What's Your Problem?
Episodes
Reinventing the Restaurant
21 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
After working as a chef for decades, Anthony Strong’s dream came true: He opened his own restaurant. His problem was a classic one: Restaurants are ...
The Giant Torch That May Help Save the World
14 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Selling hydrogen to make fertilizer is a huge business. It also drives tons of carbon emissions. Rob Hanson, the co-founder and CEO of a company calle...
Fixing Uber’s Broken Culture
07 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Frances Frei and Anne Morriss are the co-founders of a training and consulting company called The Leadership Consortium. Together they specialize in h...
Murder Brokers from Hot Money: The New Narcos
05 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When a Dutch crime reporter makes an unbelievable discovery, a small-town murder case begins to look like an international assassination plot. Enjoy t...
Using AI for Creative Work
30 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A few weeks ago, Jacob Goldstein sat down with a writer and a composer on a stage in Chicago to talk about artificial intelligence. The conversation, ...
The Little-Known Office With $400 Billion to Fight Climate Change
23 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Jigar Shah is the director of the Loan Programs Office at the U.S. Department of Energy. Last year, as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, Congress a...
How AI Solved a Biological Mystery
16 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Pushmeet Kohli is vice president of research at DeepMind, an AI research group that is part of Google. Every protein has a unique shape. And understan...
Making Oxygen on Mars
09 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Forrest Meyen is the co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Lunar Outpost, a company that builds machines that go to places like Mars and, if everyt...
The sold-out chips at the heart of AI
19 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Brannin McBee is the co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at CoreWeave. A few years ago, he and a few friends started buying hardware to mine cryptoc...
Special Episode: The Trial of Sam Bankman-Fried
12 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Sam Bankman-Fried, the former crypto mogul, is on trial for fraud. On today’s show, we talk to Lidia Jean Kott, who is covering the trial for anothe...
Getting Yeast to Make Medicine
05 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Christina Smolke is the co-founder and CEO of Antheia. Antheia is a synthetic biology company -- they’re in the business of genetically engineering ...
Could a Robot Make Your Salad?
28 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Stephen Klein is the co-founder and CEO of Hyphen, a company that is developing an automated make line. Stephen's problem is this: How do you make res...
What the Industrial Revolution Teaches Us About the AI Revolution
21 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Simon Johnson is an MIT economist and the co-author of a new book called “Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle over Technology and Prosper...
Can AI Tutors Help Kids Learn? Khan Academy Thinks So
14 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Sal Khan is the founder and CEO of Khan Academy. Sal’s problem is this: How do you design an AI that can give students the kind of benefits they’d...
Smallpox: Gone but Not Forgotten from Incubation
11 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What can we learn from the centuries-long quest to eradicate smallpox, once the scourge of humanity? And how did it set the stage for all vaccines to ...
Going to the Doctor Sucks. Can AI Make it Better?
07 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Allon Bloch is the co-founder and CEO of K Health. Allon’s problem is this: Can you use AI to make seeing a doctor easier and more helpful? Today, t...
Spotting Wildfires with AI
31 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Sonia Kastner is the founder and CEO of Pano. Sonia’s problem is this: How do you use data and machine learning to mitigate the damage caused by cli...
Is the Era of Free Returns Over?
24 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Amit Sharma is the founder and CEO of Narvar. Narvar works with companies such as Sephora, Lululemon and Home Depot to manage the post-purchase phase...
Creative Technology at Pixar
17 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Danielle Feinberg is a Visual Effects Supervisor at Pixar Animation Studios. Danielle’s problem is this: How do you optimize technology so that you ...
How To Make AI Safer & More Reliable
10 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Yaron Singer is the founder and CEO of Robust Intelligence. Yaron’s problem is this: How do you reduce AI’s security and reliability risks? Yaron ...
Quantum Computers Could Change Everything
03 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Chris Monroe is the co-founder and chief scientist of IonQ. Chris’s problem is this: How do you build a quantum computer that will actually work? Qu...
The 2023 Unhedged Stock Draft
27 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Seven stocks are powering the market: Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla. How will they do in the second half of this year? Et...
Predicting Human Health with AI
06 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Charles Fisher is the co-founder and CEO of Unlearn AI. Charles’ problem is this: How do you build an AI model that can predict human health? Charle...
Breastfeeding, Black Market Baby Formula, and Bobbie
29 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Laura Modi is the founder and CEO of Bobbie, a company that makes baby formula and sells it directly to parents. Laura’s problem is this: how do you...
Making Immigration Cheaper & Easier
22 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Xiao Wang is the founder of a company called Boundless. Xiao’s problem is this: How do you make it cheaper and easier for people to navigate the U.S...
The Wind Power Pioneer Still Pushing the Frontier
15 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Henrik Stiesdal got his start in wind power back in the 70s. The price of oil had gone way up, and he wanted to help his parents figure out a cheaper ...
The Mystery at the Heart of ChatGPT
08 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
One of the most amazing things about ChatGPT and other, similar AI models: Nobody really understands what they can do. Not even the people who build t...
Scrubbing Carbon from the Air
01 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Friedmann is the CEO of Carbon Engineering. The company is at the frontier of a new industry, direct air capture. They just broke ground on a big ...
Building a Plane to Help Save the World
25 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Does flying have to be bad for the environment? Val Miftakhov, the founder and CEO of ZeroAvia, doesn’t think so. His company built a plane that’s...
The AI that Might Take My Job (And Yours)
18 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Andrew Mason is the founder and CEO of Descript. Descript's software has made editing audio and video much simpler. The company recently received a ...
The Hottest Thing In Energy Storage
11 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Andrew Ponec is co-founder and CEO of the energy storage company Antora Energy. Andrew's problem is this: How can you store renewable energy in a wa...
Using Bacteria to Dye Jeans
04 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Tammy Hsu and Michelle Zhu are the cofounders of Huue. Their problem is this: how do you get bacteria to produce indigo dye? And how do you do it ch...
The Quest for the Factory-Built House
27 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 ho...
Building Houses Like Tesla Builds Cars
20 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Human Bones, Made In the Lab
30 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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'...
Tiny Chips, Giant Stakes
23 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Microchips are the most important driver of technological progress in the modern world, and governments are fighting over who gets to make them. Right...
Problems Solved: Drones, Bananas and Real Estate*
16 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
It's our first anniversary and—almost 50 episodes in—Jacob Goldstein checks in with three past guests. Drone delivery guy Keenan Wyrobek thinks h...
Faster, Cheaper Drugs with AI
09 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 de...
Creating the Uncrashable Car
02 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 t...
The Electric Truck that Went Viral on TikTok
23 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 rai...
Introducing Other People’s Pockets: Mistress Marley, Financial Dominatrix
22 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 tha...
Running in Recycled Shoes
16 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 y...
Turning Garbage Into Food
09 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 thermosta...
The Fake-Meat Frontier
30 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 Gar...
From Impossible Burgers to Fake Steak
26 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 fo...
Small Pizza Shops Want a Bigger Slice
19 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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?...
Turning Waves Into Electricity
12 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
From Some of My Best Friends Are: Everything Dope Comes from Chicago
29 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Flying on Battery Power
15 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Bringing Back the American Hoodie
08 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 e...
How to Save the Most Lives
01 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 a...
From Story of the Week with Joel Stein: Billionaires Prepping for the Apocalypse
29 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 th...
The Investors Everybody Ignored
24 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 i...
Sam Bankman-Fried Revisited
16 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In May of this year, we interviewed Sam Bankman-Fried, the young billionaire philanthropist who started the crypto exchange FTX. Last week, in a matte...
Machiavelli's Tips for Getting Ahead at Work
10 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Google's Journey to the Edge of Search
03 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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,...
Paying People to Turn Off the Fridge
27 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Turning Writers into Publishers
20 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Shopify: The Business That Helps Build Businesses
13 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Putting Carbon Back Into the Ground
06 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Patching Together a Quilting Empire
29 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Revealing How Much Health Care Really Costs
08 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
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 hospit...
Saving the World with Poop
01 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Mariana Matus is co-founder and CEO of Biobot Analytics. Her problem: How do you turn sewage into useful public health data? When she and her co-found...
Building an Empire on Free Code
25 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Matt Mullenweg co-created WordPress, the open-source software that powers more than 40% of all the websites in the world. He's also the founder of a f...
Selling Billions of Crickets a Year
18 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Mohammed Ashour is the co-founder and CEO of Aspire Food Group. The company just built the biggest cricket factory in the history of the world. His pr...
From Patented: Inventing the Wheeled Suitcase
15 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We put man on the moon before we invented the wheeled suitcase. Why did it take so long? Find out in this episode of Patented: History of Inventions,...
How the Nerds Conquered the NBA
11 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Rajiv Maheswaran is the co-founder and president of Second Spectrum. Rajiv and his company figured out how to turn raw sports data into useful informa...
The Trick to Flying Cheap
04 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
David Neeleman has founded five airlines, including JetBlue. He recently launched a new airline, called Breeze. His problem: How do you use technology...
Beer Without the Buzz
28 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Bill Shufelt is the founder and CEO of Athletic Brewing Company. His problem: How do you turn non-alcoholic beer from a punchline into something peopl...
John Green Tests the Limits of YouTube
21 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
John Green is the author of The Fault in Our Stars and six other novels. He also co-founded a company that makes educational videos that have been vie...
Taking Bets on the Future
14 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Luana Lopes Lara is the co-founder of Kalshi, an exchange that lets ordinary people bet on everything from the path of inflation to what bills Congres...
From Unsung Science with David Pogue: The Man Who Stopped the Spammers
13 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A special preview of the podcast, Unsung Science with David Pogue from CBS News. Journalist and author David Pogue finds the untold creation stories b...
Building Bespoke Weather Forecasts
07 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Shimon Elkabetz is the founder and CEO of Tomorrow.io. His problem: How do you build a weather forecasting company from scratch? The company already s...
Squeezing the Entire Internet Into a Shoebox
30 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Emily Leproust is the co-founder and CEO of Twist Bioscience. Her problem: How do you store data in DNA -- and make it cheap enough to work in the rea...
Facing Fear in the Housing Market
23 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Glenn Kelman is the CEO of the real estate company Redfin. His problem: With the housing market teetering, how do you sell houses online? Redfin has a...
From Hot Money: Playboy vs. Rusty and Edie
21 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This bonus episode is from Hot Money, a new podcast from Pushkin and the Financial Times. When Financial Times reporter Patricia Nilsson started diggi...
Going to Venus on the Cheap
02 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Peter Beck is the founder and CEO of Rocket Lab. His problem: How do you turn sending stuff into outer space into something that seems as boring and p...
Putting a Car on the Moon
01 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On this bonus episode of What’s Your Problem? Jacob Goldstein talks with Eddie Alterman, former editor of Car and Driver and host of the new pod...
Sam Bankman-Fried Wants to Save the World
24 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Sam Bankman-Fried is the founder and CEO of the crypto exchange FTX. His problem: How to spend billions of dollars to save humanity. Sam is one of the...
The Quest for the Perfect Avocado
19 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Katherine Sizov is the founder and CEO of Strella Biotech. Her problem: Tons of food is wasted before it ever gets to the consumer. Katherine started ...
Making Electronics Better
12 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Anna Katrina Shedletsky is co-founder and CEO of Instrumental. Her problem: How do you make electronics manufacturing more efficient and less wasteful...
From Slate Money: 37.8% Scammier
10 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Today we're sharing a preview from another podcast we love, Slate Money. Every week, Felix Salmon of Axios is joined by Emily Peck, also of Axios, and...
Turning Cells into Tiny Factories
05 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Reshma Shetty is co-founder and chief operations officer of Ginkgo Bioworks. Her problem: How do you turn cutting-edge science into a sustainable busi...
Seeing Data From Space
28 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Will Marshall is the co-founder and CEO of Planet, a private company with a fleet of tiny satellites that takes photos of the entire Earth every day. ...
Growing a Weed Business
20 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Joy and Raft Hollingsworth run The Hollingsworth Cannabis Company. Their problem: How do you help more Black people get into the legal weed industry?T...
Building a Company that Builds Companies
14 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Noubar Afeyan is the co-founder of Moderna and the founder of Flagship Pioneering. His problem: How do you turn the chaotic hero's journey of entrepre...
Delivering Everything Right Now
07 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Rafael Ilishayev is the co-founder of the instant delivery company Gopuff. His problem: How do you deliver everything from bananas to hot coffee in ar...
Chatting with the Machine
31 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Luis von Ahn is the founder and CEO of the language app DuoLingo. His problem: How do you teach people to speak a language -- really speak it -- using...
Teaching Cars to Think Like People
24 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Aicha Evans is the CEO of Zoox. Her problem: Designing a car that knows what to do when it pulls up to a 4-way stop.AI is transforming the way cars wo...
Launching Drone Delivery
17 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Keenan Wyrobek is the co-founder of Zipline. His problem: How do you fill the skies with delivery drones and keep them from crashing into each other?Z...
Becoming a Dog Ramp Mogul
17 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ramon van Meer is the CEO of Alpha Paw. His problem: How do you grow a niche business (ramps for weiner dogs!) when a pandemic blows up your supply ch...
Introducing What's Your Problem
07 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Former Planet Money host Jacob Goldstein talks to entrepreneurs and engineers about how they'll change the world -- once they solve a few problems. Co...