The Jacob Shapiro Podcast

A flaw sat for years in the code beneath most of the world's websites until an AI model went looking for it (See: PHP2Shell). Dror Poleg, an economic historian who writes about technology and work, doesn't think patching ends the story: the attack surface only widens, and some things may have to come off the internet altogether. Then to Israel, voting on October 27, where Benjamin Netanyahu campaigns against dangers his own government deepened and has floated crypto as a hedge against sanctions. Last, two fathers of small children compare notes on raising them alongside the machines. The main thing to do about AI, it turns out, is other things.
Cue the newest show in the Perch Podcasts sphere - Minor Powers. Jacob Shapiro and Dror Poleg are embarking on a weekly journey to discuss tech, war, AI, and how to be a dad in the 21st century.
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(00:00) - Intro/Welcome
(01:57) - Black October and the PHP flaw
(05:54) - The end of the internet?
(09:09) - Banking, privacy and encryption
(12:04) - Learning to live with the risk
(13:48) - Israel votes
(16:54) - Netanyahu's bench and the FlyDubai plot
(21:35) - Crypto against sanctions
(25:38) - A state like any other
(27:54) - Young voters and the old guard
(28:54) - Will AI kill the creative class?
(34:24) - Raising kids around AI
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Jacob Shapiro Site: jacobshapiro.com
Jacob Shapiro LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jacob-l-s-a9337416
Jacob Twitter: x.com/JacobShap
Jacob Shapiro Substack: jashap.substack.com/subscribe
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Jacob Shapiro is a speaker, consultant, author, and researcher covering global politics and affairs, economics, markets, technology, history, and culture. He speaks to audiences of all sizes around the world, helps global multinationals make strategic decisions about political risks and opportunities, and works directly with investors to grow and protect their assets in today’s volatile global environment. His insights help audiences across industries like finance, agriculture, and energy make sense of the world.
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Dror Poleg's Site: https://www.drorpoleg.com/
Dror Poleg's Twitter: https://x.com/drorpoleg
Dror Poleg's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drorpoleg/
Dror Poleg's Substack: https://newsletter.drorpoleg.com/
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Dror Poleg is an economic historian and former tech and private-equity executive. He researches technology’s impact on work, markets, and the built world. Dror’s writing has appeared in The New York Times and The Atlantic, and his insights have been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and The Times of London. He briefs leadership teams at companies like JPMorgan, UBS, and HSBC.
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Minor Powers is produced and edited by Audiographies LLC. More information at audiographies.com

Ukraine has had three revolutions since 1990: students on Kyiv's granite square, the Orange crowds of 2004, the Maidan in 2014. Volodymyr Ishchenko, a sociologist at the Institute for East European Studies in Berlin, argues that none of them built a stronger state, and that this, more than any Russian tank, explains where Ukraine stands now: a country whose budget is largely paid for by the European Union, run by elites who bet everything on an international order that may not outlast the war. He follows the argument all the way down, to who can pay a bribe to escape the draft, and who cannot.

(00:00) - Intro/Welcome
(01:14) - Is Ukraine still a sovereign state?
(09:34) - Where the sovereignty went
(14:49) - Three "weak, deficient revolutions"
(18:51) - Israel, South Korea and other borrowed models
(22:04) - Europe's Foederati
(26:13) - The Georgian path
(30:00) - Can Europe get its act together?
(34:29) - Did the invasion make sense for Russia?
(41:47) - Who rallied around Putin, and why
(46:44) - Winners and losers on both sides
(55:19) - "A Ukraine of our dreams" and the draft economy

Jacob Shapiro Site: jacobshapiro.com
Jacob Shapiro LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jacob-l-s-a9337416
Jacob Twitter: x.com/JacobShap
Jacob Shapiro Substack: jashap.substack.com/subscribe

Volodymyr Ischenko - https://www.oei.fu-berlin.de/en/soziologie/team/team2/ishchenko.html
The Jacob Shapiro Show is produced and edited by Audiographies LLC. More information at audiographies.com
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Jacob Shapiro is a speaker, consultant, author, and researcher covering global politics and affairs, economics, markets, technology, history, and culture. He speaks to audiences of all sizes around the world, helps global multinationals make strategic decisions about political risks and opportunities, and works directly with investors to grow and protect their assets in today’s volatile global environment. His insights help audiences across industries like finance, agriculture, and energy make sense of the world.

A Brazilian congressman runs a WhatsApp channel called "Lula's Army." This week it passed ten million followers, part of a late surge that has turned a race Lula was losing into a near tie. Monica de Bolle of the Peterson Institute for International Economics maps what Sunday's runoff against Flávio Bolsonaro decides: who fills at least three of the Supreme Court's eleven seats, whether anyone fixes debt rules built for an age of runaway inflation, and who controls the world's second-largest rare earth reserves - where an American company has agreed to buy a mine. Monica is extremely confident in at least one thing: "The potential to disappoint is enormous."
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(00:00) - Intro/Welcome
(01:20) - A race that flipped in three weeks
(03:33) - Meta, WhatsApp and the online campaign
(05:39) - Supreme Court seats and the Orbán comparison
(09:47) - Lula's record, and the market's hope for a Brazilian Milei
(15:40) - Why Brazil's interest rates are so high
(21:24) - The reforms nobody will make
(26:09) - Washington, Beijing and Brazil's new trade deals
(33:36) - Can Brazil lead? Rare earths and a mine in Goiás
(41:46) - Why micro-entrepreneurs left Lula
(47:14) - The military and Brazil's regional role
(51:36) - "The potential to disappoint is enormous"
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Jacob Shapiro Site: jacobshapiro.com
Jacob Shapiro LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jacob-l-s-a9337416
Jacob Twitter: x.com/JacobShap
Jacob Shapiro Substack: jashap.substack.com/subscribe
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The Jacob Shapiro Show is produced and edited by Audiographies LLC. More information at audiographies.com
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Jacob Shapiro is a speaker, consultant, author, and researcher covering global politics and affairs, economics, markets, technology, history, and culture. He speaks to audiences of all sizes around the world, helps global multinationals make strategic decisions about political risks and opportunities, and works directly with investors to grow and protect their assets in today’s volatile global environment. His insights help audiences across industries like finance, agriculture, and energy make sense of the world.
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Brazil was always the country of the future - prophesied as a new Eden since the sixteenth century, promised great things that never quite arrived. Alex Hochuli’s argument is that the future caught up to Brazil from the other direction. The wealthy world didn’t pull the laggards forward; it declined to meet them. A shrinking middle class, patrimonial politics, collapsing trust, gated condominiums and open sewers alongside WhatsApp. This is Brazilianization, and Hochuli joins from São Paulo days after Lula’s loss in the first round to explain what it looks like from inside. A bleak conversation, honestly held - and one that argues the center didn’t get stolen from. It ran out of things to say.
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Timestamps:
00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro
01:45 Alex Journey to Brazil
04:05 Election Shock and Polls
06:57 Why Voters Want Change
10:07 Lula Coalition and Constraints
12:54 Security and Cost of Living
15:28 Brazil in Regional Context
19:18 Scandals and Hyper Online Politics
23:02 Where Did the Left Go
24:03 Work Precarity and New Aspirations
28:50 Gambling Faith and Get Rich Culture
32:04 Evangelical Surge Explained
34:51 Urban Insecurity and Community
36:20 Religion Shifts Politics Right
37:18 Brazilianization Goes Global
38:44 Modernization Ends and Decay
43:48 Flexibility Era Revisited
45:45 China as an Exception
50:13 US China and Brazil Voice
53:46 Why Brazil Lacks a Project
57:10 Identity Crisis and Interior Boom
59:38 Hope Interregnum and Rightward Energy
01:03:21 Closing Anecdotes and Farewell
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Referenced in the Show:

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Jacob Shapiro Site: jacobshapiro.com
Jacob Shapiro LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jacob-l-s-a9337416
Jacob Twitter: x.com/JacobShap
Jacob Shapiro Substack: jashap.substack.com/subscribe
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The Jacob Shapiro Show is produced and edited by Audiographies LLC. More information at audiographies.com
--
Jacob Shapiro is a speaker, consultant, author, and researcher covering global politics and affairs, economics, markets, technology, history, and culture. He speaks to audiences of all sizes around the world, helps global multinationals make strategic decisions about political risks and opportunities, and works directly with investors to grow and protect their assets in today’s volatile global environment. His insights help audiences across industries like finance, agriculture, and energy make sense of the world.
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Eritrea and (a Tigrayan-led) Ethiopia fought one of Africa’s deadliest wars against each other. Then Eritrea helped Ethiopia crush Tigray. Now Eritrea and Tigray are fighting Ethiopia together. Confusing? Super. Nicholas Norbrook of The Africa Report maps the forces pulling at a country that was, until recently, one of the fastest-growing economies on earth - a messianic prime minister with a very young team, Emirati money on several sides at once, Egypt quietly assembling a coalition to box Addis in, and a short run to the Red Sea coast that would be very easy to attempt and very hard to survive.
We've put together a little primer on the conflict because this one is confusing as hell.
General Context:
Eritrea was a federated part of Ethiopia from the 1950's until the 1990s. Tigray is a region in northern Ethiopia, and Tigrayans are the ethnic group who live there - roughly 6% of Ethiopians identify as Tigrayan, although the Tigrayan People's Libreration front ruled Ethiopia from 1991-2018. Tigrayans speak Tigrinya - the same language as the Eritrean highlanders just across the border (the Tigrinya people), who make up about half of Eritrea’s population. Same language, same church, same highland culture, split by a border Italy drew in the 1890s.
Modern Conflict Timeline:
1991 - The TPLF (Tigrayan People's Liberation Front) overthrows Ethiopia’s military dictatorship and runs the country until 2018. Eritrea gains its independence and breaks away fully from Ethiopia.
1998 - A border war with Eritrea is fought by a Tigrayan-led Ethiopia, largely on Tigrayan ground, with ~100,000+ people dead. Conflict ends in 2000.
2018 - Abiy Ahmed takes power in Ethiopia, sidelines the TPLF, makes peace with Eritrea, and collects a Nobel Peace Prize.
2020 - Eritrean troops help Abiy Ahmed crush Tigrayan resistance. The Pretoria Agreement freezes that war in November 2022 without settling any of it.
2026 - In September, the fighting reignited, now with Tigray and Eritrea loosely opposing Ethiopia.

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Timestamps:
(00:00) - Welcome and Guest Intro
(01:20) - Abiy Ambition and Ethiopia
(03:33) - Development Model Shift
(06:39) - South Korea Lessons METEC
(09:13) - New War Regional Risks
(11:15) - Ethno Federalism and TPLF
(13:16) - Outside Powers and Dam
(15:40) - Why Regions Splinter
(20:56) - Unraveling or Recohere
(26:30) - Eritrea Whiplash Explained
(31:53) - Gulf Rivalries and Drones
(38:07) - What Happens Next
(42:04) - Why This Matters Outro
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Referenced in the Show:
The Africa Report: https://www.theafricareport.com/author/nicholas-norbrook/
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Jacob Shapiro Site: jacobshapiro.com
Jacob Shapiro LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jacob-l-s-a9337416
Jacob Twitter: x.com/JacobShap
Jacob Shapiro Substack: jashap.substack.com/subscribe
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The Jacob Shapiro Show is produced and edited by Audiographies LLC. More information at audiographies.com
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Jacob Shapiro is a speaker, consultant, author, and researcher covering global politics and affairs, economics, markets, technology, history, and culture. He speaks to audiences of all sizes around the world, helps global multinationals make strategic decisions about political risks and opportunities, and works directly with investors to grow and protect their assets in today’s volatile global environment. His insights help audiences across industries like finance, agriculture, and energy make sense of the world.
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