World Collapse Expert (Ian Bremmer): The Real Crisis Is What Comes After Trump

Steven Bartlett (0:00)

Something we think about a lot in The Diary Of A CEO is distribution, because we could have the most interesting guests in the world and the most thought-provoking conversation, but if nobody can find us, none of that really matters. And this logic applies to pretty much any business. Whatever you're selling, however good it is, distribution often is the determining factor of whether you win or whether you lose. And this is why it's interesting to me that so many vacation rental owners are essentially invisible to a huge chunk of their potential market without even realizing it. Let me explain. booking.com is one of the most downloaded travel apps in the world. And since 2010, it's helped over 1.8 billion vacation rental guests find places to stay. That's a huge pool of travelers actively looking for places to stay. So if you've got a vacation rental that isn't on booking.com, that means you're missing out on being seen by millions of travelers already searching their platform. Getting listed takes 15 minutes. And nearly half of new hosts get their first booking within a week. If you need that kind of global reach for your listing, I assume you do, then head to booking.com to start your listing today. These conversations aren't always easy, but nonetheless, they are important. So every single year, Professor Ian Bremmer, who's one of the world's leading political scientists, produces this risk report. And it highlights the top 10 biggest risks that everybody should be thinking about. And today, he's going to talk to me about the three that matter the most. So he predicts that a US political revolution is on its way.

Ian Bremmer (1:25)

The US has become the biggest driver of geopolitical uncertainty in the world. And in my view, Trump will fail.

Steven Bartlett (1:33)

And he also says that the other thing everybody needs to be talking about and aware of is what's really playing out with AI behind the scenes.

Ian Bremmer (1:40)

They created a model, which is so powerful, that they couldn't release it because it would have been an immediate systemic risk to the global economy and our security. And artificial intelligence is eating its users. And we can talk about that.

Steven Bartlett (1:56)

And lastly, I want to end on a point of optimism. Can we take this craziness and turn it into a utopia with realistic solutions? Guys, I've got a favor to ask before this episode begins. The algorithm, if you follow a show, will deliver you the best episodes from that show very prominently in your feed. So when we have our best episodes on this show, the most shared episodes, the most rated episodes, I would love you to know. And a simple way for you to know that is to hit that Follow button, but also it's the simple, easy, free thing that you can do to help us make this show better. I would be hugely grateful if you could take a minute on the app you're listening to this on right now and hit that Follow button. Thank you so, so, so much.

Ian Bremmer, what is this document that I have in front of me here?

Ian Bremmer (2:49)

This is our top risk report. We put it out at the beginning of every year, try to help people around the world understand the risk environment globally.

Steven Bartlett (3:00)

So for the last 30 years, your firm has been trying to understand the world, to help make better decisions based on the big picture of what's happening geopolitically.

Ian Bremmer (3:10)

Yeah.

Steven Bartlett (3:11)

And every year, your firm releases this top risk report. The 2026 one appears to be pretty prophetic, because a lot of things that you list as the top risks are playing out before our eyes.

For anyone that hasn't read this report, what are the most important subjects? You wrote this in January. We're now sat here in April, I believe. What are the most important subjects of the top 10 risks that you think we should talk about today?

Ian Bremmer (3:34)

I think that there are three that are really big.

The first is that the United States has become the biggest driver of risk, the biggest driver of geopolitical uncertainty in the world. We see that with the tariffs. We see that with Venezuela. We see it with Greenland.

We see it with Iran.

I mean, if there was that level of uncertainty in a smaller political system, and that happens all the time, we wouldn't care as much because the global impact would not matter. But everyone out there is affected by even small changes in the United States. Suddenly big changes in the United States. The Americans are saying we no longer want to play by the rules that we set up historically. We don't want the free trade system that we put together. We don't want to be the global policeman that is paying for the collective security. We don't want the open borders that used to welcome so many people from around the world. We want a very different set of rules. The American system is not being challenged by the Chinese saying we don't want. The Americans themselves and the leadership are saying we refuse to be the leader that we used to be.