Hidden Forces

In Episode 115 of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas speaks with Brian Koffman, a doctor turned CLL patient, whose patient education and advocacy efforts have given hope and encouragement to CLL cancer patients everywhere. Brian Koffman is extraordinary, in many ways. He's extraordinary in the medical sense because, after twelve years of battling blood cancer, doctors can no longer find a single trac...

In this week's episode of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with investor Mike Green. Mike Green most recently served as the discretionary portfolio manager for Thiel Macro, LLC, an investment firm that manages the personal capital of Peter Thiel. He's been a student of markets, and market structure in particular, for nearly 30 years. His research into and analysis of the shift from actively m...

In Episode 113 of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas speaks with John Mearsheimer, professor of political science and international relations at the University of Chicago. Dr. Mearsheimer's intellectual contributions have had a profound influence on the thinking of an entire generation of students in international relations. He's been a vocal critic of neoliberal hegemony, nation-building, as well as...

In Episode 112 of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas speaks with Steve Keen one of the few economists to correctly anticipate the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, as well as the subsequent deflationary forces that would frustrate and confound policymakers in the years afterward. The two discuss Keen's latest work modeling the impact of climate on economic output, as well as debunking some of the most...

In this week's episode of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Politics at Princeton University and of Russian Studies and History at NYU. Dr. Cohen has received several scholarly honors over his lengthy career, including two Guggenheim fellowships and a National Book Award nomination, and was, for many years, a consultant and on-air commentator on Russia...

In Episode 110 of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas speaks with Chief Investment Officer of Hayman Capital Management and founding member of the "Committee on the Present Danger: China," about the gathering threat posed to Western, liberal democracies and open societies by the Chinese Communist Party. Kyle explains how the CCP and its state champions have been using US capital markets to fund the de...

In Episode 109 of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas speaks with Financial Times Global Business Columnist, Rana Faroohar about her latest book dealing with the worlds of Big Tech and finance.  We are living in a dramatic period of societal change and uncertainty that most generations rarely get to experience. The changes we are experiencing are being driven primarily by a particular set of Internet-...

In Episode 108 of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas speaks with Pauline Brown, the former Chairman of North America for LVMH, the world's leading luxury goods company. Pauline has over thirty years' experience acquiring, building, and leading some of the world's most influential, luxury brands. In this conversation, she shares insights about how anyone can strengthen and grow his or her own aestheti...

In Episode 107 of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas speaks with New Yorker staff writer Andrew Marantz, about his new book "Antisocial: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation. In the book, Andrew reveals how the boundaries between technology, media, and politics have been erased, resulting in the deeply broken informational landscape in which we all now li...

In Episode 106 of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas speaks with Joshua Landis, a Middle East scholar and Syria expert about the disorderly withdrawal of American forces from Syria and the larger shift in the balance of power that we are seeing as nations scramble to remake alliances in the wake of America's absence. It seems that what we've seen transpire in the Middle East during the past week is a...

In Episode 105 of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas speaks with Jake Hanrahan about the crisis unfolding in the border region between Syria and Turkey following the US withdrawal of forces from northern Syria. This withdrawal precipitated the subsequent assault by Turkish Armed Forces on the Kurdish YPG-controlled region of Rojava. Jake Hanrahan is an independent journalist and documentary filmmaker...

In Episode 104 of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas speaks with Michael Maloney, perennial entrepreneur and host of the documentary series Hidden Secrets of Money about monetary history, libertarianism, and Austrian economics.  Before starting GoldSilver.com , Mike overcame his childhood dyslexia to found a series of companies, including a high-end stereo manufacturer, winning several design awards...

In Episode 103 of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas speaks with cultural psychologist Michele Gelfand, who argues that the world's cultures can be classified into two categories by virtue of their norms. She offers a lucid explanation of how and why cultures become tight or loose, outlining their different societal attitudes. This episode is full of eye-opening insights for development professionals...

In Episode 102 of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas speaks with economist and former Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada, William White, about the state of our market economy and the prospects for an 'international reset' of the global financial system. William R. White was most recently chairman of the Economic and Development Review Committee at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Dev...

In Episode 101 of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas speaks with Michael Casey, an acclaimed author, journalist, researcher, and entrepreneur who currently serves as CEO and founder of Streambed Media, an early-stage video production and technology platform that seeks to optimize capital formation and creative output in the digital media industry. Michael is also chairman of CoinDesk's advisory board...

In Episode 100 of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas speaks with Hedera Hashgraph founders Leemon Baird and Mance Harmon about Open Access, now that the network has officially gone public. This is the go-to-episode for anyone looking to understand the public ledger and why Fortune 100 companies like IBM, Deutsche Telekom, Boeing, and others have joined Hedera's Governing Council. As a seed investor i...

In episode 99 of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas speaks with Claudio Borio about outstanding sources of financial instability and some of the challenges facing Central Banks as the economy and markets begin to show signs of weakness heading towards the end of 2019. Dr. Borio heads the Monetary and Economic Department at the Bank for International Settlements and has written extensively about some...

I've taken the next few weeks off for a much needed summer vacation. I'll be releasing a couple of overtime segments while I'm gone that are normally available only to our Patreon subscribers . This segment was recorded with Senator Bob Kerrey, one of the ten members of the 9/11 Commission. Not only are his comments about the Kingdom's involvement in the attacks provocative and revealing, but the...

In Episode 98 of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas speaks with famed Hong Kong investor David Webb, an outspoken critic of China's authoritarian grip over the coastal territory. There are two parts to this story that we explore during this conversation. The first deals with Hong Kong – specifically, its political and economic future as an independent territory of mainland China. The second deals wit...

In Episode 97 of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas speaks with Nic Carter, co-founder of both the VC fund Castle Island Ventures, as well as the research and data analytics company Coinmetrics.io. Nic also has a master's degree in philosophy, and the two spend much of the overtime applying that discipline to bitcoin by examining the works of people like Friedrich Nietzsche and his philosophy around...

In this week's episode of Hidden Forces, I make available the overtime to my episode with journalist Matt Taibbi that aired on February 18th, 2019.  In this overtime, Matt Taibbi shares his experience on the campaign trail with Donald Trump in 2016, as well as his predictions for the 2020 election. Matt and I also discuss the Goldman Sachs 1MDB scandal, which has remained largely out of the headli...

In Episode 96 of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas speaks with investor and co-founder of Real Vision , Raoul Pal about the future of global money in a multi-polar world, including a discussion about Bitcoin, Libra, debt, demographics, and much more. The inspiration for this conversation derives from a theme captured in William Strauss and Neil Howe's Generational Theory, also known as the Fourth Tu...

In Episode 95 of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas speaks with investor and author of Epsilon Theory, Ben Hunt, about the power of narrative and how it is used to shape and control our behavior as investors. This episode also includes a series of in-depth discussions about the long legacy of the 2008 financial crisis, identitarian narratives, three-body problems, the challenge of making accurate pre...

In Episode 94 of Hidden Forces , Demetri Kofinas speaks with author of REBOOT , Jerry Colonna about leadership and the art of growing up.  This is a deeply personal conversation, but it is also one that draws upon the common wellspring of human experience. Learning to be a great leader is also about learning how to become an adult, and this requires that we learn how to embrace life in all of its...

This is a service announcement for regular listeners of Hidden Forces. I have released a nearly 2-hour long recording of my conversation with Leemon Baird and Mance Harmon of Hedera Hashgraph to my Hidden Forces Patreon subscribers that will be published on the main podcast feed after the network goes public sometime this summer. I wanted to give supporters of the podcast the opportunity to hear t...