Compound Interest from Semafor Business

Joe Weisenthal on the business of business media and why AI won’t replace podcasters

Tue, 19 May 2026 19:07:00 -0000

Bloomberg’s Odd Lots podcast has been at the forefront of a new kind of business media for more than a decade. Co-host Joe Weisenthal joins Liz and Semafor editor-in-chief Ben Smith to talk about how the business of business media has evolved throughout his career and how he and Tracy Alloway approach making a podcast that gets into the weeds of supply chains for an audience that ranges from high schoolers to Wall Street executives.

They also talk about why the website formerly known as Twitter is still the place to be for finance and tech watchers — but why Substack’s drive to monetize expert amateurism has made it worse — and why he’s optimistic that the age of AI may actually be good for journalism … or at least podcasts.

This season of Compound Interest is in partnership with Amazon Business. Amazon Business is a trusted partner that transforms business buying by combining Amazon's vast selection, competitive pricing, and fast delivery with added tools and insights to help businesses simplify purchasing, manage spend, and buy smarter.

Who wants to own big law?

Wed, 13 May 2026 16:17:00 -0000

Chris Bogart spent years at Cravath before building Burford Capital into the world's largest litigation finance firm — turning lawsuits into investible assets. Liz and Rohan dig into the financialization of corporate fights, Burford’s $16 billion beef with Argentina, and what it would take to finally let private equity buy a piece of Big Law.

Wonder’s Marc Lore on vibe-coding restaurants, drone delivery, and his third act as the IPO guy

Tue, 05 May 2026 09:00:00 -0000

Marc Lore built Diapers.com, sold it to Amazon. Built Jet.com, sold it to Walmart. Now he’s trying something different: taking Wonder — his vertically integrated food-delivery startup — all the way to a public offering.

Semafor Deputy Editor-in-Chief Shelly Banjo joins Liz to dig into how he’s betting that robots, influencers, and AI-directed meal plans can finally crack the code on profitable food delivery, what e-commerce taught him about attacking fat margins with automation, and why he’s also quietly searching for desert land to build a city from scratch.

Image: Reuters/Mike Blake

Mark Cuban on his pharma fight, Dallas Mavs regrets, and the PE-ification of sports

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 09:00:00 -0000

Mark Cuban is on a mission to rid the US health care system of the middlemen he blames for soaring costs. Liz and Rohan dive into his approach with Cost Plus Drugs, which aims to disrupt the little-known middlemen driving up prescription drug prices. He also discussed soaring valuations in sports, his own regrets around the Dallas Mavericks sale, and offers a surprising assessment of TrumpRX.

This season of Compound Interest is in partnership with Amazon Business. Amazon Business is a trusted partner that transforms business buying by combining Amazon's vast selection, competitive pricing, and fast delivery with added tools and insights to help businesses simplify purchasing, manage spend, and buy smarter.

Photo Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

Cloning woolly mammoths is cool. Can it be profitable?

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 09:00:00 -0000

Colossal, the biotech startup working on de-extincting the woolly mammoth and the dodo, thinks it can make trillions of dollars — almost none of it from consumer-facing products. Liz and Rohan dive into it all with CEO Ben Lamm, who has already spun out four businesses as he’s built the bioscience business with a focus on serving governments and nations looking to build drought-resistant plants, plastic-munching microbes, and much more (some of it classified!)

America’s best energy trader on fixing higher ed and the dangers of prediction markets

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 09:00:00 -0000

John Arnold — one of the greatest energy traders of his generation — turned his sights on philanthropy nearly two decades ago, applying the same ROI-driven focus that made him billions to charitable giving. He walks Liz and Rohan through his vision for fixing higher ed, the problem with sports betting and prediction markets, and the Trump-driven chaos in the energy markets.

Why Oura’s CEO is embracing Washington regulation

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 09:00:00 -0000

Oura, whose rings are the favored accessory of finance bros and Silicon Valley longevity-maxxers, is doing something unusual in tech: Running toward a heavily regulated market. CEO Tom Hale explains why the company’s future is in the clinical world, plus what he thinks wins the wearables war and what it’s like doing business with the Pentagon right now.

This season of Compound Interest is in partnership with Amazon Business. Amazon Business is a trusted partner that transforms business buying by combining Amazon's vast selection, competitive pricing, and fast delivery with added tools and insights to help businesses simplify purchasing, manage spend, and buy smarter.

Can tiny homes — and tiny-home mortgages — solve the housing crisis?

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 09:00:00 -0000

America needs millions more homes. Private-equity firms, red-tape nightmares, and homebuilders’ profit motive are all to blame. One startup, an offshoot from Airbnb, has a solution: fully-built, crane-plopped tiny homes in your backyard. Liz and Rohan dive into how Samara is trying to redefine what housing looks like, and whether it’s the start of a new asset class for Wall Street.

Why KKR wants your, yes your, money

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 09:00:00 -0000

Private equity and private credit was long a perk for the rich and well-connected. But now Wall Street’s investment giants are pitching their products to everyday Americans, who have piled in — and are now piling out in a panic. Is this democratizing finance or a recipe for disaster? Liz and Rohan dive into that and much more with Alisa Wood, the KKR executive leading their retail charge.

The investor behind a16z’s America First push on dealing with the Pentagon ‘where bits meet atoms’

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 09:00:00 -0000

David Ulevitch leads Andreessen Horowitz’s American Dynamism fund, a $1.776 billion pot dedicated to defense, energy, public safety, and other national priorities. We talked about whether those industries deserve their conservative coding, why venture capital — with its roots in capital-light code — has a right to win in heavy industry, and why he doesn’t want the “moral liability” of deciding how the Pentagon uses the weapons Silicon Valley is building.

Compound Interest from Semafor Business is supported by Amazon Business.

Bilt’s Ankur Jain on solving the 'four-banana problem' and gamifying how, and where, we live

Tue, 10 Mar 2026 09:00:00 -0000

Bilt Rewards launched in 2019 with a simple idea. If you can get credit-card rewards for buying a round of drinks, why can’t you get them for paying your rent? After a shambolic and short-lived partnership with Wells Fargo, the company is back with bigger ambitions: to be the platform powering 12% of the economy — housing services — plus a big chunk of what people spend on dining, workouts, healthcare, and other local services. It’s a little Amex, a little Shopify, and a little Square, and a test of a big question we’ve had about business today: Why does every company want to be a membership club? Liz and Rohan talk to Bilt CEO Ankur Jain to find out.

Compound Interest from Semafor Business is supported by Amazon Business.

Dara Khosrowshahi on robotaxi ‘mission control’ and Uber’s next billion-dollar business

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 10:00:00 -0000

Uber changed the way people work and the way they move. Now CEO Dara Khosrowshahi is trying to figure out what role people play in his business, as AI and autonomous vehicles change the economics of transportation and impossibly, make it easier for people — or things — to get from Point A to Point B.

He talks with Semafor about his AI-driven robotaxi mission control, what self-driving cars will look like, how we’ll interact with Uber ten years from now, his own forays into vibe-coding apps — and what it means for companies everywhere.

NOTE: Khosrowshahi, who was born in Iran, reveals in this interview what he told Donald Trump, in person, about his views on the regime. We recorded with Dara last week, before the US launched its attack.

Compound Interest from Semafor Business is supported by Amazon Business.

Introducing: Compound Interest from Semafor Business

Wed, 25 Feb 2026 18:05:00 -0000

Business is changing in subtle and seismic ways. Every Tuesday starting March 3, Compound Interest from Semafor Business will pair journalists Liz Hoffman and Rohan Goswami with the operators, experts, and innovators behind the world’s most consequential companies, to decode why big parts of the economy work the way they do.

Compound Interest from Semafor Business is presented by Amazon Business.