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PODCAST

Zag Talk

Jonah and Greg give you the low down on all the week"s latest urbanism, delivery, mobility and tech policy developments. www.thecurbivore.com

technology

All Episodes

42:01

Can NYC Build a Sustainable Mobility Startup...

Zag Talk ·

2026/02/27

When it comes to sustainable mobility startups, New York City finds itself in a peculiar position. Blessed with a legacy of strong public transit infrastructure, local politicos have crafted an ecosystem that encourages all sorts of clean transport and logistics innovation: bikesharing and cargo bikes, waterborne freight and delivery lockers, to name a few.And while these urban conditions spawn all sorts of fascinating startups that work in the Tri-state, those same companies then struggle when they

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49:25

Are Rising Insurance Premiums Eating the Mobility...

Zag Talk ·

2026/02/12

Some days it feels like insurance is devouring the entire mobility economy, with rising premiums taking down transportation options new and old alike. Auto insurance premiums have jumped a whopping 64% in the past five years, driven partially by a labor shortage but even more by the fact that cars have become computers on wheels, and your average sensor + chip stack doesn’t take kindly to being in a fender bender. Re-calibration of driver assistance systems in late model cars has quickly climbed to

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41:56

A Fast Casual Restaurateur's "Love-Hate Relationship"...

Zag Talk ·

2026/01/29

Your favorite podcast — Zag Talk — is back for an all new season. Today we kick things off by chatting with Seth Cohen, Co-Founder of Sweetfin, a 15-unit fast casual restaurant chain focused on poké, raw fish and bowls. Oftentimes on the podcast we talk about delivery innovations — new robotics, product launches, policy changes, etc. — but Seth takes us through the nitty-gritty of making delivery actually work for a real business. And no surprise: it’s not easy! While “the economics used to be very

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37:52

Can Sustainable Delivery Be a Sustainable Business?...

Zag Talk ·

2025/11/27

Over the past few months we’ve had the distinct pleasure of digging deep in the world of sustainable delivery: we’ve kicked the tires on the new Honda Fastport, snuck in to Amazon’s NYC equad operations and studied how cities and third party delivery networks are working together to get couriers onto e-bikes.That’s all well and good… but those are huge companies that have big bucks to spend on pilots (or worse yet, PR stunts masquerading as pilots.) What about the every day businesses that want to

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31:46

Lyft’s Not Content With Second Place in the Robotaxi...

Zag Talk ·

2025/11/13

As robotaxis race towards becoming a regular part of our mobility landscape, it at first looked like Lyft had no interest in joining the competition, instead letting deep pocked competitors like Waymo and Uber push ahead (while wisely avoiding the costly mistakes that took down others like Cruise and Argo AI.) But in the past year, the pink mustache has emerged as a serious AV contender, striking up meaningful partnerships with the likes of May Mobility, Mobileye, Nexar, Tensor, Benteler, Baidu and

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37:29

Can Corporations Nudge Workers Towards Greener...

Zag Talk ·

2025/10/30

A city can spend all the money in the world on making its streets multi-modal, on transit investments and the like, but if all the jobs are still located out in the burbs, commuters will likely opt to stick with their cars. That’s why corporate mobility is so important — the interplay between governments and employers that can nudge workers onto greener mobility options.For this episode of Zag Talk, Jonah Bliss chats with Maria Angelica, an urban planner and consultant at Factual about the

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47:07

Senator Scott Wiener Discusses YIMBY's Big Win: SB79

Zag Talk ·

2025/10/16

Dense housing and public transit: two great tastes that taste better together. You’d think this classic combo would be a no-brainer, as building mid-rise housing helps with affordability and locating it near rail stations lets folks cut down on commuting costs, while putting more commuters near each metro stop leads to improved transit ridership. Talk about a virtuous cycle!And yet in California, and the nation as a whole, this has been an oddly hard sell. You’ll see rapid transit stations, some

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43:19

Can Portable Benefits Improve Gig Work? With...

Zag Talk ·

2025/10/02

Managing policy for DoorDash is no mean feat; the globe-spanning 3PD often finds itself interfacing with cities across all sorts of issues: traffic / road safety, merchant relationships, courier behavior and more (and as the company continues to push into new territory — like drones or its in-house delivery bot — the regulatory interactions will only grow.)That’s why we were delighted to sit down with Max Rettig, Vice President, Head of Global Public Policy at DoorDash, to understand how the company

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54:13

Getting Ebikes Into the Hands of Hard-Working Couriers

Zag Talk ·

2025/09/18

Delivery is tough work, especially in dense, urban environments. Couriers and policymakers often find themselves pulled between competing priorities: cash-strapped workers often don’t have the resources to invest in a good e-bike, driving them to cheaper alternatives that aren’t reliable enough to get the job done and are prone to dangerous battery fires.That’s where Whizz comes in, offering courier-oriented e-bike rentals, while bundling in tricky things like maintenance and charging. And while

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35:38

Is Hydrogen Finally the Fuel of the Future? MH2Fund...

Zag Talk ·

2025/07/31

Hydrogen is having its moment—not because of hype, but because the economics and demand finally line up. Heavy industry, shipping, and aviation are desperate for clean fuels, governments are throwing serious subsidies behind hydrogen production, and technologies that once seemed speculative are now commercially viable. For early-stage investors, this isn’t a science experiment—it’s a chance to back the picks and shovels of the next energy gold rush.On today’s episode of Zag Talk, Jonah Bliss joined

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51:47

You Want People That Found Something Secret - Steve...

Zag Talk ·

2025/07/17

On this week’s episode of Zag Talk, I’m joined by Steve Greenfield, General Partner at Automotive Ventures. Steve knows the mobility industry inside and out, having jumped from Manheim, Autotrader and TrueCar to investing in promising startups like Axion Ray, JOCO, Recurrent and SparkCharge.Steve shares his thoughts on where the industry is headed, but also what he’s found makes for a great entrepreneur, including honesty, integrity, EQ as well as IQ, and the feeling that “you want people that have,

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59:48

Risky Opportunities: Why Insurance Is the Most...

Zag Talk ·

2025/07/03

This week on the podcast, we’re joined by Gita Gupta, VP, Director of Emerging Technology and Digital Economies, Global Technology Risk Practice at Lockton, and we go deep on all things risk, insurance, and fraud: three words that might make founders’ eyes glaze over… right up until they’re eating your company alive.Whether you're scaling a delivery platform, launching a micromobility fleet, or building the next generation of autonomous vehicles, your biggest threat might not be competition — it

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42:52

From the "Arson Box" to Revocable Consent Permits &...

Zag Talk ·

2025/06/19

If you step out onto a street corner in NYC these days, you’ll instantly notice the city is buzzing with delivery workers: couriers zip across streets and sidewalks — not always quite following traffic laws — to deliver food, packages, documents and more. It can be a tough job with low pay, meaning these workers can often only afford the most bare-bones of e-bikes to make their jobs tenable.That in turn has led to a battery fire crisis: poorly made batteries, beat-up hardware and shady charging

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39:01

Seed Strapping The Urban Infrastructure Powering...

Zag Talk ·

2025/06/05

From delivery bots, to cargo bikes, scooters and LEVs… our streets have become a hodgepodge of busy little machines, transporting goods and people to their last mile destinations. But keeping those devices charged, and those packages sorted is no easy feat, especially in cities where real estate is at a premium and when officials are especially guarded about fire safety risks.Tom Schreiber, Founder & CEO of Perch Mobility, has a solution in the form of his eye-catching, modular “Portal” shipping

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61:21

You Can't 'Move Fast & Break Things' in Mobility

Zag Talk ·

2025/05/22

Startup founders often believe so deeply in the mission of their business that they struggle to see how the world could exist any other way. They adopt a mindset akin to “once my product breaks through, all the naysayers will understand they were wrong to doubt its importance.” Or to borrow a phrase from Mark Zuckerberg, they “move fast and break things.”That may work when it comes to scaling a social media app or SaaS platform, but things are a bit different for products that don’t live solely on

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66:06

Introducing Zag Talk - Coco's Zach Rash Shares Path...

Zag Talk ·

2025/05/08

Your favorite mobility and delivery podcast is back, but with a whole new twist! Jonah Bliss and Greg Lindsay have teamed up with Zag Daily to bring you Zag Talk, bringing you fresh news, in-depth interviews and witty analysis every two weeks.To kick things off, we’re chatting with Zach Rash, CEO & Co-Founder of Coco Robotics. Coco and DoorDash just announced a huge new partnership (shared live from the stage at Curbivore 2025.) Jonah Bliss caught up with Zach beforehand, to get his founding story,

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56:28

Zag Daily's Ben Hubbard Knows How to Pitch the Future...

Zag Talk ·

2024/12/06

Few publications have their fingers on the pulse of new mobility quite like Zag Daily. In just the past month, the UK-based publisher has tracked the rise of the robotaxi market, covered the launch of inventive new micromobility options like the Otherlab solar-powered Lightfoot, and has closely covered the eVTOL industry’s rocky descent. Add in some great op-eds and interviews, and you can see why we’re often linking out to their site.That’s why I really enjoyed today’s interview, where Zag’s Editor

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44:08

How Joe Cohen Raised $9M for His Infinite Machine

Zag Talk ·

2024/11/28

At this point it’s not exactly news that it’s a tough fundraising environment out there for new mobility startups, especially ones with a hardware focus. That’s what makes it all the more impressive that Joseph Cohen was able to raise $9 million for Infinite Machine, with the round led by a16z. While Joe might not have a transport hardware background, he dreamt up an eye-catching vehicle — the P1 — that he hopes will get urban Americans out of cars and onto more sustainable two-wheelers.He’s got big

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33:12

Tatiana Peralta Quirós on the Journey from ITDP to...

Zag Talk ·

2024/11/21

Tatiana Peralta Quirós has had quite the impressive career: educated at both MIT and Harvard, thoughtful research works with the likes of Gensler and the World Bank, before going on to advise the President of Costa Rica on urban mobility and technology, modernizing LatAm’s automotive giant’s Grupo Purdy Motor as Chief Innovation Officer and then launching Kinto in Costa Rica, helping push Toyota towards new mobility in emerging markets. Today she serves as a Partner at MobilityVC, where it’s been an

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31:20

Connexion CEO Aaryn Nania's New Partnership with Uber

Zag Talk ·

2024/11/14

If you think about the transportation world as “new mobility” and “old mobility,” it often seems that despite all the innovation of the past few years, it often happens in its own silo, leaving the classic world of American transportation — car dealers — unaffected. So that’s why this announcement, that Connexion Mobility has launched a partnership with Uber, caught our eye. This allows car dealers to dispatch courtesy vehicles for customers who’ve brought their own cars in for service, tapping into

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28 results

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