Log inSign up
Evan Ratliff
667 posts
user avatar
Evan Ratliff
@ev_rat
Journalist. Maker of Shell Game, author of The Mastermind, cofounder (silent) @HurumoAI. Past: @longformpodcast @atavist @popupmag. Signal: EvanRatliff.01
Out and about
cazart.net
Joined November 2008
1,069
Following
14.8K
Followers

New to X?

Sign up now to get your own personalized timeline!

Create account

By signing up, you agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, including Cookie Use.

Terms·Privacy·Cookies·Accessibility·Ads Info·© 2026 X Corp.
Don't miss what's happening
People on X are the first to know.
Log inSign up
  • Pinned
    user avatar
    Evan Ratliff
    @ev_rat
    Jan 21
    The full 8-part season 2 of Shell Game is out today. The tale of @HurumoAI, the world’s first AI agent-cofounded and led startup, ready to binge. Making it weekly left me little time for hyping, so a one-shot buzz recap 🧵 if you’re on the fence:
    Shell Game
    podcasts.apple.com
    Shell Game
    Technology Podcast · Weekly Series · A podcast about things that are not what they seem, hosted by journalist Evan Ratliff. Season 2 tells the story of enterprise and entrepreneurship in the AI age....
    3.5K
  • user avatar
    Evan Ratliff
    @ev_rat
    Feb 21, 2025
    I spent the last 2 years on the trail of the Zizians, a group of technically gifted young people who set out to save the world. Their ideas led them down a path littered with violence and death. Along the way 6 people have been killed, 6 are jail, others have gone underground.
    Illustration of a helicopter and boats on a darkened San Francisco Bay.
    44K
  • user avatar
    Evan Ratliff
    @ev_rat
    Jun 28, 2023
    Replying to @ev_rat
    So, here’s a story of how a traffic stop in Tulsa launched a massive investigation into an alleged $545 million catalytic converter theft ring, during which one police officer was killed and another grew obsessed with “cutting the head off the snake” 4/4:
    How Cops Cracked a $500 Million Catalytic Converter Crime Ring
    From bloomberg.com
    45K
  • user avatar
    Evan Ratliff
    @ev_rat
    Feb 21, 2025
    Replying to @ev_rat
    You may have seen Zizians headlines, as they entered the media and culture war maelstrom described as a "trans vegan cult" "anarchists" and AI doomers gone mad. But I can assure you, you don't know the story. Here's my best shot at it, years in the making:
    The Delirious, Violent, Impossible True Story of the Zizians
    From wired.com
    14K
  • user avatar
    Evan Ratliff
    @ev_rat
    Jul 9, 2024
    15 years ago I tried to vanish, in an experiment to explore the role of tech in privacy and surveillance. Older and not-wiser, I'm back with a sequel. This time, I replicated myself, and set my AI replicas loose in the world. The podcast is called Shell Game. Ep 1, out now.
    00:00
    88K
  • user avatar
    Evan Ratliff
    @ev_rat
    Oct 14, 2024
    Just over a year ago I stumbled across a lawsuit involving OpenAI that nobody was paying attention to. The chain of events at the heart of it was... not the one I expected to find. The story of OpenAI vs Open AI (gift link):
    Why OpenAI Is at War With an Obscure Idea Man
    From bloomberg.com
    39K
  • user avatar
    Evan Ratliff
    @ev_rat
    May 23, 2022
    Some... podcast news: I've spent the past year(s) on a new show, about a 21st con artist, who pulled off an extraordinary scam, that became the template for a global menace. It's out June 6. I'm... pretty excited for you to hear it. Et voilà, the trailer:
    Introducing - Persona: The French Deception
    podcasts.apple.com
    Introducing - Persona: The French Deception
    Podcast Episode · Persona: The French Deception · Trailer · 3m
  • user avatar
    Evan Ratliff
    @ev_rat
    Oct 17, 2022
    New story from me, for @BusinessInsider: Remember those AI-generated faces that were all the rage a while back? I've been stalking thousands of them around the web for two years, trying to catalog the bizarro fake personas they represent: (1/)
    AI is being used to generate a whole new kind of online scam
    From businessinsider.com
  • user avatar
    Evan Ratliff
    @ev_rat
    Feb 25, 2025
    Best possible podcast news: the genius of Heavyweight returns. "A co-host of the 'Longform' podcast called it 'one of the most compelling and moving things that anyone puts out in media anywhere.'" Couldn't have said it better. Hell yeah. Congrats @J_Goldstein and crew.
    user avatar
    Heavyweight Podcast
    @heavyweight
    Feb 25, 2025
    We've got some big news: Heavyweight officially has a new home @pushkinpods. Tell your friends, your exes… tell the strangers on the subway! And be sure to subscribe to the feed to hear about new episodes. nytimes.com/2025/02/25/bus…
    4.5K
  • user avatar
    Evan Ratliff
    @ev_rat
    Jan 23, 2023
    As a dedicated @heavyweight fan -- a @heavyweight-head, if you will -- this week's @longformpodcast was a particular treat. I got to quiz Jonathan Goldstein (@J_Goldstein) on how they are able to a make a show so consistently great:
    user avatar
    Longform Podcast
    @longformpodcast
    Jan 18, 2023
    Episode 518: Jonathan Goldstein (@J_Goldstein), host of @heavyweight pod.link/551088534
    14K
  • user avatar
    Evan Ratliff
    @ev_rat
    Dec 12, 2022
    Grant Wahl was an incredible journalist with unshakable integrity, a wonderful writer, a font of generosity. I wasn't as close to him as many who've offered tributes, but we started a conversation in 2016 that I was lucky to carry on with him as a friend:
    longform.org
    Grant Wahl (1973-2022) · Longform
    Grant Wahl was the founder of Fútbol with Grant Wahl, a longtime writer for Sports Illustrated, and the author of The Beckham Experiment and Masters of Modern Soccer. He died on December 10, covering...
  • user avatar
    Evan Ratliff
    @ev_rat
    Jan 4, 2023
    Big fan of @CasPiancey & @BennettTomlin's show @CryptoCriticPod, which on top of being a smart and fun listen has been incredibly prescient about crypto fraud. So I was honored to gab with them about Persona, The Mastermind, and Satoshi:
    Episode 104 – Did Satoshi run a drug cartel: The Paul Le Roux Story (feat. Evan Ratliff)
    From cryptocriticscorner.com
    12K
  • user avatar
    Evan Ratliff
    @ev_rat
    Aug 13, 2024
    The final episode of Shell Game season 1 is out today. Hard to make, hard for me to listen to at times, but we hope it's a funny, eerie, delightful, and perhaps haunting conclusion to our journey with an AI clone of me, how it felt to encounter it, and what we can learn from it.
    00:00
    02:11
    user avatar
    Evan Ratliff
    @ev_rat
    Jul 9, 2024
    15 years ago I tried to vanish, in an experiment to explore the role of tech in privacy and surveillance. Older and not-wiser, I'm back with a sequel. This time, I replicated myself, and set my AI replicas loose in the world. The podcast is called Shell Game. Ep 1, out now.
    28K
  • user avatar
    Evan Ratliff
    @ev_rat
    Oct 17, 2022
    Replying to @ev_rat
    It got me thinking about photography, fakery, and what happens when we individually or collectively experience "the inversion": the moment when we are encountering more fake identities online than real ones. (which Max Read wrote about back in 2018: (4/) nymag.com/intelligencer/…)
    How Much of the Internet Is Fake?
    From nymag.com