What’s Your Problem?

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 … Read more

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 … Read more

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 … Read more

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 … Read more

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: … Read more

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 … Read more

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 … Read more

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 … Read more

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 … Read more

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 … Read more