Slate Money
Slate Podcasts
A weekly roundup of the most important stories from the worlds of business and finance, hosted by Felix Salmon.Want more Slate Money? Subscribe to Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit https://slate.com/moneyplus to get access wherever you listen. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Episodes
Mentioned books
20 snips
Sep 19, 2026 • 52min
Avoiding the A.I. Apocalypse
Journalist and editor Elizabeth Spiers joins Axios business reporter Emily Peck to examine AI safety, security breaches, the race to develop frontier models, and whether global rules can prevent dystopian disruption. They also unpack Kevin Warsh’s surprise rate-hike vote, the Fed’s independence, and the SEC’s push toward tokenized stocks, including Robinhood’s role and the risks of 24-hour trading.
5 snips
Sep 15, 2026 • 34min
Money Talks: The Zero-sum Mistake
Roy Swan, Ford Foundation mission-investment director and author of Positive Sum, explores how finance can pursue social impact alongside returns. He discusses foundations investing beyond grantmaking, capitalism’s zero-sum misreadings, employee ownership, empathy at work, regulation, and the Powell Memo’s influence. The conversation also examines trust, collective action, nonprofit movements, and making positive-sum capitalism appealing to powerful business leaders.
20 snips
Sep 12, 2026 • 50min
The Private Equity Confidence Game
William D. Cohan, investigative journalist, author, and former investment banker, examines Apollo Global Management and Leon Black’s rise. They discuss private equity’s influence, Wall Street’s talent magnetism, Apollo’s leverage and systemic risks, Black’s troubled family history, his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, personal scandals, and his extraordinary art collection.
30 snips
Sep 5, 2026 • 46min
The $12.93 Billion Emoji Joke
Emily Peck, Axios journalist covering economics and workers, and Elizabeth Spiers, journalist and media executive, join Felix Salmon to explore Nvidia’s $12.93 billion Hugging Face purchase and the AI frenzy fueling sky-high valuations. They examine rising bond yields, deficits, inflation, and war costs, then unpack prediction markets, Kalshi’s rules, and the unlikely George Santos-Steve Ballmer connection.
22 snips
Sep 1, 2026 • 36min
Money Talks: The Dinosaur Economy
Salomon Aaron, a fourth-generation antiquities gallery director, specializes in researching and trading American dinosaur fossils. He explains how stricter antiquities rules pushed his family into this booming market, how bones become scientifically valuable fossils, and why scarcity, provenance, preparation, and pop-culture appeal drive prices. They also explore excavation risks, private collectors, museums, and the surprisingly undervalued Triceratops.
23 snips
Aug 29, 2026 • 42min
Canadian Beef
Scarlet Fu, television journalist and Bloomberg Money producer focused on personal finance and markets. They unpack Meta’s $17 billion settlement and what it means for teen safeguards. They dig into the fraught U.S.-Canada trade spat and retaliatory tariffs. They debate Treasury interventions and how bond-market tinkering ripples through yields.
46 snips
Aug 22, 2026 • 54min
P(doom) and Other AI Questions
Noah Brier, founder of Alephic who advises major companies on adopting AI. He tackles the probability of catastrophic AI, how models can escape sandboxes and coordinate, and why tooling turns prediction into planning. He compares probabilistic models to code, outlines US vs China strengths, and explains how corporations are actually deploying AI today.
9 snips
Aug 18, 2026 • 26min
Money Talks: Do Childcare Subsidies Pay Off?
Martha Gimble, Executive Director of the Yale Budget Lab and federal budgeting expert. She walks through a new open-source model of childcare that captures supply, demand, prices, wages, and provider responses. They compare universal vs income-limited subsidies, tax and provider credits, and a child allowance. The conversation covers effects on maternal employment, state vs federal roles, and political trade-offs.
33 snips
Aug 15, 2026 • 44min
What the Shell?
A dive into why the Treasury abandoned a rule forcing shell companies to reveal real owners and how lobbyists and courts influenced the rollback. A look at the weird world of billionaire purchases, from the L.A. Lakers to Broadway theater plays. A quirky segment on Parmigiano-Reggiano used as loan collateral and how extreme heat and blockchain tracking complicate storage.
24 snips
Aug 8, 2026 • 55min
The Unwanted Art Boom
A deep dive into the looming transfer of massive art collections from baby boomers to younger generations. A look at eccentric collecting habits, museums turning down donations, and how vintage American goods surface through Japan. An unexpected foreign-exchange move to prop up the yen gets unpacked. Plus a romp through how weather apps are reshaping everyday decisions.
