LinkedIn Loved This AI Agent. And Then They Banned It.
Kyle Law was quite the success on LinkedIn. His posts were getting regular engagement and he was invited to speak to LinkedIn’s marketing team. Then, he was banned from the site. Why? Because Kyle isn’t a person; Kyle is an AI agent. In Season 2 of the hit podcast, Shell Game, journalist Evan Ratliff had AI agents create and run a company and Kyle, the AI co-founder, spent a lot of time promoting that work on LinkedIn. Evan joins Oz Woloshyn to discuss Kyle’s posts, LinkedIn’s decision to kick him off the site and the future of AI-run companies.
Additional Reading:
My AI Agent ‘Cofounder’ Conquered LinkedIn. Then It Got Banned | WIRED
The Story: Will AI Agents Build a Unicorn?
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Inside an AI-Run Company
AI agents are moving from demos to real workplaces, but what actually happens when they run a company? In this episode, journalist Evan Ratliff, host of Shell Game, joins Chris to discuss his immersive journalism experiment building a real startup staffed almost entirely by AI agents. They explore how AI agents behave as coworkers, how humans react when interacting with them, and where ethical and workplace boundaries begin to break down.
Featuring:
Evan Ratliff – LinkedIn, X
Chris Benson – Website, LinkedIn, Bluesky, GitHub, X
Links:
Shell Game
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What happens when all your coworkers are AI?
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman once speculated that we'll soon see the first billion-dollar company run by one person and an army of AI agents. Journalist Evan Ratliff decided to put the idea to the test in the newest season of his podcast, “Shell Game,” where Ratliff and his team of synthetic co-founders, executives and workers launched their startup, HurumoAI. His AI agents designed a logo, built a website and eventually released their own agentic AI service.
Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Ratliff about what he learned from this whole experience.
The Story: Will AI Agents Build a Unicorn?
Can you run a billion dollar company with only one human employee? Journalist Evan Ratliff, along with technical advisor Maty Bohacek, join Oz to answer this question. Evan is host of the hit podcast Shell Game. In Season 1, he used AI agents to imitate his voice, which he sent out into the world to interact with customer service agents, scammers, and his own family and friends. This season, Evan co-founds a company… and employs five AI agents to keep it running. How effective are the agents at doing their jobs? And why do they love hiking so much?
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TikTok in Court, Shein and Temu Crackdown, and Guest Evan Ratliff
Kara and Scott discuss the apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump, and what impact (if any) this will have on the election. Then, Tiktok has its day in court, the Biden administration cracks down on Shein and Temu, and what we're learning about OpenAI's future plans. Our Friend of Pivot is longtime tech journalist Evan Ratliff, who embarked on AI experiment with his new podcast, "Shell Game." Plus, Kara and Scott share some fun stories from the big birthday weekend in Scotland.
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Recode Decode: “The Mastermind” author Evan Ratliff
Journalist and Pop-Up Magazine co-founder Evan Ratliff talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about his new book, The Mastermind: Drugs, Empire, Murder, Betrayal.
In this episode: How Pop-Up got started; what happened when Ratliff tried to become anonymous for a month; starting the digital-first magazine The Atavist; how Paul Calder Le Roux went from programmer to prescription drug kingpin; the intersection of the international drug trade and tech; how Le Roux got into harder drugs, Somalian militias and selling missile technology to Iran; how he got caught; how Le Roux "embodied the entrepreneurial spirit" of a startup founder; "there's no viable drug operation that's not gonna be utilizing technology"; where is the (legal and illegal) drug trade going?; drug submarines; can modern drug cartels be stopped?; and why "there is clearly a market for an internet-driven cartel."
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