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Every episode
Shell Game
20 episodes
From How to Life Forever: The Longevinauts
Aug 4, 2026 · 51 min
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…
Bonus Episode: Shell Game x No Such Thing
Ep 10 · Feb 25, 2026 · 50 min
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.
Bonus Episode: Kyle vs. the World
Ep 9 · Feb 11, 2026 · 37 min
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 S…
Episode 8: Launch
Ep 8 · Jan 21, 2026 · 59 min
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.
Episode 7: Welcome Aboard
Ep 7 · Jan 14, 2026 · 53 min
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 shellgam…
Episode 6: Keep 'Em Coming
Ep 6 · Dec 17, 2025 · 37 min
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.
Episode 5: Winners Win
Ep 5 · Dec 10, 2025 · 41 min
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…
Episode 4: The Startup Chronicles
Ep 4 · Dec 3, 2025 · 41 min
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.
Episode 3: This is Law
Ep 3 · Nov 26, 2025 · 40 min
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,…
Episode 2: Outdoor Debugging
Ep 2 · Nov 19, 2025 · 37 min
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…
Episode 1: Minimum Viable Company
Ep 1 · Nov 12, 2025 · 33 min
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&…
The One-Human Unicorn
Nov 5, 2025 · 2 min
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 ma…
Season 2 Is Coming!
Oct 10, 2025 · 3 min
The next season of Shell Game arrives November 12. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Episode 6: The Future Isn't Real
Ep 6 · Aug 13, 2024 · 53 min
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, he tries to come to terms with what generative AI means in this machine-made age.Shell Game is made by humans. More specifically, it's made by three humans: Evan Ratliff (host and writer), Sophie Bridges (producer), and Samantha Henig (executive prod…
Episode 5: My Digital Twin
Ep 5 · Aug 6, 2024 · 43 min
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 specifically, it's made by three humans: Evan Ratliff (host and writer), Sophie Bridges (producer), and Samantha Henig (executive producer). Visit shellgame.co to find out more and support the show. New episodes drop on Tuesdays. This is a public ep…
Episode 4: Take a Deep Breath
Ep 4 · Jul 30, 2024 · 41 min
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 Samantha Henig (executive producer). Visit shellgame.co to find out more and support the show. New episodes drop on Tuesdays. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.shellg…
Episode 3: Conversations With Myself
Ep 3 · Jul 23, 2024 · 34 min
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 identity, authenticity, and the best and worst of human interaction? Enter this digital hall of mirrors to find out.Shell Game is made by humans. More specifically, it's made by three humans: Evan Ratliff (host and writer), Sophie Bridges (producer), an…
Episode 2: Me and My Scammer
Ep 2 · Jul 16, 2024 · 37 min
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 wits? And what happens when they deploy the same kind of AI voice agents on Evan that he’s using on them? Shell Game is made by humans. More specifically, it's produced and edited by Sophie Bridges, and written and hosted by Evan Ratliff. Samantha Henig…
Episode 1: Quality Assurance
Ep 1 · Jul 9, 2024 · 33 min
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 his voice, hooks it up to a chat bot and his phone line, and sends it off to tangle with customer service representatives.Shell Game is made by humans. More specifically, it's produced and edited by Sophie Bridges, and written and hosted by Evan Ratl…
Introducing Shell Game, a Strange and Immersive AI Experiment
Jul 2, 2024 · 3 min
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, actually—into what are called “voice agents.” Then for the six months, he sent them out… as himself.This show is made by humans. More specifically, it’s produced and edited by Sophie Bridges. Evan Ratliff is our host, and Samantha Henig is our exec…
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