Hi, it's Bob Safian. You've been hearing me as the host of rapid response in this feed for a few years now,

with short newsy interviews alongside the deeper dives of Masters of Scale. Well, I'm excited to share that rapid response is expanding into its own feed.

We'll be putting out shows twice a week, focusing on the urgent issues that business leaders are dealing with in real time.

So search for rapid response in your podcast player

and subscribe to make sure you get all our episodes.

I'll see you on the other side.

Florence, Italy, set amongst the cypress trees and the olive groves,

art, science, and culture flourished here between the 15th and 16th centuries, setting the stage

for the modern world. Today, art lovers flock to the city to see Michelangelo's David, Bruneleski's Duomo, and models of

Da Vinci's flying machine, along with hundreds of Renaissance sculptures and frescoes. It was this artistic pedigree along with a fantastic Italian

espresso that drew a young Kevin Sistram to Florence. I decided my junior year I wanted to study abroad and

honestly I didn't like languages but I picked Italian because I was told it was the easiest

to pick up but I fell in love with it and I wasn't terrible at it I got pretty good and I was like yeah I want to go to Italy and I love coffee and an art Kevin was an avid photographer.

He went to Florence with lofty intentions of creating his own art.

He came equipped with a very expensive camera.

It was like the exact lens you became equipped with a very expensive camera.

It was like the exact lens you want to use

with the sharpest glass that you could get.

Kevin was about to get a lesson that would stay with him forever.

My professor Charlie looks at me with my camera,

which is, I think, a embodiment of my personality of perfection.

And he looked at me and he was like, no, no no no like you're not here to do perfection

...