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PODCAST

TechStuff

Behind every innovation is a new kind of power. TechStuff unpacks how technology reshapes influence, creativity, and control, from Silicon Valley’s rising moguls to the cultural forces they create. Because tech is the new religion, economy, and entertainment, all at once. Each week, Oz Woloshyn and the brightest minds covering tech dig into the weird, funny, and sometimes unsettling ways technology, AI, and the internet shape our daily lives. From AI and social media to privacy, digital

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All Episodes

53:34

Shell Game: The Future Isn't Real

TechStuff ·

2026/07/05

Evan pushes the experiment one step further, sending his AI voice agent to talk to his closest friends and family — his buddies, his daughters, his dad. With their alternately joyful, skeptical, and painful reactions to meeting an AI version of him, he tries to come to terms with what generative AI means in this machine-made age.Shell Game is made by humans. More specifically, it's made by three humans: Evan Ratliff (host and writer), Sophie Bridges (producer), and Samantha Henig (executive

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40:39

TechStuff Redux: How Google DeepMind Accidentally...

TechStuff ·

2026/07/03

What drives a man to turn down half a million pounds at 18, test Mark Zuckerberg's sincerity over dinner, and wonder aloud if he can win a second Nobel Prize? For Demis Hassabis, co-founder and CEO of Google DeepMind, the answer is a lifelong pursuit of artificial general intelligence — and an unshakeable belief that the technology he's creating will change everything about what it means to be human. Oz speaks with journalist and author Sebastian Mallaby about his new book,The Infinity

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35:38

This Founder's Failed Social Networking Site Led to a...

TechStuff ·

2026/07/01

How do you build a billion-dollar startup? Ask Mark Pincus. The founder of Zynga and creator of FarmVille, Mark turned a $350,000 personal investment into one of the most successful gaming companies in history — eventually selling to Take-Two Interactive for over $12 billion. Along the way, he invested early in Facebook, launched one of the first social networks, and learned more from his failures than his wins. In his new book, Life at the Speed of Play: Launch Products People Love!, Mark

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44:16

The Quantum Shift in Biomedical Discovery

TechStuff ·

2026/06/30

When Dr. Lara Jehi began treating epilepsy patients in the 2000s, critical surgical decisions were driven more by clinician intuition and expertise than data. Today, she is a leader of IBM and Cleveland Clinic’s Discovery Accelerator, using advanced AI and quantum computing to transform how researchers analyze data, simulate molecules, accelerate drug discovery, and develop more precise treatments. Malcolm Gladwell talks with Dr. Jehi about how quantum computing is changing biomedical

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43:54

Shell Game: My Digital Twin

TechStuff ·

2026/06/28

Will AI bots replace humans in the workforce? Could one replace Evan… right now? That’s what we tackle on this week’s Shell Game, in which Evan sees just how much of his job his voice agent can handle on his behalf. Shell Game is made by humans. More specifically, it's made by three humans: Evan Ratliff (host and writer), Sophie Bridges (producer), and Samantha Henig (executive producer). Visit shellgame.co to find out more and support the show.See omnystudio.com/listener for

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37:08

TechStuff Redux: More AI in Space Than on Earth?...

TechStuff ·

2026/06/26

Is building data centers in space actually feasible? It may be, thanks to Ariel Ekblaw. The scientist, VC investor and co-founder and CEO of Aurelia Institute has devoted her life to democratizing space and ensuring that humans will one day be a spacefaring species. Ariel sits down with Oz to discuss self-assembling space architecture, how science-fiction influences her inventions, and why she doesn’t think billionaires investing in space is a bad thing. Download SAILY in your app store and

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38:16

The Man Who Wrote the AI Textbook Says We're Heading...

TechStuff ·

2026/06/24

How close are we to human extinction because of AI? Leading AI expert Professor Stuart Russell believes we’re much too close for comfort and has been raising the alarm for a few years. Ironically, Stuart himself wrote the book that laid the foundation for AI research back in the 1990s. And he was the only AI expert Elon Musk’s team called upon during their trial with OpenAI. Stuart joins Oz to discuss what changed his mind about pursuing AI superintelligence and makes the argument that

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41:10

Shell Game: Take a Deep Breath

TechStuff ·

2026/06/22

Evan looks into the depths of his AI-powered voice agent by sending it on a new mission: going to therapy. Shell Game is made by humans. More specifically, it's made by three humans: Evan Ratliff (host and writer), Sophie Bridges (producer), and Samantha Henig (executive producer). Visit shellgame.co to find out more and support the show.This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.shellgame.co/subscribeSee

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46:02

Would You “Cheat” On Your Partner For Money? - Week...

TechStuff ·

2026/06/19

How much of what you see online is actually real? This week, Reed Albergotti (Semafor) breaks down Anthropic's latest clash with the Trump Administration. Is Anthropic’s own messaging to blame? Then, Nitasha Tiku (The Washington Post) talked to students that walked out on Google CEO Sundar Pichai's commencement speech at Stanford. Their protest was about much more than AI. Finally, Taylor Lorenz (User Mag) exposes the fake "caught cheating" videos flooding social media, which are secretly ads

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43:51

You Didn't Get a Vote on AI's Future. Someone's...

TechStuff ·

2026/06/17

Is AI happening to you — or for you? Pew Research found that 50% of Americans are more concerned than excited about artificial intelligence. Michele Jawando and John Palfrey think that's a signal that more people need to get involved. Oz sits down with Michele, CEO of the Omidyar Network, and John, president of the MacArthur Foundation, to unpack Humanity AI: a coalition of ten major philanthropies pooling $500 million to ensure the future of AI is shaped by — and for — everyone

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34:34

Shell Game: Conversations With Myself

TechStuff ·

2026/06/14

Evan takes his experiment in a new direction by having his AI-powered voice agent converse with … another of his AI-powered voice agents. What can these surreal and hilarious conversations between two AI incarnations of Evan Ratliff tell us about identity, authenticity, and the best and worst of human interaction? Enter this digital hall of mirrors to find out.Shell Game is made by humans. More specifically, it's made by three humans: Evan Ratliff (host and writer), Sophie Bridges (producer),

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48:55

The Internet Found a Way to Monetize Reality Itself....

TechStuff ·

2026/06/12

How much would it take for you to tattoo a memecoin's name on your forehead? Taylor Lorenz (User Mag) tells us about the platform where crypto speculators pay strangers to do almost anything in service of pumping their coin's value: Pump.fun Go. But Taylor argues this is bigger than a weird internet rabbit hole — it’s a burgeoning ‘bounty economy,’ that’s quietly warping reality itself. Then: Sriram Krishnan, the Senior White House Policy Advisor on Artificial

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41:31

The Secret Stanford Off-Campus Class for Tech’s Next...

TechStuff ·

2026/06/10

Did your college have a secret society? Well, Stanford has a secret off-campus class training the next generation of Silicon Valley billionaires. And it's literally called "How to Rule the World." Theo Baker arrived at Stanford as an aspiring coder with dreams of building the future. Instead, he stumbled into the "Stanford-within-Stanford" — a hidden pipeline connecting a select few students directly to Silicon Valley CEOs, yacht parties, and venture capitalists offering millions before you

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37:53

Shell Game: Me and My Scammer

TechStuff ·

2026/06/08

Evan turns his AI-powered voice agent loose on the people who are always at the forefront of technological adoption: the fraudsters and the rip-off artists. How will the scammers and spammers react when they face Evan’s voice agent in a battle of wits? And what happens when they deploy the same kind of AI voice agents on Evan that he’s using on them? Shell Game is made by humans. More specifically, it's produced and edited by Sophie Bridges, and written and hosted by Evan Ratliff

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46:49

Blue Origin Rocket Explodes in Apocalyptic Mushroom...

TechStuff ·

2026/06/05

Blue Origin's latest rocket test ended in what the company called "an anomaly" — and what everyone else would call an explosion. Reed Albergotti (Semafor) explains why blowing things up is just part of the process and why the US Space Program is probably going to be fine. Then, Kyle Chayka (The New Yorker) pulls back the curtain on the shadow market for pre-IPO equity in OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX. It’s a mania where people are willing to take pre-IPO stock as payment for $2.9M

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34:33

The Man Building the Last AI Humans Will Need to...

TechStuff ·

2026/06/03

What if the fastest path to superintelligence is AI that builds itself? That's the bet Richard Socher is making — and he has the track record to back it up. A double unicorn founder and early investor in eight unicorn companies (including Perplexity and Hugging Face), Richard has spent 15 years building the foundational research that powers modern AI. Now he’s co-founded Recursive with an elite team from Google DeepMind, OpenAI, and Meta to pursue something more ambitious: a

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47:14

Inside the Octagon: How AI Brings UFC’s Fastest...

TechStuff ·

2026/06/02

Most of what happens inside the UFC Octagon is too fast for the human eye to follow. Enter Alon Cohen, Executive Vice President of Innovation for TKO, who has spent 15 years building the data and AI systems that expose the hidden moments that help decide a match. Malcolm Gladwell sits down with Alon to uncover how UFC’s partnership with IBM turns chaos into clarity, giving fans and commentators a deeper story behind every bout.This is a paid advertisement from IBM. The conversations on this

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33:22

Shell Game: Quality Assurance

TechStuff ·

2026/05/31

This is the story of what happens when Evan Ratliff, a longtime tech journalist, makes a digital copy of himself, powered by AI, in order to understand how amazing and scary and utterly ridiculous the world is about to get. In Episode 1, Evan clones his voice, hooks it up to a chat bot and his phone line, and sends it off to tangle with customer service representatives.Shell Game is made by humans. More specifically, it's produced and edited by Sophie Bridges, and written and hosted by Evan Ratliff

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49:51

The Pope vs. AI? It’s Complicated - Week in Tech

TechStuff ·

2026/05/29

The Pope called for AI to be "disarmed" — then gave Anthropic a seat on the dais. Nitasha Tiku (The Washington Post) unpacks what the Vatican's landmark intervention means for Silicon Valley. Then, get off Nextdoor, Kyle Chayka (The New Yorker) says hyperlocal publications are in vogue and a respite from algorithmic feeds. And finally, an update on last weekend’s Enhanced Games in Las Vegas. Journalist Chris Gayomali, host of the podcast SuperHuman, persevered through the 95-degree heat

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43:15

How AI Almost Led To This Tech Reporter’s Divorce -...

TechStuff ·

2026/05/27

What happens when you let technology take over your life? Joanna Stern (Fmr. Wall Street Journal / New Things) found out. She spent all of 2025 letting the robots in: Waymos, AI therapists, robot massagers, assistant researcher agents…During that yearlong experiment, Joanna Stern chronicled her findings in a new book, I Am Not a Robot: My Year Using AI to Do (Almost) Everything. She speaks to Oz about letting AI diagnose her son’s praying mantis, sending Bill Gates her health log, and

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