Crack It In An Hour

This week on Crack It in an Hour: Simon brings the team a problem that's near and dear to his heart—how do we fix modern day messaging? The average Microsoft worker receives 117 emails and 153 Teams messages daily—not including personal texts. We're drowning in communication, yet we're still missing context, misunderstanding tone, and dealing with unspoken rules nobody agreed to. In this episode,...

Can Taste Be Taught? Crack It in an Hour What makes someone have "good taste"? Is it something you're born with, or can it actually be learned? In this episode, Simon, Jesse, and Roman are joined by special guest Owen Williams to tackle one of the most elusive questions in creative culture: Can Taste Be Taught? They explore what "taste" even means—is it personal preference, aesthetic judgment, or...

This week on Crack It in an Hour , Jesse brings Roman and Simon a challenge that hits close to home: how do we make the US a cool place to visit again? International tourism to the US is down, global perception has taken a hit, and traditional travel campaigns feel disconnected from what travelers actually want to experience. But when international visitors do come, they leave loving the local qui...

This week on Crack It in an Hour, Simon brings us a problem: how do we add more danger back into our lives? Here's the paradox: we're safer than ever—traffic deaths down 63%, workplace injuries plummeting, violent crime down 72%. Yet anxiety is up 84%, teen distress is soaring, and people are more anxious than ever. So what's missing? The team explores whether small, chosen doses of danger actuall...

Make sure to buckle up for this weeks episode where special guest Ben Majoy brings a very unconventional problem to Jesse, Simon, and Romain.  Majoy argues cigarettes deserve a more nuanced conversation—one that accounts for social connection, spontaneity, and joy alongside physical health. Did they Crack it? Find out on this weeks episode! 

This week on Crack It in an Hour, special guest, and friend of the pod Biff Butler brings Simon, Maria, and Jesse a hefty question: how do we get people to aspire to less? In a culture built around bigger, better, faster, and more, what would it actually look like to find enough? The team explores how social comparison, consumerism, convenience, and even the way we spend money have shaped what we...

This week on Crack It in an Hour, Romain brings a deceptively simple question: how do we get more people to go thrifting? With Gen Z embracing secondhand while adoption drops among older generations, what’s holding people back? From fear of judgment and hygiene concerns to confusing shopping experiences, the team explores what’s keeping people from the thrill of the hunt—and how we could make thri...

When did saying “hi” to the person next door get so weird? Maria brings Jesse and Simon a deceptively simple problem: people are talking to their neighbors less. Has technology disrupted the little interactions that used to build relationships? Are we too distracted—or just afraid of being vulnerable? What’s really stopping us from saying hello? And can we fix it? Did they crack it in an hour? Che...

This week on Crack It in an Hour, Brooke Lonegan, Head of Creative Strategy at Audible, brings Simon and Jesse a challenge hiding in plain sight: how do we make people care about libraries again? Libraries have evolved far beyond books, offering maker spaces, digital media labs, creative classes, and resources for entrepreneurs and creators. So why do so many people still think of them as outdated...

This week on Crack It in an Hour, Simon brings Maria and Jesse a problem that sounds quaint on the surface but gets weird fast: how do we make hot air balloons cool? Somewhere along the way, hot air balloons got misbranded by the people on the ground. To spectators, they’re pretty, peaceful, colorful things floating across the sky. But the reality of actually going up in one is CRAZY…open flame, w...

Romain brings us a problem that should already be solved: how do you get people to wear sunscreen? The danger is obvious. The solution is cheap, available and easy to understand. Yet more than a third of people never wear sunscreen, and plenty of the people who do use nowhere near enough. So what’s going wrong? Is sunscreen too greasy, too annoying and too easy to forget? Is skin damage simply too...

In this first-ever two-problem episode, Romain and Jesse tackle two surprisingly complicated questions. First: how do you end a friendship that’s become toxic? Unlike romantic relationships, there are no social rules, no scripts, and often no closure. They explore why friendships quietly fade, when a difficult conversation is necessary, and whether ghosting, honesty, or simply letting paths diverg...

Live from Cannes at the PayPal Ads Studio, Sylvain Tron from Cylndr Studios drops a deceptively juicy question on the table: does Timothée Chalamet have a branding problem? Romain immediately flips the question, Jesse challenges whether there's even a problem to solve, and Simon reaches for a Taylor Swift comparison when the Leo/Gosling reference points start breaking down. Things get real when th...

Maria Galleriu from 72andSunny joins the crew live from Cannes (at the PayPal Ad Studio) and drops a heavy one on the table: the male loneliness epidemic. She comes armed with stats — men with zero close friends have shot up over the decades — and a thesis she's very happy to needle Romain with: women are just better at this. From there it gets real. The gang digs into why male friendships fall ap...

Crack It on the Croisette continues at Cannes Lions, live from the PayPal Ads Studio — and this time the challenge comes from guest Gareth Kay of Coinbase. His question: how do you make financial literacy not suck? Three quarters of Americans fail basic financial literacy tests, yet most financial education is dull enough to guarantee nobody pays attention. The crew quickly agrees the real problem...

Crack It heads to the Croisette in Cannes for a fast 20 minutes at the PayPal Ads Studio — and this time the challenge comes from guest Kirsten Rutherford, Executive Creative Director at DoorDash and self-described 47-year-old rave bunny who's usually the oldest person on the dance floor by about 25 years. Her question: how do we stop people aging out of the things they love? What follows is part...

In a society where we’re not having enough fun, birthdays feel like a layup. They come around every year, they’re personal, they’re a reason to get together and celebrate someone you care about. So why do so many of us act like they’re no big deal? In this episode Simon, Maria Van Buskirk and Biz Anderson dig into why birthdays can make people uncomfortable, why we don’t like talking about ourselv...

Networking is responsible for countless jobs, partnerships, friendships, and business opportunities. It’s also one of the most universally disliked activities in professional life. Why does something so valuable feel so terrible? Ahead of their first trip to Cannes Lions, Jesse, Simon, and Romain attempt to redesign networking from the ground up: from debate-club panels and no-phoned allowed hot-t...

The global athleisure market is on its way to $900 billion. Formal wear? About $4 billion. Comfort won. But at what cost? This week, Romain brings the problem: how do you get people to dress up again? What starts as a data drop (enclothed cognition, productivity hits, one in twelve remote workers in pajamas every single day) turns into a deeper conversation about confidence, identity, and why "for...

Being late seems like one of those small everyday annoyances, but it turns out there’s a lot more going on under the surface. On this episode Simon brings the topic of lateness to Romain and Biz, and the gang gets into the strange ripple effects of people not showing up on time. When is being late understandable? When is it unacceptable? Why does it bother us so much? And what would it actually ta...

We're back with only our second-ever lightning round — three hosts, three problems, 20 minutes each. Nobody knows what's coming. Jesse kicks things off asking why we can't get more people to start cooking. Romain admits cooking stresses him out (it's the time pressure, not the talent), Simon reveals a rampant cocaine addiction — which, for the record, is just Romain mishearing "cooking" — and we l...

Cable TV peaked at 105 million households in 2010. Today it's in less than 34% of American homes — and yet, somehow, streaming has become the new cable. Complicated bundles, decision fatigue, and the constant pressure to watch the right thing at the right time have made TV genuinely stressful. This week, Simon, Jesse, and Romain are joined by Maria Van Buskirk — newly minted Head of Comms and Go-t...

House parties are dying. The data is real, the stats are wild, and somehow Romain is the one mad about it. In this episode, Romain tasks Simon and Jesse with figuring out why nobody throws parties anymore — and more importantly, how to bring them back. The gang gets into the liking gap (why we're all secretly waiting for someone else to make the move), why LA kills the vibe by 11pm, whether the di...

When did everything get so serious? In this episode Simon tasks Jesse and Romain with trying to get the world to laugh more. In a time when people are feeling more lonely, isolated and anxious than ever, laughter feels like it might be more than entertainment, it might be medicine. The gang gets into how comedy has been sapped from corporate life, what it would take to bring it back, who stands to...

On this episode of Crack It, we try something new baby!!!!! Instead of spending the whole episode on one problem, Jesse, Simon and Romain each bring their own and give themselves 20 minutes to solve it. Jesse wants to know how the heck we stop public bathrooms from inevitably becoming disgusting and whether it’s possible to inspire a little more societal decency. Simon takes on airport security an...