Edgardo is back from Italy and ranks his trips so far: London, then Rome, Florence and Paris. We walk through 12 packed hours in Rome: the Sistine Chapel, a Colosseum still standing almost 2,000 years later, and the Trevi Fountain at 12:30 a.m. Then we slow down in Florence for the Duomo, the Arno and a hole-in-the-wall trattoria that beat Carbone. That leads into why London and New York have an energy no other city matches. Back in the States, we react to the Fed's 25-basis-point rate hike and ask whether it touches what we actually feel, like a nearly $3,000 iPhone Duo. We close on the new Siri AI finally being useful, why it could win over AI skeptics, and why it's worth taking the AirPods out now and then.

Ed and Shiv revisit their very first Bitcoin call from episode 15 (now up huge), break down the wild story of a fake NFL player who scammed 26 women out of over $1.3M, and go deep on AI slop flooding YouTube — plus why their alma mater NIU can't fill seats anymore

Special guest Mark Parages joins the show to talk about No Pain No Game, the card game he just released built around getting your friends off the couch and actually moving. We get into where the idea came from, how a deck of cards turns a normal hangout into something active, and what it took to go from concept to a finished product people can buy.From there the conversation heads to India. Mark walks us through his time in Bengaluru — the food, the pace of the city, the tech scene, and the things that surprised him most about living and working there versus visiting.We hit on AI: where it's actually useful right now, what's hype, how it's already reshaping work, and where we each think things are headed over the next few years.

Nola, a French-Moroccan project finance associate in energy who moved to the U.S in 2023, joins hosts Edgardo and Shiv to cover her adjustment to the US (weather, customer service, tipping), the contrast between French and American work-life boundaries, and why she has no plans to pursue US citizenship despite liking her life there, before moving into the professional side — the E-2 visa process, why she chose Chicago over the Middle East for utility-scale renewable projects, and the differences between financing large utility-scale deals versus smaller distributed generation and community solar — then into energy policy, touching on France's nuclear-heavy grid versus aging infrastructure across Europe, the case against full privatization of utilities, and how AI data centers are driving new demand and making the energy sector "sexy" in both the US and France, before closing on lighter cultural observations (French leisure vs. American urgency, tipping norms, WeChat's all-in-one integration in China) and travel recommendations for Morocco, Albania, China, Chile-Bolivia-Peru, and the south of France.

Edgardo and Shiv dig into the Miami vs. New York affordability debate sparked by a recent Bloomberg podcast, with Edgardo making the case for why Miami's rising costs don't tell the whole story compared to NYC. The conversation then shifts to the Fed, breaking down the latest FOMC meeting's decision to hold rates steady and what Kevin Warsh's ascension to Fed Chair could mean for monetary policy going forward. The episode wraps with a lighter, rapid-fire round covering a mix of fun and whimsical questions.

Edgardo and Shiv kick off with a birthday check-in before digging into the state of consumer spending — pointing to rising credit card debt and a personal savings rate that's compressed from 6.2% to 4%, they make the case for a more K-shaped economy and predict food delivery and streaming subscriptions are first on the chopping block as households tighten up. That leads into a debate on whether AI subscriptions are next: Shiv argues frontier model subscriptions (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini) are largely recession-proof while task-specific tools built on top of them are the real risk, and the two riff on the Japanese aggregator model Sakana Fugu as a possible future test case. They close out with a World Cup wrap-up, reflecting on Spain vs. Argentina in the final, England's surprise run, and a few hot takes on the tournament's biggest storylines.

Reis O'Donnell joins Edgardo and Shiv for his third appearance on the show, this time fresh off a three-week trip through the Balkans, Greece, and Turkey. The conversation opens with Reis's travels through Serbia (including getting caught in a massive anti-government student protest in Belgrade), a road trip through Bosnia's Dineric Alps and Mostar, island-hopping through Mykonos and Paros, and a whirlwind stop in Istanbul and Athens. From there the trio pivots to Reis's day job as an urban planner, digging into how crash-report data and traffic analysis actually shape infrastructure recommendations, before spiraling into a wide-ranging riff on Chicago transit gripes (the I-88/I-294 exit chaos, Metra vs. CTA, the long-dead Circle Line and STAR Line proposals, and rumors of a Blue Line extension to a potential Bears stadium). The back half covers lighter terrain — feral hogs as an underrated American crisis, Pablo Escobar's wild hippo population in Colombia, China's panda diplomacy, and a spirited World Cup discussion covering red-card calls, Mexico's home-field advantage, and title predictions. It's a classic Reis episode: travel, infrastructure, and a few detours nobody saw coming.

We kick things off with Illinois's new crypto tax, making the case that taxing digital assets on top of existing capital gains amounts to nothing more than double taxation — a policy that ultimately hurts everyday investors more than it protects them. They then shift gears to the 2026 World Cup and how the tournament is doing what few events can — bringing Americans together and bridging cultures across borders. The guys wrap things up across the Atlantic, where the U.K.'s expanding smoking ban is raising serious questions about government overreach and where the line between public health and personal freedom gets drawn.

Edgardo and Shiv kick things off with a candid reflection on what it actually takes to get better at golf — and why raw reps alone won't cut it without deliberate coaching. From the fairway, the conversation shifts to the used car market, where Shiv breaks down the depreciation math on new vs. used and shares his hunt for the right sedan in a world where the average new car is pushing $50K. The guys then get into the credit card game — Amex Platinum vs. airline-specific cards, how to actually calculate the value of perks, and why the welcome bonus is usually where the real money is. They wrap with a timely take on Spirit Airlines' collapse, what it means for budget travelers, and whether the free market will course-correct or just hand the big carriers a blank check to raise prices.

Joined by Adam Leber, Global Chief Compliance Officer at Morningstar, to pull back the curtain on the intersection of high-level finance, emerging tech, and professional agility. We dive deep into the real-world impact of AI in the workplace, exploring how LLM capabilities are transforming the compliance landscape from a "check-the-box" function into a strategic engine. Adam shares pivotal lessons from his time at Alera Group, where he navigated massive organizational growth by blending regulatory expertise with business strategy. The core of the conversation, however, moves beyond the technical; it’s an exploration of career progression defined not by a rigid map, but by the readiness to seize unexpected opportunities and the courage to say "yes" when high-stakes doors swing open.