Why do so many Americans say housing costs are a top concern — but still oppose new housing in their neighborhoods? UC Davis law professor Chris Elmendorf shares surprising research revealing that aesthetics and feelings about developers may matter more than self-interest or NIMBYism.
In this conversation, we cover:

- Why just saying the word "developer" drops support for new housing by 4+ points
- How Hollywood has generated an estimated 1 billion negative representations of developers
- Why "small local homebuilder" gets a dramatically different reaction than "big real estate developer"
- What a video of a developer rescuing dogs has to do with housing policy
- Why ugly buildings hurt housing support even among renters who would benefit from lower rents
- The vacancy chain concept — and why it's one of the most persuasive arguments for building more housing
- The story of how a Twitter thread helped revive California's "builder's remedy" law
- What the pro-housing movement should actually focus on to win long-term

This is the Season 1 finale of Everybody Gets Pie. Tune in for another season soon!

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Biology is booming, so why isn’t medicine keeping up?

We sit down with Ruxandra Tesloianu to unpack the real constraints slowing drug development. From clinical trial inefficiencies and regulatory opacity to risk-averse biotech culture, we explore why breakthrough discoveries so often stall before reaching patients, and why increasing the availability of clinical trials might be the answer.

We dig into:

•⁠ ⁠Why pharma R&D productivity keeps falling (Eroom’s Law)
•⁠ ⁠The clinical trial bottleneck and late human feedback loops
•⁠ ⁠How regulatory uncertainty quietly inflates costs
•⁠ ⁠Why investors avoid high-risk areas like aging
•⁠ ⁠The overlooked role of surrogate endpoints and biomarkers
•⁠ ⁠What China and Australia reveal about regulatory arbitrage
•⁠ ⁠Whether AI can actually fix the pipeline
•⁠ ⁠The expanding role of IRBs and procedural friction

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We dive into the hidden environmental cost of modern agriculture, from sprawling farmland covering 40% of the planet to the $300 billion global subsidy system that rewards scale over sustainability.

Author Michael Grunwald unpacks why food production, not cities, is the biggest driver of deforestation, water use, and carbon emissions, and what technology, policy, and smarter incentives could do to change course. From lab-grown meat and AI-engineered crops to the surprising truth about “natural” farming, he challenges how we think about food, land, and climate.

Key topics:
•⁠ ⁠Why agricultural sprawl dwarfs urban sprawl
•⁠ ⁠The real impact of meat production
•⁠ ⁠Subsidies and the politics of farming
•⁠ ⁠Tech solutions: alternative proteins, gene editing, AI agriculture
•⁠ ⁠Policy vs. innovation — what actually moves the needle?
•⁠ ⁠How consumers can make a difference without perfection
•⁠ ⁠If we need 50% more food by 2050, how do we grow more without destroying more?

Follow & Support Everybody Gets Pie
X: @pie4everybody
Bluesky: @everybodygetspie.bsky.social
YouTube: @EverybodyGetsPie
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