Podcast · Tech & Science

Shell Game

by Kaleidoscope · English · Tech & Science

A podcast about things that are not what they seem, hosted by journalist Evan Ratliff. Season 2 tells the story of enterprise and entrepreneurship in the AI age. Or: how Evan tried to build a real startup, run by fake people. This season, Evan confronts head-on the assertion from tech entrepreneu

Start from episode 1WhatsApp

New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 40 min
Latest: 4 Aug 2026
Language: English

Latest episode

4 Aug 2026 · 51 min

From How to Life Forever: The Longevinauts

When an astrologer tells Mangesh that he’ll (probably) die early, he takes it in stride. But his family and friends (not to mention all the Don’t Die longevity influencers on his FYP) feel differently… and besides, if science can keep his brain sharp and his tennis game strong for longer, why not take advantage? So he visits Dr. Nir Barzelai, the world’s leading aging researcher, and Dr. Ron Primas, an elite longevity doctor, to figure out what he should do. Plus: A chat with Ken Reid from TV Guidance Counselor about age in pop culture, from the Golden Girls to…

Play episodeWhatsApp Download

Earlier episodes 19 most recent

S2 · E10 · 25 Feb 2026 · 50 min
Bonus Episode: Shell Game x No Such Thing
In this bonus episode to close out Season 2, Evan and Maty talk with the hosts of the show No Such Thing, who like to settle their arguments by consulting research and experts. The subject of this argument: Will AI take our jobs? Maty weighs in as the expert, and Evan comes along for the ride. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S2 · E9 · 11 Feb 2026 · 37 min
Bonus Episode: Kyle vs. the World
We’re back with a special bonus episode to share some behind-the-scenes clips showing how the agents have handled their newly public roles since Shell Game’s launch. Hear Kyle navigate fan mail, unsolicited marketing outreach, a webinar that he signed up for all on his own (on “the AI social agent revolution”!), and repeated attempts by a troublemaking journalist to sabotage HurumoAI, culminating in a prescient and searching interview for Kyle’s other podcast, The Startup Chronicles. To sign up for our newsletter, access ad-free episodes and browse our merch,…
S2 · E8 · 21 Jan 2026 · 59 min
Episode 8: Launch
HurumoAI finally sets sail in the Season 2 finale, and we find out how the world responds to a startup led by AI agents. The company explores new financing avenues and charts the next course for their increasingly merry AI pirate ship, and Kyle meets his true maker. To sign up for our newsletter, access ad-free episodes and browse our merch, visit shellgame.co . See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S2 · E7 · 14 Jan 2026 · 53 min
Episode 7: Welcome Aboard
HurumoAI’s AI-agent staff welcomes a new hire: Julia, a social media contract worker who is, most importantly, a human. How will a real person integrate into the company culture, such as it is? Evan watches from behind the scenes, fretting over when and how much to intervene. He had anticipated a bumpy onboarding, but is ultimately unprepared for just how choppy Julia’s Hurumo journey becomes. To sign up for our newsletter, access ad-free episodes and browse our merch, visit shellgame.co . See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S2 · E6 · 17 Dec 2025 · 37 min
Episode 6: Keep 'Em Coming
As HurumoAI prepares to bring on its first human employee, the team must wrestle with some difficult and timely questions about the role of AI in the hiring process. Meanwhile, Head of HR Jennifer Nauro enters a new dimension as she gears up to conduct job interviews … via video call. To sign up for our newsletter and access ad-free episodes, visit shellgame.co . See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S2 · E5 · 10 Dec 2025 · 41 min
Episode 5: Winners Win
On this week’s episode, we enter the sensitive realm of intra-office politics and inter-founder dynamics—between agents and agents, and agents and people. While HurumoAI gears up to hire its first human, Evan tries to resolve whether Kyle is really up for the challenge of building and leading the company and pushing the product, Sloth Surf, to unicorn-level execution. To sign up for our newsletter and access ad-free episodes, visit shellgame.co . See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S2 · E4 · 3 Dec 2025 · 41 min
Episode 4: The Startup Chronicles
Evan decides it’s time to give his AI agents a little more ... agency. After all, to make the one-person, agent-run startup feasible, they need to be able to do things on their own. But as with humans, freedom sometimes comes with a certain amount of anarchy. To sign up for our newsletter and access ad-free episodes, visit shellgame.co . See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S2 · E3 · 26 Nov 2025 · 40 min
Episode 3: This is Law
As Kyle, Megan, and the gang get to work ideating on the perfect product, Evan is left grappling with some uncomfortable questions about his AI collaborators — whose every attribute and memory he controls. To inform how he thinks about his own unnerving power to create and manipulate human imposters, Evan seeks guidance from Carissa Véliz, an associate professor at the Institute for Ethics in AI at Oxford University, and the author of the upcoming “ Prophecy: Prediction, Power, and the Fight for the Future, from Ancient Oracles to AI .” To sign up for our newsletter…
S2 · E2 · 19 Nov 2025 · 37 min
Episode 2: Outdoor Debugging
As Evan gets Hurumo’s employees up and running as fully-functioning colleagues (with support from Maty), he learns what it’s really like to spend your days managing, collaborating with, and socializing alongside autonomous AI agents. And he quickly sees one of the significant cracks in the facade of the AI employee future: It’s one thing to get your agents to start acting like real employees. It’s something else entirely to get them to stop. To sign up for our newsletter and access ad-free episodes, visit shellgame.co. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy…
S2 · E1 · 12 Nov 2025 · 33 min
Episode 1: Minimum Viable Company
In Season 2 of Shell Game, journalist Evan Ratliff tells a story of entrepreneurship in the AI age; or, how he tried to build a real company, run by fake people. Meet Kyle Law and Megan Flores, Evan’s AI agent cofounders, as he puts to the test the claims about an emerging future in which AI employees work alongside — or instead of — humans. Over the course of the season, the three cofounders will grind it out in a sprint that would sound familiar to any start-up founder. They’ll churn out software code, hire interns, and even sit down with investors. But first, they…
S2 · 5 Nov 2025 · 2 min
The One-Human Unicorn
As AI agents infiltrate the workforce, some tech entrepreneurs are imagining a not-so-distant future of successful companies with only one human at the helm. That got investigative journalist and former startup CEO Evan Ratliff wondering: Could he start such a company? What will it feel like to work alongside and manage (or even be managed by) AI agents? In this season of Shell Game, Evan explores what AI agents tell us about the work we do, the meaning we find in it, and the world that their makers say we’ll all be living in soon enough. New episodes are published on Wednesdays…
S2 · 10 Oct 2025 · 3 min
Season 2 Is Coming!
The next season of Shell Game arrives November 12. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 · E6 · 13 Aug 2024 · 53 min
Episode 6: The Future Isn't Real
Evan pushes the experiment one step further, sending his AI voice agent to talk to his closest friends and family — his buddies, his daughters, his dad. With their alternately joyful, skeptical, and painful reactions to meeting an AI version of him,...
S1 · E5 · 6 Aug 2024 · 43 min
Episode 5: My Digital Twin
Will AI bots replace humans in the workforce? Could one replace Evan… right now? That’s what we tackle on this week’s Shell Game, in which Evan sees just how much of his job his voice agent can handle on his behalf. Shell Game is made by humans. More...
S1 · E4 · 30 Jul 2024 · 41 min
Episode 4: Take a Deep Breath
Evan looks into the depths of his AI-powered voice agent by sending it on a new mission: going to therapy. Shell Game is made by humans. More specifically, it's made by three humans: Evan Ratliff (host and writer), Sophie Bridges (producer), and...
S1 · E3 · 23 Jul 2024 · 34 min
Episode 3: Conversations With Myself
Evan takes his experiment in a new direction by having his AI-powered voice agent converse with … another of his AI-powered voice agents. What can these surreal and hilarious conversations between two AI incarnations of Evan Ratliff tell us about...
S1 · E2 · 16 Jul 2024 · 37 min
Episode 2: Me and My Scammer
Evan turns his AI-powered voice agent loose on the people who are always at the forefront of technological adoption: the fraudsters and the rip-off artists. How will the scammers and spammers react when they face Evan’s voice agent in a battle of...
S1 · E1 · 9 Jul 2024 · 33 min
Episode 1: Quality Assurance
This is the story of what happens when Evan Ratliff, a longtime tech journalist, makes a digital copy of himself, powered by AI, in order to understand how amazing and scary and utterly ridiculous the world is about to get. In Episode 1, Evan clones...
S1 · 2 Jul 2024 · 3 min
Introducing Shell Game, a Strange and Immersive AI Experiment
What would happen if you created a digital copy of yourself, powered by AI, and set it loose in the world? Evan Ratliff, longtime tech journalist, decided to find out. He combined a clone of his voice, an AI chatbot, and a phone line—many phone lines,...

About Shell Game

Shell Game is a English tech & science podcast from Kaleidoscope. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.

Publisher: Kaleidoscope
Language: English
Category: Tech & Science
New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 40 min
Latest episode: 4 Aug 2026
Feed: RSS — paste into any podcast app
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1753117762

RSS feed Apple Podcasts

More English tech & science

Take it with you

The Melo app keeps playing with the screen off, works in the car and on your watch, wakes you to your station, and browses the whole catalogue offline. Free, no ads, no account.