Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi
Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi is a host and reporter for Planet Money, telling stories that creatively explore and explain the workings of the global economy. He's a sucker for a good supply chain mystery — from toilet paper to foster puppies to specialty pastas. He's drawn to tales of unintended consequences, like the time a well-intentioned chemistry professor unwittingly helped unleash a global market for synthetic drugs, or what happened when the U.S. Patent Office started granting patents on human genes. And he's always on the lookout for economic principles at work in unexpected places, like the tactics comedians use to protect their intellectual property (a.k.a. jokes).
He's reported from Iceland on the dramatic crash of the country's budget airline, from Denmark on the global trade for human sperm, and from Germany on the country's (uncannily familiar) obsession with returning the things they buy online. He also produced Planet Money's 2020 Murrow-award-winning collaboration with the NPR Ed Desk, the show's audiobook rendition of the Great Gatsby, as well as collaborative episodes with Pro Publica, and Gimlet Media's How to Save A Planet.
Horowitz-Ghazi hails from Santa Fe, New Mexico, studied history at Reed College, and got his start in radio at Oregon Public Broadcasting. He was selected as a 2014 AIR New Voices Scholar and a 2019 Arthur F. Burns Fellow. He previously worked with Michel Martin's team at All Things Considered, where he produced breaking news and feature stories, led film coverage, and directed the live broadcast.
At All Things Considered, Horowitz-Ghazi reported on how a national clown scare affected professional clowns, who was behind of a wave of succulent poaching on the California coastline, what happens to a musician's legacy after they die, and why his hometown burns a giant human effigy every year. He also pitched and produced "Brave New Workers," a series of profiles on people adapting to the changing economy, and has interviewed coal miners, rock climbers, coyote hunters, porn stars, cowboys, truck drivers, drone pilots, Carrie Brownstein, Werner Herzog, and George R.R. Martin, among many others. In his free time, he enjoys riding bicycles, playing squash (middlingly), and sleeping out of doors.
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Streaming has revolutionized the music business, including how songwriters get paid. Now the 20 biggest streaming platforms have been ordered to pay $424 million in unmatched royalties to artists.
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Jeff Runions has spent almost four decades in the trucking industry. Now, he's helping drive the industry's shift toward automation, as a test driver for a self-driving trucking company.
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Musician Mac DeMarco has garnered the image of an impish pop-rock troubadour, but many of the songs on last year's This Old Dog tackle his conflicted relationship with the father he never knew.
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When former helicopter pilot Tony Zimlich retired from a 20-year military career, he worried about his civilian job prospects. Then he discovered the burgeoning world of commercial drone work.
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For 40 years, the record's interstellar message to extraterrestrials remained mostly unheard by human audiences — until a Kickstarter campaign brought a new vinyl box set to the public.
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In 2011, the band put its career on hold at the height of its success. Singer and songwriter Robin Pecknold says he needed to turn his attention back to other parts of his life to grow as an artist.
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As a teenager, the Sleater-Kinney guitarist's local record shop, Rubato Records, became the site of an awakening. "I felt like I had discovered a treasure chest," she says, "and I dove in."
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What happens to workers when an industry collapses or a new technology takes off? NPR brings you stories of people adapting to a changing economy. This week: a former cowboy in the wind industry.
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In light of a recent rash of "creepy clown" sightings and incidents across the country, some working clowns say the controversy is negatively affecting their business.
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Following the controversy surrounding Melania Trump's speech at the RNC, NPR looks at a history of speeches given by the spouses of those running for president, starting with Eleanor Roosevelt.