The Jacob Shapiro Podcast

Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan all signed the Mecca Accord after Washington began telling the region that its security was now the region's problem, and Iran is stuck in between a rock and a hard place. They can't afford to fall, nor can they afford to keep fighting - so says Kamran Bokhari. He calls is "a secretary general without a secretariat." Which is better than calling it nothing (I guess). After a chat about the middle east, Bokhari, of the New Lines Institute, and Jacob get into one of the most pertinent geopolitical events of this quarter - the death of Patrick Stewart. Jacob credits Jean-Luc Picard with more of his moral code than almost anyone, real or fictional. Picard was built for an age of hope. Benjamin Sisko was built for this one.
(00:00) - Intro/Welcome
(03:02) - America hands off the Middle East
(07:03) - Why Iran's regime won't fall
(11:51) - Can Iran come in from the cold?
(19:55) - Not a Muslim NATO
(22:28) - Israel after the election
(29:42) - Turkey after Erdoğan
(33:54) - India and Pakistan
(38:30) - Patrick Stewart, Picard and Sisko
(45:50) - Klingons, Romulans and the Cold War
(52:01) - Virtue versus the rules
(56:46) - Dune and the age of the anti-hero
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Jacob Shapiro Site: jacobshapiro.com
Jacob Shapiro LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jacob-l-s-a9337416
Jacob Twitter: x.com/JacobShap
Jacob Shapiro Substack: jashap.substack.com/subscribe
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The Jacob Shapiro Show is produced and edited by Audiographies LLC. More information at audiographies.com
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Jacob Shapiro is a speaker, consultant, author, and researcher covering global politics and affairs, economics, markets, technology, history, and culture. He speaks to audiences of all sizes around the world, helps global multinationals make strategic decisions about political risks and opportunities, and works directly with investors to grow and protect their assets in today’s volatile global environment. His insights help audiences across industries like finance, agriculture, and energy make sense of the world.
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An American official walks into a Malaysian data center and finds a hoard of Nvidia equipment still in its boxes. Two years later, U.S. officials reportedly believe an executive at the company behind it, Alice Huang, is a Chinese intelligence asset, and Jensen Huang has admitted to an affair, understood to be with her. Huang has spent years arguing against American export controls on chips. Jacob Shapiro sets the affair aside and follows the leak. Beijing had little reason to burn that kind of leverage, which points back to a Washington security establishment that never wanted a deal. Blade Runner imagined corporations swallowing the state. Shapiro expects the reverse.
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(00:00) - Intro/Welcome
(01:04) - The question that matters: who leaked this?
(01:40) - Alice Huang and Megaspeed
(03:41) - Why Huang opposes export controls
(04:47) - Huang versus Dario Amodei
(06:19) - The honeypot allegation
(08:04) - Trump's G2 and the deep state
(10:16) - Could China, or Huang, have leaked it?
(11:51) - Wiles, Miller and the leak problem
(13:16) - How Chinese intelligence works
(14:58) - Why tech can't stay out of politics
(17:01) - Blade Runner, and who holds the power
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Jacob Shapiro Site: jacobshapiro.com
Jacob Shapiro LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jacob-l-s-a9337416
Jacob Twitter: x.com/JacobShap
Jacob Shapiro Substack: jashap.substack.com/subscribe
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The Jacob Shapiro Show is produced and edited by Audiographies LLC. More information at audiographies.com
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Jacob Shapiro is a speaker, consultant, author, and researcher covering global politics and affairs, economics, markets, technology, history, and culture. He speaks to audiences of all sizes around the world, helps global multinationals make strategic decisions about political risks and opportunities, and works directly with investors to grow and protect their assets in today’s volatile global environment. His insights help audiences across industries like finance, agriculture, and energy make sense of the world.
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A flaw sat for years in the code beneath most of the world's websites until an AI model went looking for it (See: PHP2Shell). Dror Poleg, an economic historian who writes about technology and work, doesn't think patching ends the story: the attack surface only widens, and some things may have to come off the internet altogether. Then to Israel, voting on October 27, where Benjamin Netanyahu campaigns against dangers his own government deepened and has floated crypto as a hedge against sanctions. Last, two fathers of small children compare notes on raising them alongside the machines. The main thing to do about AI, it turns out, is other things.
Cue the newest show in Jacob Shapiro's sphere - Minor Powers. Jacob Shapiro and Dror Poleg are embarking on a weekly journey to discuss tech, war, AI, and how to be a dad in the 21st century.
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(00:00) - Intro/Welcome
(01:57) - Black October and the PHP flaw
(05:54) - The end of the internet?
(09:09) - Banking, privacy and encryption
(12:04) - Learning to live with the risk
(13:48) - Israel votes
(16:54) - Netanyahu's bench and the FlyDubai plot
(21:35) - Crypto against sanctions
(25:38) - A state like any other
(27:54) - Young voters and the old guard
(28:54) - Will AI kill the creative class?
(34:24) - Raising kids around AI
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Jacob Shapiro Site: jacobshapiro.com
Jacob Shapiro LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jacob-l-s-a9337416
Jacob Twitter: x.com/JacobShap
Jacob Shapiro Substack: jashap.substack.com/subscribe
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Jacob Shapiro is a speaker, consultant, author, and researcher covering global politics and affairs, economics, markets, technology, history, and culture. He speaks to audiences of all sizes around the world, helps global multinationals make strategic decisions about political risks and opportunities, and works directly with investors to grow and protect their assets in today’s volatile global environment. His insights help audiences across industries like finance, agriculture, and energy make sense of the world.
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Dror Poleg's Site: https://www.drorpoleg.com/
Dror Poleg's Twitter: https://x.com/drorpoleg
Dror Poleg's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drorpoleg/
Dror Poleg's Substack: https://newsletter.drorpoleg.com/
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Dror Poleg is an economic historian and former tech and private-equity executive. He researches technology’s impact on work, markets, and the built world. Dror’s writing has appeared in The New York Times and The Atlantic, and his insights have been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and The Times of London. He briefs leadership teams at companies like JPMorgan, UBS, and HSBC.
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Minor Powers is produced and edited by Audiographies LLC. More information at audiographies.com

Ukraine has had three revolutions since 1990: students on Kyiv's granite square, the Orange crowds of 2004, the Maidan in 2014. Volodymyr Ishchenko, a sociologist at the Institute for East European Studies in Berlin, argues that none of them built a stronger state, and that this, more than any Russian tank, explains where Ukraine stands now: a country whose budget is largely paid for by the European Union, run by elites who bet everything on an international order that may not outlast the war. He follows the argument all the way down, to who can pay a bribe to escape the draft, and who cannot.

(00:00) - Intro/Welcome
(01:14) - Is Ukraine still a sovereign state?
(09:34) - Where the sovereignty went
(14:49) - Three "weak, deficient revolutions"
(18:51) - Israel, South Korea and other borrowed models
(22:04) - Europe's Foederati
(26:13) - The Georgian path
(30:00) - Can Europe get its act together?
(34:29) - Did the invasion make sense for Russia?
(41:47) - Who rallied around Putin, and why
(46:44) - Winners and losers on both sides
(55:19) - "A Ukraine of our dreams" and the draft economy

Jacob Shapiro Site: jacobshapiro.com
Jacob Shapiro LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jacob-l-s-a9337416
Jacob Twitter: x.com/JacobShap
Jacob Shapiro Substack: jashap.substack.com/subscribe

Volodymyr Ischenko - https://www.oei.fu-berlin.de/en/soziologie/team/team2/ishchenko.html
The Jacob Shapiro Show is produced and edited by Audiographies LLC. More information at audiographies.com
eign
Jacob Shapiro is a speaker, consultant, author, and researcher covering global politics and affairs, economics, markets, technology, history, and culture. He speaks to audiences of all sizes around the world, helps global multinationals make strategic decisions about political risks and opportunities, and works directly with investors to grow and protect their assets in today’s volatile global environment. His insights help audiences across industries like finance, agriculture, and energy make sense of the world.

A Brazilian congressman runs a WhatsApp channel called "Lula's Army." This week it passed ten million followers, part of a late surge that has turned a race Lula was losing into a near tie. Monica de Bolle of the Peterson Institute for International Economics maps what Sunday's runoff against Flávio Bolsonaro decides: who fills at least three of the Supreme Court's eleven seats, whether anyone fixes debt rules built for an age of runaway inflation, and who controls the world's second-largest rare earth reserves - where an American company has agreed to buy a mine. Monica is extremely confident in at least one thing: "The potential to disappoint is enormous."
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(00:00) - Intro/Welcome
(01:20) - A race that flipped in three weeks
(03:33) - Meta, WhatsApp and the online campaign
(05:39) - Supreme Court seats and the Orbán comparison
(09:47) - Lula's record, and the market's hope for a Brazilian Milei
(15:40) - Why Brazil's interest rates are so high
(21:24) - The reforms nobody will make
(26:09) - Washington, Beijing and Brazil's new trade deals
(33:36) - Can Brazil lead? Rare earths and a mine in Goiás
(41:46) - Why micro-entrepreneurs left Lula
(47:14) - The military and Brazil's regional role
(51:36) - "The potential to disappoint is enormous"
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Jacob Shapiro Site: jacobshapiro.com
Jacob Shapiro LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jacob-l-s-a9337416
Jacob Twitter: x.com/JacobShap
Jacob Shapiro Substack: jashap.substack.com/subscribe
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The Jacob Shapiro Show is produced and edited by Audiographies LLC. More information at audiographies.com
--
Jacob Shapiro is a speaker, consultant, author, and researcher covering global politics and affairs, economics, markets, technology, history, and culture. He speaks to audiences of all sizes around the world, helps global multinationals make strategic decisions about political risks and opportunities, and works directly with investors to grow and protect their assets in today’s volatile global environment. His insights help audiences across industries like finance, agriculture, and energy make sense of the world.
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