Odd Lots

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Latest Episodes:

How War in Iran Will Squeeze America's Farmers Even Further Mar 19, 2026

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America’s farmers can’t seem to catch a break. Years of thin margins and rising costs have already stretched them to the limit. And now, war with Iran is making things even harder. The conflict is driving up global energy and fertilizer prices, pushing producers into tough decisions about what to plant and at what price to sell. At the same time, farmers are still dealing with the impact of tariffs, rising land costs, and stiff competition from agricultural powerhouses like Brazil. On this episode, we’re joined again by Jeff Kazin and Mike Rohlfsen, founders of Agris Academy, which advises farmers on managing risk. They walk us through how global turmoil reaches all the way into the US heartland and into the American food supply.

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War in Iran Is Redrawing the Map for Natural Gas Mar 18, 2026

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Mostly, the world has been watching the price of oil skyrocket amid the war in Iran and the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz. But there's more than just oil that comes out of the region. Qatar is home to the world's largest natural gas field, and for now, it's been almost completely cut off from the rest of the world. Not only has Gulf gas supply been cut off, there's also damage to the core infrastructure, which will take time to repair. Meanwhile, the US is rapidly becoming a natural gas export powerhouse, with volumes having surged since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. So, all in all, the world's natural gas map is rapidly being redrawn. On this episode, we turn to the one and only Bob Brackett, managing director and senior research analyst at Bernstein & Co. He explains the impact of the war on global prices, the prospect for further US exports, how the world will adjust to the loss of Gulf supply, as well as the other commodities that are getting squeezed right now.
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War in Iran is Chewing Through American Missile Stockpiles Mar 16, 2026

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The war in Iran has been fought almost entirely in the skies, with both offensive missiles, as well as anti-missile defense systems. But the math is brutal. The war in Ukraine has already put a dent in American stockpiles, and now it is proving costly to protect American bases and their allies in the region against Iranian drones. On this episode, we speak with Tom Karako, a senior fellow and director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a top defense think tank in Washington DC. We discuss the size and scale of the American arsenal, the supply chain constraints for building more missiles, and the Pentagon's general attempts to ramp up production.

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What War in Iran Means for China's Teapot Oil Refineries Mar 13, 2026

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In the wake of the war in Iran, oil prices have shot up for everyone. But not all oil is exactly equal. And, obviously, a lot of Iranian oil goes to China specifically. Furthermore, because Iran’s oil is sanctioned, a lot of it winds up at China’s so-called “teapot” refineries, which tend to be smaller and owned by independent companies. On the other hand, China has famously been building up its strategic petroleum stockpiles for years, and due to the rise of electric vehicles, they may have less economic sensitivity to the price of crude directly. On this episode, we speak with Erica Downs, senior research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. Erica has a long background studying Chinese energy policy and she talks to us about the potential cost that the war is imposing on China’s economy, why the country has built up such a big buffer stock in the first place, and how this global oil shock could ultimately play to its advantage.

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Legendary Hacker Matt Suiche on Cyberwar in the Age of AI Mar 12, 2026

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We tend to think of warfare in two distinct arenas: the physical and the digital. Increasingly, however, those lines are blurring. Last week, Iran launched drone strikes on data centers in the UAE and Bahrain. Israel has reportedly been hacking traffic lights in Tehran, and this week brought a suspected Iranian cyberattack on US medical device company Stryker, all underscoring long-held fears that hackers could take aim at vital physical infrastructure. On this episode, we speak with Matt Suiche, the legendary French hacker and founder of OnDB, a data infrastructure startup for agentic AI. We discuss what we know of Iran’s cyber capabilities, what digital warfare looks like today, and how AI is transforming coding and hacking.

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War in Iran Is Creating a Fertilizer Crisis Like Never Before Mar 11, 2026

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We all know that the war with Iran has sent oil prices spiking. But it’s also pushing up the cost of all sorts of chemicals, including fertilizers like urea, ammonia and other nitrogen products that are essential for food production. This is all happening at the worst possible time — just before the spring planting season, when fertilizer is most needed. And while farmers have seen higher spot prices for things like urea before, notably back in 2022, there are already signs that this crisis might be worse. So how is fertilizer actually made? And what do higher fertilizer costs mean for farmers and for food prices? On this episode we speak with Alexis Maxwell, senior analyst on Bloomberg Intelligence's agriculture team.
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Rory Johnston on How Oil Could Surge to Over $200 a Barrel Mar 10, 2026

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Oil has obviously spiked massively since the start of the war with Iran. And if you look at various end products, such as jet fuel, the surge is even more extreme. And if the war is prolonged, or if the Strait of Hormuz continues to be functionally blocked, then this could just be the start of an even bigger spike. On this episode, we speak with Rory Johnston, the author of the Commodity Context newsletter. Rory is typically a very level headed guy, and not a doomer at all. And even he is quite alarmed. He says that the persistent closure of the Strait of Hormuz is such big disruption to contemplate that it’s typically used as the worse case scenario in industry thought experiments. He walks us through how oil could go to $200 a barrel or beyond, resulting in higher prices at the pump for American consumers, and perhaps significant shortages in the rest of the world.

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Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev on Tokenization and Prediction Markets for Everything Mar 09, 2026

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Last year, we had Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev on the podcast to talk to us about his company's plans to tokenize shares of private companies. The idea is that retail investors want to participate in hot names like OpenAI and SpaceX, and that tokenizing private equity would allow this to happen. Right after our episode though, a number of companies expressed frustration at the idea, saying that they were not voluntarily participating in the plan. So where do things stand now? And how is Robinhood thinking about how it will play in the red hot prediction market space? On this episode, Vlad returns to talk about where things stand, and all of the company's new efforts to give retail traders even more instruments to use.

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Henry Blodget on the Software Selloff Hysteria and the Problem for OpenAI Mar 07, 2026

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A year ago, all of the talk was about how the big AI companies were wildly overvalued. Everyone was calling it a bubble. Fast forward to now, and a dominant idea in the markets is that AI is so powerful that all kinds of legacy businesses — particularly software — could go to zero. So where does the truth lie? And what now for AI valuations? On this episode, recorded live at the On Air podcast festival in Brooklyn on February 25, we catch up again with Henry Blodget, the former Wall Street analyst turned Business Insider CEO, who is now the founder of Regenerator. In a wide-ranging conversation, Henry argues against the software doom scenario, and sees problems for OpenAI as it faces massive spending costs with stiff competition.

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Lots More on the Seaborne Chaos Around the Strait of Hormuz Mar 06, 2026

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With war breaking out in Iran, the price of oil is surging, in part due to the destruction of oil energy infrastructure, but also the ability of anything to get through the Strait of Hormuz. But it’s not just oil that moves through this key waterway — there are plenty of other goods, including metals and ingredients for fertilizer getting potentially constrained. It’s also not just the risk of violence itself that’s an issue for shipping companies, there’s also the question of how cargoes get insured. On this episode of the podcast, we speak with return guests Anton Posner and Margo Brock, co-founders of the Mercury Group, which helps dry bunk clients solve issues related to logistics, transportation and insurance. They discuss what’s actually happening on the ground, surging insurance rates, and how shippers and carriers are dealing with the chaos.

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