The War on Cars

BONUS: Delivering the Goods with Shawon and Fokhrul

Added 2024-01-30 10:30:00 +0000 UTC

Hello, Patreon friends:

In the last episode of the podcast we spent some time with Baruch, Shawon, and their battery-swapping startup company, PopWheels. When I started working on that episode, I figured I was going to learn a lot about e-bikes, batteries, and the delivery app business. And I did! But over the course of more than a half dozen interviews and conversations between May and December 2023, I also learned a lot about Bangladeshi politics, immigration, and life in New York City as an e-bike delivery worker.

One of my favorite interviews for this episode took place on a crisp, sunny, Tuesday morning last October. I biked out to East New York, Brooklyn to meet Shawon and his friend Fokhrul, a Bangladeshi delivery worker who uses PopWheels battery-swapping network. (They asked me not to use their last names because they have asylum-seeker cases working their way through the legal system). We found a park bench and spent the morning talking about the political oppression they faced in Bangladesh, their arduous, months-long journey to the United States, and what their lives are like here in New York City. I really enjoyed talking to these guys and found it super interesting. As often happens with these things, only tiny bits of this conversation made it into Episode 118.

So, for this special bonus episode I wanted to share more of my conversation with Shawon and Fokhrul with you. I also had some fun additional bits and pieces of tape with Baruch that never made it into the last episode. So, you'll find some of that woven in here too. I hope you enjoy hanging with Shawon, Fokhrul and Baruch as much as I did.

-- Aaron