Evan Ratliff (@ev

Evan Ratliff

658 posts

Evan Ratliff

@ev_rat

Journalist. Maker of Shell Game, author of The Mastermind, cofounder (silent) @HurumoAI. Past: @longformpodcast @atavist @popupmag. Signal: EvanRatliff.01

Out and about

Joined November 2008

Pinned
Evan Ratliff
@ev_rat
Jan 21
The full 8-part season 2 of Shell Game is out today. The tale of @HurumoAI, the world’s first AI agent-cofounded and led startup, ready to binge. Making it weekly left me little time for hyping, so a one-shot buzz recap 🧵 if you’re on the fence:
podcasts.apple.com
Shell Game
Technology Podcast · Weekly Series · 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....
3.4K
Evan Ratliff
@ev_rat
Feb 21, 2025
I spent the last 2 years on the trail of the Zizians, a group of technically gifted young people who set out to save the world. Their ideas led them down a path littered with violence and death. Along the way 6 people have been killed, 6 are jail, others have gone underground.
44K
Evan Ratliff
@ev_rat
Jun 28, 2023
Replying to @ev_rat
So, here’s a story of how a traffic stop in Tulsa launched a massive investigation into an alleged $545 million catalytic converter theft ring, during which one police officer was killed and another grew obsessed with “cutting the head off the snake” 4/4:
How Cops Cracked a $500 Million Catalytic Converter Crime Ring
From bloomberg.com
45K
Evan Ratliff
@ev_rat
Feb 21, 2025
Replying to @ev_rat
You may have seen Zizians headlines, as they entered the media and culture war maelstrom described as a "trans vegan cult" "anarchists" and AI doomers gone mad. But I can assure you, you don't know the story. Here's my best shot at it, years in the making:
The Delirious, Violent, Impossible True Story of the Zizians
From wired.com
14K
Evan Ratliff
@ev_rat
Jul 9, 2024
15 years ago I tried to vanish, in an experiment to explore the role of tech in privacy and surveillance. Older and not-wiser, I'm back with a sequel. This time, I replicated myself, and set my AI replicas loose in the world. The podcast is called Shell Game. Ep 1, out now.
00:00
88K
Evan Ratliff
@ev_rat
Oct 14, 2024
Just over a year ago I stumbled across a lawsuit involving OpenAI that nobody was paying attention to. The chain of events at the heart of it was... not the one I expected to find. The story of OpenAI vs Open AI (gift link):
Why OpenAI Is at War With an Obscure Idea Man
From bloomberg.com
39K
Evan Ratliff
@ev_rat
May 23, 2022
Some... podcast news: I've spent the past year(s) on a new show, about a 21st con artist, who pulled off an extraordinary scam, that became the template for a global menace. It's out June 6. I'm... pretty excited for you to hear it. Et voilà, the trailer:
podcasts.apple.com
Introducing - Persona: The French Deception
Podcast Episode · Persona: The French Deception · Trailer · 3m
Evan Ratliff
@ev_rat
Oct 17, 2022
New story from me, for @BusinessInsider: Remember those AI-generated faces that were all the rage a while back? I've been stalking thousands of them around the web for two years, trying to catalog the bizarro fake personas they represent: (1/)
AI is being used to generate a whole new kind of online scam
From businessinsider.com
Evan Ratliff
@ev_rat
Feb 25, 2025
Best possible podcast news: the genius of Heavyweight returns. "A co-host of the 'Longform' podcast called it 'one of the most compelling and moving things that anyone puts out in media anywhere.'" Couldn't have said it better. Hell yeah. Congrats @J_Goldstein and crew.
Heavyweight Podcast
@heavyweight
Feb 25, 2025
We've got some big news: Heavyweight officially has a new home @pushkinpods. Tell your friends, your exes… tell the strangers on the subway! And be sure to subscribe to the feed to hear about new episodes. nytimes.com/2025/02/25/bus…
4.5K
Evan Ratliff
@ev_rat
Jan 23, 2023
As a dedicated @heavyweight fan -- a @heavyweight-head, if you will -- this week's @longformpodcast was a particular treat. I got to quiz Jonathan Goldstein (@J_Goldstein) on how they are able to a make a show so consistently great:
Longform Podcast
@longformpodcast
Jan 18, 2023
Episode 518: Jonathan Goldstein (@J_Goldstein), host of @heavyweight pod.link/551088534
14K
Evan Ratliff
@ev_rat
Dec 12, 2022
Grant Wahl was an incredible journalist with unshakable integrity, a wonderful writer, a font of generosity. I wasn't as close to him as many who've offered tributes, but we started a conversation in 2016 that I was lucky to carry on with him as a friend:
longform.org
Grant Wahl (1973-2022) · Longform
Grant Wahl was the founder of Fútbol with Grant Wahl, a longtime writer for Sports Illustrated, and the author of The Beckham Experiment and Masters of Modern Soccer. He died on December 10, covering...
Evan Ratliff
@ev_rat
Jan 4, 2023
Big fan of @CasPiancey & @BennettTomlin's show @CryptoCriticPod, which on top of being a smart and fun listen has been incredibly prescient about crypto fraud. So I was honored to gab with them about Persona, The Mastermind, and Satoshi:
Episode 104 – Did Satoshi run a drug cartel: The Paul Le Roux Story (feat. Evan Ratliff)
From cryptocriticscorner.com
12K
Evan Ratliff
@ev_rat
Aug 13, 2024
The final episode of Shell Game season 1 is out today. Hard to make, hard for me to listen to at times, but we hope it's a funny, eerie, delightful, and perhaps haunting conclusion to our journey with an AI clone of me, how it felt to encounter it, and what we can learn from it.
00:00
02:11
Evan Ratliff
@ev_rat
Jul 9, 2024
15 years ago I tried to vanish, in an experiment to explore the role of tech in privacy and surveillance. Older and not-wiser, I'm back with a sequel. This time, I replicated myself, and set my AI replicas loose in the world. The podcast is called Shell Game. Ep 1, out now.
28K
Evan Ratliff
@ev_rat
Oct 17, 2022
Replying to @ev_rat
It got me thinking about photography, fakery, and what happens when we individually or collectively experience "the inversion": the moment when we are encountering more fake identities online than real ones. (which Max Read wrote about back in 2018: (4/) nymag.com/intelligencer/…)
How Much of the Internet Is Fake?
From nymag.com