What's Your Problem?

This bonus episode is from Hot Money, a new podcast from Pushkin and the Financial Times. When Financial Times reporter Patricia Nilsson started digging into the porn industry, she made a shocking discovery: Nobody knew who controlled the biggest porn company in the world. Now, Nilsson and her editor, Alex Barker, have figured out who the guy was, and much more. In this episode, the fourth in the series, Patricia and Alex wonder how it's legal for porn sites to host millions of videos uploaded by users. The answer is in the story of an Ohio family in the early 1990s. It involves a family IT business, an FBI raid and a court case that set the precedent for porn – and for tech giants like Facebook and Twitter. You can hear more Hot Money episodes at https://link.chtbl.com/dbhotmoney.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 predictable as mailing a package? Later this month, one of the company's rockets will launch the NASA-funded Capstone mission to the moon. A mission to Venus is also in the works. And the company has already sent over 100 satellites into orbit. It's a conversation about space, but also about how technological change drives down prices -- and creates new possibilities. 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.

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 podcast Car Show! In this episode, Eddie investigates the Lunar Rover. Why did we send a car to the moon? How did we design something for an environment we knew nothing about? Also: A look at the new lunar rover engineers are working on now. You can find more episodes of Car Show! with Eddie Alterman at https://link.chtbl.com/wypcarshowSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 most interesting people in crypto -- in large part because he doesn't think crypto is the most interesting thing in the world. He got into the business because he wanted to make as much money as possible in order to give almost all of it away. He's now worth over $20 billion, and he's already donated hundreds of millions. In the next few years, he could give away billions more. On today's show, he lists a few of the causes he's supporting -- and explains why he's likely to make massive political donations in 2024. 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.

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 working on this problem in 2018, when she was a junior in college. Her idea: imitate the natural world and build a device that detects when fruit is ripening. It worked. Now some of the biggest apple and pear packers in America use her device. Next up: Avocados. 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.

Anna Katrina Shedletsky is co-founder and CEO of Instrumental. Her problem: How do you make electronics manufacturing more efficient and less wasteful?  Anna started her career as a design engineer at Apple. It was her job to visit the factory when a new device was about to go into production and try to figure out all of the potential manufacturing problems that might arise. She realized this was an almost impossible task that relied on hope and luck -- and that it led to an incredibly inefficient and wasteful manufacturing process. So she started a new company, Instrumental, to try to come up with a better way to figure out what's likely to go wrong, and how to fix 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/listener for privacy information.

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 Slate Pay Dirt columnist Elizabeth Spiers to chat about the latest in business and finance news. In this episode, Felix and Emily sit down with Alexandra Roberts, professor at the University of New Hampshire Franklin Peirce School of Law. They talk about everything trademarks, from social media to counterfeits and parodies. They also talk about trying to fix racist logos and what happened when Mastercard tried to low key change its logo. Hear more episodes of Slate Money wherever you get your podcasts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Reshma Shetty is co-founder and chief operations officer of Ginkgo Bioworks. Her problem: How do you turn cutting-edge science into a sustainable business? Ginkgo is a synthetic biology company. The idea is to make industrial products -- fragrances, or food, or whatever -- by genetically engineering DNA, sticking it into a yeast or bacteria, and getting the yeast or bacteria to produce the thing you want. Creating a profitable synthetic biology business is a really hard problem. But if it does work, it could be massive -- like an industrial revolution with cells instead of machines. 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.

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. Will’s problem: How do you turn all those images into useful data? In today’s episode we talk about shooting smartphones into space, turning a million-dollar antenna into a thousand-dollar paperclip, and how to count every tree in the Amazon. 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.

Joy and Raft Hollingsworth run The Hollingsworth Cannabis Company. Their problem: How do you help more Black people get into the legal weed industry?They faced this problem from the very beginning as they tried to start a marijuana farm from scratch in rural Washington. The Hollingsworths lived their entire lives in downtown Seattle and didn’t know anything about farming.It's a story that includes a paper bag full of cash, dinner with Anthony Bourdain, and hundreds of millions of dollars in weed taxes.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. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 entrepreneurship into a repeatable, systematic process? Noubar created Flagship Pioneering to solve the problems he saw with entrepreneurship. Flagship's mission: To create new companies in a systematic, repeatable way. On today's show, Noubar explains how that system led to the creation of Moderna, a company that developed a COVID vaccine and saved millions of lives. 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. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 around 30 minutes -- and still make a profit?On today's show, Jacob Goldstein surprises Rafael with a live Gopuff order. And they discuss the problems the company is working on in real time as they wait to see if the order will arrive on time and in good shape.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. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 only an iPhone app?On the surface, DuoLingo looks warm and fuzzy. Underneath the hood, it's a serious tech company built on artificial intelligence. But the best machine learning in the world still isn't good enough to really teach people how to fluently speak in a new language. Luis is trying to change that.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. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 work. But AI still struggles with predicting the behavior of human drivers. To build a car that can truly drive itself, Aicha and the rest of the industry will have to solve this problem. How do you teach self-driving cars to understand people?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. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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?Zipline’s drones already make hundreds of deliveries a day in Ghana and Rwanda. But to expand to the U.S. he has to solve a fundamental problem. Americans’ love of freedom and the open skies makes it hard to build a drone business here.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. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 chain and Apple ruins your targeted ads?Ramon has sold over $30 million worth of dog ramps. That’s a lot of dog ramps. But in order to do so he has to deal with some of the biggest companies on earth. On today’s show, we talk about how he has built his company on top of the tech giants – and how they threaten his very existence.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. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Former Planet Money host Jacob Goldstein talks to entrepreneurs and engineers about how they'll change the world -- once they solve a few problems. Coming March 17th. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.