What changed between 2019 and 2025? Why are interest rates so much higher? Why does it seem virtually unfathomable that the Fed will return to ZIRP anytime soon? Why do investors expect this rate cut cycle to be so shallow? The answer, theoretically, is that the neutral rate of interest has gone up. But what is the neutral rate of interest, and why has it moved? On this episode, we speak with Jamie Rush of Bloomberg Economics and Tom Orlik, the Chief Economist at Bloomberg Economics. They, along with Bloomberg's Stephanie Flanders, are the editors of a new book titled The Price of Money: A Guide to the Past, Present, and Future of the Natural Rate of Interest, in which they attempt to directly identify what the neutral rate of interest actually is. We discuss the big changes over the last several years, including deglobalization, demographics, and datacenters, that are pushing this number higher.

Read more:
Trump’s Contradiction: Demanding Steep Rate Cuts for a ‘Booming’ Economy
Fed Set to Drive Global Rate Cuts as Europe Shifts to Pause

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Money has been flowing into the AI space, with billions pouring into GPU clusters, data centers, gas turbines, and the infrastructure needed to train and deploy bigger and bigger models. So what comes next? On this episode, we speak with James van Geelen, founder of Citrini Research. We talk to him about his latest field trip to one of OpenAI's new massive Stargate data centers in Abilene, Texas. We also discuss the increasingly complicated financing arrangements that are funding some of these mega projects and the energy needed to power them. Finally, we ask the question which everyone seems to be asking right now: is AI in a bubble?

Read more:
OpenAI Valuation Reaches $500 Billion, Topping Musk’s SpaceX
FOMO Builds as Alibaba Extends $250 Billion AI-Fueled Comeback

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We're used to talking about the Federal Reserve changing "benchmark interest rates." But the mechanics of how the central bank actually tightens or loosens policy are a lot more nuanced. For years now, the Fed's been doing this through the federal funds market — where US banks lend and borrow their excess reserves. But that could be changing. Last week, Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan argued that the fed funds target is outdated, and the central bank should be looking at alternatives. So what would those alternatives actually look like, and why do the intricacies of these short-term funding markets actually matter? We speak with Joe Abate, head of macrostrategy, at SMBC Nikko about this and the broader liquidity picture.

Read More: Logan Ushers in New Era of Debate on Fed’s Key Policy Tool

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CME Group is one of the oldest exchanges around, tracing it's history all the way back to the late 1800s, when it specialized in agricultural commodities. It's best known for things like futures and interest rate swaps that tend to be favored by professional traders. But as retail trading becomes big business, the CME is expanding its footprint in the space, including a recently-announced partnership with sports-betting platform FanDuel. So how does a marketplace that built its reputation on professional hedging and risk management now try to capture the attention of everyday investors? In this episode we speak with Terry Duffy, CME Group chairman and CEO, about the exchange’s push into retail, new competition in the Treasury futures space, and much more.

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For over 20 years, people have been talking about prediction markets or event markets are the next big thing. But mostly, with some niche exceptions, they haven't taken off, in part due to regulatory constraints. But now they seem to be booming, and the regulatory environment has gotten much more friendly. On this live episode recorded in Chicago, we speak with Tarek Mansour, the co-founder and CEO of Kalshi, one of the prediction market platforms that's booming. One reason it's doing so well is because it's gone big into sports, which of course gets into its own regulatory thicket. In this conversation, we talk about the future of these markets, the prospect for markets other than sports and presidential elections, and Kalshi's overall plan to let its users to eventually trade everything.

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Don Wilson has built a career diving into some of trading’s thorniest problems, including figuring out ways to trade new and niche markets. Now, the founder and CEO of DRW has his sights set on the GPUs powering AI, which he thinks could end up being a bigger market than crude oil. In this episode, which was recorded live onstage at our show in Chicago, we talk about how such a market would work, including ways to ‘standardize’ the vast array of different types of semiconductors, and how this could change the capital stack of the industry. We also talk the evolution of trading over Don’s storied career and why he thinks most assets (and maybe even all of them) will be tokenized within the next five years.

Read more:
ASM International Cuts Outlook After Chip Demand Disappoints
Taiwan Pauses South African Chip Export Curbs After Two Days

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Kindbody, one of the largest fertility companies in the US, sought to disrupt egg freezing and IVF by combining spa vibes with Silicon Valley efficiency. The startup raised millions, opened dozens of clinics, and became a billion-dollar unicorn. But its ambition came with consequences. In IVF Disrupted: The Kindbody Story, reporter Jackie Davalos takes listeners beyond Kindbody’s millennial-friendly waiting rooms and into the clinics themselves, showing the sometimes-heartbreaking consequences of bringing the “move fast and break things” mentality to the business of creating life.

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We know that the top-tier AI labs are spending unbelievable amounts of money on talent. But what are these researchers actually working on? And how do we know that they're making progress? And furthermore, how can we even measure that progress? On this episode, we speak with Jack Morris, an AI researcher and Ph.D. candidate at Cornell University, who is also a part-time researcher at Meta. We talk about what he does, and why breakthroughs seem to be lumpy and unpredictable. We also talk about the battle between open- and closed-source approaches, US vs. Chinese labs, and how an individual talent thinks about where they want to spend their time, balancing the desire for research and prestige with a big fat paycheck.

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