Hidden Forces

I'm hosting an event at Ideal Glass Studios in New York City's Greenwich Village on Thursday, March 31st. The event includes a panel featuring the founders of Nillion, a decentralized public network based on an exciting new cryptographic primitive called Nil Message Compute (NMC) that I recently covered in Episode 234 with Miguel De Vega . Attendees will have a chance to learn more about the proje...

In Episode 238 of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas speaks with Hari Krishnan (Head of Volatility Strategies at SCT Capital) and Ash Bennington (Senior & Crypto Editor at Real Vision) about their book "Market Tremors: Quantifying Structural Risks in Modern Financial Markets." Since the Global Financial Crisis, market structure has undergone a dramatic shift. A combination of Central Bank policy, dis...

In Episode 237 of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas speaks with journalist, historian, and author Sebastian Mallaby about his latest book, "The Power Law," which delves into the history of the venture capital industry and early-stage investing. This conversation is meant to provide you with a framework for thinking about how to invest in businesses, initiatives, and projects, which not only lack cas...

In Episode 236 of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas speaks with Julia Friedlander, the C. Boyden Gray senior fellow & director of the Economic Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council's GeoEconomics Center. Ms. Friedlander served as senior policy advisor for Europe in the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, where she collaborated with EU partners on global...

In Episode 235 of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas speaks with the fmr. CTO and co-founder of CrowdStrike Dmitri Alperovitch about the latest developments in the war between Russia and Ukraine, including the risks of escalation between Russia & NATO, implications for US-Sino relations, cyberattacks against Western countries, political warfare, and much more. Dmitri Alperovitch was on this podcast l...

In Episode 234 of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas speaks with Dr. Miguel de Vega, the creator of Nillion's new cryptographic primitive, Nil Message Compute (NMC). Nillion allows a decentralized network of nodes to work together using a non-blockchain technology known as Secure Multi-Party Computation (SMPC) to store and process information at essentially centralized server speed, all while remaini...

The war in Ukraine has broken out while I've been away on vacation. This is an update for listeners so that you know what to expect from the show in the next couple of weeks. In the meanwhile, you can follow me on Twitter at @kofinas , where I have been sharing my thoughts on the geopolitical situation, as well as retweeting those of the people I follow in order to stay abreast of events as they e...

In Episode 233 of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas speaks with award-winning author and recurring Hidden Forces guest Jimmy Soni about his newst book on the PayPal Mafia and the founders who shaped Silicon Valley and transformed the Fintech and online payments industry. The history of the so-called "PayPal Mafia" does not simply constitute the individual histories of star-studded founders like Pete...

In Episode 232 of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas speaks with Mohamed El-Erian, President of Queens' College Cambridge and chief economic adviser at Allianz, the corporate parent of PIMCO where Mohamed was CEO and co-chief investment officer from 2007 to 2014. El-Erian is one of the most gifted communicators in finance who is intimately connected with the global policymaking community. He has a un...

In Episode 231 of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas speaks with renowned philosopher and author of "Reality+" David Chalmers about the metaverse, the nature of reality, and the problems of philosophy in a virtual world. David's central thesis is that the metaverse and virtual reality are genuine realities and that we may be living in such virtual worlds already. Along the way, Demetri and David cond...

In Episode 230 of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas speaks with Spencer Jakab, an award-winning financial journalist who edits the Wall Street Journal's "Heard on the Street" column and who is out with a new book chronicling one of the craziest news stories of the last few years. The story centers on a motley crew of retail traders on Reddit's r/WallStreetBets forum who almost broke the Internet by...

In Episode 229 of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas speaks with Peter Pomerantsev, a Soviet-born British journalist, former TV producer, and author about the break-down in belief systems and shared mythologies that we are experiencing in the West and why this has left so many people feeling increasingly cynical about the world and indifferent towards the future. Peter was early in his diagnosis, hav...

In Episode 228 of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas speaks with Kazakhstan-based journalist Joanna Lillis, author of "Dark Shadows: Inside the Secret World of Kazakhstan," about the recent protests and unrest that unfolded in Kazakhstan over the past two weeks and how this ties into the larger geopolitical chess match currently underway in Eastern Europe. This is the multi-polar world in action. It'...

In Episode 227 of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas speaks with Saagar Enjeti and Marshall Kosloff, the co-hosts of "The Realignment," an absolutely phenomenal podcast that consistently produces some of the best conversations at the intersection of politics and society that you will find anywhere. They are both successful entrepreneurs and thought leaders in their own rights—Saagar Enjeti interviewe...

In Episode 226 of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas speaks with Dmitri Alperovitch, the former CTO and co-founder of CrowdStrike, the world's largest cybersecurity company, which has been involved in investigations of several high-profile cyberattacks including the 2014 Sony Pictures hack, the 2015–2016 cyber-attacks on the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and the 2016 email leak involving the D...

In Episode 225 of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas speaks with Ryan Holiday, a popular author whose books have made philosophy and the writings of the ancients interesting and accessible to millions of people. He's done this with bestselling books like "The Obstacle is the Way" and "Ego is the Enemy" and he continues to do this with his latest book "Courage is Calling."  Demetri and Ryan discuss wh...

In Episode 224 of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas appears as a guest on the Mining Stock Daily, a podcast by Trevor Hall which focuses on the junior mining and mineral exploration sector. Their conversation centers on the macro, big-picture themes of society, polity, economy, and culture that preoccupy most of Demetri's attention, as well as on his own approach to investing. You can find more info...

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...

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 disc...

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...

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 d...

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-author...

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 Ar...

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 sp...

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...