Everyone Cares About Power Grids This Week

Slate Money

Slate Podcasts

Investing, Business

4.3 • 988 Ratings

🗓️ 3 May 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week: The entire Iberian peninsula lost power for 18 hours. Felix Salmon, Emily Peck, and Elizabeth Spiers are joined by energy expert John Kemp to talk about why that might have happened and nerd out on power grids. Then, the GDP is down by 0.3%. But is that really the right metric to care about? Finally, the tech world is bringing back the brutal system of stack ranking management. The hosts discuss why this might be ill advised. In the Slate Plus episode: Are Toy Tariffs…Good? Want to hear that discussion and hear more Slate Money? Join Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Slate Money show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/moneyplus to get access wherever you listen. Podcast production by Jessamine Molli and Cheyna Roth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello, and welcome to Slate Money, your guide to the business and finance news of the week. I'm Felix Simon of Axios with Emily Peck of Axios.
0:20.0	Hello, hello. With Elizabeth Spires,
0:22.2	from New York Times. We are going to talk about energy this week. We are going to talk about
0:27.8	the electrical grid in Iberia, in Spain and Portugal, which crapped out spectacularly. Hospital
0:35.0	operating theaters suddenly lost electricity, elevators lost electricity. It was bad.
0:40.8	And we're going to try and work out what happened and whether it was the fault of too much solar power.
0:45.8	We have a great guest, John Kemp, who can help walk us through that.
0:49.8	We are going to talk about GDP. The first quarter GDP figure came in negative, and we're going to talk about whether that is a bad thing. We are going to talk about GDP. The first quarter GDP figure came in negative, and we're going to talk about whether that is a bad thing.
0:57.1	We are going to talk about stack ranking and whether firing people for being lower performers is a good idea.
1:04.9	We have a Slate Plus segment on toys and whether they're too cheap.
1:10.4	It's all coming up on Slate Money.
1:19.8	Kate's just off to work after sleeping in the best bed in the business.
1:23.8	And my word, doesn't she look ready for anything?
1:26.9	Something about her smile is just brighter. Her eyes seem glintier, and she just feels so much more katia. Of course, it's no surprise really, because last night she slept at Premier Inn, and she got up to 15% off with Business booker. Get better sleep for your money.
1:45.3	Premier in, rest easy.
1:47.5	Teas and C's apply.
1:49.2	The autopilot order.
1:50.7	Now, informal.
1:51.9	The strong urge felt at the ordering kiosk or drive-through
1:54.7	that takes over the entire body and mind
1:56.8	and results in a person ordering a Big Mac without even having to think.
2:00.5	Related phrases. Looks like I've ordered a Big Mac without even having to think. Related phrases.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 17 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate Podcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Slate Podcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.