The CEO Retort with Tim El-Sheikh
by Athmetric
Your space for greater knowledge, purpose, and performance. Subscribe & Join Us at TheRetort.com ❤️The CEO Retort is the anti-clickbait, thought-provoking show hosted by Tim El-Sheikh, a biomedical scientist and former basketball player who became a serial deeptech entrepreneur after discovering the power of artificial intelligence (AI) in 1996 while studying genetics and the Human Genome Project.In 2002, Tim quit his PhD in data fusion to focus on architecting intelligence systems for his ventures and is one of the pioneering first-generation AI founders at London’s Silicon Roundabout.
Episodes
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Carl Brown (Internet of Bugs): Will Democrats Blow Up The AI Bubble and Arrest Elon Musk?
Veteran software engineer Carl Brown from Internet of Bugs discusses how the Democrats' "blue wave" midterm election outcome will affect the AI bubble and the tech sector over the next two years. Our discussion examines why the future of tech is so closely tied to this unprecedented election...
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The AI Bubble Is About to Burst. What Happens Next? | Dr Jeffrey Funk
Emergency episode with the tech bubble expert Dr Jeffrey Funk, discussing Anthropic's latest pre-IPO S-1 filing, the stolen $6.3 billion worth of crypto from the Binance security breach and the $1trillion tech market wipeout – all in one week! After a massive, industry-wide sell-off on Friday,...
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Tech Bubble Expert: The AI Bubble Is Crashing, and You're NOT Ready
The AI bubble is crashing, and it is time to look at the financial reality behind the hype with one of the world's leading experts on tech bubbles, Dr Jeffrey Funk. We discuss how financial professionals are finally speaking up about the lack of real returns in the artificial intelligence sector....
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The Media's Narrative about AI and Vibe coding is Dangerously Misleading | Carl Brown (Internet of Bugs)
Carl Brown of Internet of Bugs returns to discuss the oversold hype around AI vibe coding versus reality, and what the recent Adobe story really shows us. The media's narrative around AI vibe coding is fundamentally misleading. We break down the reality of software development and how tools...
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Scott Lucas: Trump's Incompetence is Bad for America, Great for the Rest of the World
Professor Scott Lucas examines what Xi Jinping’s visit to the U.S. suggests about the shifting balance of power and Trump's conflicting, multifaceted presidency. Scott sees China as pursuing long-term economic influence while signalling that rivalry need not lead to conflict, despite President Xi...
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Tech Bubble Expert: Has The AI Bubble Turned into A Huge Scam?
Dr Jeffrey Funk, the world-leading expert on tech bubbles, returns to analyse the financial reality behind Anthropic's latest leaked financials and the potential IPO disaster. We also examine how the tech sector uses the concept of Total Addressable Market (TAM) to justify massive capital...
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Carl Brown (Internet of Bugs): Silicon Valley's Idiocy is Killing AI, Innovation and The Internet
Veteran software engineer Carl Brown of Internet of Bugs joins me to expose the fallacy and dodgy claims that superintelligence and AI will kill humans. We discussed how the tech sector reached its current messy situation, starting with social platforms that learned to reward outrage, engagement,...
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Scott Lucas: Trump 2.0 Fueled The Rise of European Far-Right Groups, Benefiting Russia!
Professor Scott Lucas joins us to discuss the critical situation facing European Union politics and analyse how Trump 2.0 has emboldened populist factions. The rise of the far right across Europe is not simply a story about voters suddenly embracing extremism. It is a story about frustration with...
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Jeffrey Funk: No, AI Will Not "End Humanity" – It's a Distraction from Real AI Dangers
In this conversation, Dr Jeffrey Funk returns to challenge the growing narrative that artificial intelligence will destroy humanity. Spoiler alert: it won’t! Our central argument is not that AI is harmless, but that the loudest “AI will kill everyone” claims often distract from more immediate...
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Scott Lucas: Trump Might Be Making a Deal with the Houthis in a Total Middle East Chaos
Scott Lucas joins us to analyse the latest developments in Middle East politics as the Trump administration pursues unconventional paths with the Houthis. Although Iran supports the Houthis, they are not simply an Iranian proxy. Scott highlights that this group is a Yemeni movement with their own...
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Ann Pettifor: The AI Bubble Is A Time Bomb For Ordinary People, Broligarchs Will Cash In
Ann Pettifor, one of the world's most celebrated economists, explains why the imminent AI bubble crash threatens to harm ordinary people, who will pay the highest price – far more than the tech investors. We analyse the parallels between the current hype cycle and past disasters like the dot-com...
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Trillions of Dollars Spent on Fake AI Hype and Useless Data Centres | Dr Jeffrey Funk
Dr Jeffrey Funk joins us to analyse the constant stream of corporate announcements that define the current tech market. We look past the noise to understand why the sheer volume of these claims is struggling to translate into sustainable growth or actual profits. By examining the mechanics of the...
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Scott Lucas: The $40 Trillion Debt That's Killing America While Benefiting Trump's Family
Professor Scott Lucas returns to explain why the debt is more than a big headline, revealing warning signs of long-running structural problems, especially since much of the increase has occurred under Trump 2.0 in less than two years. He traces most of the growth to Trump-era tax cuts, the...
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Scott Lucas: What We Can Learn From Dolly Parton's Politics of Care in a Divided World
Professor Scott Lucas joins us this week to trace Dolly’s rise from humble beginnings to global fame. See why Dolly Parton and her spontaneous nature stand in direct opposition to modern political figures like Donald Trump. Understand the clash of values. In this discussion, we analyse the…
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The AI Bubble is Collapsing Fast, with Spurious Circular Financing | Dr Jeffrey Funk
Dr Jeffrey Funk returns to discuss how the current AI boom is driven not by healthy demand or sustainable profits, but by shady circular financing and hype. Jeff argues that AI is a bubble, but not like the dot-com or the 1929 bubble, because the structure centres on a few firms rather than a…
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Scott Lucas Calls for the Rise of Younger Democrats and to Get Their Act Together
In the second part of this week's Geopolitics review, Professor Scott Lucas turns our attention to the Democrats and the upcoming US Midterm elections. It quickly becomes clear that the real issue is not a simple battle between "the centre" and "the left" within the party. Instead, Scott argues...
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Scott Lucas explains how Trump and Israel have completely lost control of the Middle East
Professor Scott Lucas analyses how the Trump administration have run out of viable military options, decentring the Middle East and destabilising the global economy. The episode opens with a wide-ranging update on the escalating instability across the Middle East, centred on the US-Iran...
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Steve Keen Warns The Iran War Will Crash the World’s Economy and Trigger WW3
Professor Steve Keen is one of the world’s top economists, an author, and an academic who was among the few economists to accurately predict and warn of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis years before it happened. We dug into why the current AI boom is not just a story about overhyped chatbots, but...
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Scott Lucas Exposes Trump's Alarming Behavioural Pattern, Escaping Media Scrutiny
Donald Trump’s latest political theatrics are fast proving to be less about policy than they are about control of the news cycle and authoritarianism. Scott Lucas explores Trump's recent series of speeches and appearances, in which he once again staged a spectacle of exaggerated claims and...
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Scott Lucas: Trump's Iran War Limbo Catastrophic for Global Economy and Your Cost of Living
Professor Scott Lucas examines the economic realities of the Strait of Hormuz and why it remains a central point of tension in global trade. Here we are again, back to square one with the Iran conflict quagmire. Or, as Scott puts it in this episode: an ongoing limbo! Make no mistake, this limbo...
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Nicholas McGeehan: FIFA’s Corruption has Reached a Dangerous Level, Impacting more than Football
The leading corruption investigator and founder of FairSquare helps us explore the deep-rooted issues of corruption, governance, and ethics within FIFA and global sports organisations. Our discussion is centred on the growing influence of politics and money in sport, especially through FIFA and…
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EMERGENCY: Independent Journalists and NGOs Face Potential Prosecution Under UK's New "State Threats" Terror Laws
The UK government is rushing through new laws that could give it sweeping power over speech, reporting, and even what counts as “harmful” information. Folks, I’m genuinely worried about what’s happening in the UK right now, as the Labour government has rushed through the National Security (State...
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Jeltsje Boersma: Engineered Addiction Pioneered by Tobacco Companies, adopted by Tech and AI
If you’re like most people, you’ve probably assumed the tobacco industry is fading into the background. But the reality is alarmingly worse than we thought 😳 I had the great pleasure of meeting Jeltsje Boersma, a prominent anti-tobacco advocate and public health policy professional, serving as a...
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Scott Lucas: 10 Years of Brexit and MAGA Made the Entire World Worse Off
Scott Lucas delves into the political landscapes of the UK and the US, following 10 years of Brexit and MAGA, respectively, that led to international conflicts.I sat down with Scott Lucas to unpack a conversation that moved quickly from sports to politics to war, but kept returning to the same…
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Josh Paul: Biden and Trump Administrations Allowed Israel to Target Innocent Civilians
Josh Paul is the former Director of the U.S. Congressional and Public Affairs for the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. He was responsible for overseeing U.S. defence diplomacy and global arms transfers. Today, Josh is one of the world's most avid human rights campaigners,...
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Scott Lucas: Right Wing's Desperate Power Spectacle: UFC, MAGA and Brexit
Professor Scott Lucas returns to discuss why we are attracted to chaotic events and how they blur the lines between reality and spectacle, reshaping our perceptions. It may seem weird how entertainment and today's geopolitics intertwine, using recent events like Donald Trump's Ultimate Fighting...
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AI Architect Reacts: Siri AI May Burst the Multi-Trillion-Dollar AI Bubble!
Apple AI might be disrupting the industry without massive data centre spending. See how Siri AI is challenging current expectations for generative AI and obscene data centre spending. This discussion breaks down why Apple's approach to local processing could change the AI market landscape, once…
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AI Architect: They’re Misleading You About AI Replacing Jobs. It’s a Libertarian Bubble!
In case you wondered, the AI hype is continuing to grow into an ever-growing blob of absurdity, while the math still ain't mathing! As an AI architect, I break down how the relentless pursuit of profit, misinformation, and misguided fantasies has fueled an AI trust crisis that is threatening the...
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Scott Lucas: America is collapsing thanks to Trump and GOP failure and corruption
Professor Scott Lucas returns to dig deeper into the crumbling political landscape of the United States, thanks to Trump's corruption and madman behaviour. Scott highlights the challenges Americans face today, from economic instability to deteriorating international relations, noting how Trump's...
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British Hungarian Journalist: Orban’s crash has shattered the global far-right and Putin’s interests
My good friend Zsike Peter, a woman who embodies the kind of "jaggedly human" defiance we need right now, a former Hungarian investigative journalist who went undercover in a brothel to win a scholarship, and who grew up in the shadow of communist Transylvania, returns to delve into the…
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Scott Lucas: Trump's Iran war fractured historic Middle East alliances, with the UAE leaving OPEC!
Trump's Iran war has created a geopolitical "Royal Rumble" that fractured the Middle East, with the UAE leaving OPEC and new global realignments. Deep analysis with Professor Scott Lucas. We delve through the chaos of the current situation in the Middle East, revealing shifting alliances…
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Scott Lucas: Viktor Orban's crash is huge for geopolitics, Trump, Ukraine, and the EU's global influence
In this replay of the CEOR emergency Live episode, Scott Lucas returns to discuss how a small country like Hungary could shake up the global political and economic landscape, following the crushing defeat of Viktor Orbán after 16 years in power. Orbán, seen as the "Godfather" of modern…
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Emergency Minisode: Trump broke Article III of the Genocide Convention – A punishable offence!
Donald Trump’s latest outburst, stating “a whole civilisation will die tonight” if Iran doesn’t “make a deal,” is a violation of the 1948 Genocide Convention (Article III, c), which states “direct and public incitement to commit genocide” is a punishable act, regardless of whether the genocide...
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The latest AI chaos and Iran's threats may burst the bubble much sooner!
Anthropic's code leaks, legal rulings against Meta and Google, and Iran's direct threats against tech giants expose the path toward the inevitable bubble burst. It's not looking good! What a 24-hour news storm! The leak of over 500,000 lines of code from Anthropic has sent shockwaves through the…
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Scott Lucas: Will the Iran war chaos lead to a global economic depression?
In this replay of the CEOR Live episode streamed on March 26th, 2026, Scott Lucas returns to discuss the escalating tensions between the U.S., Israel, and Iran, exploring the complex yet chaotic geopolitical dynamics at play. We discussed the concerning news of Trump preparing for potential...
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New Stunning Evidence: Chimpanzees are more rational than humans! | Dr Hanna Schleihauf
Did you know that chimpanzees might be more rational than humans when making decisions? Dr Hanna Schleihauf led groundbreaking research, published in the prestigious journal Science, revealing that chimpanzees can evaluate the quality of evidence when making decisions, just like humans! Hanna is…
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AI's Deadly Deployment in the Iran War that Killed School Girls --- The CEO Retort Podcast
The Iran war marks the beginning of the era of widespread use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) and large language models (LLMs) as key tools for military targeting.The tragic strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh Girls School, resulting in the loss of over 160 children, underscores the risks…
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Scott Lucas: What they are not telling you about the Iran War
Professor Scott Lucas returns to our live emergency guest episode to discuss the current Middle East conflict, Iran's internal dynamics, and the poor geopolitical strategies involving the US, Israel, and regional actors. What does this situation mean for you? This is a replay and remastered…
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Water Bankruptcy, Journalists Killed and Unhinged AI!
In this live replay, I'm examining the AI-driven hype of today and how we're being pushed towards a crisis. It's a bit scary, but it's something we need to talk about. Right now, we're facing a double whammy: water bankruptcy and an AI bubble spiralling out of control. Not to mention, a…
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Sara Grimes: Tech Restrictions for Children are More Dangerous for Their Safety!
Professor Sara M. Grimes is a prominent scholar and world-leading expert in children’s digital media culture, rights, and play. Since August 2024, she has served as a Full Professor at McGill University, where she holds the Wolfe Chair in Scientific and Technological Literacy. Her research…
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Scott Lucas: The Epstein Class Proves the Rule of Law Doesn't Even Exist for Victims
Professor Scott Lucas returns to our live guest episode to discuss the societal impact of the Epstein class and the deflections used by their political backers, apologists and the US justice system to evade responsibility. And since we are focusing on political deflections, Donald Trump…
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Peter Geoghegan: How The West Sold Democracy to The Corrupt Rich
Peter Geoghegan is an award-winning investigative journalist and broadcaster whose work has fundamentally changed the conversation around transparency in British public life and Western politics. He is the founder and editor of Democracy for Sale, an independent investigative news outlet that...
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Richard Murphy: The AI Bubble is a Prelude to a Much Bigger Economic Collapse
We are joined by the prominent British political economist and campaigner, Richard Murphy, discussing the latest AI bubble turmoil and its role in a broader economic collapse – could be as soon as the end of 2026! It’s an energetic conversation that will open your eyes to the post-AI economics....
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Misinformation Watch: ICE committed a crime, turning the US into a permanent state of emergency!
Scott Lucas returns to help us break down the ICE actions in Minneapolis that descended America into a permanent state of emergency, and how this fits into Trump's escalating global tensions. After what felt like a whirlwind of a week, Scott Lucas returned to help us unravel the ongoing state of...
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Emergency Episode: The consequences of America's invasion of Venezuela are worse than you think
Professor Scott Lucas returns to our first live guest emergency episode to discuss the current geopolitical tensions between the US and Venezuela, explore the historical context, and examine how it sets the stage for today's political and economic landscape. One of the standout points Scott made...
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The 2026 Reckoning: Why You Should Be Paying Attention Now (Live Replay)
In January 2025, I discussed why it was the rising era of “IoS” (Internet of Shit). Not only did it exceed my expectations, but it has set the path for 2026, which will be the year of reckoning, and it won’t be pretty. This is a replay of our very first livestream on YouTube, available in the…
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Emergency Episode: The Trump Epstein Cover-up | Scott Lucas
In this emergency episode, recorded in my chaotic kitchen, our good friend, the brilliant and veteran political and economic professor, Scott Lucas, returns to dissect the latest political and economic fallout from the latest Epstein files release – beyond the political theatrics. The files,...
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UK's First Academic AI Leader: AI will always need human creativity in order to exist
A deep dive into the evolving landscape of AI and the current push against genuine innovation, from engineering to the arts. Professor Shushma Patel is the Pro Vice-Chancellor for Artificial Intelligence at De Montfort University (DMU) in the UK. As a prominent figure in computing, engineering…
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The mother of the $38 billion FemTech sector who is challenging gender bias
An inspiring and no-nonsense discussion about entrepreneurship with Ida Tin, the mother of FemTech, who is the co-founder and former CEO and chairwoman of Clue, one of the most trusted female health apps with over 10 million active users across 190 countries. Ida has won several prizes for her...
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Veteran AI Experts: The AI bubble is much worse than we ever expected
The tables have turned! Tim El-Sheikh is being interviewed by Ben Byford on his show, The Machine Ethics Podcast, discussing why the AI bubble is far worse than we thought and how it has become a financial nightmare. Ben is a good friend of our show here at The CEO Retort and a previous guest who...
About this show
Your space for greater knowledge, purpose, and performance. Subscribe & Join Us at TheRetort.com ❤️The CEO Retort is the anti-clickbait, thought-provoking show hosted by Tim El-Sheikh, a biomedical scientist and former basketball player who became a serial deeptech entrepreneur after discovering the power of artificial intelligence (AI) in 1996 while studying genetics and the Human Genome Project.In 2002, Tim quit his PhD in data fusion to focus on architecting intelligence systems for his ventures and is one of the pioneering first-generation AI founders at London’s Silicon Roundabout.
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