The News Items Podcast
John Ellis talks with interesting people doing important work. Some you've heard of. Some you haven't. All of them are worth listening to, at some length.
The News Items Podcast
Latest Episodes
The Global Order, With Benn Steil (Episode 25)
Benn Steil, director of international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations, joins John Ellis to examine why the postwar global economic order is under growing strain, and how China sits at the center of that story. Steil traces the evo...
Investing In Ukraine, With Perry Boyle (Episode 24)
Perry Boyle, co-founder and CEO of MITS Capital, joins John Ellis from Kyiv to discuss how the war in Ukraine is reshaping modern warfare, and why he believes the West is not adapting fast enough. Boyle, a former Wall Street executive, explains...
What's The Matter With Polling? with Adam Berinsky (Episode 23)
MIT political scientist Adam Berinsky joins John Ellis to examine why modern polling is harder to trust and what that means for politics. They discuss collapsing response rates, the limits of margin-of-error claims, online surveys, media incent...
Currencies, Prediction Markets and (of course) AI, with Rebecca Patterson (Episode 22)
Rebecca Patterson, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and former chief investment strategist at Bridgewater Associates, joins John Ellis to explain why the U.S. and Japan intervened jointly to support the yen, and why Treasury Se...
The AI Optimist, with Alan D. Thompson (Episode 21)
John Ellis talks with AI researcher Alan D. Thompson about the rapid advance of artificial intelligence and the prospect of artificial superintelligence. Thompson explains his methods for tracking progress toward AGI, the growth of trillion-par...