KQED's Perspectives

At age 40, Bobby Trussell's promising career in horse racing hit a dead end. With bills to pay and a family to support, he stumbled across a curious product that turned into a lifeline: squishy-squashy memory foam. He jumped at the chance to distribute Swedish memory foam pillows and mattresses to Americans. Tempur-Pedic USA began by selling to chiropractors and specialty stores, providing one of the first alternatives to spring mattresses. Today, the company is one of the largest bedding providers in the world. PLUS in our postscript "How You Built That," how Christopher Rannefors created BatBnB: a sleek wooden box that hangs on your house and provides a home for mosquito-eating bats.

To some it’s music. To others it’s a racket. But Michael Ellis says those nocturnal crickets have a useful feature you might not expect. Michael Ellis is a naturalist who leads trips throughout the world. He lives in Santa Rosa.

The predators of the animal kingdom aren’t always the bad guys, especially to organic farmers like Peggy Hansen.

The line separating public space from the private sphere is drawn in sand and modern realities are redefining the two in dramatic ways. Paul Staley has this Perspective.

A large water tower in the South Bay is not only the object of a fantastical tale handed down through generations of Steven McMoyler’s family; it’s a monument to the winds of change. Steven McMoyler is a Bay Area native working in Silicon Valley.

People play games for many reasons, and often it’s because they are condensed versions of how life is lived. At least that’s true for Joe Pramuk and his longtime friends. Joe Pramuk is a retired physician living in Napa.

Jenn Hyman got the idea for Rent the Runway in 2008, after she watched her sister overspend on a new dress rather than wear an old one to a party. Jenn and her business partner built a web site where women could rent designer dresses for a fraction of the retail price. As the company grew, they dealt with problems that many female entrepreneurs face, including patronizing investors and sexual harassment. Despite these challenges, Rent The Runway now rents dresses to nearly six million women and has a reported annual revenue of $100 million. PLUS in our postscript "How You Built That," we check back with Monica Mizrachi and her son Solomon who built EzPacking, a business that sells sets of clear squishy plastic packing cubes. (Original broadcast date: August 7, 2017.)

For those who are injured or live with disease, simple things become hard and normality is the goal. For Richard Chow, it starts every morning with navigating the ten feet between him and the pill he must take. Richard Chow is a Distinguished Career Fellow at Stanford. He lives with his wife and two daughters in the Bay Area.

Savala Nolan Terpczynski is African-American and she’s noticed that many of the people in her circle have just one Black friend -- her. That’s a problem. Savala Nolan Terpczynski is executive director of the Henderson Center for Social Justice at the UC Berkeley School of Law.

In the year since the North Bay fires, psychologist Kate Gustin has seen the deep harm of emotional and physical trauma. She’s also seen the triumph of a caring and compassionate community. Kate Gustin is a psychologist and mental health director.

The implications of the Me Too movement have been profound for women, but Dr. Will Courtenay says the burden of the truths women are speaking really falls on men. Dr. Will Courtenay is a local psychotherapist specializing in working with men and fathers.

For Karina Moreno and many other women, last week’s testimony by Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh was a profound event, and one they do not intend to forget.

In the late 1990s, Adam Lowry and Eric Ryan took on the notion that "green doesn't clean" by setting out to make soap that could clean a bathtub without harming the environment. Adam started experimenting with baking soda, vinegar, and scented oils, while Eric worked on making sleek bottles that looked good on a kitchen counter. Just a few years later, Adam and Eric were selling Method cleaning products in stores throughout the country, after a bold gamble got them on the shelves of Target. PLUS, for our postscript "How You Built That," how Loren and Lisa Poncia turned a 100 year-old family business into an organic beef supplier: Stemple Creek Ranch.

Ripudaman Malhotra has some advice for those, like him, who can’t or don’t like to cook: Relax and enjoy it.

Last year’s North Bay fires are history, but Jessica Taylor says it’s the local housing market that’s been set ablaze.