Hidden Forces

In Episode 223 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Doomberg, an anonymous publisher and the proprietor of a bespoke consulting firm that provides advisory services to family offices and c-suite executives. The firm’s principals apply their decades of experience across heavy industry, private equity, and finance to deliver innovative thinking and clarity to complex problems. In the first hour of today’s conversation, Demetri and Doomberg discuss how to build a successful publishing company and what it takes to cultivate an audience in today’s decentralized, networked economy and fragmented media ecosystem. They discuss what that process has been like for the Doomberg team, what goes into building a brand from scratch, and the opportunities that have emerged for independent voices, and how to capitalize on them. In the second hour, they transition into a conversation about cancel culture, the power of platforms vs. audiences, and what it means to have a dedicated group of followers who are willing to

In Episode 222 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Gregg Easterbrook. Gregg was a staff writer, national correspondent, and contributing editor at The Atlantic and has authored thirteen books about a variety of subjects including climate change, globalization, philosophy, and American football. Demetri and Gregg explore the subject of Easterbrook’s latest book, “The Blue Age.” They discuss the extraordinary transformation of the international trading order that we’ve been living through over the last seventy years and the unique role that the US Navy and advancements in naval architecture and marine engineering have played in making all of that possible. It’s difficult to appreciate just how unprecedented this long period of peace on the oceans has been and how extraordinary the deflationary pressures are that this peace has unleashed. It has also had huge implications for the expansion of credit, the reduction of volatility, and the growth in asset values in Western markets—topics that we’ve explor

In Episode 221 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Jim Grant, the founder of Grant's Interest Rate Observer: a legend in the business of investor education and financial media. What separates Jim from millions of his fellow financial journalists, commentators, and authors is the historical perspective that he brings, informed not just by the immense volume of books and periodicals that he’s consumed over the course of his lifetime, but primarily by the wisdom of his own lived experiences and lessons learned from the experiences of others that he’s had the privilege to know and interview over the course his life. Given the ongoing controversy around inflation—its causes and consequences—we couldn’t think of anyone better to talk to than Jim Grant. Jim has been warning his readers about the unintended consequences of overly-accommodative Fed policy and dollar debasement for as long as we have known him and he is uniquely positioned to provide us with the historical context to understand where we find

In Episode 220 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Julius Krein, the editor of American Affairs, a quarterly journal of policy and political-economy that delves into the deeper sociopolitical, cultural, and economic issues facing America and other Western countries. The episode is broken into two parts, the first hour of which focuses on issues of political-economy, policy, and market dynamics that have driven the American economy into a state of “proletarianization,” where its citizens are increasingly ruled by an oligarchy of global elites whose insatiable appetite for wealth and power is endangering the very systems of free-market capitalism and liberal democracy that this kakistocracy claims to uphold. It’s an outcome that Julius Klein would refer to as “capitalism without competence and feudalism without nobility.” The second hour of today’s conversation is, unsurprisingly, the most satisfying insofar as Demetri and Julius tackle the socio-political and cultural dimensions and manifestations of

In Episode 219 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Matt Ridley and Alina Chan. Alina is a Canadian molecular biologist specializing in gene therapy and cell engineering at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and Matt is a British science journalist who has written countless bestselling books on subjects ranging from evolution, to innovation, to genomic science. They are the co-authors of an electrifying new book titled “Viral” that grapples with the mystery of how Covid-19, a virus whose closest known relatives live in bats residing in subtropical southern China, somehow managed to begin spreading among people more than 1,500 kilometers away in the city of Wuhan, while leaving none of the expected traces that such outbreaks usually create. Instead, nearly two years into this pandemic we’re presented with a trail of evidence that increasingly points towards the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the so-called “Lab Leak Hypothesis” as the most plausible source of the outbreak. This is a critically imp

In Episode 218 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Eric Schmidt and Daniel Huttenlocher. Eric is co-founder of Schmidt Futures and the former CEO & Chairman of Google and Daniel is the inaugural dean of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing. They are the co-authors, along with Henry Kissinger, of a phenomenal new book titled, “The Age of AI And Our Human Future,” which explores how Artificial Intelligence is transforming human society—and what it means for all of us. Eric and Dan spend the first hour discussing the technical dimensions of artificial intelligence—what it is and how it works—as well as how it will continue to shape and transform our social and physical realities. The second half of the conversation focuses on the national security dimensions of artificial intelligence, as well as the profound philosophical challenges that it poses for humanity, specifically our need to find meaning in a world where machines will provide answers to more and more questions but without the ability,

In Episode 217 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with New York Times Op-Ed columnist Ross Douthat about his five-year struggle with a disease that in his own words, officially, doesn't exist. It’s a story about personal suffering but also about what happens when we become terribly ill only to realize that even the doctors who are willing to treat us can only do so much. Demetri and Ross spend the first half of their conversation discussing the book and its lessons for not only those dealing with chronic illnesses like Lyme disease, which has afflicted Ross, but for anyone who feels the need to challenge or circumvent the medical establishment in order to treat an illness or cure a serious disease. Unsurprisingly, this leads directly into a conversation about Covid-19, a disease which has inspired its own set of alternative treatment modalities and which has afflicted tens of millions of people with symptoms that the medical establishment is still struggling to understand. In the second hour, Demetri ha

In Episode 216 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Robin Wigglesworth, the Financial Times global finance correspondent and author of “Trillions,” a book which chronicles the origins, history, and future of the index fund, arguably the most disruptive financial innovation of the last 50 years. Robin and Demetri spend the first half of their conversation exploring the history of passive investing and its evolution into what some argue has become a market-distorting phenomenon that is making markets less efficient by inhibiting price discovery and concentrating power in the hands of an increasingly smaller number of index fund managers and purveyors of indices. In the overtime, the two switch gears to discuss some of the timelier stories concerning investors, including inflation, whether or not it is transitory, and what central banks are able and prepared to do in order to curb it. Robin and Demetri also discuss the ongoing trading scandals at the Federal Reserve and what they say about the extent of

In Episode 215 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with 2020 Presidential candidate and Founder of the Forward Party, Andrew Yang. Yang is perhaps best known for popularizing the idea of universal basic income, what he called “the freedom dividend” during his run for president in 2020. He recently launched “the Forward Party,” a political party focused on breaking what Andrew sees as a two-party duopoly that is no longer working and whose members and policies have fallen increasingly out of favor with the majority of Americans. He details many of his policy proposals in his new book “Forward,” including ranked-choice voting, open primaries, term limits, campaign reform, and of course universal basic income: one-thousand dollars for every man and woman in America. Demetri spent most of the first half of their conversation asking Andrew Yang about his experience on the campaign trail, what it was like to run for president, and what it taught him about the American political system and how to go viral in to

In Episode 214 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Scott Gottlieb. Dr. Gottlieb is a physician who served as the head of the FDA from 2017 to 2019. He currently serves on the boards of Pfizer and Illumina and is a regular contributor to CNBC where he has become one of the most recognizable faces in America. His recently published book, “Uncontrolled Spread,” examines how the coronavirus and its variants overwhelmed our national defenses and outlines the steps he thinks we need to take in order to better protect ourselves and our country from the next pandemic. The first half of Demetri’s conversation with Scott was spent examining the systemic failures that Dr. Gottlieb thinks exacerbated the scope of the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as the economic costs associated with the various lockdowns and shutdowns that were imposed in the very early days of the outbreak. Gottlieb also goes into detail about the biological mechanics of the virus, how it spreads, and what we’ve learned about best practices for

In Episode 213 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with David Wessel, a senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution and director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy. David is also the author of a new book titled, “Only the Rich Can Play: How Washington Works in the New Gilded Age.” In the book, Wessel tells the story of the creation of a lucrative tax break in which wealthy elites attend to one another, under the guise of social justice and redistribution. This tax break, known as “Opportunity Zones,” was sold as a way to incentivizing people to invest in distressed, low-income communities, with the official purpose of spurring economic growth and job creation, but which in practice, seems to have served primarily as yet another tax loophole in an already convoluted tax code full of them. The first part of today’s conversation is spent discussing the Opportunity Zone provision itself, the story of its creation and implementation into law, and what this tells us about h

In Episode 212 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with telecom industry veteran and author of “Wireless Wars,” Jon Pelson, about how American companies invented cellular technology, transferred that technology to China, and then sat by and watched as their Chinese competitors drove them out of business. He shares stories from the executives and scientists who built the industry, as well as those of Western politicians, businesspeople, and members of the military who cooperated with and in some cases actively aided the Chinese government and its state champions in their efforts to overtake and crush their western competitors. The first part of today’s conversation is spent familiarizing listeners with 5G technology, how it works, and why it’s important to the future of automation, commerce, and national security. Pelson also goes into some of the details around technology transfers, the rise of Huawei, and the relationship between the Chinese telecommunications industry and the CCP. The episode Overtime

In Episode 211 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas shares his recent appearance on “The Empire’s New Clothes,” a documentary series where host Bradford Pope McArthur examines the cyclical forces that make and break empires and tries to answer the big questions of how we got here as a society and what might be in store for us in the years to come. Topics include global macro, cryptocurrencies, geopolitics, and more. You can access the transcript to this conversation through the Hidden Forces Patreon Page. All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. 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 | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | YouTube | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts Subscribe to our mailing list through th

In Episode 210 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Kai-Fu Lee, CEO of Sinovation Ventures, a leading Chinese technology venture firm. Dr. Lee was formerly the president of Google China and the New York Times bestselling author of AI Superpowers. His latest book, “AI2041: Ten Visions for Our Future,” provides the foundation for today’s conversation about the future of a world driven by artificial intelligence, what it will look like, and the challenges and opportunities for humanity that such a world will create. In the first part of today’s episode, Kai-Fu and Demetri discuss a number of key technologies that Dr. Lee believes will play a pivotal role in transforming our lives over the next 20 years such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing, how these technologies work, and their application in fields such as autonomous driving and predictive analytics. Most of the first half, however, is spent on the subject of “deep learning,” which is a subset of machine learning, which itself is funda

In Episode 209 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Simon Mikhailovich, founder and Managing Partner of “The Bullion Reserve,” a professionally managed private vehicle providing full-service solutions that ensure legal compliance, jurisdictional diversification, liquidity, physical access, and deliverability of gold bullion. Operating within a single structure, TBR maximizes flexibility and enables the use of gold bullion as a deep out of the money put option on the failure of extreme monetary policies with an asymmetric upside. Demetri and Simon spend most of the podcast discussing Simon’s experience growing up in and emigrating from the Soviet Union, and the economic and political lessons that he has drawn from that experience and that we can apply to our present predicament in Western society. The last twenty to twenty-five minutes or so is spent specifically on TBR and the value proposition of holding gold bullion in a world where the traditional, safe-haven asset of US treasuries no longer inspi

In Episode 208 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Adam Tooze, professor of history and the director of the European Institute at Columbia University. He’s also a prolific public commentator and author of several prize-winning books including his latest, “Shutdown: How COVID Shook the World Economy.” In the first part of their conversation, Demetri and Adam work their way through the chain of events that occurred between the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 in January 2020 and the inauguration of Joe Biden in January 2021. Effectively the period that we now consider to be the first full year of the pandemic. In Adam’s own words we “wrestle with power and knowledge in time,” in an effort to understand the nature of the forces that this pandemic has unleashed, their constancy, and their implications for shaping not only our children’s futures but more immediately, ours as well. In the second part of our conversation, Demetri and Adam begin to dissect specific aspects and features of the modern world whether tho

In Episode 207 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Daniel Markey, Senior Expert on South Asia at the United States Institute of Peace who recently served as senior research professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies and as the academic director of the school’s Global Policy Program. He is also the author of “China’s Western Horizon: Beijing and the New Geopolitics of Eurasia,” which provides the roadmap for this conversation. In the first part of their discussion, Demetri and Daniel examine how the communist party in China views the lands, countries, and regions to its west, both historically and in terms of its contemporary security concerns and economic ambitions. How do its Eurasian neighbors view China? What motivates the CCP’s influence campaigns, investments, and diplomatic overtures in its Western region? We also discuss China’s Belt & Road initiative, and how it fits into a larger economic and political vision for a stronger, wealthier, and more asse

In Episode 206 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Jonathan Schroden, Director of the Countering Threats & Challenges Program at CNA. Schroden has served as a strategic advisor on Afghanistan to the US military since 2008, ranging from commands in-country to operational commands outside of Afghanistan, as well as strategic elements in the Pentagon, including the Office of the Secretary of Defense. In the first part of today’s conversation, Jonathan and Demetri examine the lens through which the public has become informed about the events unfolding in Kabul over the last two weeks and the public narrative that has quickly formed around what is truly a humanitarian and political disaster.   The question however that has been lost in all of this is why the United States is leaving Afghanistan in the first place, the cost-calculation behind the decision to withdraw, and how this decision fits into a broader strategic shift in the focus of American Foreign policy. In the second half the two focus on

In Episode 205 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Laurel Miller, Director of International Crisis Group’s Asia Program who previously served as deputy and then acting Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan in the U.S. State Department. Laurel also held the position of senior foreign policy expert at the RAND Corporation and served as a Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, Senior Advisor to the U.S. special envoy for the Balkans, and Deputy to the Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues during her previous time in government. Today’s episode is meant to provide you with a comprehensive understanding of the situation currently unfolding in Afghanistan, the unique circumstances leading up to the collapse of the Afghan government, and the political and geopolitical implications of the reconstitution of a Taliban-led Afghanistan for the United States, its allies, as well as its competitors in the region. The first hour of Demetri’s conversation with Lau

In Episode 204 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with investor and macro-financial strategist James Aitken. This is an over 2-hour-long conversation that ranges from a discussion about the oil industry and the impact of ESG mandates on prices, to the short-and-medium-term impacts of monetary & fiscal policy on inflation, to the post-Covid economy and opportunities for value investing. In the Overtime, James and Demetri pivot their discussion to Asia and the ongoing crackdown in Chinese capital markets, as well as the disruptive implications of China’s deployment of its digital currency electronic payments (DCEP) system and what it means for companies and investors doing business in China. They also discuss the impact that these drastic regulatory changes and disruptive technological innovations will have on American foreign policy and the future of the dollar. You can access the episode Overtime, as well as the transcript and rundown to this week’s episode through the Hidden Forces Patreon Page. Al