Broke-Ass Stuart showed up in San Francisco with a notebook, a hangover, and no money--then turned all three into a twenty-year career. The writer, publisher, and man-about-town, Stuart Schuffman, built brokeassstuart.com from a photocopied zine into one of the city's last independent local news outlets, ran for mayor, hosted his own IFC travel show, and, on October 17, 2025, even had an official San Francisco holiday declared in his honor by the Board of Supervisors.

His new book, The Worst of Broke-Ass Stuart: 20 Years of Love, Death & Dive Bars, brings together two decades of writing about San Francisco and the people who make it interesting. It's part memoir, part collection of stories, and a look at the artists, activists, weirdos, and regulars that have shaped the city over the years.

Join us for a conversation about staying broke on purpose, building an independent media business, running for mayor with no money and no shame, why dive bars still matter, and what it feels like to have the city you love give you your own holiday.

Warm Intro
A conversation, not an interview. Warm, sometimes weird, conversations with interesting people doing big things.

Warm Intro is a video podcast. We're available on every major podcast app and YouTube.

YouTube: @warmintro
Instagram: @warm.intro

Hosted by Chai Mishra
Chai is the Founder of The Essential, an ethical commerce company funded by the leading lights of Silicon Valley.

Chai served on the board of UNICEF, and has advised cities, universities, national sports teams and Fortune 500 corporations. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, Chai’s work has also been covered in publications ranging from the SF Chronicle to Business Insider.

Presented by Wefunder
Wefunder created The Community Round.
— allowing founders to raise funds directly from their communities
— allowing anyone to support their favorite founders and join their success.

Raise on Wefunder

Views here are those of the host and the guest. Wefunder makes the show possible but doesn't control who we have on or what we say.

Adena Ishii is one of America's youngest mayors—that too, of its most livable city, Berkeley.

While her peers are still figuring out their careers, she's managing a $900 million city budget, trying to solve a housing crisis and fielding calls from politicians asking for endorsements. But the most interesting thing about her? She does not sound like any politician you've ever heard.

Join us for an earnest and optimistic conversation about the lost idea of "public service," Bad Bunny and the Democrats' "fun deficit" problem, whether California is truly a hellhole, and a newly forming millennial vision for what government can still do for people.

Warm Intro
A conversation, not an interview. Warm, sometimes weird, conversations with interesting people doing big things.

Warm Intro is a video podcast. We're available on every major podcast app and YouTube.

YouTube: @warmintro
Instagram: @warm.intro

Hosted by Chai Mishra
Chai is the Founder of The Essential, an ethical commerce company funded by the leading lights of Silicon Valley.

Chai served on the board of UNICEF, and has advised cities, universities, national sports teams and Fortune 500 corporations. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, Chai’s work has also been covered in publications ranging from the SF Chronicle to Business Insider.

Presented by Wefunder
Wefunder created The Community Round.
— allowing founders to raise funds directly from their communities
— allowing anyone to support their favorite founders and join their success.

Raise on Wefunder

Views here are those of the host and the guest. Wefunder makes the show possible but doesn't control who we have on or what we say.

Chef Sri Gopinathan is the first Indian chef in the world to earn two Michelin stars and one of San Francisco’s most successful restauranteurs.

This distinction arrives with an asterisk—because Indian cuisine, despite being one of the world's oldest and most technically sophisticated food traditions, has never been treated as gourmet. Chef Sri is changing that in the most beautiful way possible.

Chef Sri speaks with the sensory precision of someone who has spent his life understanding flavor not just as taste but as memory, emotion, and culture. He describes the smell of his childhood kitchen with the specificity of someone for whom that smell is a moral architecture. He talks about tadka—the Indian cooking technique of tempering spices in hot oil—not as method but as feeling. And he carries with him a deep, almost spiritual understanding of what Indian food means to Indian people: it's not cuisine, it's inheritance.

Join us for a fun, honest, and deeply sentimental conversation about what everyone gets wrong about Indian food, why the world's most prestigious culinary institutions have been blind to it, and how one chef is changing that., the first meal he ever made and what it taught him, how he overcame that bias to earn recognition at the highest level, what he hopes his last meal will be, and what it means to fight for the dignity of your culture's food.

Warm Intro
A conversation, not an interview. Warm, sometimes weird, conversations with interesting people doing big things.

Warm Intro is a video podcast. We're available on every major podcast app and YouTube.

YouTube: @warmintro
Instagram: @warm.intro

Hosted by Chai Mishra
Chai is the Founder of The Essential, an ethical commerce company funded by the leading lights of Silicon Valley.

Chai served on the board of UNICEF, and has advised cities, universities, national sports teams and Fortune 500 corporations. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, Chai’s work has also been covered in publications ranging from the SF Chronicle to Business Insider.

Presented by Wefunder
Wefunder created The Community Round.
— allowing founders to raise funds directly from their communities
— allowing anyone to support their favorite founders and join their success.

Raise on Wefunder

Views here are those of the host and the guest. Wefunder makes the show possible but doesn't control who we have on or what we say.