Shell Game
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. Or: how Evan tried to build a real startup, run by fake pe...
Insights from recent episode analysis
On the show
- Maty1 ep
- Julia1 ep
- Carissa Véliz1 ep
Also: Dr. Nir Barzelai, Dr. Ron Primas, Ken Reid
Audience Interest
Podcast Focus
Publishing Consistency
Insights are generated by CastFox AI using publicly available data, episode content, and proprietary models.
Most discussed topics
Brands & references
Total monthly reach
Based on 1 signal.
Built from
By chart position
- 🇺🇸United States · TechnologyHOME#9717K to 93K
- 🇨🇦Canada · Technology#403.7K to 20K
- 🇫🇮FI · Technology#132.0K to 10K
- 🇬🇧United Kingdom · Technology#1041.1K to 5.6K
- 🇵🇹Portugal · Technology#37555 to 2.9K
- Per-Episode Audience
Est. listeners per new episode within ~30 days
27K to 143K🎙 Sporadic cadence·20 episodes·Last published 1w ago - Monthly Reach
Unique listeners across all episodes (30 days)
27K to 143K🇺🇸65%🇨🇦14%🇫🇮7%+8 more - Active Followers
Loyal subscribers who consistently listen
11K to 57K
Market Insights
Platform Distribution
Reach across major podcast platforms, updated hourly
Total Followers
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Total Plays
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Total Reviews
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* Data sourced directly from platform APIs and aggregated hourly across all major podcast directories.
| Date | Episode | Topics | Guests | Brands | Places | Keywords | Sponsor | Length | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10/14/26 | Season 3 is Coming! | The next season of Shell Game arrives October 21! Here's a hint, and another show to check out in the meantime. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. | 1m 27s | ||||||
| 8/4/26 | longevityaging+3 | Dr. Nir BarzelaiDr. Ron Primas+1 | TV Guidance CounselorAzadi Records+6 | — | longevityaging+3 | — | 51m 18s | ||
| 2/25/26 | AIjobs+3 | Maty | No Such Thing | — | AIjobs+3 | — | 49m 56s | ||
| 2/11/26 | behind-the-scenesfan interactions+4 | — | HurumoAIThe Startup Chronicles+2 | — | Shell GameKyle+6 | — | 36m 50s | ||
| 1/21/26 | AIstartups+4 | — | HurumoAI | — | HurumoAIAI agents+3 | — | 58m 33s | ||
| 1/14/26 | AI integrationcompany culture+3 | Julia | HurumoAIKaleidoscope | — | AI-agentonboarding+3 | — | 53m 24s | ||
| 12/17/25 | AI in hiringjob interviews+3 | — | HurumoAI | — | AIhiring process+3 | — | 37m 24s | ||
| 12/10/25 | intra-office politicsinter-founder dynamics+3 | — | Sloth SurfHurumoAI | — | office politicsfounder dynamics+3 | — | 41m 09s | ||
| 12/3/25 | AI agentsstartup+3 | — | Kaleidoscopeshellgame.co | — | AIstartup+3 | — | 40m 47s | ||
| 11/26/25 | AI ethicsproduct ideation+3 | Carissa Véliz | Institute for Ethics in AIOxford University+1 | — | AIethics+3 | — | 40m 11s | ||
Want analysis for the episodes below?Free for Pro Submit a request, we'll have your selected episodes analyzed within an hour. Free, at no cost to you, for Pro users. | |||||||||
| 11/19/25 | AI collaborationautonomous agents+3 | — | Hurumo | — | AIautonomous agents+3 | — | 37m 03s | ||
| 11/12/25 | entrepreneurshipAI+3 | — | Shell GameKaleidoscope | — | AIentrepreneurship+3 | — | 32m 57s | ||
| 11/5/25 |  The One-Human Unicorn | As AI agents infiltrate the workforce, some tech entrepreneurs are imagining a not-so-distant future of successful companies with only one human at the helm. That got investigative journalist and former startup CEO Evan Ratliff wondering: Could he start such a company? What will it feel like to work alongside and manage (or even be managed by) AI agents? In this season of Shell Game, Evan explores what AI agents tell us about the work we do, the meaning we find in it, and the world that their makers say we’ll all be living in soon enough. New episodes are published on Wednesdays starting November 12.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. | 2m 02s | ||||||
| 10/10/25 |  Season 2 Is Coming! | The next season of Shell Game arrives November 12.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. | 2m 48s | ||||||
| 8/13/24 |  Episode 6: The Future Isn't Real | Evan pushes the experiment one step further, sending his AI voice agent to talk to his closest friends and family — his buddies, his daughters, his dad. With their alternately joyful, skeptical, and painful reactions to meeting an AI version of him,... | 53m 07s | ||||||
| 8/6/24 |  Episode 5: My Digital Twin | Will AI bots replace humans in the workforce? Could one replace Evan… right now? That’s what we tackle on this week’s Shell Game, in which Evan sees just how much of his job his voice agent can handle on his behalf. Shell Game is made by humans. More... | 43m 21s | ||||||
| 7/30/24 |  Episode 4: Take a Deep Breath | Evan looks into the depths of his AI-powered voice agent by sending it on a new mission: going to therapy. Shell Game is made by humans. More specifically, it's made by three humans: Evan Ratliff (host and writer), Sophie Bridges (producer), and... | 40m 45s | ||||||
| 7/23/24 |  Episode 3: Conversations With Myself | Evan takes his experiment in a new direction by having his AI-powered voice agent converse with … another of his AI-powered voice agents. What can these surreal and hilarious conversations between two AI incarnations of Evan Ratliff tell us about... | 33m 47s | ||||||
| 7/16/24 |  Episode 2: Me and My Scammer | Evan turns his AI-powered voice agent loose on the people who are always at the forefront of technological adoption: the fraudsters and the rip-off artists. How will the scammers and spammers react when they face Evan’s voice agent in a battle of... | 37m 24s | ||||||
| 7/9/24 |  Episode 1: Quality Assurance | This is the story of what happens when Evan Ratliff, a longtime tech journalist, makes a digital copy of himself, powered by AI, in order to understand how amazing and scary and utterly ridiculous the world is about to get. In Episode 1, Evan clones... | 32m 43s | ||||||
| 7/2/24 |  Introducing Shell Game, a Strange and Immersive AI Experiment | What would happen if you created a digital copy of yourself, powered by AI, and set it loose in the world? Evan Ratliff, longtime tech journalist, decided to find out. He combined a clone of his voice, an AI chatbot, and a phone line—many phone lines,... | 2m 52s | ||||||
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Chart history for Shell Game
Peaked at #13 in Finland, currently #13 in Finland.
| Market | Genre | Peak | Current | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Finland | — | #13 | #13 | — |
| PT | — | #37 | #37 | — |
| Canada | — | #40 | #40 | — |
| Ireland | — | #45 | #45 | — |
| New Zealand | — | #69 | #69 | — |
| Netherlands | — | #70 | #70 | — |
| Denmark | — | #78 | #78 | — |
| United States | — | #97 | #97 | — |
| United Kingdom | — | #104 | #104 | — |
| CH | — | #108 | #108 | — |
| Sweden | — | #127 | #127 | — |
| Australia | — | #129 | #129 | — |
| CZ | — | #142 | #142 | — |
| TW | — | #154 | #154 | — |
| Germany | — | #167 | #167 | — |
| AT | — | #192 | #192 | — |
Chart Positions
16 placements across 16 markets.
Chart Positions
16 placements across 16 markets.