Riskgaming

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Which companies will suffer with globalization’s reversal? Jan 17, 2025

Show notes

The Washington Consensus of the past few decades that called for open markets, free trade and reduced regulation will officially die on Monday as Trump re-takes the presidency with a radically different economic program. Free trade is out and tariffs are in; globalization is dead and national sovereignty is the rule of the day. Such a change has massive implications for companies all around the world, many of whom have designed their corporate strategies for a global world. Who is affected, particularly when it comes to U.S.-China relations in the years ahead?

That’s where Isaac Stone Fish comes in. He’s the CEO and founder of Strategy Risks, a data and research company that helps companies and regulators understand and reduce alternative forms of risk. He’s particularly noted for his China expertise, and his firm publishes the SR250 ranking, which highlights the largest American companies with the deepest ties with China, encompassing everything from financing and supply-chain interlinkages to public communications.

Fish joins host Danny Crichton and Riskgaming director of programming Laurence Pevsner to talk about Trump’s imminent arrival, why Ford is the most China-entwined company in the U.S., how China overtook the U.S. in electric vehicles, why American defense contractors are surprisingly engaged in China trade, why we might already be at war with China, how CEOs are managing these new strategic risks and finally, what the biotech and social media industries must do going forward in a more fractured world.

Produced by ⁠Chris Gates⁠

Music by ⁠George Ko

Why financial booms and busts are the key to our progress Jan 10, 2025

Show notes

When we think of booms and busts, we often think of waste. The dot-com bubble, the 2008 financial crisis, and the late 2010s crypto craze drew insane levels of capital into new markets, proceeded to overheat them, and then vaporized everything — leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. Is there a more positive way of looking at these feverish moments of economic activity though, one that accounts for progress?

That’s the question at the heart of Byrne Hobart and Tobias Huber’s new book Boom from Stripe Press. They argue that far from being a destructive force, booms are in fact the critical ingredient needed to induce change in companies, institutions and people. For the low price of the dot-com bubble, we got some of the world’s greatest and more valuable companies, whose worth dwarfs the original cost of the bubble by multiples. Progress can be brought forward in time by the exuberance of these heady eras.

Host Danny Crichton talks with Byrne and Tobias about what booms are and what they do, how economic progress is triggered through business cycles, the cultural spillovers of periods of change, why we should stop being concerned about the scarcity of capital and how to avoid zero-sum thinking in the economics of growth.

Produced by Chris Gates

Music by George Ko

The Best of 2024 Dec 21, 2024

Show notes

It’s been a year for the record books, and so it is with the Riskgaming podcast. We published 68 episodes this year across our main show and The Orthogonal Bet sub-series with Sam Arbesman (which we will have more to share next year!). We’ve had technologists, spies, policymakers, CEOs, authors, artists and all around renaissance wunderkinds on the show this year, and so we wanted to take a step back and highlight the best moments of some of our episodes. With host Danny Crichton narrating, here’s the best 11 moments from 2024 as we head into the holidays.

Produced by ⁠⁠Chris Gates⁠⁠

Music by ⁠⁠George Ko⁠

Introducing our new scenario, “Powering Up” Dec 14, 2024

Show notes

We are really excited to announce the publication of our third and latest Riskgaming scenario, "Powering Up: China’s Global Quest for Electric Vehicle Dominance.” Designed by Ian Curtiss over the course of the last year, we started beta trials of the game a few months ago with dozens of playtesters and just hosted launch runthroughs across the United States in NYC, DC and SF as well as a worldwide tour in London, Romania and Tokyo. It was great fun bringing together dozens of policymakers, tech executives and journalists over the past few weeks.

While we previewed Powering Up on an episode back in October, now that we have played the game with so many diverse groups, we wanted to talk about some of the lessons learned from its design, the patterns of strategies we’ve witnessed among players and the wider implications of those strategies for how the world will change in the years ahead.

So we gathered together host Danny Crichton, Riskgaming director of programming Laurence Pevsner and Ian himself live in our Menlo Park studio to talk about all the results. Come tune in, and then sign up so you can play the next scenario we release in 2025.

Why does America have the most expensive elevators in the world? Dec 06, 2024

Show notes

Recently in the Riskgaming newsletter (“The Productivity Precipice”), host Danny Crichton wrote about one of the biggest challenges facing America: how many of our industries — and particularly those in construction and building — are becoming some of the least-efficient in the industrialized world. Today’s podcast episode identifies yet another problem, and it regards elevators.

Elevators aren’t just a conveyance of convenience, they are also crucial infrastructure for millions of Americans who struggle with mobility and anyone who has ever carried heavy luggage or groceries in or out of a building. Yet, the cost of America’s elevators is often multiple times more expensive than similar elevators in Europe and certainly Asia. Why?

That’s what we’ll discuss today with Stephen Smith, the executive director of the Center for Building, a think tank that studies building codes in global comparative context. His viral op-ed in The New York Times earlier this year has been read by everyone, and he’s continuing to do more research on how zoning and building codes collaborate to drive up prices for everyone. We’ll talk about that, as well as why America remains so suburban, the insider interests and negotiations that constrain construction efficiency, and why the West Coast is particularly bad for overhead.

The Titanic Lessons of VC with Josh Wolfe Nov 27, 2024

Show notes

Every quarter, Lux sends an update to our limited partners observing the macroeconomic environment, the changes in venture capital, and our current thinking regarding the present and future of science and technology. This time, we focused on “Titanic Lessons,” four classic parables from Greek mythology that elucidate our understanding of the world. Joining host Danny Crichton is letter writer Josh Wolfe, co-founder and managing partner of Lux Capital.

Whether it is Prometheus offering fire as a form of “extensionalism” that expands the bounds of human powers, or Atlas taking on the burdens of the world in pursuit of the next intrepid voyage, Josh discusses how new technologies can rapidly augment human potential — but only if they are unlocked and unleashed. Unfortunately, so many of the world’s best innovators remain shackled in research labs and corporate offices without the resources and autonomy to succeed. That’s where our four investment strategies of Lux Labs, corporate spin-offs, tactical global opportunities and fixware come in. We discuss the potential of each in turn.

Then there’s a wider set of warnings from Epimetheus and Menoetius, two Greek Titans whose arrogance and hubris would prove their downfall. We bring them up in the course of discussing the future of AI infrastructure, its expansive energy needs, the power of decentralized compute technologies and finally, the potential for Apple to emerge from behind as an AI winner.

The Orthogonal Bet: Dave Jilk on AI, Poetry, and the Future of AGI Nov 21, 2024

Show notes

Welcome to The Orthogonal Bet, an ongoing mini-series that explores the unconventional ideas and delightful patterns that shape our world. Hosted by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Samuel Arbesman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

In this episode, Sam speaks with Dave Jilk. Dave is a tech entrepreneur and writer. He’s done a ton: started multiple companies, including in AI, published works of poetry, and written scientific papers. And he’s now written a new book that is an epic poem about the origins of Artificial General Intelligence, told from the perspective of the first such entity. It’s titled Epoch: A Poetic Psy-Phi Saga and is a deeply thoughtful humanistic take on artificial intelligence, chock-full of literary allusions.

Sam wanted to speak with Dave to learn more about the origins of Epoch as well as how he thinks about AI more broadly. They discussed the history of AI, how we might think about raising AI, the Great Filter, post-AGI futures and their nature, and whether asking if we should build AGI is even a good question. They even finished this fun conversation with a bit of science fiction recommendations.

Produced by⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Christopher Gates⁠⁠⁠⁠

Music by⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠George Ko⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ & Suno

Elections, global threats and happy hour with the Riskgaming team Nov 18, 2024

Show notes

It’s not every day that we can get our distributed Riskgaming team into one podcast studio, but we actually managed to do it from our NYC base, and with some drinks to boot. Joining host Danny Crichton is Lux’s Riskgaming director of programming Laurence Pevsner and our researcher, part-time columnist and all around utility handyman Michael Magnani.

We talk about the U.S. presidential election and which threats from our AI deepfake election security scenario DeepFaked and DeepSixed actually took place — and which didn’t. We then cover Germany’s sputtering industrial economy, the future of the war in Ukraine and trade tensions with China. Finally, we close out with a discussion of the three threats that the world isn’t thinking about today, and what should be done about them.

The future of defense manufacturing with Anduril CEO Brian Schimpf Nov 15, 2024

Show notes

Anduril has become one of the most-watched companies in Silicon Valley, and for good reason. Its vertiginous rise from small hardware laboratory to next-generation defense prime has entranced engineers and investors alike, and it has also garnered an increasingly long record of success in Washington DC, including its victory in securing the U.S. Air Force’s flagship Collaborative Combat Aircraft contract earlier this year.

Yet for co-founder and CEO Brian Schimpf, the real magic of Anduril has been its ability to scale design, manufacturing and its culture from a dozen early employees to more than 4,000 today. Brian’s maniacal focus has been on ensuring that Anduril never becomes a legacy defense prime ploddingly delivering half-baked products to the disappointed faces of warfighters. Instead, he and his team have tenaciously strategized on business models, contract negotiations, tuck-in M&A, engineering culture and manufacturing centralization and decentralization to ensure that Anduril always offers the highest-quality and most cost-effective products in the marketplace.

Alongside Lux’s own Josh Wolfe, Brian talks about his own founding journey at Anduril, the company’s burgeoning portfolio of products, and how it’s rebuilding the arsenal of democracy in the years ahead through clever and strategic leadership.

The Orthogonal Bet: Embracing Second Acts with Henry Oliver⁠ Nov 14, 2024

Show notes

Welcome to The Orthogonal Bet, an ongoing mini-series that explores the unconventional ideas and delightful patterns that shape our world. Hosted by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Samuel Arbesman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

In this episode, Sam speaks with the writer Henry Oliver. Henry is the author of the fantastic new book Second Act. This book is about the idea of late bloomers and professional success later in life, and more broadly how to think about one’s career, and Sam recently reviewed it for The Wall Street Journal. Sam really enjoyed this book and wanted to have a chance to discuss it with Henry.

Henry and Sam had a chance to talk about a lot of topics, beginning with how to actually define late bloomers and what makes a successful second act possible, from experimentation to being ready when one’s moment arrives. They also explored why society doesn’t really accept late bloomers as much as one might want it to, how to think about the complexity of cognitive decline, what the future of retirement might look like, along with many examples of late bloomers—from Margaret Thatcher to Ray Kroc.

Produced by⁠⁠ ⁠Christopher Gates⁠⁠⁠

Music by⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠George Ko⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ & Suno