Make Me Smart

You might not care about the company Basecamp or use its software, but you might care about the dust-up there. Employees are leaving en masse after the company banned “societal and political discussions” in the workplace. Today, we’ll wade into the controversy and try to come out smarter. Plus, another round of our favorite Friday game, Half-Full/Half-Empty.

Here’s everything we talked about today:

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Molly calls it fight-or-flight wearing off. Kai calls it rubber-band syndrome. It’s that special kind of burnout where you’ve been working so hard for so long, keeping it all together, that the second you take a breath, you’re instantly knocked on your butt. We know we’re not the only ones feeling that way — CVS is offering in-store therapy now! — and it might get worse before it gets better, so today we’re gonna talk about it. Plus: Amazon’s “oil company money,” Rice Krispies Treats and T-Pain’s DMs.

Here’s everything we talked about today:

Join us on YouTube Friday at 3:30 p.m. Pacific time/6:30 p.m. Eastern for our live happy hour episode! Subscribe to our channel and sign up for notifications so you don’t miss it.

Homeland Security extended the real ID deadline this week, and one listener asked why this kind of identification is even a thing. Molly and Kai discuss. Plus: Will companies start requiring their employees to get vaccinations? And explainers about the financial press’ interest in company earnings and what the “Overton window” has to do with reparations.

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For more than a year we’ve been ensconced in our homes, but that doesn’t mean we have a lot of privacy. In fact, the COVID-19 pandemic has entrenched the yearslong erosion of our privacy, according to Harvard professor emeritus Shoshana Zuboff. Powerful tech companies were already doing big business with our data. Now they’re providing the tools essential for school, work, even getting the vaccine. But Zuboff says there’s a reason to hopeful: Living online has sharply increased public concern about data privacy and lawmakers’ appetite for regulating big tech.

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Twitter is full of conversation starters. Most of them are bad, but today we hit on a thread that really did make us think. It’s all about the why, if not the how, of banning cryptocurrency for the sake of the environment. On today’s show, we’ll pick it apart a bit. Plus: Facebook vs. Apple and Apple vs. podcasters. Oh, and some vaccine news to start us off.

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Look at a well-heeled publication like the Financial Times today and you’ll see that investors are in “uproar” about President Joe Biden’s proposed capital gains tax hike on the superrich. Today we kindly — eh, maybe not-so-kindly — ask everyone to pump the brakes a bit. Plus: vaccine nationalism, D.C. statehood and much more on this jam-packed happy hour episode.

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Thanks to everyone who joined us on YouTube today! We’re live each Friday at 3:30 p.m. Pacific time/6:30 p.m. Eastern for happy hour! Subscribe to our channel and sign up for notifications so you don’t miss it.

Climate change is an existential risk to so much life on on this planet, but sometimes the bottom-line risks are more compelling to the people making the decisions. We hate to be so mercenary about this, but let’s talk about it. Plus, a reminder that the pandemic isn’t over, why you don’t humanize robots and the politicking around infrastructure and the debt.

Here’s everything we talked about today:

Join us on YouTube Friday at 3:30 p.m. Pacific time/6:30 p.m. Eastern for our live happy hour episode! Subscribe to our channel and sign up for notifications so you don’t miss it.

One of our listeners noticed that the Coinstar machine at her local grocery store is dealing in bitcoins now, and she’s wondering how that works. We’ll talk about the how and the why of bitcoin ATMs on this Whadda Ya Wanna Know Wednesday. Plus, more listener questions and comments about the restaurant business, cicadas and good ol’ fashioned stocks.

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For nearly a decade, the Black Lives Matter movement has called attention to the everyday injustices Black Americans endure, helping to build understanding around issues from systemic racism in the criminal justice system to the racial wealth gap. Now Congress is starting to act. Today on “Make Me Smart,” we spoke with William A. Darity Jr. and A. Kirsten Mullen, co-authors of the book “From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century,” about the federal government might amends for the harm inflicted on generations of Black citizens by discriminatory public policies. Darity and Mullen walked us through the history and laid out the central characteristics they believe a reparations plan should address.

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The city of Oakland, California, announced a guaranteed income pilot program back in March, and now Mayor Eric Garcetti is proposing a similar plan in Los Angeles to combat poverty and aid the economic recovery. The idea of providing people living in poverty some level of basic income has been around for decades. If adopted, Los Angeles would be the biggest U.S. city to try out the policy. Plus, California is buying hotels to house the homeless, and NASA flew a helicopter on Mars!

Here’s everything we talked about today:

Join us on YouTube Friday at 3:30 p.m. Pacific time/6:30 p.m. Eastern for our live happy hour episode! Subscribe to our channel and sign up for notifications so you don’t miss it.