Potentia Podcast

Is China really replacing the United States in the Middle East, or has Washington misunderstood what Beijing is trying to achieve? The war with Iran has revived a familiar Washington story: every conflict is another front in the U.S.-China rivalry. But Beijing’s actual strategy in the Middle East is more opportunistic, and more revealing, than the proxy-war frame suggests. China sustains Iran with...

Owls, Not Hawks or Doves- The new U.S.-China détente creates an opening for Washington to rebuild American industrial capacity by using access to the U.S. market as leverage, rather than pursuing a more aggressive version of decoupling. Aaron Glasserman and Mitch Presnick join Chelsea on Potentia to discuss why Washington and MNC’s need to lean into strategic leveraging with clear eyes, rather tha...

For the past thirty years, globalization made the modern economy feel almost frictionless: a chip could be designed in one country, manufactured in another, assembled in a third, financed through global capital markets, and sold everywhere. Multinational companies were built on that assumption. Governments largely encouraged it. Consumers benefited from it. And yet the same system that made the wo...

Dr. Joseph Wilson joins Chelsea to discuss launching a century-long longitudinal study of AI-native children, the importance of human elements and why evidence should drive AI policy Full show notes here: https://potentiamedia.org/p/how-will-childhood-change-inside Dr. Joseph Wilson has been working in AI since before most people knew the term. He ran computer vision studies as a high school stude...

The US-Iran war 'ends' but the nuclear question doesn’t. Anthropic’s most dangerous model gets released and blocked, Xi Jinping visits Pyongyang and Musk becomes the first trillionaire. LOTR metaphors. Full show notes : https://potentiamedia.org/p/this-week-in-power-b1e

From my émigré family stories under occupation to East India Trading Company, everything I’m paying attention to right now points to the same underlying question: who actually holds power, and how do you build your own? Full show notes here: https://potentiamedia.org/p/on-my-radar-dispatch

Nick Vyas on agentic AI, the policy problem, and why removing friction from global trade may be the most consequential thing we do next. Full show notes here: https://potentiamedia.org/p/supply-chains-paradigm-break-with Nick Vyas has led global supply chains for Sears, Toys R Us, and Duty Free, built USC Marshall’s supply chain institute from the ground up, and is currently leading six case studi...

Trump and Sanders agree on potential nationalizing of Big Tech, the admin closes a chip loophole to China, and an important AI federal bill drops seeking to limit State governance of AI development. Full Show notes: https://potentiamedia.org/p/this-week-in-power-podcast

Christian Hu of Qoder joins Chelsea on Potentia to discuss why the next phase of AI is moving beyond chatbots toward agentic workmates, how Qoder is building AI coding and productivity tools for global users, and why companies that wait too long to adopt AI may struggle to catch up. This piece is sponsored and brought to you by Qoder — think deeper, build better. Thanks for listening Potentia! Eve...

Week of May 25-31, 2026 | Briefing #1 The Pope enters the AI debate, Trump stalls regulation, OpenAI chases $1 trillion, and Silicon Valley delivers the Fail of the Week.

The governing logic behind China’s industrial expansion and securitization at home and abroad Today on the podcast, we speak with Jacob Gunter , Head of Economy and Industry at MERICS , about how securitization, industrial policy, and power govern China’s economic choices and long-term strategy. Original publish date Jan 5, 2026

What We're Escaping, What We're Building From isekai manhwa to Yung Lean going viral in tech circles, everything I’ve been noticing lately points to the same undercurrent: people are hungry for a life that actually feels like their own. This is the first in a series of dispatches on what’s catching my attention — in culture, technology, and the quieter question underneath both: how do you actually...

What the US–China summit means for tech, trade, and the new global playbook.