What's Your Problem?

The apples you can buy at the grocery store have gotten profoundly better over the past few decades. It’s a kind of everyday, hiding-in-plain sight innovation.  Kate Evans is an apple breeder and professor at Washington State University. Kate's problem is this: How do you invent a better apple?
With her team, Kate has in fact invented a new kind of apple called the Sunflare. It’s arriving in stores in a few years. She also helped to invent the Cosmic Crisp, which is out already.
In this episode, Kate explains:
Why grocery-store apples have gotten so much better
Why some of the most delicious apples never make it into stores
Why it takes decades to invent a new kind of apple
How much more we have to learn about apple genetics
How the apple industry is adapting to climate change
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Drilled, a new addition to the Pushkin network, is a true-crime climate change podcast exposing how corporate corruption and political operatives built decades of climate denial and delay. Award-winning investigative journalist Amy Westervelt unravels evidence of deception, disinformation, and the power structures keeping real climate solutions out of reach. Her new season, Carbon Cowboys, traces how the ethanol kingpin of Iowa became the king of corn in Brazil. In September 2025, a group of Brazilian ministers trekked all the way to chilly North Dakota to see a presentation on a new type of clean energy project, one that promised to help them deliver Brazilian President Lula’s dream of turning Brazil into "the Saudi Arabia of sustainable aviation fuels." It was the latest in a string of projects from Midwest Republican kingmaker Bruce Rastetter, whose investments in Brazil might just transform him into a global carbon czar, even as his Summit pipeline carbon project faces fierce opposition from Iowa to North Dakota. The problem? It all requires loads of land and none of it does a thing about climate change.
Here's episode 1. Find more of Drilled: Carbon Cowboys wherever you get podcasts.
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Rob Meyerson is the co-founder and CEO of Interlune. Rob's problem is this: How do you help build an economy on the moon? Eventually, Rob hopes Interlune will help build a moon base. For now, he is focused on bringing a gas called helium-3 back from the moon to sell on earth.
Earlier in his career, Rob was the president of Blue Origin, the rocket company founded by Jeff Bezos.
In this episode, Rob explains:
 Why reusable rockets are only the first step for going back to the moon
What it's going to take to actually manufacture things in space
How to build a business by sifting through moon dirt
How nuclear fusion and quantum computing could rely on mining the moon
Connect with us:
Follow Jacob Goldstein on LinkedIn, X and Instagram
Email us at [email protected]
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Listen to Jacob’s other show, Business History
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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 Roomba with an arm.
In this episode, Aaron explains:
 Why home robots have barely progressed since the Roomba
Why simpler robots can be more useful than complex humanoids
 Why the physical world is so much harder for AI than language
How robot safety is fundamentally a physics problem
Connect with us:
Follow Jacob Goldstein on LinkedIn, X and Instagram
Email us at [email protected]
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Listen to Jacob’s other show, Business History
To listen to the show early and ad free, sign up for Pushkin+
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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 demand before building the supply chain
How building a data layer across the fragmented lumber industry reduces waste
Why salvaged wood can compete on price with conventional lumber
The best mantra to use 80 miles into an ultramarathon
Connect with us:
Follow Jacob Goldstein on LinkedIn, X and Instagram
Email us at [email protected]
Follow Pushkin on Instagram, LinkedIn or X
Listen to Jacob’s other show, Business History
To listen to the show early and ad free, sign up for Pushkin+
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.