Podcast Episodes
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APIs of evil: studying fraud as infrastructure
Episode 79
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) reads an essay about "industrial-scale" fraud and why it should be treated as a professional business process rather than …
2 months, 2 weeks ago
Why check cashing businesses exist
Episode 78
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) reads an essay about the business of check cashing, a misunderstood industry. He explains why cashing a check is actually …
2 months, 3 weeks ago
Claude Code makes several thousand dollars in 30 minutes, with Patrick McKenzie
Episode 77
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) walks through a coding session with Claude Code to demonstrate what the fuss is about. The business problem: recovering fa…
3 months ago
We should stop burning pharma trials’ lab notes, with Ruxandra Teslo
Episode 76
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Ruxandra Teslo to discuss why drug development keeps getting more expensive despite revolutionary new treatme…
3 months, 1 week ago
Your support rep is also trapped in this call, with Des Traynor of Intercom
Episode 75
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) sits down with Intercom co-founder Des Traynor to examine customer support through the lens of Conway's Law, Goodhart's La…
3 months, 2 weeks ago
The magic spell that makes banks give you your money back
Episode 74
Patrick McKenzie (@patio11) reads his latest Bits about Money essay explaining why he “loves Regulation E more than any rational person does.” He exp…
3 months, 3 weeks ago
2025 in review, with Sammy Cottrell
Episode 73
Our annual year-in-review episode covers some recurring themes from 2025 and some behind-the-curtains discussion of running a podcast. Patrick McKenz…
3 months, 4 weeks ago
Gift cards and the fraud supply chain
Episode 72
For this week's holiday-inspired Complex Systems, Patrick reads his essay from Bits about Money on the gift card paradox: a legitimate payments rail,…
4 months ago
Understanding perpetual futures
Episode 71
In this episode, Patrick McKenzie (patio11) walks through how perpetual futures work, from funding rates to liquidations to the surprise of automatic…
4 months, 2 weeks ago
The economics of discovery, with Ben Reinhardt
Episode 70
In this episode, Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Ben Reinhardt, founder of Speculative Technologies, to examine how science gets funded in th…
4 months, 3 weeks ago