 Ed Conway is an economics journalist and author of the book “Material World: The Six Raw Materials that Shape Modern Civilization.” 

On today’s show, Ed reveals how three of those often-overlooked materials—iron, copper, and sand—shaped human advancement from the Renaissance to the Industrial Revolution to the digital age. And he talks about what they mean for our future.

Ed Conway is an economics journalist and author of the book &ldquo;Material World: The Six Raw Materials that Shape Modern Civilization.&rdquo; On today&rsquo;s show, Ed reveals how three of those often-overlooked materials&mdash;iron, copper, and sand&mdash;shaped human advancement from the Renaissance to the Industrial Revolution to the digital age. And he talks about what they mean for our future.

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.

Every week on What's Your Problem?, former Planet Money host Jacob Goldstein talks with&nbsp;entrepreneurs and engineers&nbsp;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.

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 a pandemic breaks the global supply chain? 

Hosted by former Planet Money host Jacob Goldstein, What’s Your Problem helps listeners understand the problems really smart people are trying to solve right now.

iHeartMedia is the exclusive podcast partner of Pushkin Industries.

The Ordinary Stuff Behind Technological Breakthroughs

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/clips/e678f7ed-98f4-40a8-9c9d-b354015372a8/transcript

Today, we're sharing an episode of a show that explores the problems that new technology is creating and how we navigate living in the future. It's called Kill Switch, and it's hosted by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Dexter Thomas. The episode you're about to hear is about the latest in wearable tech—stuff like smart glasses, pendants, watches and rings. After the implosion of Google Glass back in 2013, which faced backlash and ridicule, we’re now readily embracing wearables. What’s behind the new fervor of wearables today, and have we moved on from the privacy and surveillance questions that plagued Google Glass?

Dexter talks to Victoria Song, a senior reviewer at The Verge whose job it is to test out each new iteration of this technology, about the state of wearables today, why companies are obsessed with getting AI into them, and how they’ve already changed how we talk to each other, and ourselves, IRL. Find more episodes of Kill Switch wherever you get podcasts.

Got something you’re curious about? Hit them up killswitch@kaleidoscope.nyc, or @killswitchpod, or @dexdigi on IG or Bluesky.

Today, we're sharing an episode of a show that explores the problems that new technology is creating and how we navigate living in the future. It's called Kill Switch, and it's hosted by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Dexter Thomas. The episode you're about to hear is about the latest in wearable tech&mdash;stuff like smart glasses, pendants, watches and rings. After the implosion of Google Glass back in 2013, which faced backlash and ridicule, we&rsquo;re now readily embracing wearables. What&rsquo;s behind the new fervor of wearables today, and have we moved on from the privacy and surveillance questions that plagued Google Glass?
Dexter talks to Victoria Song, a senior reviewer at The Verge whose job it is to test out each new iteration of this technology, about the state of wearables today, why companies are obsessed with getting AI into them, and how they&rsquo;ve already changed how we talk to each other, and ourselves, IRL. Find more episodes of <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/kill-switch/id1449757372">Kill Switch</a> wherever you get podcasts.
Got something you&rsquo;re curious about? Hit them up <a href="mailto:killswitch@kaleidoscope.nyc">killswitch@kaleidoscope.nyc</a>, or @killswitchpod, or @dexdigi on IG or Bluesky.

From Kill Switch: The Glassholes Are Back 

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/clips/f8d34cba-ce07-47ab-90e8-b3bc01353ae1/transcript

Please take our survey https://tinyurl.com/wyplistenersurvey about the show! Tell us what you want to hear, and what would make it better.

Tim Bucher is a farmer, and the founder and CEO of Agtonomy. Tim's problem is this: How do you build an autonomous tractor that can work for specialty crops like grapes, olives, apples, and almonds? 

On today’s show, Tim explains what makes certain farming processes so difficult to automate, and how autonomy may soon change how we eat.

Please take our survey <a href="https://tinyurl.com/wyplistenersurvey">https://tinyurl.com/wyplistenersurvey</a>&nbsp;about the show! Tell us what you want to hear, and what would make it better.
Tim Bucher is a farmer, and the founder and CEO of Agtonomy. Tim's problem is this: How do you build an autonomous tractor that can work for specialty crops like grapes, olives, apples, and almonds?&nbsp; On today&rsquo;s show, Tim explains what makes certain farming processes so difficult to automate, and how autonomy may soon change how we eat.

Building a Self-Driving Tractor to Change the Future of Food

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/clips/44830058-fdb2-4de0-944b-b3af016206ed/transcript

Mitch Lee is the co-founder and CEO of Arc Boats. Mitch's problem is this: How do you build competitively priced electric boats?

On today’s show, Mitch explains why water makes electrification so hard, the techno-economic puzzle of building giant battery packs, and how Arc’s high-end wake sport boat opened the door for a new generation of hybrid-electric tugboats.

Mitch Lee is the co-founder and CEO of Arc Boats. Mitch's problem is this: How do you build competitively priced electric boats? On today&rsquo;s show, Mitch explains why water makes electrification so hard, the techno-economic puzzle of building giant battery packs, and how Arc&rsquo;s high-end wake sport boat opened the door for a new generation of hybrid-electric tugboats.

We’re Going to Need a Better Boat

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/clips/7f36ab1a-0f65-4bd2-beac-b3a801662fd7/transcript

The Ordinary Stuff Behind Technological Breakthroughs

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