Hidden Forces

In Episode 280 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas shares the the audio from a live Q&A call that he recently hosted for members of the new Hidden Forces Genius tier with Wall Street Journal chief economics correspondent Nick Timiraos. These calls are part of our Investor Roundtable series and include discussions with experts who our members would like to hear more from and who they would like to have the chance to ask questions to directly. We had a chance to discuss some of the news coming out ahead of the FOMC meeting this week, including increased calls for the Fed to slow its rate of tightening and concerns about the Fed's long-term independence in the face of political pressure. You can access transcript to this investor roundtable by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you want access to our Hidden Forces genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can learn more at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you have further questions, feel free to send an email to [email protected], and Demetri or someone else from our team will get right back to you. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 10/26/2022

In Episode 279 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Kaiser Kuo. Kaiser is the host and co-founder of the Sinica Podcast, the editor-at-large of The China Project, and the former director of international communications for Baidu, China's leading search engine. How does China see the world? What do we get wrong when talking about China? What are the central diving forces in Chinese politics? And what "does China want?" While concrete answers to such complex social and political questions are illusive, grappling with them is essential if we want to find a peaceful way through what is becoming an increasingly dangerous period in US-China relations. The goal of this conversation is to provide you with a more circumspect and culturally informed perspective on China. You will learn about the country's history, the lived experience of its people, their assumptions, values, and beliefs about the world and their place in it, and to learn to see ourselves and the world from China's eyes. You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you want access to our Hidden Forces genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can learn more at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. feel free to send an email to [email protected] and I or someone from our team will right back to you. If you have further questions, feel free to send an email to [email protected], and Demetri or someone else from our team will get right back to you. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 10/24/2022

In Episode 278 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Michael Shermer. Michael is the Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine. He hosts his own podcast, "The Michael Shermer Show," and is the best-selling author of books like "The Believing Brain, "Giving the Devil His Due," "The Moral Arch," "The Mind of the Market," and many more. Shermer's latest book titled "Conspiracy: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational" presents an overarching review of conspiracy theories—who believes them, why, which ones are real, and what we should do about them. Long a fringe part of the American political landscape, conspiracy theories are now mainstream: 147 members of Congress voted in favor of objections to the 2020 presidential election based on an unproven theory about a rigged electoral process promoted by the mysterious group QAnon. But this is only the latest example in a long history of ideas that include the satanic panics of the 1980s, the New World Order and Vatican conspiracy theories, fears about fluoridated water, speculations about President John F. Kennedy's assassination, and the notions that the Sandy Hook massacre was a false flag operation and 9/11 was an inside job. The purpose of today's conversation is to provide you with a framework for thinking about conspiracies—what they are, the different types of conspiracies that exist, and why we believe in them. You will also learn how to distinguish between real conspiracies and imagined ones and what we can do as a society to tilt the information landscape toward producing more accurate models of the world without resorting to censorship or the policing of thought and information. You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you want access to our Hidden Forces genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can learn more at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. feel free to send an email to [email protected] and I or someone from our team will right back to you. If you have further questions, feel free to send an email to [email protected], and Demetri or someone else from our team will get right back to you. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 10/21/2022

In Episode 277 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Perry Mehrling. Dr. Mehrling is Professor of International Political Economy at the Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University, where he teaches courses on global money. He is perhaps best known for having pioneered the so-called "money view," an economic framework that attempts to put the real-world practitioners' view of financial markets into an academic perspective. Mehrling's most recent book, "Money and Empire," is in some sense a biography of the US Dollar told through the life and times of the renowned economic historian, Charlie Kindleberger. The book traces the evolution of Charlie's thinking alongside the rise of the international dollar system. It's an illuminating history of the economic forces of international trade and finance and how those forces shape and are shaped by the politics of national interest. The goal of today's conversation is to help deepen your understanding of a system that has proven to be far more resilient than many of its critics and most ardent supporters could have possibly imagined. What has made the system so strong, the challenges that could impede its function, and the role of politics and war in accelerating changes to it are all topics that we explore today. You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report of this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you have questions about our genius tier, which includes access to the Hidden Forces community, Q&A calls with guests, in-person events, and dinners, you can learn more at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you have further questions, feel free to send an email to [email protected], and Demetri or someone else from our team will get right back to you. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 10/10/2022

In Episode 276 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Michael Beckley and Hal Brands, the authors of a recently published book titled "Danger Zone," about how to prepare America and the world for a peaking China. The book argues that the conventional wisdom about the long-term strategic threat that China poses to the existing international order is fundamentally wrong. If a war between the US and China is to break out, it could happen much sooner than the US defense establishment prepared for. Hal Brands and Michael Beckley's basic thesis is that China is at a perilous moment in its development as a great power: strong enough to violently challenge the existing order, yet increasingly losing confidence that time is on its side. Witness its aggression toward Taiwan, its record-breaking military buildup, and its efforts to dominate the critical technologies that will shape the world's future. While a new cold war with China may last decades, both Beckley and Brands believe that the crucial battle that could determine much of what that war will look like may well be decided before the end of this decade. This episode is meant to help establish what it would take to win a battle over Taiwan and demonstrate to the leadership in Beijing that attempting to change the status quo in Asia would not only likely result in failure for China but almost certainly in the catastrophic destruction of the global economy and the permanent political isolation of the Chinese Communist Party. If you want access to the second part of today's conversation, which focuses on actionable steps, war planning scenarios, and thought experiments on how such a war could be waged and won, as well as the transcripts and intelligence reports, which include my takeaways from every episode, as well as my thoughts on what comes next, head over to HiddenForces.io select the episode that you're interested in and click on the premium extras, where you can then sign up to one of our premium content tiers. All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you have questions about our genius tier, which includes access to the Hidden Forces community, Q&A calls with guests, in-person events, and dinners, you can learn more at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you have further questions, feel free to send an email to [email protected], and Demetri or someone else from our team will get right back to you. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 09/28/2022

In Episode 275 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas publishes the audio from a recent Twitter Spaces event featuring Brent Johnson and Michael Kao, who were both later joined on stage by Michael Nicoletos and Michael Howell for a dynamic conversation about the explosive appreciation in the relative value of the US Dollar, the sources of Dollar strength, and what could bring an end to its role as the main global reserve currency. Brent Johnson is CEO of Santiago Capital and the author of the "Dollar Milkshake Theory." Michael Kao is CIO and Portfolio Manager of Kao Family Offices and is well-known for coining "the Dollar Wrecking Ball" as a similar metaphor for describing the dynamics of Dollar hegemony. Michael Nicoletos is a macro investor and the founder and fmr. CIO at AppleTree Capital and Michael Howell is the CEO of CrossBorder Capital and a regular contributor and active member of our Hidden Forces Genius community which you can learn more about at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. Over the last six months, the US Dollar has appreciated tremendously against a basket of international currencies, from the pound sterling and the euro to the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan. Because of the Dollar's outsized role as a global funding currency, Dollar strength often translates into foreign weakness, not just for other currencies, but for their respective economies and asset markets as well. The goal of this conversation is to help deepen your understanding of the dynamics driving Dollar strength, the consequences for the global economy and asset markets the longer it continues, and what the possible end-game could be for economies and governments. You can access the transcripts and intelligence reports of previous episodes by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you have questions about our genius tier, which includes access to the Hidden Forces community, Q&A calls with guests, in-person events, and dinners, you can learn more at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you have further questions, feel free to send an email to [email protected], and Demetri or someone else from our team will get right back to you. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 10/03/2022

In Episode 274 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Chris Miller. Chris is Associate Professor of International History at the graduate school of global affairs at Tufts University. He is also the author of Chip War, which chronicles the geopolitical history of a decades-long battle to control the modern world's most critical resource: the microchip (or semiconductor) and the commercial industry that supports it. We spend the first hour discussing the technological, commercial, and distributional characteristics of the existing semiconductor supply chain. Chris explains the various steps involved in the production process, the incentives that operate in the industry, the technological imperatives that inform investment decisions, and the role of government subsidies and regulations, all of which explain the globally distributed and highly efficient nature of the semiconductor industry and why it is more vulnerable than ever to geopolitical disruption. The second hour is where we focus our attention on the geostrategic dimension of chip competition, the steps that are being taken to reorganize the industry, the efforts being made to build resiliency into various parts of the supply chain, and what the main challenges are to doing that successfully for both the US and China. The goal of this conversation is to bring clarity to a subject that has not only captivated the public interest but which increasingly determines the national security priorities and strategic investment decisions of the United States and without which the modern world would cease to function. You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you have questions about our genius tier, which includes access to the Hidden Forces community, Q&A calls with guests, in-person events, and dinners, you can learn more at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you have further questions, feel free to send an email to [email protected], and Demetri or someone else from our team will get right back to you. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 09/27/2022

In Episode 273 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Scott Galloway. Scott is a professor of marketing at NYU's Stern School of Business, a serial entrepreneur, a prolific media personality, and the author of four books. His most recent book, titled "Adrift," attempts to tell the story of America—from the end of world war two to the present day—in order to understand how we arrived at this precarious moment in our nation's history, the challenges that lie before, and what it will take to navigate those challenges successfully. So that we can emerge from this period with our nationhood and humanity intact. As Demetri has said on this podcast many times, in a democratic society power ultimately rests with the people. It's a cliché, but it's true. When things don't feel like they are working out, we can either throw up our hands and blame somebody else or we can make the effort to engage constructively on the challenges that confront all of us. Today's episode is a roadmap to understanding what some of those challenges are, where they come from, how to address them, and why there are reasons to be hopeful about America and the future of this imperfect experiment that is democracy. You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you have questions about our genius tier, which includes access to the Hidden Forces community, Q&A calls with guests, in-person events, and dinners, you can learn more at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you have further questions, feel free to send an email to [email protected], and Demetri or someone else from our team will get right back to you. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 09/19/2022

In Episode 272 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with economist and author Charles Goodhart. Professor Goodhart is widely recognized for his contributions to the fields of monetary economics and central bank policy and is famously associated with what we commonly refer to as "Goodhart's Law," the stipulation that any observed statistical regularity ceases to function as an objective or accurate measure the moment that it becomes a target of public policy. Both professor Goodhart and his co-author and former colleague Manoj Pradhan recently coauthored a book titled "The Great Demographic Reversal," which puts forward a compelling and controversial argument about the long-term effects of an aging society on inflation, interest rates, investment, savings, and consumption, as well as economic growth and public policy decisions related to things like taxes and government spending—all of which are discussed in today's episode. The main argument put forward by both authors is that the inevitable decline in dependency ratios caused by aging demographics will lead to structural, long-term increases in interest rates and inflation that will strain government finances and jeopardize the policy-making independence of central banks as their mandates to control inflation come increasingly into conflict with the objectives of politicians and national governments. The objective of today's episode is to more fully explore the arguments and assumptions that Charles Goodhart and his co-author make in their book, the evidence in support of their conclusions, and the implications of their findings and projections for the economy, investors, and governments. You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 09/14/2022

In Episode 271 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Nick Timiraos, the chief economics correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, where he covers the Federal Reserve and U.S. economic policy. Timiraos is also the author of Trillion Dollar Triage, a detailed account of the day-by-day and sometimes hour-by-hour policymaking by Federal Reserve officials during the heights of the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequently between 2020-2021. The first part of this conversation focuses on the immediate concerns that investors have about Fed policy and the path of interest rates. This includes a discussion about inflation targeting and inflation expectations, personnel and the centralization of policymaking at the Fed, and tradeoffs between economic growth, financial stability, and inflation. In the second hour, Demetri and Nick discuss quantitative tightening, balance sheet capacity, and how this Fed would react to inadvertently "breaking something" in the plumbing of the financial system. They also discuss fiscal and monetary collaboration, the ability or inability to get inflation under control long-term without stabilizing government debt, the Fed put, the stock market, and much, much more. Demetri's goal in this conversation was to ask as many questions and learn as much as possible about how this Fed sees the challenges that lie before it, what data and information are most relevant to Fed officials when deciding how to set policy, how they think about tradeoffs, and how Jay Powell specifically, understands or thinks he understands the financial system and his role as Chairman of the most powerful central bank in the world. There are few people as qualified to answer these questions as Nick Timiraos and this conversation does not disappoint. You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 09/07/2022

In Episode 270 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Rory Johnson, a widely quoted researcher and expert in global commodities markets and founder of Commodity Context.com. This episode is a preview of what subscribers to the new Hidden Forces "Genius" Tier will have access to on a regular basis. This new tier will include live, quarterly calls with guests and researchers whose work Demetri relies on to help him navigate markets and make educated investment decisions for his own portfolio. The tier is scheduled to launch later this month and will also include, among other things, a first-class community purpose-built for real-team quality interaction; video recaps by Demetri provided after every episode; priority access to in-person events; and regular Q&A calls where subscribers will be able to interact with and ask questions of both Demetri and his guests in real-time. Demetri will be making a formal announcement on the podcast when this new tier goes live. If you want to learn a bit more about it in the meanwhile, Rory and Demetri spend some time at the top of the podcast today discussing it before getting into Rory's latest research on the state of the oil complex and what he's seeing in terms of supply/demand dynamics and market positioning. You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 09/02/2022

In Episode 269 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with portfolio manager & chief strategist at Simplify Asset Management, Mike Green. Mike is a deep thinker and so much of what he has to say is value-additive. It illuminates some aspect of the market or some socio-political phenomenon or dynamic that has profound explanatory power. Today's conversation was no exception. The two spent the first hour discussing a number of topics that Demetri has explored on his podcast before, including topics related to corporate vs. state power, the role of government in the economy, the lack of leadership in government, and the types of reforms needed to resolve some of the structural challenges that our political economy faces. The second hour, which is available to premium subscribers only, drills deeper into the conversation about corporate power, as well as the roles and responsibilities of media personalities and organizations in serving the public interest. Demetri and Mike also discuss inflation, its drivers, as well as how to maintain optionality while at the same time protecting oneself from sovereign credit risk, something that is top of mind for those of you concerned about the long-term status of the US Dollar and all fiat currencies. This is especially true if you believe that we have transitioned into a new inflationary regime with structurally higher consumer prices and costs of capital. You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 08/30/2022

In Episode 268 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas replays a monologue that he wrote and first published nearly five years ago about the future of humanity, machine intelligence, and the power process. When he began Hidden Forces, Demetri was primarily concerned with exploring some of the recent advancements in technology and humanity's scientific understanding of both the external world, as well the internal one that gives rise to the human experience. He believed (and still does) that many of the socio-cultural and political changes that we were experiencing in the world were being strongly influenced and shaped by these advancements, which is why so many of our early episodes were philosophical in nature, dealing with questions of epistemology, identity, and meaning. In preparing for his recent conversation with director Alex Lee Moyer, Demetri was inspired to go back and listen to a monologue that we published nearly five years ago and which dealt directly with some of these more philosophical questions. The monologue was rooted in a set of observations about the role of digital technology and machine intelligence in shaping our experience of the world, our sense of agency, and our very notions of what it means to be a human being. The monologue is even more relevant today than it was in 2017 when he first wrote it. We are living through an extortionary moment in human history. Nothing short of our humanity is at stake, whether from the growing possibility of total war, the creeping security state and surveillance capitalism, or even just the abject apathy and nihilism that seems to be infecting more and more of society. If you are a listener of this show, then these issues concern you directly, and while you may not be the CEO of Google or the head of the Federal Communications Commission, your input, activism, and engagement on these issues will be a decisive factor in determining not only the quality of our future, but the quality of the world that we leave for our children and grandchildren. You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 12/15/2017

In Episode 267 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Alex Lee Moyer the filmmaker behind "Alex's War," an excellent new documentary about Alex Jones, the founder of Infowars. Alex is an incredibly controversial cultural figure and media personality whose popularity and influence have become especially difficult to measure since he was banned from YouTube and most every other major media and social media platform in 2018. Jones granted Moyer unprecedented access for a documentary that is truly unique in both its political appeal and in how it intimately captures parts of Alex's life that very few people outside of his immediate community have been able to experience. It is an exploration of our relationship to truth and our distrust of mainstream institutions that grapples gracefully with the broader cultural and political moment that we are living through as a country. This episode is meant to expose you to many of the cultural cross-currents that inform some of the political and social views of millions of Americans, with the goal of advancing our understanding of one another and helping to bridge the cultural divide that seems to be tearing our country apart. You can access the transcript and intelligence report to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 08/15/2022

In Episode 266 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with financial historian, journalist, and author Edward Chancellor. For the last twenty years, Chancellor has been arguably known best for his book, "Devil Take the Hindmost," which is a fantastic history of the last 400 years of financial speculation. Yet, that streak may be soon coming to an end with the publication tomorrow of his latest book, "The Price of Time," an absolutely brilliant philosophical exploration of interest and its essential role in valuing and directing the allocation of capital, labor, and resources in the economy over time. Interest rates have sometimes been described on this podcast and elsewhere as the "price of money." While this definition is useful, it fails to capture the temporal dimension of interest rates and the role that they play in expanding the continuum of economic activity, cooperation, investment, and consumption beyond the immediate grasp of the present moment. The ability to accumulate capital in the form of money enables us to operate outside of entropy's constraints—we aren't limited in other words by the decomposition or decay of a sack of barley, a barrel of oil, or a concrete building. But in order to value that capital through both space and time, we need something more. And that something is interest: the price you pay to borrow money or the cost you charge to lend it over time. Over the last two decades the price of time has plummeted to levels never before seen in human history and with it have arrived a multiplicity of asset price bubbles, a reduction in productivity growth, rising wealth and income inequality, a discouragement of savings, a growth in supply chains, and an excessive amount of risk-taking encouraged by the acrobatics of yield-starved investors in search of decent return. In this excellent and timely conversation, you are going to learn about the history of interest and its historical role in promoting human cooperation, economic activity, and advancement. You are also going to learn about how interest is priced, where it comes from, and the difference between the so-called "natural rate" of interest and what central banks have claimed as their policy lever to control the scale, scope, and distribution of capital in society. In the second hour of our conversation which is available to premium subscribers only, Edward Chancellor and Demetri Kofinas apply the framework that they develop in the first part of the episode to help you understand where we find ourselves today, whether or not central banks and governments can indeed use their policy tools to fix the very problems that those tools have to help create, what some of those solutions and the path forward could look like, and what all of this means for you and your portfolio. You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 08/09/2022

In Episode 265 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Michael Howell. Michael is the CEO of CrossBorder Capital, a London-based, independent research and investment company that provides asset allocation and capital markets advice to institutional investors. This conversation is a natural follow-up to our recent episodes with Lev Menand on the shadow banking system and Eric Basmajian on economic cycles. Specifically, the credit cycle and its leading impact on the economy and asset prices. But this conversation with Michael also pulls directly from other episodes as well with guests like Michael Pettis on global trade and finance, Claudio Borio on financial instability, Brent Johnson on the Revenge of the Dollar, James Aitken on Digital Currency and the Pivot to Asia, Russel Napier on the New Economic Order and the Asian Financial Crisis, and of course, one of my absolute favorites, a conversation with Kevin Coldiron, Tim Lee, and Jamie Lee on the role of the US Dollar as an international funding currency and as the primary driver of recurring systemic crises in the international financial system. Global liquidity is a term that every single person working in finance and in financial media has not only heard of but has probably used at one point or another. And yet, if you were to ask most people what this term means or what it refers to they would be hard pressed to give you a clear or uniform answer. This is because the drivers of global liquidity, namely the financial and exchange rate relationships within and between countries and the determinants of cross-border flows of money, securities, goods and services, are constantly changing. In the process, they have become, in the words of Michael Howell, "the new weapons in the escalating Capital Wars between the U.S., Europe, and China," the last of which has a vested interest in not only the long-term stability of the international financial system but perhaps even the eventual aim of displacing the Dollar in favor of the Yuan as the fulcrum around which international trade and commerce is eventually invoiced and credited The goal of today's conversation is not only to help you gain a deeper appreciation for what global liquidity is and the geopolitical and economic forces driving it but to also help you understand how it impacts you and your portfolio directly through the outsized role that it has on shaping economic outcomes and asset prices. This comes at a time when this very liquidity is receding faster than at any point since the Great Financial Crisis and by some measures, even quicker. You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week's conversation, along with the additional material provided by Michael Howell by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 08/02/2022

In Episode 264 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas publishes the contents of a call that he hosted on Twitter Spaces this past Tuesday evening only hours after Nancy Pelosi, the US Speaker of the House of Representatives arrived in Taiwan. The subject of the call concerns both the short and long-term consequences of Pelosi's trip and whether or not the US is ready to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese naval blockade or invasion of the island by the People's Liberation Army. Speakers Dmitri Alperovitch, Elbridge Colby, and Jamil N. Jaffer discuss how the US can prepare for this eventuality, the urgency of the task at hand, and the possibility and consequences of the US losing a war with China over Taiwan in the next few years. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 08/02/2022

In Episode 263 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Eric Basmajian. Eric is an economic cycle analyst and the Founder of EPB Macro Research, an economics-based research firm focusing on inflection points in economic growth and the impact on asset prices. His research has been featured across major financial media outlets and he's been kind enough to provide a sample of his latest cyclical trends monthly update report for premium subscribers to our super nerd tier that you can get through this week's episode page on our website. This conversation is the latest in a series of episodes on markets and investing, with an especially strong focus this time on the macro economy, and in particular, the secular and cyclical trends in the rate of growth and inflation. Secular forces are things like demographics, debt-to-GDP levels, trends in globalization, and the regular and predictable doubling in computing power commonly referred to as Moore's Law—long-term trends in other words that remain in place through multiple economic cycles. Cyclical trends on the other hand are the 6-18 month fluctuations in growth determined by things like income, production, consumption, and employment. We can anticipate changes in the direction and magnitude of these trends by relying on a variety of what are known as leading as well as coincident economic indicators, things you've probably heard of before like building permits, new manufacturing orders, non-farm payrolls, personal consumption, industrial production, etc. Understanding where you are in an economic cycle and what the long-term, secular forces are that are pulling you or pushing you in any particular direction is as important to investors as the weather and the ocean currents are to the navigator of a sailboat. They inform the allocation strategies and performance expectations for a variety of asset classes, business models, and policy choices over time. Today's conversation will expose you to a framework for thinking about the macroeconomy that is empirical, data-oriented, and very much based in reality—one that you can use to forecast major economic inflection points and their resulting impact on asset prices, a valuable tool for anyone trying to manage his or her portfolio or make informed investment decisions. You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 07/26/2022

In Episode 262 of Hidden Forces, I (Demetri Kofinas) share an interview I recently gave on "The Breakdown" with Nathaniel Whittemore, but not before delivering an important message, which has to do with a new Hidden Forces community tier that we will be launching. I'm excited to announce that we will be launching a new Hidden Forces community tier where you'll be able to get immediate access to me, my thoughts, special content, etc., along with private events that will include opportunities to ask questions directly to my guests and to me in real-time. We are giving you a preview of that experience this coming Wednesday, August 3rd, from 6:30 PM — 8 PM EST when I will be hosting a live video Q&A over zoom. Anyone can join and ask me pretty much any question they want so long as it is relevant to the podcast. The zoom call is open to anyone but we are limiting the number of people who can join this time just to keep things manageable. You can secure your spot on the list by going to HiddenForces.io/events and registering right now. The title of the event is "Investing Between the Wars," and while listeners are free to ask any question they like, the focus of the Q&A is on how the changing political and geopolitical landscape is affecting your life and investments. Indeed, this is the subject that Nathaniel Whittemore and I discussed in my recent appearance on "The Breakdown." I shared some of my own views and perspectives on markets and geopolitics as well as how I've incorporated my macro views of the political economy into my own investment decisions. The Breakdown is a daily analysis podcast that explores themes in macroeconomics, bitcoin, geopolitics, and the big picture power shifts affecting the world. You can find it on any major podcast platform and at coindesk.com/podcasts and you can follow Nathaniel on Twitter at @NLW. You can access the transcript to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 07/18/2022

In Episode 261 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Elbridge Colby, co-founder and principal of The Marathon Initiative, an organization whose mission is to develop the diplomatic, military, and economic strategies that the United States will need to navigate a protracted era of great power competition. Colby has also served as US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development and was the chief architect of the 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS), which was by some estimates the most significant revision of U.S. defense strategy since 9/11, if not since the end of the Cold War. This is a conversation about the national security challenges that Elbridge Colby believes we face as a country, their urgency, and what is needed in terms of practical changes to our strategic objectives, the organization of our national defense, what we prioritize, and perhaps most importantly, our sense of mission, unity, and national purpose. Kofinas and Colby spend the first hour laying out the nature and scope of these challenges as they pertain to the Chinese Communist Party in particular, and to the degree that it acts in unison with Chinese objectives, the Russian Federation as well. The second hour is broken into two parts, the first of which covers specifics on how to meet the challenge, while the second focuses on Taiwan where Elbridge makes the case for why he believes that an attack on the island nation by China is not only likely but may come much sooner than most pundits and military planners expect. The consequences of such an attack would not only be destabilizing for the current equilibrium in Asia, but could escalate into a global kinetic conflict with hypersonic missiles, space warfare, cyber-attacks, and God forbid, the use of nuclear weapons. Preventing such scenarios from unfolding should be at the very top of our list of national priorities. Today's conversation is mean to help inform you about just how salient this threat is and what we can and perhaps should do about it. You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 07/19/2022

In Episode 260 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Rory Johnston. Rory is a widely quoted researcher and expert in global commodities markets. His work includes a variety of research and investment projects including his commodity market research platform at Commodity Context Dot Com, as well as both public market portfolio and private equity strategy at Price Street. This episode is for premium subscribers only and is part of an ongoing series of conversations that I've been curating with guests focused on investment themes and opportunities in the commodities complex. The goal of this conversation is to provide you with a more critical look at the supply side story in oil, refined products like gasoline and diesel, and to a lesser degree natural gas, including drivers of end-use demand for these commodities. The demand-side picture is much more difficult to project, as it requires assumptions about growth, monetary policy, and the further implementation of sanctions on Russian energy supplies. These are subjects we explored in recent episodes with Helen Thompson on Energy Geopolitics and Ian Bremmer on how to fight a geopolitical recession and are featured in the related tab on this week's episode page on our website. Rory and Demetri also discuss some of the financial data compiled by Rory in his most recent Global Oil Data Deck including calendar spreads and speculative positioning in major crude contracts and how we can use that information to help us anticipate the direction of and volatility in oil prices going forward. For premium subscribers to our super nerd tier, Rory has provided you with an abridged version of his data deck for the month of July which publishes in full on his commodity context substack today. You can access the full episode and transcript, along with the abridged version of Rory's Global Oil Data Deck by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 07/14/2022

In Episode 259 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Ryan Gingeras, a professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School and an expert on Turkish, Balkan, and Middle East history. Gingeras has authored six books on Turkish history and culture, including his forthcoming, "The Last Days of the Ottoman Empire," which is scheduled for release by Penguin in October 2022. In recent years, Turkey has become an X-factor of sorts in global politics. Its president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has attracted the ire of liberal-minded politicians and his transactional political style has raised questions about Turkey's dependability as a NATO ally and about its long-term commitment to the rules-based international order. This is obviously a concern for the United States and NATO, but there is perhaps no country for whom Turkey's long-term orientation Westward carries more existential importance than Greece, which has been on the receiving end of escalating Turkish provocations and territorial violations of its internationally recognized maritime borders and airspace. This comes during a time when Turkish cooperation within NATO itself has become a bargaining chip of sorts that Ankara has used to further its own strategic objectives, as seen most recently in negations over Finish and Swedish membership. This conversation has two primary objectives. The first is to give you an understanding of the historical, political, and geostrategic forces responsible for driving Turkish foreign policy today, including the intellectual foundations for its more assertive, revanchist, and perhaps even expansionist ambitions—concepts and doctrines such as "strategic depth" and Mavi Vatan or "Blue Homeland," which inform and explain much of Turkey's policy in the broader Middle East, Africa, and the Aegean. The second objective is to expose you to how the Middle East, Europe, and North Africa could evolve territorially in a world without NATO or where the post-WWII liberal international order continues to degrade or comes apart entirely. While this has more immediate implications for Greece, it also risks altering the larger territorial landscape of Eurasia in ways that most people would have found unimaginable at the beginning of the 21st century. What this could mean for citizens in these territories, for the politicians responsible for making policy within the various countries affected, and for investors and businesses looking to put capital to work in them cannot be understated. You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 07/05/2022

In Episode 258 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Lev Menand, author of "The Fed Unbound: Central Banking in a Time of Crisis." Menand is an associate professor of law at Columbia Law School who has worked as an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and as a senior advisor to both the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury and the Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions. He joins Demetri for an important and timely conversation about the US Dollar and the evolution of the international financial system into a kind of Frankenstein's monster whose appendages and doppelgängers reach into the deepest recesses of the global economy. Dollar balances and dollar-based lending by institutions not regulated by the Federal Reserve—what we broadly refer to as the shadow banking system—have grown so large over the years that no one, not even the Fed, can actually quantify them. For most of us, awareness of just how dangerously complex the modern banking system has become was made clear fourteen years ago with the onset of what we now call "The Global Financial Crisis," a supposedly once-in-a-lifetime event that almost repeated itself during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic when the Fed came to the rescue of markets to stop yet another financial panic that threatened to bring down the global financial system. Panics like these ultimately stem from a fear or inability on the part of financial counterparties to settle claims and honor liabilities. With the Fed now raising interest rates more aggressively than it has in almost thirty years the question that many investors, economists, and policymakers around the world should be asking themselves is "what is the likelihood that the events we experienced in 2008 and most recently in 2020 repeat themselves today?" Our objective in bringing you this conversation is to provide you with a foundational framework for understanding the forces responsible for driving crises of liquidity in the international dollar system during a time when those forces are growing stronger and stronger. In the process you are going to learn about the plumbing of the shadow banking system, the evolution of the eurodollar market, repos, money market funds, and so much more. The majority of that conversation takes place in the second hour of today's episode which is available to premium subscribers only. You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 07/07/2022

In Episode 257 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Helen Thompson, author and Professor of Political Economy at the University of Cambridge. Thompson's current research concentrates on the political economy of energy and the long history of the democratic, economic, and geopolitical disruptions of the twenty-first century, which she explores magisterially in her new book "Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century." For those of us who grew up in the 1980s and 1990s, the nature of the world as we knew it to be only seemed to be getting better and better. The price of energy and the cost of capital kept getting cheaper, the world kept getting safer and more interconnected, and liberal democracy and free-market capitalism were seen as inevitable outcomes of the end of history. Today, all of that feels like it was almost a dream. The last two decades have brought a powerful tide of geopolitical, economic, and democratic shocks onto the world. Their fallout has led central banks to create over twenty-five trillion dollars of new money, brought about a new age of geopolitical competition, destabilized the Middle East, ruptured the European Union, and exposed old political fault lines in the United States--fault lines that seem to challenge even those of the tumultuous 1960s and 1970s when the specter of nuclear war and the trauma of violent riots and political assassinations cast a long shadow over the future of the Republic. This conversation between Helen Thompson and Demetri Kofinas endeavors to draw a line of continuity between those turbulent years and the present political moment as we try to imagine how a future situated in the long arch of human history with all its political challenges, economic imperatives, and destructive wars might unfold. It recounts three histories. One about geopolitics, one about the world economy, and one about western democracies, and explains how in the years of political disorder prior to the pandemic, the disruption in each became part of one big story, much of which originates in problems generated by fossil-fuel energies and our efforts to control them. And it explains why, as the green transition takes place, the longstanding predicaments that energy invariably shapes will remain firmly in place. You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 07/06/2022

In Episode 256 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with the CEO of Investment Management Associates, Vitaliy Katsenelson. Vitaliy is a well-known value investor and author of several books on investing and life. His latest, "Soul in the Game," is a philosophical exploration of the sources of life's meaning told through a collection of day-to-day observations and insights about Vitaliy's early childhood in Russia, his experiences as a parent, and his love of classical music, and most importantly of art, which features prominently in their discussion. This conversation combines two of the objectives that Demetri laid out in the introduction to a recent episode he published on the subject of courage and self-actualization, namely his desire to take a more holistic approach to exploring and analyzing the macro challenges that we are all facing as a community, but which affect each and every one of us as individuals. Vitaliy has made that very easy to do, because he writes so prolifically about both of these things, whether it is the principals of value investing, his thoughts on the macro economy, markets, stagflation, or the path of interest rates, as well as how to cultivate objectivity, the benefits of introducing randomness into your life, and learning how to separate the things that you can't control from the things you can. You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 06/28/2022

In Episode 255 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Ian Bremmer. Ian Bremmer is the president and founder of Eurasia Group, the world's leading global research and consulting firm, and GZERO Media, a company dedicated to providing intelligent and engaging coverage of international affairs. Bremmer is also the author of ten books, including his latest, "The Power of Crisis," in which he argues that we are unprepared for a trio of looming crises in the areas of pandemic response, climate change, and the next technological revolution. All of these looming crises that Ian focuses on are subjects that we've explored in great depth over the years with folks like fmr. FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, NASA's Chief Climate Scientist Gavin Schmidt, Google's Eric Schmidt, and so many more. You can find all of those previous and relevant conversations in the related section on the episode page of our website. Because of the ongoing war in Ukraine and its effect on global commodity markets—and in particular oil & gas—our conversation with Ian leads with a discussion about climate policy. The discussion focuses specifically on the war in Ukraine, what it reveals about our vulnerabilities as we try transition towards more sustainable, carbon-free forms of energy production, and how to balance our national security concerns while still ensuring that we can meet the long-term climate goals set out in the 2016 Paris Agreement. In the second part of their conversation Kofinas and Bremmer continue their discussion about energy markets, eventually pivoting to a much broader conversation about the upcoming elections in 2022 and 2024, and specifically why there seems to be a persistent leadership deficit in American politics today and what we can do to change that. They also discuss media reform and what we can do as individuals and in some cases as influencers with large followings to have more constructive and good-faith conversations around the issues that matter to all of us as we navigate what may well be the most dangerous time for the international system since at least the early stages of the Cold War. The goal of today's conversation, among other things, is to bring you the perspective of someone who operates within some of the most powerful networks of people in the world—and is an advisor to many of them. Ian Bremmer has years of experience speaking with global leaders, CEO's of Fortune 100 companies, and experts across all industries & territories, making him an invaluable resource for anyone trying to think about the future path of policy, risks to global governance, and so much more. You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 06/21/2022

In Episode 254 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Jared Dillian, editor of The Daily Dirtnap, a financial newsletter for professional investors focused on gauging market sentiment and how to capitalize on it. Dillian is also the author of two very successful books on Wall Street and investing and is the host of the Be Smart podcast, where he talks to his listeners about everything from how to sort out their personal finances to how to approach trading and investing in the stock market and everything in between. This conversation is yet another in a series of episodes that we've been doing focused on how to navigate the transition in market regimes and all of the challenges that this transition presents for our assumptions about markets and the world at large. Jared is the perfect person to speak to about this not just because of his focus on sentiment, but because he really is someone who stands apart. He's a contrarian in the purest sense of that word and during a time when many of the people we've had on this podcast increasingly seem to share similar perspectives on the future path of interest rates, inflation, and energy prices, bringing on someone like Jared is a way of holding ourselves and our ideas accountable–something that is especially important whenever money or investing are involved. That said, Jared Dillian also has another unique quality which is that he publishes an investment newsletter, which means that he spends an enormous amount of time thinking through his investment ideas in public and that can be very tricky to do while also managing to invest successfully in those ideas, precisely because of how easy it is to become emotionally invested in being right. This is something that you will see time and time again in the financial news business. Financial commentators and pundits will twist themselves into pretzels trying to align their public statements, personas, and track records with an ever-changing set of market conditions. Therefore, one of the topics that Jared and Demetri discuss is how not to do that and how to know when someone else is doing it. In other words, how to filter through information so that you know who to listen to, what to take from them, and then how to exercise a level of humility in your own investment mindset so that you don't get caught off-sides during a period of time where we think that market conditions and assumptions about risk and allocation will be changing faster than at any point since the great financial crisis. You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 06/14/2022

In Episode 253 of Hidden Forces, I (Demetri Kofinas) share an interview I recently gave on the In-Bloom podcast hosted by Micaela Richmond. This was a pretty emotional conversation, and I don't want to spoil the episode by giving it away, but I do want to say that while the subjects I mostly cover on Hidden Forces are intellectual the things that matter most to me are most definitely not. Every now and then I publish episodes that speak to those things like my episode with Jerry Colona on the hero's journey and the art of growing up or my episode with Eugenia Zuckerman who courageously shared stories from her own experience living with Alzheimer's. These types of conversations speak to what I believe is common in all of us. Our common humanity and our capacity to experience joy and suffering as we try and make our lives matter. And that can be really hard especially when you're younger and you're just starting out, full of insecurities, self-doubt, impatience, fear…I dealt with a lot of fear when I was growing up—fear of failure, fear of disappointing others, fear of not amounting to anything. That was my greatest fear that I'd die and have made nothing of my life. It wasn't until I overcame those fears of failure and of not amounting to anything by learning to run into danger, by learning to run into the burning building that I found my path to bliss. And I say this because I know that millions of you out there feel exactly the same way even if you haven't found the words to articulate it. My hope is that today's conversation with Micaela can go some way in helping you identify, face, and overcome those fears regardless of where you are in your life, because those are the things that stand in the way of joy, love, and self-actualization. Those are the things that matter in life. Not money or fame or material success. The sooner you recognize that, the sooner you can come into relationship with the mystery of life from which I believe everything arises and ultimately returns. You can access the transcript to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 05/05/2022

In Episode 252 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Daniel Peris, Senior Vice President and Senior Portfolio Manager at Federated Hermes in Pittsburgh. Daniel is also the author of three books that together explore the intellectual underpinnings of modern portfolio allocation, with a particular focus on dividend investing, why it's fallen out of favor with investors over the last 30 years, and why dividend-paying securities are positioned to outperform some of their more growth-oriented, cashless competitors in the next 30. While our recent episodes with Tony Greer and Jeff Currie also focus on the rotation from growth stocks to value stocks, those conversations are industry-specific, namely, they focus on commodities and industrial resources. Conversely, the objective of today's conversation with Daniel is to narrow that focus to companies that pay some portion of their profits to shareholders, irrespective of industry. The goal of today's episode is to help you reimagine what is possible for your portfolios and how to manage them in a stagflationary global economy characterized by rising risk rates and persistently higher levels of financial volatility. You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 05/23/2022

In Episode 251 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Tony Greer, the founder of TG Macro, an independent research firm that provides fundamental, technical, and behavioral analysis of global markets to institutional and non-institutional clients alike. This conversation follows-up on a series of episodes we've published recently focused on the macro, political, and geopolitical economy, with an especially strong focus on commodities, currencies, and government policy. The goal with all of these episdoes has been to help listeners develop a framework for thinking about some of the big-picture trends driving markets and the economy, with the ultimate goal of helping them gain the type of conviction needed in order to invest successfully in them. Those who heard Demetri's recent episode with Grant Williams know that he was able to use this framework to profitably exit long-held positions in risk-assets ahead of the recent market downturn and even rotated some of those profits into commodities, though as he has said countless times he did not allocate nearly enough because he lacked conviction. He didn't know enough to feel confident in the Supercycle thesis that we laid out in our recent episode with Jeff Currie. He didn't fuly appreciate the supply-side picture that the team at Doomberg has been writing about so presciently for the past year and that we spoke with them about during Doomberg's recent appearance on Hidden Forces. So what does one do now? What does one do if he or she is persuaded by the thesis that long-term, structural forces restricting the supply of key commodities will support persistently high prices even in the face of relatively weak demand, but doesn't have conviction around what those prices could reasonably be, especially in the short-term ahead of a Fed tightening cycle? This is why we've brought Tony Greer on the podcast. Tony's specialty is trading commodities. He's been doing it for 30 years and we're going to rely on his experience to work through exactly the type of dilemma that has been laid out here and which many of you may also be struggling with. You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 05/17/2022

In Episode 250 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with CEO of Santiago Capital and originator of the "Dollar Milkshake" theory, Brent Johnson. Brent and Demetri discuss his thesis on the Dollar as part of a much larger conversation about the sell-off that we're currently experiencing in risk assets, the dislocations we're seeing in currencies and currency pairs like Dollar-Yen, and how to position yourself as conditions change in real-time. Because so much is happening in markets right now it is challenging to know where to focus your attention, which is why Brent's framework around the role of the US Dollar and its impact on financial flows is crucial for understanding what we're seeing in markets today. We have published countless episodes over the last several years in anticipation of the events that are transpiring today. We think we are in the end-game phase of what in our view has been a forty-year paradigm of falling interest rates, rising debt levels, low inflation, growing inequality, and peak globalization, all of which we believe are in the process of reversing. How that process unfolds and what assets and investments you want to be invested in during this time do not have straightforward answers, but conversations like this one with Brent are crucial in helping you think through the steps required to get you there. You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 05/12/2022

In Episode 249 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Nathaniel Whittemore, host of "The Breakdown" a podcast distributed by CoinDesk, which focuses on the big picture power shifts in the economy and society, seen through the lens of crypto. It's also the largest daily analysis podcast in the bitcoin and crypto space and one that Demetri has relied on to sort through the daily noise and to get a sense of its community's cultural attitudes and narratives for years. Demetri asked Nathaniel to come onto the podcast today to help him make sense of the events that have transpired in crypto over the last week, including the collapse of Terra Luna and its algorithmically maintained stablecoin UST. But they also discuss the overall state of the market and the implications and consequences of collapses like LUNA's for other stablecoins, as well as for regulation and participation in the space. Lastly, the two share their perspectives on what Demetri considers to be crypto's biggest vulnerability, which is its use as a life raft for a generation of younger investors who see it as their ticket out of the hamster wheel of policy-induced financial inequality and modern-day serfdom. What eventually becomes of these people—their disaffection and its manifestation in American political life is a question that they also consider. You can access the full conversation and transcript to this premium-only episode by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 05/13/2022

In Episode 248 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with professors of international relations John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt. Professor Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and the author of multiple books including "The Tragedy of Great Power Politics," "Why Leaders Lie," and "The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities." Professor Walt is the Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is also the author of several books including "Revolution and War," "Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy," and most recently "The Hell of Good Intentions." They both have appeared separately on the podcast before: professor Walt for a conversation on the decline of US primacy and professor Mearsheimer on the power of nationalism in international affairs. They are also both prominent members of the so-called "realist school" and their views have often run counter to the prevailing orthodoxy in Washington, which one could broadly characterize as interventionist. John Mearsheimer especially has gained attention for his views on Ukraine, which went viral after the recent Russian invasion. Just one of his videos on YouTube alone has been seen over 26 million times. Demetri asks him about that experience, why he thinks his views have resonated so strongly with the public, and if there's a connection between peoples' views on Ukraine and their positions on the larger culture wars that seem to be dividing so many of us in Western societies today. Of course, the conversation veers well beyond Ukraine, which is just the touching off point for a much larger discussion about the future of great power competition, the endurance of the alliance between Russia and China, America's pivot to Asia, and how Russia's invasion of Ukraine could actually make that easier, and what should the goals of American foreign policy be. You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 05/10/2022

In Episode 247 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Jeff Currie, global head of Commodities Research at Goldman Sachs and an expert on commodity markets, commodity dynamics related to corporate risk management & geopolitics, and how to invest strategically in what Jeff Currie believes is a "commodity supercycle." Currie is a fountain of knowledge and uniquely good at breaking down the market dynamics and material importance of an industry that incorporates every single aspect of the global economy from capital markets, to supply chains, to international politics. Understanding these dynamics is crucial for businesses and governments who need to navigate and plan for a future that is going to look radically different from anything that we have seen in a very long time. They are also crucial to understand for anyone managing money, as are the forces currently at work in the real economy and how multiple cycles of underinvestment, rising costs of capital, deglobalization, and wealth inequality to name just a few, are converging to create the greatest period of financial, economic, and political change in a hundred years. Fortunes will be made and many more will be lost during this period, and today's conversation with Jeff is meant to provide yet another important piece to understanding this very big puzzle. You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 05/04/2022

In Episode 246 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Michael Anderson and Vance Spencer. Michael and Vance are the founders of Framework Ventures, a crypto-native venture capital firm with a team of technologists, researchers, and investors that actively build alongside the companies and protocols in which they invest. They were on the podcast two years ago to discuss their thesis on the opportunities in decentralized finance and they are back on today to talk about blockchain gaming and their latest, big bet on the future of the crypto industry. We are huge fans of these guys. They're thoughtful. They're passionate. And they're native. They've grown up in this space and their investment philosophy and framework reflect this. Besides discussing the opportunities in gaming, Michael and Vance also share elements of their approach to investing in crypto, how they source deals and outcompete legacy venture funds with deep pockets in an industry that is long on capital but short on know-how: the type of know-how that results from a philosophy of active participation running nodes, staking assets, providing security reviews, building tools, and participating in network governance. Our objective in bringing you this conversation is to give you a roadmap for investing in what can often feel like an intimidating and rapidly changing space that we believe will nonetheless produce some of the biggest value generating opportunities in software and some of the most rewarding opportunities for cultivating monetizable online experiences and collaboration on the Internet. You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 04/20/2022

In Episode 245 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Grant Williams. Grant is the host of the Grant Williams Podcast and the author of the "Things that Make You Go Hmmm…" newsletter, which you can find at Grant-Williams.com. We are grappling with what will turn out to be the greatest socio-economic and political changes in one hundred years. What these changes will mean for the future of democracy, civil society, and the viability of capitalism are what today's conversation is all about. How you choose to position yourself in anticipation of these changes is one of the most important challenges you will ever face as an investor and sovereign individual. This episode is meant to help you work through those challenges and guide you through the changes to come. You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 04/18/2022

In Episode 244 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with the always congenial, yet uncompromisingly opinionated chicken, Doomberg. Doomberg's expertise in heavy industry makes him the perfect guest to discuss what's happening in energy and commodity markets. So, it's no surprise that he and Demetri talked about this, as well as the investment opportunities in uranium, which Doomberg has written about extensively in his most recent post on substack titled "Sitting Down With Sprott." The two also discuss the renewed lockdowns in Shanghai, how they compound existing global food and supply chain issues, and how those issues are part of a larger set of challenges that will lead to food shortages, particularly in the developing world. This has implications for everyone on the planet, even the developed countries, but especially the Europeans who will experience even more migratory pressure from Africa and the Middle East. This adds to the destabilizing political forces that we've described so many times on this podcast. this part of the episode along with a discussion about the future monetary system are all in the second half of their conversation, which is available to premium subscribers only. You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week's episode by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 04/11/2022

In Episode 243 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with investor and financial historian Russell Napier. Russel was on the podcast a year ago for a conversation about his book on the Asian Financial Crisis and "The Birth of the Age of Debt." Today's episode picks up where that conversation left off, building on the foundations of the post-Bretton Woods system of flexible exchange rates and dollar hegemony to speculate on what comes next—on what the new order that is now being born will look like, how it will operate, and what its implications will be for economies, industries, portfolios, and the role of the dollar in the new, international monetary system. It's a conversation about inflation, war, and how to position oneself for a new world where old assumptions about monetary policy, risk-taking, and the power and influence of governments to shape economic opportunities will need to be radically rethought. Understanding who the winners and losers of this new economic and political order will be, as well as the asset classes, industries, and companies that will benefit from it is an imperative for investors. This conversation is meant to help you develop the mindset and strategies that you will need to navigate this new world. You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 04/07/2022

In Episode 242 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas shares an appearance he made on "The Realignment" podcast a week before the invasion of Ukraine. Demetri spoke to the seriousness with which he views the information problem and the information war that we're all combatants in today, the move from unipolarity to a world of disorder, as well as the spiritual deadening that he feels we've all been living through. He also discusses the need for both a national purpose and a sense of self that is inclusive, communal, and forgiving of our individual shortcomings—a sense of self that makes space for the imperfections of a human life. The world that we are living in today is not the world that most of us grew up in and the next few years are going to be crucial in determining how we want to face the challenges of this new world and more importantly who we want to be coming out the other side of it. What matters to us? Who are we, beyond the carefully curated exteriors that we present on our social media feeds? What do we deem worth fighting for? That's a question we have yet to answer and haven't had to answer for a very long time. This is a luxury we can no longer afford. You can access the full episode and transcript to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 02/16/2022

In Episode 241 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Chris Painter, a globally recognized leader and expert on cyber security who has been at the vanguard of U.S. and international cyber issues for over thirty years—first as a prosecutor of some of the most high-profile cybercrime cases in the country and then as a senior official at the Department of Justice, FBI, the National Security Council, and the State Department. He's responsible for having established the Office of the Coordinator for Cyber Issues and served as Senior Director for Cyber Policy in the National Security Council. With the Biden administration reiterating prior warnings that the Russian Government is exploring options for conducting cyberattacks against the United States in response to sanctions levied against the Russian economy, we wanted to help bring all of you up to speed on exactly what those warnings are, what steps are being taken to minimize the damage they may cause, and what the range of possible responses by the U.S. government will be depending on the nature and targets of those attacks. This conversation is meant to give you the information that you need in order to best prepare yourselves and your businesses for what might be coming next, so that you remain ahead of the curve as events evolve and as the collateral damage of the war in Ukraine potentially widens. You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 03/24/2022

In Episode 240 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Jon Wolfsthal, a veteran of the national security establishment who has served as both special assistant to the President of the United States for National Security Affairs and senior director at the National Security Council for arms control and nonproliferation. He's been involved in almost every aspect of U.S. nuclear weapons, arms control, nonproliferation and security policy during his 30-years of working on issues of national security. This episode is an exploration of US and Russian nuclear doctrine and decision-making protocols. It's a conversation about how people and institutions in both the United States and Russia think about nuclear war and escalation management, acknowledging that nuclear war would be an unimaginable horror that no rational person would actually want. Today's conversation is meant to give you the information you need to wrap your arms around what may instinctively feel like a hopelessly scary and irrational situation, so that you can develop the composure you need in order to deal with it. You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 03/21/2022

In Episode 239 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Peter Zeihan geopolitical strategist and author of the soon-to-be-released book "The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization." Demetri asked Zeihan back on the podcast in order to get his perspective on the very serious situation that is unfolding in Ukraine and Eastern Europe at the moment. We discuss the European security theatre, US-Russia relations, the risks of military confrontation with NATO, nuclear escalation, and knock-on effects to global energy markets and food systems. We also speculate on China's involvement in the diplomatic efforts over Ukraine, the implications for Taiwan, the US Dollar system, and so much more. Our objective in bringing you this conversation is to situate the war in Ukraine within this larger geopolitical framework, so that when you see things like Saudi Arabia engaging in talks with China to price some of its oil sales in Renminbi or Egyptian bonds selling off over concerns about wheat shortages and rising prices you are able to put it all in context. The full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week's conversation can be accessed by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 03/17/2022

I'm hosting an event at Ideal Glass Studios in New York City's Greenwich Village on Thursday, March 31st. The event includes a panel featuring the founders of Nillion, a decentralized public network based on an exciting new cryptographic primitive called Nil Message Compute (NMC) that I recently covered in Episode 234 with Miguel De Vega. Attendees will have a chance to learn more about the project, ask questions of the panelists, and socialize with fellow Hidden Forces listeners and past guests of the podcast who will also be in attendance. Doors open at 6 PM EDT and the panel will begin promptly at 7 PM. Make sure to RSVP here while there are still seats available.

In Episode 238 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Hari Krishnan (Head of Volatility Strategies at SCT Capital) and Ash Bennington (Senior & Crypto Editor at Real Vision) about their book "Market Tremors: Quantifying Structural Risks in Modern Financial Markets." Since the Global Financial Crisis, market structure has undergone a dramatic shift. A combination of Central Bank policy, disintermediation of commercial banks through regulation, and the growth of passive products such as ETFs have 'zombified' markets. Risk has increasingly built up beneath the surface through a combination of excessive leverage and crowded exposure to specific asset classes and strategies. In many cases, historical volatility understates prospective risk. This conversation is meant to expose you to some of the ideas behind Market Tremors, which provides a practical and wide-ranging framework for dealing with the credit, positioning, and liquidity risk that investors face in modern markets. Ash and Hari draw on the fields of statistical physics and game theory to simplify and quantify the impact of very large agents on the distribution of forward returns, and offer techniques for dealing with situations where markets are structurally risky yet realized volatility is low. You can access the transcript and intelligence report to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 03/14/2022

In Episode 237 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with journalist, historian, and author Sebastian Mallaby about his latest book, "The Power Law," which delves into the history of the venture capital industry and early-stage investing. This conversation is meant to provide you with a framework for thinking about how to invest in businesses, initiatives, and projects, which not only lack cash flows, but whose values are often fundamentally intangible, difficult to measure, and often impossible to quantify. As more and more of our economic life happens in the digital realm, the ability to assess value and invest accordingly will become an increasingly invaluable skill-set for investors. In Part Two of their conversation, which is available to premium subscribers only, Sebastian and I delve into the geopolitics of venture capital, some of the approaches to investing in this space, and how national governments can participate in order to support their domestic defense sectors without creating the malincentives that we often associate with 9-figure fighter jets and four-hundred-dollar hammers. Demetri and Sebastian also discuss Web3 in the context of initial coin offerings and how these types of crowdsourced investments have transformed the early stage landscaped and brought public capital into areas of the market that would have never been able to source it only 10 years ago. Lastly, Sebastian offers his views on the uniquely challenging situation facing the Fed Reserve at the moment and what he thinks is most important to focus on when trying to project the likely path for interest rates, economic growth, and asset prices. You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 02/15/2022

In Episode 236 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Julia Friedlander, the C. Boyden Gray senior fellow & director of the Economic Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council's GeoEconomics Center. Ms. Friedlander served as senior policy advisor for Europe in the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, where she collaborated with EU partners on global sanctions policy and combatting illicit finance and as director for the European Union, Southern Europe and Economic Affairs at the National Security Council, charged with coordinating U.S. interagency policy on transatlantic relations and the European Union for White House. Julia's extensive experience in economic statecraft make her the perfect person to speak to about the the sanctions that have been and continue to be levied against the Russian economy and its political class. We discuss what these sanctions mean in practice and what it is that makes them so unprecedented, as well as the intended and unintended consequences for the prosecution of Russia's war against Ukraine. Aditional topics include the effect of sanctions on the geopolitical stability of Europe, the future of Russia, and the position of the dollar at the center of the international, financial system. You can access the transcript and intelligence report to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 03/07/2022

In Episode 235 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with the fmr. CTO and co-founder of CrowdStrike Dmitri Alperovitch about the latest developments in the war between Russia and Ukraine, including the risks of escalation between Russia & NATO, implications for US-Sino relations, cyberattacks against Western countries, political warfare, and much more. Dmitri Alperovitch was on this podcast late last year for an episode titled "Why Putin Plans to Invade Ukraine," in which he explained why he was convinced that Vladimir Putin was going to invade Ukraine in January or February of 2022. It was a controversial view at the time that proved to be absolutely correct in retrospect. Kofinas asked him back on the podcast to help explain (1) why so many people struggled to see this war coming, (2) the ramifications of Putin's actions, including his strategic and perhaps, even messianic motivations, (3) risks of escalation, (4) pathways for de-escalation, (5) the implications of this war for US-Sino relations in negotiations over Taiwan, (6) the remilitarization of Germany and the strategic security of Europe, (7) and much more. Dmitri's background in cybersecurity and forensic analysis also proved useful during a discussion about cyber warfare and the dangers of cyber escalation on the part of Russia in responding to Western economic sanctions. The primary objective of today's episode is to bring you up-to-speed on the latest developments in this geopolitical drama, with the larger, more long-term goal of helping you wrap your arms around some of the more nuanced aspects of the diplomatic crisis so that you know what to focus on, who listen to, and how to think about the types of risks that all of us face going forward. You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 03/04/2022

In Episode 234 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Dr. Miguel de Vega, the creator of Nillion's new cryptographic primitive, Nil Message Compute (NMC). Nillion allows a decentralized network of nodes to work together using a non-blockchain technology known as Secure Multi-Party Computation (SMPC) to store and process information at essentially centralized server speed, all while remaining information-theoretic secure (ITS). This unique feature represents a significant breakthrough in decentralized systems, allowing Nillion to operate the first decentralized and permissionless public SMPC network at scale. Its security and performance characteristics enable Nillion to not only serve as a secure processing layer for Web3, but also as a source of off-chain computation, as a decentralized private enclave, and as an enabler of interoperability between ledgers. Today's conversation is meant to give you an early introduction to this potentially transformative technology. Demetri will also be hosting a Hidden Forces panel event with Chief Scientist and inventor of Nillion, Dr. Miguel de Vega and other members of the team at Ideal Glass Studios in New York City's Greenwich Village on Thursday, March 31st, where you can learn more about the project, meet key members of the founding team, and socialize with other listeners and guests of the podcast. Doors open at 6 PM EDT and the panel will begin promptly at 7 PM. You can RSVP for the event HERE and access a special advanced copy of the Nillion whitepaper HERE. You can get early access to the episode, as well as the episode transcript and intelligence report to this week's conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 02/18/2022

The war in Ukraine has broken out while I've been away on vacation. This is an update for listeners so that you know what to expect from the show in the next couple of weeks. In the meanwhile, you can follow me on Twitter at @kofinas, where I have been sharing my thoughts on the geopolitical situation, as well as retweeting those of the people I follow in order to stay abreast of events as they evolve. This is a dangerous time for the world, but especially for the people of Ukraine who have shown incredible courage in the face of an aggressive adversary whose motivations and final objectives remain unclear at this point in time.

In Episode 233 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with award-winning author and recurring Hidden Forces guest Jimmy Soni about his newst book on the PayPal Mafia and the founders who shaped Silicon Valley and transformed the Fintech and online payments industry. The history of the so-called "PayPal Mafia" does not simply constitute the individual histories of star-studded founders like Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Reed Hoffman, and others. The history of PayPal is in many ways the history of the future. It's about a company that was in so many ways ahead of its time. PayPal was fintech before anyone even knew what that word meant. It was one of the earliest pioneers of what former team member and later LinkedIn founder Reed Hoffman would dub "blitzscalling," which is what you do when you need to grow really, really fast. And that's what PayPal's founders did, and they did it while under constant threat of extinction, from not only criminals trying to defraud their customers or competitors trying to take their business, but also from each other. And that's because the story of the PayPal mafia is also the story of an unlikely, but nonetheless successful merger of two very different but equally competitive cultures, that of Elon Musk's X.com and Peter Thiel's Confinity. The objective of this episode is to give you a historical context for many of the business practices that have since become standard operating procedures across both Silicon Valley and Wallstreet. Things like CAPTCHA, blitzscalling, and micro-deposits, just to name a few. All of these innovations came out of a company under siege for almost the entire course of its pre-IPO existence, and it was in many ways this daily battle for survival that was central to shaping not only PayPal's culture, but its success: the type of success that every entrepreneur and every founder dreams of. Most of the conversation about fraud, using financial incentives to effectively buy customers and scale quickly, as well as a discussion about the intersection of fintech and cryptocurrency is featured in the second part of our episode available on our premium subscriber feed. Anyone signed up to our Super Nerd tier can also access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 02/14/2022