Jan 30, 2024
This is a preview of a special
bonus episode for Patreon supporters of The
War on Cars!
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. (Shawon and Fokhrul 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. It was
super interesting and I enjoyed it a lot. But, 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 interview 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.
You can join us as a
Patreon supporter to listen to the whole thing.
-- Aaron
-- Aaron