Potentia Podcast

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 world richer has now become one of its greatest sources of leverage, coercion, and strategic vulnerability. What happens when the links that once created efficiency become the pressure points states can use against each other? In this episode, Max Zenglein joins Potentia to unpack the rise of economic security, why governments and companies often mean very different things when they use the term, why Japan and China appear more advanced in aligning state and corporate priorities, why Europe and Southeast Asia are struggling to navigate Chinese pressure and U.S. unpredictability, and why companies are still too often treating rare earths, export controls, tariffs, EVs, data, and supply chains like isolated fire drills rather than signs of a new global order. The answer, it turns out, is not deglobalization. It is something messier, more uncomfortable, and probably more durable: globalization is still happening, but it is being rewritten through security, power, trust, and coercion. Welcome to the era of securitized globalization. Buckle up.Full show notes here: https://potentiamedia.org/

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 policyFull show notes here: https://potentiamedia.org/p/how-will-childhood-change-insideDr. Joseph Wilson has been working in AI since before most people knew the term. He ran computer vision studies as a high school student in Central Florida and now serves as Managing Director at the American Institutes for Research, an 80-year-old nonprofit research institute. The team is launching the AI Century Study, a 100-year longitudinal project following the first generation of AI-native children, born between 2023 and 2025, alongside a comparison cohort born a decade earlier. AIR has done this before, and in the 1960s they launched Project Talent, which captured 5% of all U.S. high school students and is still producing research today.Living less than a mile from OpenAI’s headquarters in San Francisco, Wilson has a front row seat to the the AI hype cycle up close. He notes federal funding for rigorous longitudinal research is shrinking even as the need for it has never been greater. With these rapidly evolving technologies, he says policy must be guided by evidence. We need to question what comes out of these tools, and AI is not human (and never will be.) In the day-to-day, he encourages listeners to take the small act of taking out your earbuds and talking to the person in front of you, and to lead with empathy.

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-withNick 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 studies on agentic AI where the technology outpaces drafts before the team can finish them. He calls what’s happening right now not a paradigm shift but a paradigm break, because every transformation before this one still had a human at every node while this one doesn’t. The world produces enough food to feed everyone on earth, yet 40% of it rots between the farm and the table because the supply chain can’t move it. Democracies are structurally incapable of the long-horizon planning this moment demands, though China has been executing on a 45-year-long nine-cycle strategy without interruption. And AI is about to displace more white-collar jobs than any previous technology in history, but policymakers are falling asleep at the wheel, repeating the exact mistake of the Rust Belt, except this time the middle class will be hit hard.

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! Every like, subscription and share means the world to us. Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work.https://potentiamedia.org/

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 abroadToday 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 BuildingFrom 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 want to live? For me a mix of balance and excellence. Not just optimization and noise. I think in the midst of slop slinging we’re all hoping for the real thing.

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