Today's show is about a problem people have been trying to solve for a hundred years: how can we mass produce houses, like we do cars? Listen for a house that looks like a UFO, a giant mobile home boom, and a visit to a 21st-century construction site where workers are putting up a factory-built house. This episode's a co-production with our friends at Planet Money, and a follow-up to last week's interview with the founder of Cover. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Apr 27, 2023•28 min•Season 1Ep. 51
Alexis Rivas is the co-founder and CEO of Cover. His problem is: How do you build houses in a factory, the way you build cars? And how do you do it so they're cheaper and better than a traditionally built house? Cover is following the Tesla model: starting with a high-end product but aiming for the mass market. "Nail it and scale it," he says. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Apr 20, 2023•31 min•Season 1Ep. 50
Nina Tandon is the co-founder and CEO of a tissue engineering company called EpiBone. Her problem is this: How do you grow custom bone from patients' stem cells, at a price that makes sense? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mar 30, 2023•24 min•Season 1Ep. 49
Microchips are the most important driver of technological progress in the modern world, and governments are fighting over who gets to make them. Right now, most cutting-edge chips are made in Taiwan, a country that China claims as part of its territory. The U.S. government is fighting to keep semiconductor technology out of China, and spending tens of billions of dollars to get companies to build more chip factories in the US. Chris Miller is a professor at Tufts University and the author of a b...
Mar 23, 2023•27 min•Season 1Ep. 48
It's our first anniversary and—almost 50 episodes in—Jacob Goldstein checks in with three past guests. Drone delivery guy Keenan Wyrobek thinks he has solved a big problem holding back commercial drone delivery in America. Fruit-ripening maven Katherine Sizov is figuring out bananas. And Glenn Kelman of Redfin has some deep insights from a tough year in the real estate business. *The problems in real estate weren't so much solved as left behind. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy informatio...
Mar 16, 2023•29 min•Season 1Ep. 47
Alice Zhang is the co-founder and CEO of Verge Genomics. Alice's problem is this: How do you use artificial intelligence to drive down the price of developing new drugs? The company is using AI to find new disease mechanisms to target, and to speed up drug development. If using AI can help experimental drugs succeed even a little more often than they do now, it'll be a big win. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mar 09, 2023•30 min•Season 1Ep. 46
When Austin Russell was 17 years old, he founded Luminar Technologies to work on a remote sensing technology called Lidar. Today, Austin is one of the world's youngest self-made billionaires, and Luminar may be on the verge of solving Austin's problem: How do you make Lidar cheap enough and good enough to use in millions of cars? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mar 02, 2023•21 min•Season 1Ep. 45
Chace Barber is the co-founder of Edison Motors. Chace's problem is this: How do you build electric logging trucks in rural Canada, with money you raised from people who follow you on TikTok? Chace started his career driving logging trucks. He loved the idea of Tesla's electric semi, but when it never arrived, he decided to build his own. If you’d like to keep up with the most recent news from this and other Pushkin podcasts be sure to subscribe to our email list . See omnystudio.com/listener fo...
Feb 23, 2023•30 min•Season 1Ep. 44
Here's a bonus episode of a new show from Pushkin, Other People's Pockets. Have you ever wondered how your friend bought that vacation home or why that colleague of yours makes everyone meticulously split the tab down to the last Diet Coke? Other People's Pockets is a show about other people’s money. Host Maya Lau asks people from all walks of life to get radically transparent about their personal finances in order to learn more about who we are and level the playing field a little bit along the...
Feb 22, 2023•40 min•Season 1Ep. 8
Caspar Coppetti is the co-founder of On, a company that makes athletic shoes. Caspar's problem is this: How can you sell tens of millions of shoes a year -- and then take them all back, to turn them into new shoes? The company's latest bid to attract new customers? A shoe subscription service. If you’d like to keep up with the most recent news from this and other Pushkin podcasts be sure to subscribe to our email list . See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Feb 16, 2023•27 min•Season 1Ep. 43
Matt Rogers is the co-founder of Mill. Matt's problem is this: How do you turn garbage into food? Before Mill, Matt co-founded Nest, a smart thermostat company. Now, he wants to take on the garbage in our kitchens with a high tech garbage can that can transform food waste. This is the fourth and last episode of What's Your Problem's four-part series on the future of food. If you’d like to keep up with the most recent news from this and other Pushkin podcasts be sure to subscribe to our email lis...
Feb 09, 2023•28 min•Season 1Ep. 42
Jacob Goldstein co-hosts today's show with Dan Pashman, host of The Sporkful . Jacob and Dan eat their way through the history of fake meat -- from Gardenburger hockey pucks, to meatier Impossible burgers. And they get a report from the fake-meat frontier, where scientists are trying to make lab-grown chicken breasts. This is the third episode of What's Your Problem's four-part series on the future of food. If you’d like to keep up with the most recent news from this and other Pushkin podcasts b...
Jan 30, 2023•35 min•Season 1Ep. 41
Pat Brown is the founder of Impossible Foods. Pat's problem is this: How can you make meat without animals? Pat's goal isn't to make better burgers for vegetarians; he wants to sell to meat eaters. To succeed, he'll have to figure out how to make fake meat that is at least as good -- and as cheap -- as the real thing. This is the second episode of What's Your Problem's four-part series on the future of food. If you’d like to keep up with the most recent news from this and other Pushkin podcasts ...
Jan 26, 2023•25 min•Season 1Ep. 40
Ilir Sela is the co-founder and CEO of Slice. His problem: How do you bring the technological revolution to thousands of tiny mom and pop pizza shops? Most local pizza shops haven't adapted well to consumers' appetites for online ordering. Ilir's mission is to make sure that the technology powering Big Pizza can also benefit smaller businesses. This is the first episode of What's Your Problem's four-part series on the future of food. If you’d like to keep up with the most recent news from this a...
Jan 19, 2023•27 min•Season 1Ep. 39
Tim Mundon is chief technology officer at Oscilla Power. Tim's problem is this: How do you turn waves into electrical power? You can see the power of the ocean in every wave, but the complex churm and swirl of the surf has made it difficult to translate that movement into something useful. Tim Mundon and his colleagues have been working on the problem for more than a decade, and are about to test a new electric generator in the big waves off the coast of Oahu. If you’d like to keep up with the m...
Jan 12, 2023•23 min•Season 1Ep. 38
While we’re off celebrating the new year, here’s an episode from another Pushkin show: Some of My Best Friends Are… Hosts Khalil Gibran Muhammad and Ben Austen, two best friends from the South Side of Chicago, invite listeners into unfiltered conversations about growing up together in a deeply-divided country, and navigating that divide today. On this episode, Khalil and Ben find out how Sherman “Dilla” Thomas has become the face of Chicago history on TikTok, TV and in tours. We hear how Thomas ...
Dec 29, 2022•44 min•Season 1Ep. 7
Anders Forslund is the co-founder and CEO of Heart Aerospace. Anders' problem is this: How do you build a commercial airplane that can fly on battery power -- and win the approval of regulators around the world? As other sectors are decarbonizing, emissions from aviation are projected to triple by 2050. This is partly because figuring out how to build a commercial plane that doesn't burn jet fuel is a very, very hard problem that Anders has been trying to solve for years. If you’d like to keep u...
Dec 15, 2022•26 min•Season 1Ep. 37
Bayard Winthrop is the founder and CEO of American Giant. Bayard's problem is this: How do you make clothes in America -- and compete in a global economy? Today's show is about the future of American manufacturing. But it is also about something very simple: A sweatshirt made in America. It costs $138, and it is wildly popular. If you’d like to keep up with the most recent news from this and other Pushkin podcasts be sure to subscribe to our email list . See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy i...
Dec 08, 2022•31 min•Season 1Ep. 36
Farzad Mostashari is the co-founder and CEO of Aledade. Farzad's problem is this: How can we pay doctors to keep us healthy, rather than treating us after we get sick? People have been struggling to solve this problem for decades. But for a bunch of reasons you'll hear about on the show, Farzad and his colleagues may be the ones to finally solve it. If you’d like to keep up with the most recent news from this and other Pushkin podcasts be sure to subscribe to our email list . See omnystudio.com/...
Dec 01, 2022•38 min•Season 1Ep. 35
This bonus episode is from Story of the Week with Joel Stein, a new Pushkin podcast. On Story of the Week, journalist Joel Stein chooses an article that fascinates him, convinces the writer to tell him about it, and then interrupts a good conversation by talking about himself. This episode is about the Medium story “Survival of the Richest” by Douglas Rushkoff. In it, Rushkoff discovers a whole industry catering to billionaires looking to buy things to prepare for the apocalypse. You can read th...
Nov 29, 2022•13 min•Season 1Ep. 6
Sallie Krawcheck is the founder and CEO of Ellevest, an investment firm for women that has over $1 billion in assets under management. In her career in finance, Sallie was often one of the only women in the room. But even she had to be convinced that women would benefit from an investment firm created just for them. If you’d like to keep up with the most recent news from this and other Pushkin podcasts be sure to subscribe to our email list . See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Nov 24, 2022•31 min•Season 1Ep. 34
In May of this year, we interviewed Sam Bankman-Fried, the young billionaire philanthropist who started the crypto exchange FTX. Last week, in a matter of a few days, FTX collapsed and filed for bankruptcy, and Sam resigned. It's unclear if customers or investors will ever get their money back. In light of the news, we are replaying the episode -- and trying to figure out what to make of everything Sam told us earlier this year. If you’d like to keep up with the most recent news from this and ot...
Nov 16, 2022•26 min•Season 1Ep. 33
Stacey Vanek Smith is the author of "Machiavelli for Women: Defend Your Worth, Grow Your Ambition, and Win the Workplace." Her problem is this: How do women get ahead in a workplace that is stacked against them? Stacey is my old co-host from Planet Money. Today, she brings us strategies from the 16th-century writer for how to thrive in an unjust world. This episode was recorded in front of a live audience. If you’d like to keep up with the most recent news from this and other Pushkin podcasts be...
Nov 10, 2022•35 min•Season 1Ep. 32
Cathy Edwards is vice president and GM of Search at Google. Cathy's problem is this: how do you teach computers to tell people what they want to know, even if they don't know how to ask? Google's last leap: Moving from search results based on keywords to search results based on concepts. The next step: Figuring out how to let people search using not just words, but combinations of words and images. If you’d like to keep up with the most recent news from this and other Pushkin podcasts be sure to...
Nov 03, 2022•31 min•Season 1Ep. 31
Matt Duesterberg is co-founder and president of OhmConnect. Matt's problem: How do you build a business around getting people to save energy? Not all that much. And not all the time. But just enough, at just the right time. OhmConnect is paying customers to reduce their household's energy usage at times of high demand. The company is a window into the bizarre world of energy markets -- and human behavior. If you’d like to keep up with the most recent news from this and other Pushkin podcasts be ...
Oct 27, 2022•25 min•Season 1Ep. 30
Chris Best is co-founder and CEO of Substack. Chris's problem: How do you help writers make a living from a thousand true fans? Substack is a company that helps writers send subscription-based email newsletters. Which, as Chris says, is a very simple idea, built on top of some very grandiose beliefs about culture and ideas and commerce. If you’d like to keep up with the most recent news from this and other Pushkin podcasts be sure to subscribe to our email list . See omnystudio.com/listener for ...
Oct 20, 2022•34 min•Season 1Ep. 29
Harley Finkelstein is the president of Shopify. He may love entrepreneurship more than anyone we've ever met. Harley’s problem: How do you aggregate the power of millions of small businesses to help them compete against giants? If you’d like to keep up with the most recent news from this and other Pushkin podcasts be sure to subscribe to our email list . See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Oct 13, 2022•29 min•Season 1Ep. 28
Shaun Kinetic is co-founder and chief scientist of Charm Industrial. Shaun’s problem: How do you put billions of tons of carbon back into the ground? Charm Industrial is fighting climate change in a giant but kind of overlooked corner of the economy: Agriculture. Fields of corn and wheat and soybeans absorb billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the air every year. But then, once the crops are harvested, the leaves and the stalks decompose -- and send a lot of that carbon back into the air. Sha...
Oct 06, 2022•32 min•Season 1Ep. 27
Al Doan is the executive chairman of the Missouri Star Quilt company. Al's problem is this: How do you combine low tech and high tech to turn a niche hobby into a wildly successful company? In 2008, Al and his siblings helped their mom open a quilt shop in Hamilton, Missouri. Now, the business has grown to over 100 million a year in revenue and Jenny Doan, Al's mom, has become the YouTube quilting star. If you’d like to keep up with the most recent news from this and other Pushkin podcasts be su...
Sep 29, 2022•35 min•Season 1Ep. 26
Chris Severn is the co-founder and CEO of Turquoise Health. Chris's problem is this: How do you figure out the real price trip of a trip to the hospital -- before it happens? People have been trying to solve this problem for decades, but there's a good reason to think that this time is different. In 2019, the federal government issued a new rule that said insurers and hospitals have to publish their prices. Not just the fake list prices that nobody pays. But the actual, real, negotiated prices. ...
Sep 08, 2022•27 min•Season 1Ep. 25
