What's Your Problem?

Andrew Ponec is co-founder and CEO of the energy storage company Antora Energy.  Andrew's problem is this: How can you store renewable energy in a way that is cheap enough and reliable enough for industrial use? He thinks the solution may be storing that energy as heat, in big blocks of graphite.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tammy Hsu and Michelle Zhu are the cofounders of Huue.  Their problem is this: how do you get bacteria to produce indigo dye? And how do you do it cheaply and reliably enough to replace the toxic petrochemical process that's currently used to dye billions of pairs of jeans a year? They're working with denim brands to commercialize their bacteria-produced dye. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today's show is about a problem people have been trying to solve for a hundred years: how can we mass produce houses, like we do cars? Listen for a house that looks like a UFO, a giant mobile home boom, and a visit to a 21st-century construction site where workers are putting up a factory-built house. This episode's a co-production with our friends at Planet Money, and a follow-up to last week's interview with the founder of Cover.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Alexis Rivas is the co-founder and CEO of Cover. His problem is: How do you build houses in a factory, the way you build cars? And how do you do it so they're cheaper and better than a traditionally built house? Cover is following the Tesla model: starting with a high-end product but aiming for the mass market. "Nail it and scale it," he says.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nina Tandon is the co-founder and CEO of a tissue engineering company called EpiBone. Her problem is this: How do you grow custom bone from patients' stem cells, at a price that makes sense?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Microchips are the most important driver of technological progress in the modern world, and governments are fighting over who gets to make them. Right now, most cutting-edge chips are made in Taiwan, a country that China claims as part of its territory. The U.S. government is fighting to keep semiconductor technology out of China, and spending tens of billions of dollars to get companies to build more chip factories in the US. Chris Miller is a professor at Tufts University and the author of a book called Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology. In this episode, he talks with Jacob about the extraordinary technology and complex geopolitics of microchips.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's our first anniversary and—almost 50 episodes in—Jacob Goldstein checks in with three past guests. Drone delivery guy Keenan Wyrobek thinks he has solved a big problem holding back commercial drone delivery in America. Fruit-ripening maven Katherine Sizov is figuring out bananas. And Glenn Kelman of Redfin has some deep insights from a tough year in the real estate business.*The problems in real estate weren't so much solved as left behind.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Alice Zhang is the co-founder and CEO of Verge Genomics. Alice's problem is this: How do you use artificial intelligence to drive down the price of developing new drugs? The company is using AI to find new disease mechanisms to target, and to speed up drug development. If using AI can help experimental drugs succeed even a little more often than they do now, it'll be a big win. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Austin Russell was 17 years old, he founded Luminar Technologies to work on a remote sensing technology called Lidar.  Today, Austin is one of the world's youngest self-made billionaires, and Luminar may be on the verge of solving Austin's problem: How do you make Lidar cheap enough and good enough to use in millions of cars?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chace Barber is the co-founder of Edison Motors. Chace's problem is this: How do you build electric logging trucks in rural Canada, with money you raised from people who follow you on TikTok? Chace started his career driving logging trucks. He loved the idea of Tesla's electric semi, but when it never arrived, he decided to build his own. If you’d like to keep up with the most recent news from this and other Pushkin podcasts be sure to subscribe to our email list. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.