Sixty percent of the jobs that Americans do today didn’t exist in 1940. What happens as our labor becomes more technical and less physical? And what kinds of jobs will…
David Autor took his first economics class at 29 years old. Now he’s one of the central academics studying the labor market. The M.I.T. economist and Steve dissect the impact…
How many bottles of wine are regifted? What’s wrong with giving cash? And should Angela give her husband a subscription to the Sausage of the Month Club?…
How can you learn to love uncertainty? Is it better to cultivate acceptance or strive for change? And, after 223 episodes, what is the meaning of life?…
Like tens of millions of people, Stephen Dubner thought he had a penicillin allergy. Like the vast majority, he didn’t. This misdiagnosis costs billions of dollars and causes serious health…
When the computer scientist Ben Zhao learned that artists were having their work stolen by A.I. models, he invented a tool to thwart the machines. He also knows how to…
They’re not always the nicest places to go — but for their owners, portable toilets are a lucrative revenue stream. Zachary Crockett lifts the lid….
The primatologist discusses the thrill of observing chimpanzees in the wild, the value of challenging orthodoxy, and why dying is her next great adventure….
Behind that 70% off sign, there’s a liquidation consultant trying to maximize retailer profits. Zachary Crockett seeks a deal….
The quirky little grocery chain with California roots and German ownership has a lot to teach all of us about choice architecture, efficiency, frugality, collaboration, and team spirit….
We tend to think of tragedies as a single terrible moment, rather than the result of multiple bad decisions. Can this pattern be reversed? We try — with stories about…
She’s a botanist, a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, and the author of the bestselling Braiding Sweetgrass. In her new book she criticizes the market economy — but she…
For decades, the great fear was overpopulation. Now it’s the opposite. How did this happen — and what’s being done about it? (Part one of a three-part series, “Cradle to…
The simplicity of life back then is appealing today, as long as you don’t mind Church hegemony, the occasional plague, trial by gossip — and the lack of ibuprofen. (Part…
Why are these sudsy roadside stops one of the fastest growing industries in America? Zachary Crockett takes a look under the hood….
It’s a haphazard way of paying workers, and yet it keeps expanding. With federal tax policy shifting in a pro-tip direction, we revisit an episode from 2019 to find out…
In the final episode of our whale series, we learn about fecal plumes, shipping noise, and why Moby-Dick is still worth reading. (Part 3 of “Everything You Never Knew About…
A lot of jobs in the modern economy don’t pay a living wage, and some of those jobs may be wiped out by new technologies. So what’s to be done?…
