Some of Silicon Valley's biggest unicorns like Uber and Slack are expected to go public this year. But when companies finally pull the trigger and launch their IPOs, what factors should you keep in mind before investing? On this week's Odd Lots podcast, we speak with Rett Wallace of Triton.ai about how his company analyzes IPOs, and why some companies are going public later in their lives.

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Jamie Catherwood is an investment analyst at Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. He's also a major financial history buff, and tells us the story of the tech stock bubble in the 17th century, when investors went crazy for schemes that facilitated underwater breathing and the search for sunken treasures.

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The Pay Check is collecting stories for our upcoming season, and we want to hear from you! Did having a kid change your career trajectory or the way you work? If you have anything you want to share, call and leave us a voicemail at (212) 617-0166. Stay tuned for more very soon!

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For years, the key to beating the stock market was to invest a lot in the big tech stocks like Facebook and Apple. But in 2018, they stumbled hard, amid a general selloff in the market, concerns about their growth potential, and concerns about regulation out of DC. So what's next for them? On this week's episode, we spoke to Leigh Drogen, the founder and CEO of Estimize, a site that gathers buy-side earnings forecasts. Leigh has a great feel for the business models of each company, and the challenges and opportunities that they face.

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India is going to have a general election in the months ahead, and so it's important to understand the state of the economy, and what incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi has accomplished during his five years in office. 

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Matt Boesler, an economics reporter for Bloomberg, had the opportunity to report from Beijing for a few months in 2018. He shares with us his experience there, and what he learned from the opportunity. 

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At the heart of government debt is a promise to pay back creditors. But governments sometimes don't do this - either by defaulting on their bonds or restructuring their debt. How are these decisions made? And what happens to borrowings that governments say should never have been done at all?

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Even at Bitcoin’s recent peak, there was very little active use of the cryptocurrency in normal commerce. On this week's episode, we speak with Bitcoin maximalist Pierre Rochard of Bitcoin Advisory on why he's still a believer in the currency, and the technological developments being done to make it useful for normal spending. 

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On this new show from Bloomberg, hosts Francesca Levy and Rebecca Greenfield navigate the productivity industry by way of their own experiences. In each episode, one of the two becomes a human guinea pig as she tries to solve a specific work-related problem. Using the advice of so-called productivity experts, the duo tackles obstacles like ineffective to-do lists, overflowing inboxes and unruly meetings. Follow along with their attempts, insights and missteps, and maybe find a solution that will work for you. 

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The last two years have been an extraordinary ride for Bitcoin. It exploded in 2017, with the price nearing $20,000 per coin. Then in 2018 it totally collapsed. On this week's episode, we speak with Peter McCormack, a bitcoin trader, who bought in at the bottom, rode the boom all the way to the top, and then proceeded to lose almost everything. He shares with us what he learned along the way.

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