All Episodes
Complex Systems with Patrick McKenzie (patio11) — 90 episodes
Defendant, Censor, Politico, Spy
How the SPLC became financial infrastructure
The honey badger of payments
Cash received is not revenue earned
Your bank balance isn’t in the bank, and other alchemy
Payroll, pins, and punch cards
Delve into compliance theatre
Understanding consumer debt collections: the underbelly of finance
Inference engineering and the real-world deployment of LLMs, with Philip Kiely
Secrets designed to be divulged and other payment oddities
Understanding government procurement, with Luke Farrell
APIs of evil: studying fraud as infrastructure
Why check cashing businesses exist
Claude Code makes several thousand dollars in 30 minutes, with Patrick McKenzie
We should stop burning pharma trials’ lab notes, with Ruxandra Teslo
Your support rep is also trapped in this call, with Des Traynor of Intercom
The magic spell that makes banks give you your money back
2025 in review, with Sammy Cottrell
Gift cards and the fraud supply chain
Understanding perpetual futures
The economics of discovery, with Ben Reinhardt
Understanding equity at tech companies, with Billy Gallagher of Prospect
The $4,000 insurance policy designed to never pay out
How deposit insurance actually works
Home improvement lending with fewer bankers and more computers
Talking to the Bank of England about systemic risk and systems engineering
Narrative, mastery, and character bleed in games, with Ricki Heicklen
Bits and bricks: Oliver Habryka on LessWrong, LightHaven, and community infrastructure
Building institutions that bend towards truth, with Clara Collier of Asterisk Magazine
How blogging went legit, with Substack CEO Chris Best
Prestige media, new media, and the US government, with Kelsey Piper
AI alignment, with Emmett Shear
Building software that survives contact with reality, with Will Wilson
Defense, drones, and military procurement, with Bean of Naval Gazing
AI and the great developer speed-up, with Joel Becker of METR
How banks actually work (and don't work)
Building software in Japan, with Jim Weisser
Startup investing in Tokyo, with Coral Capital’s James Riney
How AI reshapes the craft of software engineering, with Yoav Tzfati
Stacking the odds: Cate Hall on agency and outlier success
Think like a trader, with Ricki Heicklen
Achieving results in the physical world, with Adam Jarvis of “Public Service”
The AI infrastructure stack with Jennifer Li, a16z
Getting better at LLMs, with Zvi Mowshowitz
Machine learning meets malware, with Caleb Fenton
How to negotiate your salary package
The capitalist's guide to podcasting, with Ross Rheingans-Yoo
Killing viruses with light, with Jacob Swett
Life insurance and your money, with Zac Townsend
Fixing government technology, with Mikey Dickerson
Understanding and wielding power in local government, with Daniel Golliher
The AI energy bottleneck, with Tim Fist
Taking stablecoins seriously, with Haseeb Qureshi
The past, present, and future of AI, with Stripe
No, poor people aren’t funding your credit card rewards
Points, profits, and packed planes, with Gary Leff
Tax the dirt, with Lars Doucet & Greg Miller
A tale of two Americas in one $50K cash withdrawal
AI, data centers, and power economics, with Azeem Azhar
You can’t retract the facts
Stablecoins and shenanigans, with Zeke Faux
Power plays: grid economics and engineering, with Travis Dauwalter
The landmines buried in the fine print of Chicago’s new casino deal
The banking crisis, two years later
Debanking explained
Retrospective on 2024, with Sammy Cottrell
Seeing like an outsider, with Yatharth
The future of pandemic preparedness, with Joshua Morrison
How we tax property, with Lars Doucet
Fraud levels are a policy choice
AI, poker, and mind games, with Max Chiswick
Boom, busts, and long term progress with Byrne Hobart
How money moves, with Erik Torenberg
From molecule to medicine, with Ross Rheingans-Yoo
Picking Uncle Sam's pocket, with Jetson Leder-Luis
How real estate investing works with Moses Kagan
Telling the tech story
The hundred-year-old telegram worth $5 million, with Jim McKenzie
Bits, Bytes, and Burgers with Byrne Hobart
Decisions Nobody Made, policy edition, with Dave Guarino
True Crime, banking edition
That time we accidentally created national healthcare infrastructure, with Dave Kasten
The mad science of drilling the earth with Austin Vernon
Balancing control and chaos: cybernetics, fraud, and modern organizations with Dan Davies
Energy economics and rocket science with Casey Handmer
Bet on it: Zvi Mowshowitz on professional gambling, trading, and AI futures
Betting on the future via prediction markets, with Stephen Grugett of Manifold
Reporting on tech with Kelsey Piper
Writing the first draft of financial history with Byrne Hobart
How the Smart Money teaches trading with Ricki Heicklen