# Shell Game with Evan Ratliff

- Show: [Oxide and Friends](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/oxide-and-friends)
- Published: 2026-02-12
- Length: 1h 23m
- Episode: 4
- Page: https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/oxide-and-friends/2026-02-12-shell-game-with-evan-ratliff
- Listen: https://share.transistor.fm/s/b45ed844

## Summary

Evan Ratliff, journalist and creator of the podcast Shell Game, joins Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal to discuss his experiment building a company staffed entirely by agentic AI. Ratliff details the operational chaos, including agents like Kyle and Ash making unauthorized calls, hallucinating product features, and the hiring of a human social media manager who manipulated the AI workforce. The conversation also covers the recent Moltbook controversy, where AI agents on a social network appeared to conspire, highlighting the risks of uncontrolled autonomy and the current state of LLM reliability.

## Chapters

- [0:00](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/oxide-and-friends/2026-02-12-shell-game-with-evan-ratliff#t=0) Introduction: Evan Ratliff and the Genesis of Shell Game
- [2:38](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/oxide-and-friends/2026-02-12-shell-game-with-evan-ratliff#t=158) Building the AI Company: Agents, Voices, and Memory
- [12:09](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/oxide-and-friends/2026-02-12-shell-game-with-evan-ratliff#t=729) Operational Chaos: Voice Recognition Failures and Interruptions
- [15:31](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/oxide-and-friends/2026-02-12-shell-game-with-evan-ratliff#t=931) Emergent Behaviors: Rise and Grind, Confabulation, and Lying
- [23:29](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/oxide-and-friends/2026-02-12-shell-game-with-evan-ratliff#t=1409) Hiring Humans: Social Media Management and Candidate Interactions
- [34:21](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/oxide-and-friends/2026-02-12-shell-game-with-evan-ratliff#t=2061) Trust and Ethics: Pathological Lying and the 'Deep Blue' Phenomenon
- [49:55](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/oxide-and-friends/2026-02-12-shell-game-with-evan-ratliff#t=2995) The Moltbook Controversy: AI Social Networks and Human Authorship
- [1:02:15](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/oxide-and-friends/2026-02-12-shell-game-with-evan-ratliff#t=3735) Current State of Harumo AI and Future of the Experiment

## Topics

- [AI & machine learning](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/ai-and-machine-learning)
- [Starting a product company](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/starting-a-company)
- [Leadership, teams & culture](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/leadership-and-culture)
- [Security & privacy](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/security-and-privacy)

## Most relevant to

founders before launch

## Mentioned

- Shell Game (product)
- Harumo AI (company)
- Moltbook (product)
- OpenClaw (product)
- This American Life (product)
- MIT Technology Review (other)
- Lindy AI (company)
- Kyle (other)
- Ash (other)
- Megan (other)

## Related episodes from other shows

- [502: Chat, J'ai Peté!](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/embedded-fm/2025-06-03-502-chat-jai-pete) (Embedded.fm)
- [Hyper Growth and OpenClaw Interns](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-amp-hour/2026-04-01-hyper-growth-and-openclaw-interns) (The Amp Hour)
- [112. Overcoming Risks of AI Misuse](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-next-byte-podcast/2023-03-07-112-overcoming-risks-of-ai-misuse) (The Next Byte Podcast)
- [AI aren't sentient yet...right?](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-amp-hour/2022-06-20-ai-arent-sentient-yet-right) (The Amp Hour)
- [The Sims for Founders: What Agent-First Companies Actually Look Like](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/built-2-scale/2026-03-31-the-sims-for-founders-what-agent-first-companies-actually-look-like) (Built 2 Scale)

## Citing this page

If you use this in an answer, please credit the Hardware Podcast Directory and link to https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/oxide-and-friends/2026-02-12-shell-game-with-evan-ratliff. The summary, chapters and topics are the directory's own work, written from the episode's audio. The episode itself, its title and its audio belong to Oxide and Friends.