December 10, 2025·Media
Life Is an Accident | Eric Pachman on Serendipity, Privilege, and Purpose
Matt Zeigler·podcast
What do accidental career pivots and the fight for policy change have in common? Everything, according to Eric Pachman. We show him a clip from our conversation with Eric Markowitz and Elie Jacobs about serendipity and creating things that last - and watch Eric explain how he's become a professional hopscotcher, landing in a chemical engineer-turned-data-activist role. His latest/upcoming project, Data 4 The People, investigates why SNAP is so underutilized relative to poverty, and what that reveals about us - but the real spine of this episode is Eric's reframed life around doing work that won't be finished in his lifetime: "Everything I've done is trying to fill a void. Now that I realize the void can't be filled, what can I do that lasts beyond my lifetime?"

