What's Your Problem?

Maps have gotten much better over the past few decades. But they're still mostly two dimensional, and they struggle to keep up with a world that is always changing. Brian McClendon is the Chief Technology Officer of Niantic Spatial, a spinout of the company that makes Pokémon Go. Brian's problem is this: How do you build a three-dimensional map of the world that both robots and humans can use to find their way?
In this episode, Brian explains:
What he learned building Google Earth
How Pokémon Go players helped build the foundation for robot navigation
What it will take to teach AI to understand the physical world.
Why GPS is so bad in cities
 Why trees are such a big problem for digital mapmakers
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Dan Shipper is the co-founder and CEO of Every, a company that publishes newsletters about AI, develops AI-related software, and helps other companies use AI. Dan has two problems. One, how do you build a company where almost everybody has their own AI agent? And two, how do you use AI as a tool to improve your writing, rather than as a replacement for writing?
In this episode, Dan explains:
Why managing agents will be a core skill of the future
Why AI agents won’t replace you anytime soon
How writers learn faster than AI models
How to give AI the social skills to work in group settings
How AI can help you better understand yourself
Check out Every at their website: https://every.to/
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Listen to Jacob’s other show, Business History
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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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Follow Jacob Goldstein on LinkedIn, X and Instagram
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Listen to Jacob’s other show, Business History
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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]
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.