Shows / The Courier
The Courier
Jonah and Greg give you the low down on all the week's latest urbanism, delivery, mobility and tech policy developments.
www.thecurbivore.com
Episodes
The CourierHow to (Wisely) Spend a Fortune on Transit, Down Under
Australia and America have a lot in common: sprawling suburbs, a deep love affair with the automobile and like just about everywhere in the Anglosphere — an…
The CourierHow Do Machines Map the World? A Conversation With Geospatial Legend Brian McClendon
An autonomous vehicle can have the greatest lidar and cameras in the world, but how does it “understand” what it’s looking at? Robotaxis and delivery bots…
The CourierFrom RV Rentals to Fleet Management to AV Insurance
Building the world’s biggest RV rental platform would be ambitious enough. But what if you also launched a suite of fleet-management tools, and then an…
The CourierToday's Profitable Mobility Startups Have The "Luxury of Optionality" Says Stifel's Florent Roulet
It’s been a rocky road for new mobility startups these past few years. Late 2020 until early 2022 saw rock bottom interest rates fuel massive funding for all…
The CourierHow to Amortize an Ebike, With Wombi CEO Dan Carr
Far too many bike shops treat two-wheelers like they’re high-end sporting equipment: sleek and expensive pieces of hardware that are meant to be stored in the…
The CourierThe McKinsey Center for Future Mobility’s Bold Claims About the Coming AV Revolution
As the world transitions to autonomous mobility, consumer uptake rests on four core pillars: affordability, accessibility, safety and sustainability. In a bold…
The CourierCould a New Mayor Transform LA’s Streets, Housing and City Services? Councilmember Nithya Raman Wants a City That Works
Los Angeles has always been the city of the future, offering the world a vision of what’s to come, for both better and worse. Lately, while the region has…
The CourierReverse Logistics: So Hot Right Now! Uber's Head of Grocery & Retail Partnerships Talks Returns Launch & 10 Years of Growth
Third party delivery has gone on a wild ride over the last decade, going from an urban niche to a worldwide must-have. Along the way, the array of items that…
The CourierAVs' Impact on Cities, Mobility & Delivery
As AVs start to impact everything from traditional ridesharing, to mobility more broadly, to even delivery and city-scale systems, it's time to think about how…
The CourierThis Fighter Pilot Knows Why Autonomous Machines Shouldn't Settle for Anything Less Than Perfection
There’s nothing worse than an almost perfect machine. If a machine misbehaves consistently, users will know not to trust it. But if it works right 99.9% of the…
The CourierHow to Build a Winning Coalition for Complete Streets
Los Angeles is many things, but it’s definitely a town where diffuse power structures make it difficult to build political movements. That’s doubly true when…
The CourierCan NYC Build a Sustainable Mobility Startup Ecosystem? LACI BATWorks' Alex Mitchell Is Leading the Charge
When it comes to sustainable mobility startups, New York City finds itself in a peculiar position. Blessed with a legacy of strong public transit…
The CourierAre Rising Insurance Premiums Eating the Mobility Industry Alive?
Some days it feels like insurance is devouring the entire mobility economy, with rising premiums taking down transportation options new and old alike. Auto…
The CourierA Fast Casual Restaurateur's "Love-Hate Relationship" with Delivery
Your favorite podcast — Zag Talk — is back for an all new season. Today we kick things off by chatting with Seth Cohen, Co-Founder of Sweetfin, a 15-unit fast…
The CourierCan Sustainable Delivery Be a Sustainable Business? Delivery Mates' Kevin Savage Makes the Case
Over the past few months we’ve had the distinct pleasure of digging deep in the world of sustainable delivery: we’ve kicked the tires on the new Honda…
The CourierLyft’s Not Content With Second Place in the Robotaxi Race
As robotaxis race towards becoming a regular part of our mobility landscape, it at first looked like Lyft had no interest in joining the competition, instead…
The CourierCan Corporations Nudge Workers Towards Greener Commuting Options?
A city can spend all the money in the world on making its streets multi-modal, on transit investments and the like, but if all the jobs are still located out…
The CourierSenator Scott Wiener Discusses YIMBY's Big Win: SB79
Dense housing and public transit: two great tastes that taste better together. You’d think this classic combo would be a no-brainer, as building mid-rise…
The CourierCan Portable Benefits Improve Gig Work? With DoorDash's Max Rettig
Managing policy for DoorDash is no mean feat; the globe-spanning 3PD often finds itself interfacing with cities across all sorts of issues: traffic / road…
The CourierGetting Ebikes Into the Hands of Hard-Working Couriers
Delivery is tough work, especially in dense, urban environments. Couriers and policymakers often find themselves pulled between competing priorities…
The CourierIs Hydrogen Finally the Fuel of the Future? MH2Fund Is Betting on It
Hydrogen is having its moment—not because of hype, but because the economics and demand finally line up. Heavy industry, shipping, and aviation are desperate…
The CourierYou Want People That Found Something Secret - Steve Greenfield, Automotive Ventures
On this week’s episode of Zag Talk, I’m joined by Steve Greenfield, General Partner at Automotive Ventures. Steve knows the mobility industry inside and out…
The CourierRisky Opportunities: Why Insurance Is the Most Important Component of Any Mobility Startup
This week on the podcast, we’re joined by Gita Gupta, VP, Director of Emerging Technology and Digital Economies, Global Technology Risk Practice at Lockton…
The CourierFrom the "Arson Box" to Revocable Consent Permits & Equity Capital
If you step out onto a street corner in NYC these days, you’ll instantly notice the city is buzzing with delivery workers: couriers zip across streets and…
The CourierSeed Strapping The Urban Infrastructure Powering Ecommerce, Delivery & LEVs
From delivery bots, to cargo bikes, scooters and LEVs… our streets have become a hodgepodge of busy little machines, transporting goods and people to their…
The CourierYou Can't 'Move Fast & Break Things' in Mobility
Startup founders often believe so deeply in the mission of their business that they struggle to see how the world could exist any other way. They adopt a…
The CourierIntroducing Zag Talk - Coco's Zach Rash Shares Path to Global Expansion
Your favorite mobility and delivery podcast is back, but with a whole new twist! Jonah Bliss and Greg Lindsay have teamed up with Zag Daily to bring you Zag…
The CourierZag Daily's Ben Hubbard Knows How to Pitch the Future of Mobility
Few publications have their fingers on the pulse of new mobility quite like Zag Daily. In just the past month, the UK-based publisher has tracked the rise of…
The CourierHow Joe Cohen Raised $9M for His Infinite Machine
At this point it’s not exactly news that it’s a tough fundraising environment out there for new mobility startups, especially ones with a hardware focus…
The CourierTatiana Peralta Quirós on the Journey from ITDP to MobilityVC
Tatiana Peralta Quirós has had quite the impressive career: educated at both MIT and Harvard, thoughtful research works with the likes of Gensler and the World…
The CourierConnexion CEO Aaryn Nania's New Partnership with Uber
If you think about the transportation world as “new mobility” and “old mobility,” it often seems that despite all the innovation of the past few years, it…
The CourierWhat Can't The Camera Catch? | Chatting With Umojo's Rick Neubauer
In this week’s edition of The Courier, Jonah chats with Rick Neubauer, Founder and CEO of Umojo. Rick’s mobility journey is an interesting one, with Umojo…
The CourierAVs & Narrative Command, Investing in the Future of Mobility With Alex Roy
Alex Roy knows two things — how the mobility world works, and how to tell a damn good story. On the first front, he established himself on the legendary…
The CourierHas Kyte Crashed to Earth? Talking Winners & Losers with Placer.ai's RJ Hottovy
With respect to the dozens of other companies that go by Kyte or Kite, the car rental via delivery startup Kyte looks like it may have hit a very bumpy road…
The CourierCould DoorDash Do DSPs? Building A Delivery Biz with First's Andrew Nakkache
Making delivery work is darn difficult: even when everything’s going well with the customers and the kitchens, you still have to manage hundreds of thousands…
The CourierChargerHelp! CEO Worries About EVSE Reliability So You Don’t Have To
When’s the last time you pulled up to a gas station and the pump didn’t work? While that’s a very rare occasion indeed, it’s sadly all too frequent an…
The CourierNYC Mobility Leader Dawn Miller on How Startups Can Sell to Government
Anyone that’s been following the news knows it’s been an interesting time in New York City governance, to say the least. At the state level, Governor Hochul…
The CourierParis, Marseille and... Hoboken? Talking Cool Curbs With Jordan Justus
After a brief summer break, The Courier is back in action. Jonah Bliss and Greg Lindsay explore what makes the urbanism of France — both old and new — work so…
The CourierIntroducing The Courier Podcast
Want all your hottest urbanism, delivery, mobility and tech policy news in audio form?! Well you’re in luck, because Greg Lindsay and I are back with a new…