Shows
Public Service PodcastSmart Cities & Digital Governance, with Sean AudainPresenting a discussion with Sean Audain, the former City Innovation Lead and now Strategic Planning Manager at Wellington City Council. We covered a wide array of topics, from how Wellington is using sensors at scale to improve earthquake resilience, to the implications of narrowing information asymmetries thanks to AI combined with data collection at unprecedented scale. This recording is from the 2025 Sustainable Development Goals Summit at Massey University and is published here with the permission of the organising committee.
2025-12-2238 min
Public Service PodcastAuckland's Legendary Design Champion, Ludo Campbell-ReidLudo is one of the most interesting and successful public servants of the 21st Century, leading a radical transformation of Auckland’s urban design over his 13 years as the city’s ‘Design Champion’. YIMBY’s rightly celebrate the city’s upzoning successes and improving affordability, but it’s easy to forget how strong public opposition to ‘ugly’ tower blocks almost unraveled the movement before it started. Delivering change is always challenging, particularly in the public sector. Ludo’s extraordinary efforts required building and managing a world-class team, maintaining political support, leading a relentless and incisive comms strategy, and coordinating the...
2025-12-031h 49
Public Service PodcastPatrick McKenzie - VaccinateCA and Institutional DysfunctionPatrick McKenzie (aka patio11) is a strategic advisor at Stripe, an angel investor, writes the fortnightly newsletter ‘Bits About Money’ about financial infrastructure, and was CEO of the extraordinary VaccinateCA effort in 2021. Patrick and I previously spoke on his show ‘Complex Systems’ about system dynamics, local government challenges, and organisational scar tissue. Here we follow up on what the insane VaccinateCA saga tells us about modern institutional dysfunction, and how we might avoid repeating the terrible mistakes of 2021.Read the full transcript with inline notes here:https://alethios.substack.com/p/patrick-mckenzie-vaccinateca
2025-10-201h 32
Public Service PodcastAnish Tondwalkar - The Societal Implications of Reasoning ModelsAnish Tondwalkar is a former employee of OpenAI and Google Brain, now the co-founder of Y-Combinator backed AI interpretability startup ‘dmodel.ai’. We sat down in June to discuss the underappreciated capabilities of the latest generation of AI models, and how individuals, institutions, and society is likely to respond, even if no further progress were made.Full transcript with links and inline notes available here:https://alethios.substack.com/p/anish-tondwalkar-the-societal-implications
2025-08-141h 46
Public Service PodcastSamo Burja - Live Players and Institutional ReformSamo is an institutional theorist, the founder of Bismarck Analysis, and the editor of Palladium Magazine. We discuss why our political agreements are 80 years out of date, and how Estonia provides the same standard of public services at half the cost.Full transcript with reference links and notes available here:https://alethios.substack.com/p/samo-burja-live-players-and-institutional
2025-08-051h 22
Public Service PodcastSteve Hsu - In No.10 with Boris and CummingsSteve Hsu completed his PhD in theoretical physics at age 24. He’s since made numerous contributions as a scientist, tech startup founder, professor, and institutional advisor. Little is known about the role he played during Boris Johnson’s ill-fated tenure as Prime Minister of the UK. In Steve’s first interview on the subject, he shares that hidden history, and what lessons can be drawn from it.Later, we discuss the rapidly changing power dynamics of the Western Pacific, as China continues to flex its growing might.Full transcript with links is available here:http...
2025-08-011h 57
Public Service PodcastTracingWoodgrains - Journalism, Education Policy, and Political ChangeJack Despain Zhou, aka ‘TracingWoodgrains’, is an independent investigative journalist, education campaigner, online community expert, and internet commentator. We discussed evolving cultural dynamics, leadership, and how to reform everything from dog control laws, to education, to the Democratic Party.Full transcript available here:https://alethios.substack.com/p/with-tracingwoodgrains-journalism
2025-08-011h 16
Public Service PodcastNuño Sempere - Superforecasting and Global RiskNuño Sempere is a founding member of the legendary forecasting group ‘Samotsvety’. His track record puts him at the top of the world’s most accurate predictors of the future. I sat down with him last month to discuss forecasting, global risk, and his new non-profit ‘Sentinel’, a free early-warning system for large-scale catastrophes like pandemics, wars, and financial turmoil.Read the full transcript and more at alethios.substack.com
2025-08-011h 26
Complex Systems with Patrick McKenzie (patio11)Achieving results in the physical world, with Adam Jarvis of “Public Service”Patrick McKenzie is joined by Adam Jarvis, author of the Public Service substack and a New Zealand civil engineer and public sector veteran. They discuss how political capital constraints, funding misalignment across government levels, and accumulated regulatory "scar tissue" make infrastructure projects extraordinarily difficult. The conversation reveals why replacing a water pipe now costs more in planning than the entire project did a decade ago, and how talent sorting has drained capacity from public institutions. Despite these challenges, Patrick and Adam find reasons for optimism about reforming government capacity.Complex Systems now has video episodes as well...
2025-07-031h 09