151 episodes
We're supposed to be buried there forever, right? Right?? Answers this week from writer David Sloane, who grew up in a cemetery and spent his adult life studying them. The surprising history of the place we go where we die and an answer to what happens when it runs out of money.
One of the most routine and uncomfortable miracles many of us experience, flight. Airplanes have gotten increasingly more cramped and less comfortable. What’s it like flying as a fat person, all the invisible negotiations and strategizing. Audio Producer Ronald Young, Jr. reports on the experience, and why it’s been changing.
What’s going on with Mark Zuckerberg? He recently conspicuously pivoted toward MAGA, meeting quietly with incoming Trump officials, and complaining about the Biden administration on Joe Rogan’s podcast. This week, we trace the story of the Meta CEO, and investigate what his new persona means for the 4 billion people who use his products.
For our first episode in the new year, a reflection on how we spend our time. What we devote our life to, and the roads we choose not to take. A conversation with Ira Glass.
An investigation into a mysterious room. A room that the most famous family in England apparently does not want you to see.
This week, a question a podcast has no business trying to answer. We talk to writer A.J. Daulerio about his own story of recovery, and the story of how he found himself opening a very unusual community on the internet.
An anti-woke podcast abruptly announces its end, and in its final episode, a host offers its listeners some surprising news. She had taken ayahuasca, a powerful psychedelic, and it had contributed to her decision to step away. The internet, itself, now looked different. Huh? A conversation with former podcast host Sarah Haider.
If ever there was a place where every person inside was guaranteed to already have luggage, it would be inside an airport. And yet ... the airport luggage stores persist. Who is going to these places? To answer, we will of course, unpack the story of the entire airport -- how these hellish modern places of security and commerce came to be.
The story of how an alternative theory of dentistry made its way from medicine's fringes to an audience of young men online. This week we try to make sense of jawmaxxing with help from Panic World’ s Ryan Broderick.
A mortal human being finds himself stuck between two impressive organizations: the DMV, and an internet start-up called Carvana. He has a problem, but each side insists only the other can solve it. Search Engine’s crack automotive team investigates.
The story of the first people who invented democracy, and what it did to them.
What if there was an event in the future, the outcome of which you couldn’t personally control, but it was still causing you anguish?
A year ago, we saw a stand-off between OpenAI's non-profit board and its leader, Sam Altman. Since then, the board has been reshuffled, Altman has consolidated power, and under his leadership, some strange things have happened. If AI might change the world, and OpenAI is leading the field -- how worried should we be? We check in with tech reporter Casey Newton of the newsletter Platformer and the podcast Hard Fork.
We reveal the one weird trick some billionaires use to pay less in federal income taxes than you do. And we explain the consequences faced by the person who leaked the tax returns of billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Taylor Swift, thereby enraging some of the most powerful people in our country.
A rogue IRS contractor leaks the private tax returns of the country’s wealthiest citizens to a reporter. That reporter, ProPublica’s Jesse Eisinger, learns that some of our billionaires are paying as little as zero dollars in federal income taxes. The story of how this country came up with an income tax in the first place, and how the wealthiest discovered an opt-out strategy.
This week, we're sharing an episode of a show we love, Death, Sex & Money. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do. We'll be back with two new episodes of our own next Friday.
This week we have for you ... not a whodunnit, but a what did I do? A listener tries a substance he doesn’t know much about and not long after, his life begins to change. Afterwards, he wonders — what was that, and why was it so easy to get? Search Engine investigates.
The single issue that might decide the upcoming presidential election also happens to be: very confusing. Political economist Mark Blyth helps us understand: how inflation starts, how inflation is stopped, and shares his theory about why the powers-that-be may be just as confused about inflation as we are.
25 years ago, The Sopranos, the best television show ever created, premiered. This week, a new documentary called Wise Guy asks the question: how did a show considered so risky & uncommercial even get made? We’re interviewing Wise Guy director Alex Gibney about that question, and about how stubborn lunatics like him and David Chase got to make the projects they wanted to make.
If you care about animals, but don't want to stop eating them... what's the least you could do while doing the most good? That question, posed to The Atlantic's Annie Lowrey, leads us to a pair of true crime stories about animals. Turkeys plummeting wildly from the sky and a private investigation involving a small brown cow.
For years, the must-have phone for the discerning drug trafficker or hitman was a brand you may not have heard of: AN0M. Reporter Joseph Cox tells us the story of the AN0M phone, its sudden rise and shocking fall, and the shadowy group behind its invention.
We are in an eighty-eight day sprint to the Presidential election. How would you follow this story if you wanted to actually understand something, instead of, like me, just feeling very anxious several times a day? We talk to Ezra Klein about how he follows elections and his own strange role in this election cycle.
A trip to Greenland, a chance encounter with Coolio, and the end of the world. (This summer we’re publishing some of our favorite episodes from our previous series, Crypto Island.)
An art heist in the crypto world plunges us headfirst into another mystery — why did so many celebrities suddenly start selling us on NFTs last year? (This summer we’re publishing some of our favorite episodes from our previous series, Crypto Island.)