5 Exceptional Podcast Episodes to Listen to — Volume 2

Topics include personal finance side hustles, hybrid-skilled jobs, menstrual regulation, what trivia and knitting have in common, and “detective” journalism.

12 min readOct 3, 2022

Below I summarize 5 podcast episodes, highlight theirkey points, and provide links to other things that they made me think about! You can listen to them all here, from the websites linked below, or wherever you find your podcasts.

In this week’s newsletter, I highlight:

2 hours and 59 minutes total listening time
12:6 female to male featured voices

Taking a Six-Figure Side Hustle Full-Time in Two Years — Business Casual

I have been a Morning Brew reader since August 2016. Over the years, I’ve been an on and off reader of their Morning Brew, Sidekick, Retail Brew, Marketing Brew, and IT Brew newsletters, and an occasional listener of their podcast “Business Casual”.

The title of this episode caught my eye, and ever since listening to this episode, I have become a Money with Katie STAN.

Riesling wearing a white hat with multicolored lettering that says “breadwinner”, and a pink mug that reads “As a straight male, I assure you my opinion carries weight.” — Hat and Mug are Money with Katie Merch

This episode was just so engaging, relatable, and motivating. Host Nora Ali talks with Katie Gatti Tassin, creator of Money with Katie, about how she turned her side hustle into a full-time career. Nora and Katie talk about imposter syndrome, being a woman in a corporate job, feeling like we always need to be productive, characteristics of successful and unsuccessful side hustles, basics of personal finances, and Norwegian culture.

Since then, I’ve consumed a lot of Money with Katie content. Katie has a newsletter, a podcast, merch (which I’ve clearly already bought), and her Instagram is also loaded with content. She also has been featured on other podcasts.

Katie is so clear, so smart, so self-aware, and so put together. Her podcasts that I’ve listened to so far start with a long form essay which is always well written, insightful, and thought provoking. She’s one of the few people who I enjoy when they talk “at” me for 30 minutes.

Some of the things that I’ve listened to and watched this month with Money with Katie that I would recommend are:

From “careers” to “callings”: When work becomes your identity | The Money with Katie Show — An incredibly relatable episode where Nora and Katie talk about the good and the bad of tying identity to work.
Part 1: Money, Millennials, and the American Fever Dream | The Money with Katie Show & Pt. 2: Millennials, Money, & the Bizarre American Fever Dream: the Role of “Personal Finance Education” & Our Collective “Expectation Hangover” | The Money with Katie Show — An eye-opening two-part series about why financial advice that worked for previous generations isn’t working for millennials.
Trading Secrets: Financial Musts w/ Money with Katie PLUS $46K to $69.7K in 13 years of teaching to $120K+, our 1st interview w/ a listener! on Apple Podcasts — I had stayed away from this podcast because as an avid Bachelor watcher I thought this was a bachelor podcast (since Jason Tartick was F2 on Becca K’s season). But it’s not — its finance related. This episode was great: Katie talked about debt and if home ownership is a good idea or not, Jason talks with a listener who pivoted careers away from teaching about passions vs financial security, and then Jason summarizes with David (who seems to be a recurring summary co-host.)
Money with Katie | Podcast & Blog (@moneywithkatie) • Instagram photos and videos — an insanely insightful Instagram reel that is worth the ~1 minute watch.

The Rise of Hybrid Jobs and the Future of Data Skills — Dataframed

Host Adel Nehme is joined by Matt Sigelman, chairman of Lightcast (formerly Emsi Burning Glass) and the President of The Burning Glass Institute, which advances data-driven research and practice on the future of work and of workers.

Matt talks through “hybrid” roles. This “hybrid” definition does not refer to half in office and half at home that you are used to, but rather roles whose skills bridge capabilities from across multiple job domains.

“The average job has seen about a third of its skills replaced over the last decade, and that pace has been quickening through the pandemic.” — Matt Sigelman

Some examples of hybrid jobs, and jobs that have changed skillsets significantly are:

Marketing manager: A marketing manager who has SQL and data analytics skills gets paid about 40% more than one who does not have a data skillset. 10% of jobs looking for data science skills are in Marketing departments, so it’s clear having a hybrid background in marketing and data science can be incredibly valuable.
Data Science: Data scientists not only need data skills, but also programing skills for productionalization, and business/project management skills to understand the problems they’re solving, prioritize solving the right problems, and ensure adoption of their outputs. Additionally, the technologies for data scientists have changed, so the skills required have changed as well. Over the last decade, out of thousands of job titles, data scientists and data engineers had the greatest pace of skill replacement.
Nurses: Nurses need project management skills handling patients across providers, and skills to understand regulations to ensure compliance, in addition to their nursing skills.
“Middle Skill” Jobs: Middle skills jobs are jobs that need more than a high school degree, but less than a college degree to do. Digitally intensive middle skilled jobs are growing twice as fast as non-digitally intensive middle skilled jobs, and are twice as likely to pay a living wage.

“The jobs that are growing the fastest and they’re highest value, are the ones that combine deep technical skills with human skills, with judgment skills…
A key thing to remember is that you want to make sure that you’re not just acquiring an individual tech skillset, as important as they are, but that that training is baking in the soft skills that actuate that skillset” — Matt Sigelman

It is clear that we need more short term, personalized, skills focused programs. Instruction that is focused on new coding languages, relevant technologies, and marketable skills. This is starting to happen, but still early and evolving. And how do we make this accessible and equitable?

Additionally, how might companies facilitate learning to invest in their existing workforce to make them more productive? And how might we use this to build a more diverse and equitable employee base? This is especially pressing during talent shortages like we saw during the middle of the pandemic.

“The future is about skills, not job titles” — Matt Sigelman

This is an older episode, but I’ve sent it to multiple people this month because I feel like it’s always relevant to talk about the evolution of skills in the data space. As a data scientist, I always refer to statistics from this podcast about how much data roles have changed over the years when leaders talk about challenges in hiring and retention.

Interested in thinking about this topic more?

This month, Not So Standard Deviations published a “What is Data Science?” episode, which touches on similar ideas of shifting skillsets, and talks through how data science has changed over the last 15 years
Steven Finkelstein published this (self-admittedly outdated) blog about visualizing data expert skills: Meet the Data Experts. Even if the spider charts might not be accurate, they’re an interesting idea. I keep telling myself I should recreate these with more modern titles, soft skills, and my own interpretation of values. Maybe if I got really fancy, I could animate how these charts might have changed over time using Deepsha Menghani’s Enhanced storytelling with data animations using “gganimate”. For now, I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader 😊
Cassie Kozyrkov has a lot of blogs about data science skills, but I think this one really stands out: Data Science’s Most Misunderstood Hero. If, like me, you don’t retain information unless it’s through a podcast, the Analytics Power Hour talk about that article and more on #171: We’re Back! Plus: “Cassie’s Ideas” — The Analytics Power Hour: Data and Analytics Podcast and later talk with Cassie herself #182: Making Better Decisions and Being Useful with Cassie Kozyrkov — The Analytics Power Hour: Data and Analytics Podcast
Another Analytics Power Hour podcast this made me think of was #117 (Rebroadcast): What’s in a Job Title? Maybe the Data Shows with Maryam Jahanshahi — The Analytics Power Hour: Data and Analytics Podcast, which talks about how companies may be getting less qualified and less diverse candidates when the seek the wrong skills or too many skills for a job title
CRAP Talks #16 — Dan Lee: “The Full Stack Analyst” — YouTube where Dan Lee talks about his varied background, and why being “full stack” as an analyst can often be more valuable than specializing in one aspect of analytics. Dan Lee is the person who introduced me to Cassie’s writing by sharing the above article with me!

A Little Bit Pregnant — Invisibilia

What defines “pregnancy”? Do you think that definition is the same for you, your doctor, and your insurer? And if not, how does that impact a woman’s care?

With the overturn of Roe v. Wade, how might women use this ambiguity of definitions between parties to retain control of their own body? What if a woman could get a medication to fix a missed period without confirmation of pregnancy, which may not count as an abortion to an insurer? How might declining pregnancy tests allow a woman to control her own fate?

It’s clear menstruation, pregnancy, and medical strategic ambiguity are important topics right now after the Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade. Here are some other recent publications that also talk about these issues:

Freakonomics MD published Why Do Doctors Have to Play Defense?, where Bapu Jena talks with Michelle Mello about the practice of “defensive medicine” — the practice of a doctor doing or not doing medical tests, procedures, or care, or avoiding specific patients or types of patients all together, to reduce the risk of lawsuits — and how it can compromise patient care. This episode does not just focus on reproductive care, but they do discuss how the Dobbs decision which overturned Roe v. Wade affects female heath care and how it may deter future doctors from pursuing a career in gynecology
Abortion and Crime, Revisited (Update) — Freakonomics — Steven Levitt’s research has found that access abortion could reduce crime. This episode discusses his research, the reception and controversies, follow up analysis, and the history of abortions in the United States
Murderous menstrual blood — Tortoise (tortoisemedia.com) — In this episode, host Caroline Criado Perez talks about menstruation, the historical shame and terror that comes with periods, and what we face to gain if we as a society get over it. She talks about endometriosis (which affects 1/10 women, but receives much less funding compared to diseases that affect mostly men). She also talks about cutting edge research about period blood which could detect diseases (like endometriosis that currently requires an invasive surgery to get diagnosed), similar to urine and stool samples that doctors already use, and the obstacles that faces.
Caroline Criado Perez has been talking about how the medical system systemically values men over women, which you can read about in her book Invisible Women, in other episodes of her podcast Visible Women (like the episode that I feature in my last blog) and in the Invisible Women Newsletter
September 21st’s Daily Skimm (theskimm.com) featured US maternal mortality. The CDC found that 4 out of 5 deaths during pregnancy, delivery, or up to a year postpartum could have been avoided by better insurance coverage to improve care, transportation to care, and better referral systems

The overturn of Roe v. Wade is devastating. The USA has the highest maternal mortality rate among developed countries and ranked 33rd among the 179 countries included across the world. The maternal mortality rate has been steadily increasing over the last few decades, and disproportionally affects black mothers.

Banning abortion does not result in fewer abortions. Instead, they led to an increase in maternal mortality rate and reduced healthcare options for women who develop life-threatening complications in their pregnancy.

I honestly do not know how I feel about this concept of “menstruation regulation” personally, especially after learning about “defensive medicine” from Freakonomics MD, and how it can affect patients. But I do know that I support anything that helps women get access to health care, control their bodies, and save lives, especially in the current political climate where women lack of agency over their own bodies. It breaks my heart that this has become a conversation in 2022.

In the United States, women’s rights over their own bodies are being taken away because of the overturn of Roe v. Wade. I also want to acknowledge that in Iran, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was arrested and died in custody for not appropriately covering her hair and body. Since then, there have been protests in at least 46 cities, more than 40 protestors and police officers have been killed, and more than 1,200 demonstrators have been arrested.

We need to protect women. We need to speak up for women. Women need to be treated as equal members of society and receive the same rights, freedoms, healthcare, and opportunities as men.

What It Takes to Know Everything — People I Mostly Admire

I picked this episode out of my queue because the description mentions something that I’m great at (knitting!) and something that I’m absolutely terrible at (trivia…), and I kept listening for Victoria’s infectious laugh.

In this episode, host Steven Levitt talks with Victoria Groce who is one of only two people who finished in the top 10 of the biggest US based trivia league three years in a row, nicknamed “The Queen” of trivia, and is a “chaser” on the ABC’s TV show “the Chase”.

Victoria got into competitive trivia in her 20s when she was suffering from chronic migraines, making it impossible for her to pursue her PhD. The way she trains is through the LearnedLeague online trivia daily invite-only competition, creating and reviewing 160,000+ flashcards through spaced repetition, and through deconstructing trivia questions to ensure she’s only learning the right information.

Victoria also talks about what it’s like to be a trivia “star”:

Victoria: After I was on Jeopardy, I actually got a death threat against my daughter
Steven: So, what was it about The Chase that convinced you that the benefits of T.V. were greater than the costs?
Victoria: I thought long and hard about it, and the fact that women who go on quiz shows tend to experience a fair amount of harassment — is this something I want to do? One of my good friends finally said, “Look, you’ll regret this for the rest of your life if you don’t. You’ve been working so hard over the last five to seven years. If you say no to this, what have you been doing it for?” And the other thing was, I remember what it would’ve felt like for me as a kid to watch television and see somebody like me on there. I remembered seeing people like Robin Caroll on Jeopardy! And like, how enthused I was about that as a nerd kid. And that was one of the big things that made me really feel like, this is something that I not only want to do, but should do.”

Victoria and Steven’s conversation was a pleasure to listen to, and I would recommend it to anyone else who wonders how on earth people get good at trivia.

Wake up and smell the fraud — Planet Money

In this episode of Planet Money, a podcast self-described as a conversation talking about economy like you’re at a bar, puts on their detective hats with Nina Kollars to try to figure out how she bought Nespresso pods for 50% off on eBay, but ended up with the coffee she purchased and a new Nespresso machine, shipped directly from Nespresso. How is this related to the economy? You’ll have to listen to find out.

This is one of those podcast episodes where the hosts start with great characters and an interesting question to take you through a journey, dead ends and all, to try to find the answer.

I will say, there has been a podcast shaped hole in my heart for these sorts of “detective” journalism ever since Reply All decided to stop producing episodes. Planet Money has now released 2 of these within the last month so I’m hopeful they make more!

Some other great examples of “detective” journalism are (ranked according to my personal preference):

One last thing — Adnan Syed has been released from jail.

If you are unfamiliar, Adnan Syed was the focus on the 2014 podcast Serial, which week by week dug into evidence, testimony, cellphone records, conversations with Adnan, and more.

Serial transformed the podcast space. Serial was released in 2014, 10 years after the first podcast was announced. In 2014, the podcast industry had less than 40 million listeners, but by February 2015, Serial had been downloaded more than 68 million times. Serial was also the first ever podcast to receive the Peabody Award in 2015.

I was a casual podcast listener in 2013, as I occasionally listened while walking between classes in college. Serial was the first podcast where I dropped everything I was doing to listen to the podcast as soon as it was released. Serial changed the way that I listened to podcasts, it introduced so many people to podcasts, and it was the first podcast to truly breach pop culture, making podcasts cool.

For more information about Adnan Syed’s release, listen to Adnan is Out (serialpodcast.org)