Six-time James Beard Award-winning food critic Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl joins Ana and Mike to make the case that food isn't a soft beat, it's the whole story. From ICE raids gutting Twin Cities restaurants to the real wage gap hiding in daycare costs, Dara connects the dots between what's on your plate and everything that actually matters. She also gets into why there are fewer working restaurant critics in America than prima ballerinas and what non-competes do to creative careers.

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Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion, joins Ana and Mike to talk about what happens when you stop trying to fit into a box, and accidentally end up running one of the biggest newspapers in America. From burning out covering extremism at NBC News to buying The Onion for less than you'd expect, Ben gets into what it actually cost him to bottle up his personality on cable news, and why the humans-first approach is what's saving the thing he loves.

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Actress and comedian Lilan Bowden joins us to talk about what it actually feels like to come out the other side, and why financial safety doesn't automatically mean financial peace. From barista shifts and transcription gigs to booking a Disney Channel series, Lilan gets honest about the bills she still can't bring herself to open, the shame that kept her moving forward, and what it means to build a life around brunch when you used to skip toothpaste.

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Ana and Mike try to untangle the pure joy of making art from the exhausting pressure of creating for survival. Mike admits he's pushing all his chips into survival mode and can't afford a break, while Ana discusses the elusive practice of emotional sobriety and letting go of the outcome.

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New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie joins Ana and Mike to discuss the dismantling of legacy media by billionaire owners and the myth of the “Democratic Joe Rogan”. Jamelle also opens up about the intersection of luck and frugality that allowed him to build financial stability early in his career and how he now balances his work for "the mothership" with his own independent creative outlets.

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Despite writing bestsellers and landing a Reese’s Book Club pick, Xochitl Gonzalez opens up about the lingering shame of precarity, the invisibility of working-class success, and why we need to drag money talk out into the light.

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Jonah Ray joins us to talk about finding joy in creative work after letting go of the version of success he once chased. From DIY punk to rebooting MST3K, Jonah reflects on what happens when you stop waiting for permission and start making the stuff you actually want to see. We get into the fear of going unnoticed, and why it’s still worth it.

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Comedian Devin Field has one of the rarest things in Hollywood: a full-time, year-round job. But even that didn’t protect him from the chaos of the past few years. From presidential threats to network pullouts to a brutal WGA strike, Devin opens up about what it’s like when late-night comedy is under siege—and how he’s learning to navigate the myth of hustle culture.

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Ana Marie Cox and Open Mike Eagle kick off the year with a conversation about survival in a collapsing media economy. They get into dry January, capitalism, self-promotion, YouTube pivots, and what it means to keep showing up even when the numbers don’t add up. Plus: the upside of YouTube thumbnails, the reality of reporting on a shoestring, and why, in a world that wants you to give up, persistence might be the most radical act of all.

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