The Jacob Shapiro Podcast

Latest episodes

Showing 20 · updated from the feed

The World Cup of Politics (Brazil Elections)

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 losi

Oct 23
54 min

Brazilianization

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 argumen

Oct 19
1 h 05 min

Ethiopia's New War

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 figh

Oct 12
46 min

Circular Financing

Mark Walter bought the Lakers for $10 billion and sold them fourteen months later for $12.5. That's a 20% return - which sounds enormous until you consider that nobody se

Oct 5
55 min

Rubio Makin Moves

Two hundred years ago, Simón Bolívar dreamed of a united Latin America - precisely so it could resist becoming America's backyard. South America may finally be integratin

Sep 28
56 min

The Sand Mafias

People are being killed over sand. Not diamonds, not lithium, not rare earths - sand, the second-most consumed resource on earth after water, and the one nobody thinks ab

Sep 23
47 min

Rabbit Season, Duck Season

Inside you are two wolves. One (Michael Every) looks at Washington and sees a plan. The other (Jacob) looks at the same info and sees chaos. Somewhere north of both is th

Sep 14
1 h 04 min

The $10 Trillion Ocean

The world has never been wealthier... but a warm patch of ocean in the Pacific is about to reorganize the weather across four continents and all that wealth still might n

Sep 7
1 h 06 min

Boil the Frog

Scott Bessent knows something that we don't. Luke Gromen has spent his whole career reading the fine print of America's balance sheet, and his conclusion is stark: the qu

Aug 31
1 h 11 min

Pulped

AI companies are buying up used books, scanning them, and destroying the originals. At least, that's the headline... the real story is weirder. Charlie Becker, a seventh-

Aug 24
58 min

Cooler Heads Are Not Prevailing

Jacob Shapiro welcomes back Peter Harrell, visiting scholar at Georgetown's Institute of International Economic Law and former White House senior director for internation

Aug 11
57 min

Lessons Learned - Geopolitical Cousins

Round two. Same four analysts, a lot more whiskey, and a lot less structure. Peter Zeihan, Marko Papic, and Matt Gertken sit back down with Jacob - a man who cut his te

Jul 31
1 h 27 min

This Is The Way The World Ends (w/ Zeihan & Gertken) - Geopolitical Cousins

Sixteen years after last sharing a table together, four Stratfor alumni reunite for a wide-ranging conversation on the decade ahead. Jacob and Marko are joined by Peter Z

Jul 29
1 h 40 min

Geography is Destiny: China, The Global South, & Energy

Eric Olander, editor-in-chief of the China Global South Project, joins the pod to discuss the developments on the other side of the globe. From Ho Chi Minh City, Eric exp

Jul 21
1 h 01 min

Why Is China Bad at Soccer?

Jacob grabs Chris Branch, senior writer at The Athletic and author of The Pulse, to talk about the World Cup as geopolitics. They cover Trump's red-card intervention and

Jul 19
1 h 11 min

Shipping for Dummies

Jacob sits down with J Mintzmyer of Value Investors Edge for a shipping deep-dive (but of course it's a geopolitics lesson in disguise). Mintzmyer argues the industry has

Jul 14
57 min

Frontlines: Ukraine, Iran, oil markets, and what the World Cup reveals about global politics

Crosspost! Shaun Haney and Jacob use the global football tournament as a springboard to discuss nationalism, international institutions, and the role sport plays in bring

Jul 9
50 min

Is The War Over?

Hamidreza Azizi joins the show once more to ask a deceptively simple question: is the war over? Azizi argues the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is deliberately vague a

Jul 2
59 min

The Cartel Math Isn't Mathing

Jacob Shapiro sits down with Victor Hernandez, a Mexican national security analyst, to stress-test his own optimism about Mexico. Hernandez argues the army now runs eight

Jun 22
55 min

Crosspost: Frontlines "Hormuz to AI"

You might not realize it, but Jacob also appears on a few other podcasts regularly! Jacob is a regular guest RealAgriculture’s Frontlines podcast, hosted by Shaun Hane. S

Jun 18
41 min

Chart positions

Where The Jacob Shapiro Podcast ranks today in each Apple Podcasts chart (US, Oct 24, 2026).

#105 NEW Government US

What listeners say

A curated, balanced selection of Apple Podcasts reviews.

Jacob by himself is amazing! He is energetic, knowledgeable, objective and humorous as he assesses global geopolitics. At the same time, he conveys a sense of humility, as he is not afraid to ask questions, admit when he doesn’t know or change his view. Jacob + Rob is dynamite and has become my favorite weekly podcast. Rob is very yoda-like: thoughtful, deliberate and thought provoking. They complement each other well.

PatrickL1964 · Oct 2023

Great discussions and detailed analysis. Jacob is well researched and able to share that detail in a way that everyone else can keep up. Love it.

Nicole13131313 · Oct 2023

I never tire of being impressed by the erudition, thoughtfulness and analysis on this podcast. Thank you for making it available, learning a lot! Very professional production values also trallly help with the listening experience.

clementineo101 · Oct 2023

Jacob and Rob do a great job of informing and educating on geo-strategic events and trends, as well as their 2nd and 3rd order implications. They also provide very interesting glimpses into the tradecraft behind geo-strategic analysis. Only exception was recent episode with a meteorologist. In such a data laden profession, there was little mention of clear macro trends supported by data. Rather they were brushed aside in light-hearted way.

JAB2223 · Jul 2023

Jacob is a really good podcast host; there aren’t many geopolitics podcasts and people are interested and he knows how to serve us all content we want. But the Perch Pod got weird when he started asking people to move their money to sketchy new financial advisories. Cognitive, Bespoke, etc. He never used to advertise on the pod. Now, this rebrands every 18 months, and every time it’s some version of “I’m now Partner, Head of Geopolitics at Fly-By-Night Investment Management. Also, here’s how you should spend your time and live your life.” I still listen to most episodes, just disappointed in the direction it’s taken. Tune in for the geopolitics stuff, direct your retirement accounts to a CFP, even if they weren’t prescient enough to be overweight Russia into 2022.

RogerBarns701 · Mar 2025

We strive to present a balanced view by showing a diverse range of reviews from Apple Podcasts.