Shows / What's Your Problem?
What's Your Problem?
Every week on What's Your Problem?, former Planet Money host Jacob Goldstein talks with entrepreneurs and engineers tackling the biggest challenges at the forefront of technology. How do you make a trip to space as routine as a plane flight? How do you turn solar energy into clean fuel? How do you use AI to stop deadly infections before they spread? We hear a lot these days about how the world is getting worse. What's Your Problem? learns from the thinkers and doers trying to make our future…
Episodes
- What's Your Problem?
Sam Bankman-Fried Revisited
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…
- What's Your Problem?
Machiavelli's Tips for Getting Ahead at Work
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…
- What's Your Problem?
Google's Journey to the Edge of Search
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…
- What's Your Problem?
Paying People to Turn Off the Fridge
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…
- What's Your Problem?
Turning Writers into Publishers
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…
- What's Your Problem?
Shopify: The Business That Helps Build Businesses
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…
- What's Your Problem?
Putting Carbon Back Into the Ground
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…
- What's Your Problem?
Patching Together a Quilting Empire
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…
- What's Your Problem?
Revealing How Much Health Care Really Costs
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 --…
- What's Your Problem?
Saving the World with Poop
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-founder…
- What's Your Problem?
Building an Empire on Free Code
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 for-profit…
- What's Your Problem?
Selling Billions of Crickets a Year
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 problem…
- What's Your Problem?
From Patented: Inventing the Wheeled Suitcase
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, where…
- What's Your Problem?
How the Nerds Conquered the NBA
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 information for…
- What's Your Problem?
The Trick to Flying Cheap
David Neeleman has founded five airlines, including JetBlue. He recently launched a new airline, called Breeze. His problem: How do you use technology to bring…
- What's Your Problem?
Beer Without the Buzz
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 people drink…
- What's Your Problem?
John Green Tests the Limits of YouTube
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 viewed…
- What's Your Problem?
Taking Bets on the Future
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 Congress will…
- What's Your Problem?
From Unsung Science with David Pogue: The Man Who Stopped the Spammers
A special preview of the podcast, Unsung Science with David Pogue from CBS News. Journalist and author David Pogue finds the untold creation stories behind the…
- What's Your Problem?
Building Bespoke Weather Forecasts
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 sells…
- What's Your Problem?
Squeezing the Entire Internet Into a Shoebox
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 real world…
- What's Your Problem?
Facing Fear in the Housing Market
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 website…
- What's Your Problem?
From Hot Money: Playboy vs. Rusty and Edie
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…
- What's Your Problem?
Going to Venus on the Cheap
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…
- What's Your Problem?
Putting a Car on the Moon
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…
- What's Your Problem?
Sam Bankman-Fried Wants to Save the World
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…
- What's Your Problem?
The Quest for the Perfect Avocado
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…
- What's Your Problem?
Making Electronics Better
Anna Katrina Shedletsky is co-founder and CEO of Instrumental. Her problem: How do you make electronics manufacturing more efficient and less wasteful? Anna…
- What's Your Problem?
From Slate Money: 37.8% Scammier
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…
- What's Your Problem?
Turning Cells into Tiny Factories
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?…
- What's Your Problem?
Seeing Data From Space
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…
- What's Your Problem?
Growing a Weed Business
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…
- What's Your Problem?
Building a Company that Builds Companies
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…
- What's Your Problem?
Delivering Everything Right Now
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…
- What's Your Problem?
Chatting with the Machine
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…
- What's Your Problem?
Teaching Cars to Think Like People
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…
- What's Your Problem?
Launching Drone Delivery
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…
- What's Your Problem?
Becoming a Dog Ramp Mogul
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…
- What's Your Problem?
Introducing What's Your Problem
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…