What's Your Problem?
What's Your Problem?
Every week on What’s Your Problem, entrepreneurs and engineers talk about the future they’re trying to build – and the problems they have to solve to get there. How do you take a drone delivery service you’ve built in Rwanda and make it work in North Carolina? How do you convince people to buy a house on the Internet? How do you sell thousands of dog ramps to weiner dogs all across America when…Social links:
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Building a Robot People Actually Want
Aaron Edsinger left his job as director of robotics at Google to start a company called Hello Robot. Aaron’s problem is this: How do you build an affordable robot that people can use to solve real problems at home? The result is a robot that looks nothing like a person. In fact, it’s closer to a Ro…
40:50
Turning Waste Wood Into Buildings
Ben Christensen is the co-founder and CEO of Cambium, the largest seller of salvaged wood in America. Ben's problem is this: How can we turn the trees that are falling to the ground all around us, into usable wood? In this episode, Ben explains: Why so much wood goes unused Why Cambium created d…
36:35Clean
The Great Fusion Debate: How Far Away Are We Really?
Investors are pouring billions of dollars into nuclear fusion companies. The dream: transform human civilization (and power AI data centers) by providing cheap, abundant energy. But nobody’s figured out how to make it work yet. What will it take to make fusion work at scale – and how will the worl…
42:04
How SharkNinja Keeps Going Viral
Mark Barrocas is the CEO of SharkNinja, a company that sells everything from vacuums, to blenders, to beauty products. Mark’s problem is this: How do you invent new products that people want to rave about on social media? In this episode, Mark explains: How SharkNinja finds product ideas The tra…
35:12
Growing New Livers to Save Lives
Michael Hufford is the co-founder and CEO of LyGenesis, a company working on a new treatment for end stage liver disease. Michael’s problem is this: How do grow a new liver inside the body of a sick patient? In this episode, Michael explains: The liver's unique power of regeneration The organ tra…
40:34
Can the US Break China's Grip on Rare Earths?
Rare earth elements are inside pretty much everything with an on-off switch: Phones, laptops, cars. Even missiles. And China controls the world’s supply of components made from rare earths. David Abraham is the author of the book “The Elements of Power: Gadgets, Guns, and the Struggle for a Sustai…
41:53
How Quantum Computers Could Change the World
Ben Bloom is the co-founder and CEO of Atom Computing, a company building quantum computers out of individual atoms. Ben’s problem is this: How do you build a quantum computer that is actually useful for everything from discovering new medicines to building better batteries? In this episode, Ben …
40:02
Fighting Wildfires from Space
Jonny Dyer is the founder and CEO of a satellite company called Muon Space. The company’s first big project is a satellite constellation called FireSat. Jonny’s problem is this: How do you capture data from space to help manage wildfires around the world in near-real time? In this episode, Jonn…
48:58
The Killer We Refused to See
After bacteria were discovered, it took scientists 200 years to figure out that they cause disease. If scientists had made the link sooner, hundreds of millions of lives could have been saved. In his recent book So Very Small, Tom Levenson, a professor of science writing at MIT, tells the amazing…
39:13
The Startup Run by AI Agents
Evan Ratliff co-founded a publishing startup in 2011. Now he hosts a podcast called Shell Game. In the latest season of the show, Evan creates a company run by AI agents. The project is absurdly funny – Evan calls it an office satire – but it also illuminates the power and limits of AI agents.
54:16Explicit