What's Your Problem?

In recent decades, medical research has fundamentally changed how we think about heart disease. This fresh understanding has opened up new ways to prevent heart attacks. Eric Topol is a cardiologist and the founder of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in San Diego. Eric’s problem is this: How can doctors use recent technological developments to do a better job at preventing heart attacks?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nabiha Saklayen is the co-founder and CEO of Cellino. Nabiha’s problem is this: How can you make personalized stem cell therapies quickly and cheaply? Induced pluripotent stem cells, or IPSCs, have shown tremendous promise as treatments for illnesses like Parkinson’s, leukemia, and heart disease. On today’s show, Nabiha explains why IPSC manufacturing is still mostly done by hand, how her background in physics and lasers led her into biology, and what it takes to try and build tiny, automated cell factories.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What's Your Problem? host Jacob Goldstein has a new show: Business History. How did Hitler’s favorite car become synonymous with hippies? What got Thomas Edison tangled up with the electric chair? Did someone murder the guy who invented the movies? On Business History, Jacob and fellow former Planet Money host Robert Smith examine the surprising stories of businesses big and small and find out what you can learn from those who founded them.In this episode: The inventor that transformed America and the world. Thomas Alva Edison registered over one thousand patents before he died in 1931—and we can thank him for advances in electric power, communications technology, music recording and even the movies. But his biggest breakthrough doesn't get nearly enough attention. In many ways, Edison invented modern inventing. Jacob and Robert they trace the life story of a scrappy young boy with bad hearing who almost singlehandedly invented R&D. This is the first of a three part series on Edison—if you want to hear the full series, ad-free, right now, join Pushkin+ on the Business History show page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin.fm/plus. Find Business History (00:10) on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get podcasts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chris Urmson is the co-founder and CEO of Aurora, a company trying to bring autonomous driving to commercial trucking.Chris led a team at the 2004 DARPA challenge that launched the autonomous vehicle industry. Then he held a senior role at Google’s self-driving car project, which later became Waymo.On the show today, he talks about the long arc of autonomous driving, why he left Google, and the future of autonomous trucking.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.