagement lean on establishing ...
Feb 10, 2021•40 min•Ep. 5
(1:30) Mitch introduces Tracey Zimmerman (President of Robots and Pencils), and Ryan Gialames (education technologist at large). Thus begins a Zoom interview with so much compression it sometimes sounds like autotune. T-Pain, don't steal our hooks. (4:15) We cite the core advantages of online learning in respect to Telekinetic's technology-eats-transportation credo -- the asynchronous environment, the rewatchable/relivable material, and the democratization of giving everyone the same seat since ...
Jan 27, 2021•40 min•Ep. 4
For posterity: this was recorded in mid-December, 2020. (1:55) Mitch introduces Jamie Skella, technologist and strategic advisor to the Aussie stars -- Mitch's words, not Jamie's. (5:26) Jamie explains how the blockchain-based voting technology he helped developed at MiVote, and later Horizon State, modernizes and optimizes voting to make it more equitable, more affordable, and more available as a lever for change. (8:47) We lay plain the literal transportation problems in location-based electio...
Jan 13, 2021•38 min•Ep. 3
(1:28) Mitch introduces Carlos Pardo of NUMO. (3:52) Carlos illuminates the modern history of "transportation avoidance" as an urban planning strategy. (6:26) We consider why transportation planners and mobility agencies refuse to acknowledge teletravel as a key component of TDM. (19:30) We debate the inherent value of travel as an instinctive and anthropological need, regardless of trip purpose. Carlos cites a study about soccer moms and the Marchetti constant. Mitch offers his hot take: transp...
Jan 13, 2021•40 min•Ep. 2
Mitch settles into his dangerously comfortable armchair to wax philosophical about the nature of human progress, and how we know we're achieving it whenever we see transportation being made obsolete.
Jan 13, 2021•4 min•Ep. 1
