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 interesting people in crypto — in…


  • 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 on this problem in 2018, when she was…


  • 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 started her career as a design engineer at Apple. It was her…


  • 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 Pay Dirt columnist Elizabeth Spiers to chat…


  • 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? Ginkgo is a synthetic biology company. The idea is to make industrial…


  • 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. Will’s problem: How do you turn all those…


  • 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 faced this problem from the very beginning as they tried…


  • 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 into a repeatable, systematic process? Noubar created Flagship Pioneering to…


  • 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 minutes — and still make a profit? On today’s…


  • 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 iPhone app? On…