What's Your Problem?
By iHeartPodcasts and Pushkin Industries
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 better. iHeartMedia is the exclusive podcast partner of Pushkin Industries.
40 episodes
All Episodes
Systemic Risks of Agentic Coordination and Competitive Development
Agentic AI systems are learning to coordinate, plan, and circumvent safety measures, which makes cybersecurity environments increasingly vulnerable. You should build structural resilience now, before existing safety assumptions stop working.
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Disrupting Commodity Markets Through Vertical Integration and Engineering
Industrial fishing treats fish as a commodity, which hides the fact that quality is dropping. If you vertically integrate technology to automate humane processing, you can bypass these industry inefficiencies and set a new market standard for premium value.
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Reducing Cognitive Load to Drive Institutional Decision Making
Complex data often slows down decision-making by overwhelming stakeholders. Learn how to distill technical insights into simple, visual evidence to remove bureaucratic friction and trigger immediate institutional action.
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Shifting From Big Data Pattern Matching To Quantum Simulation
Modern medicine has reached a limit in accuracy because classical AI cannot model the fluid nature of human biology. To move forward, we must shift from using big data pattern matching to running quantum simulations of molecular interactions.
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Treating Aging as the Primary Cause of Disease
Aging is not a byproduct of disease; it is the primary cause. By shifting focus from treating isolated symptoms to optimizing cellular biology, you can compress morbidity and extend your healthy lifespan.
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Why AI Automation Degrades Human Expertise and Clinical Performance
AI in radiology fails when it prioritizes pattern matching over identifying normal variants. This creates cognitive overload and automation bias, which shows that AI is a high stakes investment requiring deep human expertise to govern effectively.
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Precision Phage Engineering Replaces Broad--Spectrum Antibiotic Suppression
Precision phage therapy moves medicine away from broad suppression toward targeted biological engineering. By using CRISPR-Cas3 to destroy specific pathogens, this method treats chronic conditions while keeping the essential human microbiome intact.
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How AI Augmentation Erodes Professional Guilds and Expands Expertise
AI acts as a force multiplier that breaks down expensive expert guilds, democratizing high-value roles in law and medicine. Learn how to use these tools to expand your professional reach instead of being replaced.
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Decentralized Information Networks Outperform Centralized Bureaucratic Emergency Systems
Top-down emergency systems fail because bureaucratic bottlenecks cannot match the speed of modern disasters. Learn how decentralized, volunteer-driven networks provide life-saving clarity by prioritizing raw, real-time data over official narratives.
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Prioritizing Domain Expertise and Accountability Over Technical Novelty
AI integration works best when you stop focusing on technical complexity and instead put domain experts in charge of the mundane, unglamorous work of managing data pipelines. Prioritize human accountability over raw computing power to solve difficult, real-world problems.
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Restructuring Economic Frameworks to Distribute AI Productivity Gains
Increased productivity does not guarantee prosperity. History shows that without institutional reform, AI may concentrate wealth while eroding human purpose. Learn how to navigate this shift and secure your future.
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From AR Games to Robot Navigation: Dynamic 3D World Mapping
Gaming data from apps like Pokémon Go is building the 3D digital twins robots need to navigate the real world, overcoming GPS limitations.
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Humans Managing AI Agents Drive the Allocation Economy
The future of work hinges on managing AI agents, not just automating tasks. Mastering this "allocation economy" unlocks strategic advantage through human-intelligence partnerships.
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Systems View and Patience Unlock Enduring Innovation
Enduring innovation requires decades of patience and a deep systems view, prioritizing long-term viability over immediate impact. Discover how this slow art unlocks lasting value.
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Industrial Agriculture Rebrands Subsidy-Driven Expansion as Sustainability
Industrial agriculture is rebranding carbon-intensive expansion as climate-positive infrastructure to secure government subsidies. Learn to distinguish between genuine sustainability and synthetic, subsidy-driven markets designed to preserve legacy industries.
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Building Long-Term Advantage Through Difficult Lunar Resource Extraction
Mastering difficult, long-term lunar challenges creates defensible moats. Interlune builds enduring value by tackling complex resource extraction, cultivating expertise that precedes market demand.
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Hello Robot's Minimalist Approach Unlocks Home Robotics Market
Home robots succeed by embracing limitations, not chasing AI's bleeding edge. This pragmatic approach delivers tangible value and unlocks the market through functional, safe, and affordable designs.
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Salvaged Wood Becomes Price-Competitive Resource Through Data
Salvaged wood becomes price-competitive, driving better forestry practices by addressing waste with data and market creation, transforming it into a sustainable resource.
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Fusion's Immediate Byproducts Fund Long-Term Power Generation
Fusion's immediate value lies in commercializing byproducts like neutrons for advanced imaging and isotope production, funding long-term power generation goals.
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SharkNinja Solves Invisible Problems for Viral Market Dominance
SharkNinja creates viral products by solving "invisible" problems consumers didn't know they had, transforming workarounds into irresistible innovations that drive organic sharing and market dominance.
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AI Disruption Echoes Luddism: Proactive Adaptation Crucial
History shows technological fear is recurring; AI's disruption echoes the Luddites, highlighting how societal response, not technology alone, shapes outcomes and the need for foresight.
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Lymph Node as Biological Foundry for In-Body Organ Regeneration
Harness the body's own lymph nodes to grow new liver tissue, making organ scarcity a relic of the past and offering hope where transplantation fails.
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Logitech CEO: Cultivate AI Fluency for Business Resilience
Unlock AI's true power by fostering company-wide fluency and problem-solving, not just technical mastery. Embrace discomfort now for a resilient, adaptable organization and a lasting competitive edge.
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US Rare Earth Strategy Misses Demand-Driven Industrial Base
China's rare earth dominance stems from controlling downstream manufacturing and market demand, not just raw materials. Building this industrial base, not just mining, is the key to true supply chain resilience.
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Quantum Computing's Practicality Hinges on Engineering Grit
Quantum computing's true power lies in solving intractable problems, not just speed. Discover the engineering grit and realistic timelines that unlock its transformative potential for science and industry.
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Startup-Driven Space Tech Democratizes Global Data for Wildfire Management
Near real-time satellite data, inspired by smartphones, is revolutionizing wildfire management. This shift democratizes space capabilities, offering unprecedented insights for critical planet-scale problem-solving.
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Human Worldviews Create Two-Century Blind Spots to Critical Truths
Our worldview actively prevents us from seeing obvious truths, even when lives are at stake. Discover how a 200-year blind spot in understanding disease offers a strategic advantage for navigating complex problems today.
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AI Agents Expose Fragility of Human Systems Through "Smart and Stupid" Paradox
AI agents are "smart and stupid," mimicking intelligence without true comprehension, revealing the fragility of human systems and the enduring value of human discernment.
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AI Accelerates Biological Research Beyond "Guess and Check"
AI transforms biology from slow "guess and check" to model-first prediction, unlocking faster, targeted breakthroughs by simulating cellular behavior and designing novel DNA sequences.
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Inflammation and AI Replace Clogged Arteries in Heart Attack Prevention
Inflammation, not just blockages, drives heart attacks. New AI and blood markers reveal hidden dangers in "low risk" individuals, enabling precise, proactive prevention.
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SunCulture: Building Infrastructure to Unlock Smallholder Farmer Markets
SunCulture transforms smallholder farming by building an entire infrastructure of finance, services, and technology, enabling profitable mechanization and creating a new consumer market.
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Automating iPSC Manufacturing for Scalable, Cost-Effective Cell Therapies
Automated iPSC manufacturing bypasses prohibitive costs and manual labor, enabling scalable, AI-driven cell therapies for millions and accelerating curative medicine development.
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Smart Glasses Resurgence Signals AI Integration, Privacy Erosion
Smart glasses blend fashion and AI, offering discreet convenience. This resurgence signals societal readiness for wearable AI, but raises profound questions about privacy and constant public recording.
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Autonomous Tractors Revolutionize Specialty Crops With Precision Navigation
Autonomous tractors precisely navigate specialty crops, eliminating herbicides and addressing labor shortages. Experience hands-on trials to see the future of farming firsthand.
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Leveraging Automotive Scale to Solve Electric Boat Techno-Economics
Electrify boats by leveraging automotive scale for cost-effective battery integration, transforming marine design and performance while meeting growing demand for sustainable solutions.
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Giving Boosts Happiness: Overcoming Biases to Give Well
Giving to others scientifically boosts happiness and well-being, yet psychological biases often make us underestimate generosity's impact and others' trustworthiness, hindering our own joy.
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Shadow Banking's Rise: Lessons from 2008's Debt Crisis
Fifteen years after 2008, risk-taking prestige migrated from banks to hedge funds, while Bitcoin emerged as a critique of the system's inherent instability.
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Bloom Money: Digitizing Ancient Trust for Immigrant Finance
Bloom Money digitizes ancient ROSCAs, building trust and financial inclusion for immigrants by transforming informal social capital into a powerful, data-driven credit foundation.
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Edison's Invention Factory: Industrializing Genius
Thomas Edison didn't just invent devices; he industrialized innovation, transforming invention into a systematic process that reshaped modern research and development.
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From Prostate Failure to Non-Invasive Cancer Robotics
HistoSonics redefines cancer treatment, transforming a failed prostate therapy into a non-invasive robotic surgery platform that liquefies tumors cell by cell, offering new hope.
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