floating questions
Who do you have to become to do what you do?
Each episode enters through a different door — tech/AI, art, food, policy, faith — but the conversation always turns toward what's on the other side: identity, meaning, and what it feels like to still be figuring it out.
The guests are data scientists, game designers, chefs, founders, professors — but beyond the titles, who are they, really?
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Official website: https://www.floatingquestions.com/
Ideas or collabs: floating.questions.podcast@gmail.com
Episodes
20 episodes
Wen Tong: The Color You See Isn't the Color That's There
Wen Tong is an imaging engineer and (aspiring) colorist — his job is to make sure what you see on screen is exactly what the director intended. Turns out, that's almost impossible. Two people literally cannot see the same color....
Mason Grimshaw: Probabilistic Living, Indigenous Data Sovereignty, and Foundation Models for the Earth
In this episode of Floating Questions, we sit down with Mason Grimshaw, an MIT alum and mission-driven data scientist driving critical progress at the intersection of environmental conservation and indigenous empowerment in the age of AI. We ex...
Amine Bennouna: The "Fossil Fuel" of AI, Decisioning Under Uncertainty, and the Tenure Trap
You might have heard of Amine Bennouna from a previous episode (here) – from the Math Olympiad in Morocco to an MIT PhD and now a Professor at Northwestern's K...
Eric Wang: Cooking on Wall Street – From Private Equity to Culinary Craft
For the final episode of 2025, we are joined by a guest who embodies the spirit of exploration: Eric Wang. By day, Eric works in private equity in New York City, managing commercial real estate deals on Wall Street. On...
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Shaka Mitchell: Civil Discourse Through Music, School Choice & the Rise of AI in Learning
Today on Floating Questions, we sat down with Shaka Mitchell - Aspen Institute Civil Society Fellow, Senior Fellow at the American Federation for Children, constitutional law lecturer, long-distance runner, creator of the...
Timothy Chen: From “Not Good Enough for Microsoft” to Building Trust in Code and Capital
Timothy Chen’s story isn’t your typical Silicon Valley success arc. He didn’t start as a hotshot coder - Microsoft once slotted him into the IT track, nothing more. Yet he went on to become a member of the Apache Software ...
Julia Morton: What AI Changes (and Doesn’t) About Art
In this episode, we sit down with Julia Morton - a writer, art curator, fashion designer, early YouTuber, and author of a Substack chronicling how artists are experimenting with AI (https://aiplusart.substack.com). We chatted how Ju...
Joshua Pulsifer: Encountering Life, Death, and Art Through Video Games
In this episode, we are joined by Joshua Pulsifer - narrative designer and co-director at Zipit! Games, an indie studio in New York. Joshua and his partner Ben are building
Chad Sanderson: Fixing Broken Data Culture, One Contract at a Time
Data breaks. AI models go crazy. Downstream teams scramble to put out the fire.In this episode, I talk with Chad Sanderson, CEO and co-founder of Gable - a startup rebuilding data quality and governance from the ground up....
Stephanie Franklin: The Role of Data in Making Education Policy Count - and the Challenges Behind It
How do you measure whether an education policy is actually working?In this episode, I talk with Stephanie Franklin, Deputy Associate Commissioner of Strategy and Analytics at one of the largest education agencies in the ...
Sean Chen: From Google to the Streets - Startup Hustler & Content Creator
In this episode, we sit down with Sean Chen - a former data scientist at Google and one of the first AI product managers at Walmart/Sam’s Club - to unpack his whirlwind journey through tech and startups. Sean reveals how VC pressure...
Clarence Chio: Hacking, Risk x AI, Building with Pragmatism, and the Fine Line Between Delusion and Persistence
From a hacker's perspective, what are some of the most overlooked - yet critical - problems in tech?In this episode, Clarence Chio shares his journey from giving DEFCON talks on adversarial AI before it was cool, to building two startup...
Ashish Ranjan Jha: Founder of Nativ (a16z Speedrun), Former AI Lead at Revolut - An Unscripted Journey
Floating Questions welcomes Ashish Ranjan Jha - former AI lead at Revolut, author of Fight Fraud with Machine Learning, and now founder of Nativ.In this ...
Matt LeMay: Practical Wisdom, Business Impact, and Ethical Dilemmas in Product Management
Floating Questions welcomes Matt LeMay, a product leader, musician, and author of two books: Impact First Product Teams and Product Management in Practice. With experience at Spotify, Mailchimp, Bitly, and beyond, Matt shares ...
Nivedita Gaur: From Space to Silicon - A Trailblazing Journey of Ambition, Family, and Empowerment
Floating Questions welcomes Nivedita Gaur, whose extraordinary journey spans from India's Space Applications Centre to shaping the future of augmented reality (AR) as a Silicon Architect at Meta, where she contributed to the cutting-edge Orion ...
Brian Hsu: Definition & Assumption Behind AI Ethics, Shift in AI Talents & Career Choice
What is even fairness in AI? Is there such a thing as too much diversity in AI output? Should AI reflect the world as it is, or the world we wish it to be? In this episode of Floating Questions, Brian Hsu, a Senior Respon...
Amine Bennouna: From Morocco to MIT, From International Maths Olympiad to NGO, and From Research to Teaching
In this episode of Floating Questions, we sit down with Amine Bennouna, a postdoctoral researcher at MIT and soon-to-be professor at the Kellogg School of Management. We explore his childhood in Morocco and how competing in the International Ma...
Daniel Kofman: Challenges in Solar, Ethics in Defense Tech, Spirituality in Science, and the Paradoxes in Human Nature
In this episode of Floating Questions, we sit down with Daniel Kofman, a serial entrepreneur who co-founded a solar panel company and started a defense technology startup recently, with a lifelong fascination for defense ...
Shane Weisberg: Hiking, Creative Writing, and Navigating Data Science in MLB & Climate Policy
In this episode of Floating Questions, we sit down with Shane Weisberg, an MIT graduate, hiking in the woods and dabbling in creative writing. Our conversation delves into Shane’s passion for sci-fi and fantasy, his thoughts on emotion...
Tristan Aubert: A Journey Beyond Borders From Childhood to Social Forestry and Data Science
Dive into our debut episode of "Floating Questions" where we explore the intersections of data science, social enterprise, and personal history with Tristan Aubert. From his early years moving across continents to spearheading data ...
