YouTube
Full-length interviews with video, plus the solo finance breakdowns. The best place to watch a whole conversation start to finish.
@CWApodNew episodes most weeks
Real conversations with people who actually did the hard thing.
I'm Aidan Edwards. I sit down with founders, artists, filmmakers and survivors and ask the questions that usually get edited out — what it cost, what it paid, and what they'd do differently. In between, I break down the money stories everyone's arguing about in plain English.
- MS in Finance
- LGBT advocacy board member
- Based in New York
Latest episode
Start here
They're Not Selling Your Data. They're Using It On You
Service designer Sam Borri walks me through the machinery behind the interfaces you use every day: why the airport experience is designed the way it is, how pricing screens are built to make one option feel obvious, and why "they're selling your data" is mostly the wrong thing to worry about. The real business, he argues, is using it on you in the moment you're deciding.
The archive
Every episode
Two kinds of shows live here. Long-form interviews, where one person gets an hour to explain how they actually built the thing. And short solo breakdowns, where I take a finance story that's being shouted about online and walk through what the numbers really say.
-
Episode 08 · InterviewAug 15, 2026 · 61 min
They're Not Selling Your Data. They're Using It On You
Service designer Sam Borri on product design, why airports feel the way they feel, the pricing tricks hiding in apps you open daily, and the difference between data being sold and data being aimed at you.
Listen -
Episode 07 · SoloJul 31, 2026 · 10 min
Trading on Margin & the Future of America
A margin call made the rounds online and everyone had a take. I walk through what actually happened, why the financial literacy gap makes stories like this so sticky, and what it says about a generation treating the market like a casino.
Listen -
Episode 06 · InterviewJul 27, 2026 · 32 min
She wrote 6 musicals — 12 years later, one is finally going Off-Broadway
Composer and lyricist Kailey Marshall wrote musicals for over a decade while holding down a job in tech. We talk about the craft, the twelve-year wait, and what it takes to keep making something nobody has asked for yet.
Listen -
Episode 05 · InterviewJul 21, 2026 · 26 min
Laid Off at 30, She Started Kettle Cooked
Olivia Tedesco lost her job and used it as a forced audit of what she actually wanted her career to be. The answer turned into Kettle Cooked, an event series built to put money and attention back into artists' hands.
Listen -
Episode 04 · SoloJun 3, 2026 · 4 min
What $1.8 Trillion Buys You (Hint: It's Not Rockets)
SpaceX gets valued like a rocket company. It isn't one. A four-minute look at its business divisions and why Starlink is carrying the parts of the company that lose money.
Listen -
Episode 03 · InterviewMay 10, 2026 · 35 min
Liver Transplant Survivor and Professional Pickleball Coach — Michele Dabal
Michele Dabal received a liver transplant and now coaches pickleball professionally. A conversation about the parts of recovery nobody puts in the fundraising post, and what it's like to rebuild a body and a career at the same time.
Listen -
Episode 02 · InterviewApr 17, 2026 · 25 min
Start Your Own Film Production Company — Steve Dabal
Steve Dabal on founding The Family, the relationships that actually get projects made, what the industry is honest about only off the record, and where AI leaves filmmakers who are still building a name.
Listen -
Episode 01 · InterviewApr 1, 2026 · 17 min
Sales at Yik Yak, $100K Entrepreneur, Startup Accelerator — Tyler Farley
The episode that started the show. Tyler Farley on selling at Yik Yak, building a six-figure business out of an idea most people would have laughed at, and how networking in New York actually works when you have no leverage yet.
Listen
Video
Watch instead
Full episodes go up on YouTube. The shorter, sharper stuff — the bits worth ninety seconds — lives on TikTok and Instagram.
TikTok
Solo clips and short takes — the fastest version of what I'm thinking about that week. This is where most people find the show first.
@cwapodClips, guest announcements and behind-the-scenes from recording days. Also the easiest way to reach me.
@cwapod_dot_comSpotify
The audio home of the show. Follow there and new episodes land in your queue automatically, no algorithm required.
Follow on Spotify
About
Hi, I'm Aidan.
I host Conversations w/ Aidan Edwards. It started as a simple frustration: most interviews with interesting people stop right at the point where they'd get interesting. So I started recording the longer version.
The guest list is deliberately uneven — an entrepreneur who made six figures selling suspenders, a filmmaker who designed an escape room on the world's largest cruise ship, a liver transplant survivor who now coaches pickleball, a composer who spent twelve years getting one musical to a stage. What they share isn't an industry. It's that they all did something difficult and can explain how.
I also have an MS in Finance, which is why every few weeks I put out a short solo episode taking apart whatever money story is currently being misrepresented online. Margin calls, trillion-dollar valuations, the gap between what a headline says and what a balance sheet says.
Outside the show I serve on the board of an LGBT advocacy organization. I'm based in New York.
Come on the show
Be a guest
You don't need a book deal, a funding round or a follower count. The only real requirement is that you've built, survived or figured out something you can walk me through honestly — including the parts that didn't work.
What a recording looks like
Usually 25–60 minutes. Remote or in person in New York. No script and no pre-submitted questions, but I'll tell you the territory beforehand so nothing lands as an ambush.
Who tends to fit
Founders, artists, filmmakers, people mid-career-change, and anyone who's been through something most people only read about. Specific beats famous, every time.
How to reach me
Send a DM on Instagram with one paragraph on what you'd want to talk about. I read all of them and reply to the ones that are a fit.
Message @cwapod_dot_comSupport the show
There are no ads on this podcast.
That's a deliberate choice — no mid-rolls, no host-read spots, no sponsor deciding which guests are worth an hour. It also means the show is funded by the people who listen to it. If an episode has been worth your time, buying me a coffee genuinely keeps it going.