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A year ago, we hit upload on the very first episode of Business Casual—a deep dive on tech antitrust with Scott Galloway. As far as we could tell, breaking up Big Tech would be the biggest conversation of the year. Turns out the world had a few surprises in store for us.

Twelve months, 85 episodes and 5 million listens later, we're celebrating Business Casual with a little reflection.

The biggest learning of all? We couldn't do it without our listeners. Thank you for supporting our show, bearing with us as we expand, and never failing to write in with feedback. We're so grateful for each and every one of you.

Cheers to the next year and all it’ll teach us.

Want to keep up with Kinsey over email? Sign up here: businesscasual.fm/signup.

Whether it’s a crisis or not (check out our last episode for the answer), the student debt load in the U.S. is something worth addressing. After all, we didn’t reach $1.6 trillion in debt overnight. It’s a systemic problem, and it’s one that needs solving sooner rather than later.

Today on Business Casual, we’re attempting to do just that—solve a $1.6 trillion problem. Our guest is Jeff Selingo, a higher ed expert who’s written about the student debt load for as long as some of today’s borrowers have been alive.

That gives him loads of insight into the student debt situation. On our journey to a solution for the debt load problem, we’ll walk through everything from the groups most impacted by borrowing deficiencies to the roles of higher education institutions. And we’ll get a final answer on the age-old question: is college still worth it?

Jeff’s proposals aren’t exactly orthodox or old school by any stretch of the imagination, but he’ll give you plenty to think about. One example to whet your appetite: should college students get more or less in student loans based on their majors?

Listen now.

Want to keep up with Kinsey over email? Sign up here: businesscasual.fm/signup.

The amount of student debt here in the U.S. is some $1.6 trillion, roughly the size of Russia’s economy. That sounds like a crisis...right?

Maybe not. Today on Business Casual, we’re exploring student debt and the narratives that got us where we are today. It’s pretty obvious that 1.6 trillion anything is a lot—but some experts think that debt load is but a number in this case.

One such expert is our guest—Dr. Beth Akers, an economist with the Manhattan Institute who makes talking about remittance and interest rates and tuition costs feel way more fun than you’d expect.

As Dr. Akers and her cohort see it, student debt isn’t all that bad. Repayment rates are high, the benefits of borrowing usually outweigh the costs, and college is still considered a ticket to a better life. The real crisis, then? The narrative of crippling debt hamstringing an entire generation. 

Let’s debunk some myths. Listen now.

Want to keep up with Kinsey over email? Sign up here: businesscasual.fm/signup.

A lot...in fact, money is probably the most important factor in deciding to have a baby. When we have more money, we feel better about bringing new life into the world. 

But “more money” hasn’t exactly been a defining quality of 2020. We’re in a recession and a global health crisis...having babies isn’t high on the priority list for many Americans. You know what that means for the economy if you listened to our last episode.

Now, get a better understanding of why money impacts the decision to start or grow a family. This episode with Modern Fertility CEO and Robinhood of reproductive health Afton Vechery will give you the answers you need to comprehend what factors influence the decision to have children, especially during these very weird times.

Understanding the motivations for delaying or entirely canceling plans to have kids? It might give us a whole new paradigm for discerning how fertility and GDP are entwined...it’s not just money in the economy, it’s money in your personal bank accounts.

Listen now.

Want to keep up with Kinsey over email? Sign up here: businesscasual.fm/signup.

We’re on track to experience up to 500,000 fewer births than usual in the U.S. next year, according to economists from the Brookings Institute. You can blame two things—surely you’ve gotten pretty good at it by now: it’s because of Covid-19 and the ensuing recession.

Turns out, birth rates and the economy are deeply intertwined. We have more children when the economy grows. But when it shrinks (like it is now)...the opposite happens.

Today on Business Casual, Dr. Melissa Kearney will explain how we got here, what it means, and how we move forward. She’s the econ professor you’ll actually want to listen to.

If you...1) want a peek at what our economy might look like in the coming decades 2) want to understand why birth rates are the root of all problems and all solutions in our economy and 3) want to learn where the government factors into our decisions to make babies...

Listen now.

My perspective? If we want to avoid an economic crisis, prioritize working parents.

Competition, content, and culture. They’re the three Cs of Netflix’s unbeatable strategy in these so-called “streaming wars.” And you can tell Disney I said unbeatable.

But how did the company come to dominate each facet of that strategy? That’s what we’ve set out to learn in this episode of Business Casual with Recode senior correspondent and bona fide Netflix expert Peter Kafka.

Peter also co-hosted season 2 of Land of the Giants—it’s a seven-part podcast about Netflix and the impact it’s had on Hollywood and the world.

Hosting the podcast on it > writing the book on it

There’s clearly a lot to unpack with Netflix—and with market entrants including Apple TV+, Disney+, Peacock, HBO Max, Hulu, and Amazon Prime (to name a few) attempting to unseat it at the head of the video streaming table, Netflix has been left no choice but to dig some deep moats.

Thanks to some fortuitous timing as the earliest of early movers in the new era of streaming, a huge multi-billion dollar content budget, and a penchant for treating employees like professional athletes, Netflix did just that.

Listen to this episode for the inside scoop on how it all went down—and what goes down next.

After you listen, read my column to find out why I disagree with Netflix CEO Reed Hastings: https://column.businesscasual.fm/timing-beats-culture

I’m not going to bury the lede here, and that’s mostly because I need to get back to my Ozark binge: This episode of Business Casual features Reed Hastings, cofounder, chairman, and co-CEO of Netflix.

There’s a lot to unpack with Reed. Because companies don’t just become cultural cornerstones overnight. It takes luck, hard work, and, as it turns out, a very distinct corporate strategy. After all, what you watch on Netflix says a lot about you...how you run Netflix might say more.

The ways Reed runs Netflix might surprise you. In this interview, he gets candid about his triumphs and failures and gives us the state of play in these so-called streaming wars. Spoiler alert: Netflix is winning. 

Reed gives an inside look at what makes Netflix tick—and how it became a $200 billion company with more than 190 million subscribers worldwide...some 3x the subscriber count of its biggest competitor.

And most importantly, Reed predicts how Netflix might meet its demise. Because for every Netflix, there’s a Blockbuster. And someday Netflix will be the Blockbuster.

After you listen, read my column to find out why I disagree with Reed: https://column.businesscasual.fm/timing-beats-culture

In a lot of ways, starting a business is like having a baby—there’s never a perfect time to do it. But there are times that are better than others.

Believe it or not, a recession like the one we’re in right now might very well be one of those times. Of course, the decision to pursue your entrepreneurial dreams is highly situational, but the economic fundamentals of a recession make for a strong case to get going:

Interest rates are low.

The labor market is ripe with talent. 

And innovators have the chance to unseat struggling multinational corps.

All that said...there are enormous risks, too. During recessions, venture capitalists hold their checkbooks tight, and the chance of your business failing in the first year balloon beyond the typical 20% likelihood of going belly up in good economic times.

There are plenty of variables here. So how do you know if a recession is the right time to start a company? You ask the expert: David Cancel, entrepreneur, investor, and serial founder. He’s started and sold four companies over the last two decades, and now he is the CEO of marketing and sales platform Drift.

Today on Business Casual, David explains the pros and cons of starting a business in each stage of the economic cycle—we’re covering everything from hiring and fundraising to creating products for the next generation’s needs.

Listen now.

Pick your metaphor: It’s always darkest before dawn? The greater the storm the brighter the rainbow? Every cloud has a silver lining?

Anything goes, and that’s because we’ve conditioned ourselves to believe that the best businesses are founded during and in the wake of major recessions and bear markets here in the U.S. It’s a startup trope as common as “down for the cause”—recessions breed good businesses. Uber, Airbnb, and several others serve as evidence. 

But is it all just circumstantial? That’s what we’re digging into today on Business Casual. Given that we’re in a pandemic-induced recession that started, by some accounts, in February, it’s high time we started thinking about what the next Uber or Airbnb might be.

To help us determine 1) whether recessions really do coincide with strong startup prospects and 2) why that is, I’m talking to Christine Tsai. Christine is the CEO and Founding Partner of 500 Startups, which is an early-stage venture fund and seed accelerator founded in 2010.

She’ll lay all the groundwork you could ever need to understand the ways businesses, both new and old, navigate economic downswings. And just as importantly, she’ll explain what being founded during a recession means for a business’s future prospects.

We’re also talking historical precedent from the last recession, the deeply unique qualities of this economic moment in time, and how the relationship between entrepreneurs and investors might evolve post-COVID.

Don’t miss out. You never know when you’re sitting on the next Airbnb. Listen now.

Every week on this podcast, I talk to the brightest minds in business.

In my new Sunday column, I'll give you my take on the business theme we’re tackling—from the streaming wars to the future of work.

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