About

Short version:

Evan Ratliff is an award-winning investigative journalist, bestselling author, podcast host, and entrepreneur. He’s the author of the The Mastermind: A True Story of Murder, Empire, and a New Kind of Crime Lord; the writer and host of the hit podcasts Shell Game and Persona: The French Deception; and the cofounder of The Atavist Magazine, Pop-Up Magazine, and the Longform Podcast. As a writer, he’s a two-time National Magazine Award finalist. As a podcaster, he is the winner of the Independent Media Initiative Award, and a former cohost of one Time’s 100 Best Podcasts of All Time. As an editor and producer, he’s a two-time Emmy News & Documentary nominee and National Magazine Award winner.

Long version:

Evan’s book the The Mastermind (Random House: 2019), about the 21st century’s most ambitious cartel and the programming genius behind it, was a best of the year pick from The New York Times, NPR, and many others, The Mastermind has been translated into six languages. It has been called “a triumph” (The New York Times), “a masterwork of investigative journalism” (The Daily Mail), “a true crime classic” (Publisher’s Weekly), and “a tour de force of shoe-leather reporting—undertaken, amid threats and menacing, at considerable personal risk” (The Los Angeles Times).

Evan’s longform journalism also appears in Wired, The New Yorker, Bloomberg Businessweek, Outside, Business Insider, and National Geographic. He reports on transnational crime, cybercrime, science and technology, the environment, terrorism, corruption, and politics. He has interviewed con artists, money launderers, mercenaries, and hitmen, and reported from the far reaches of the Amazon, the deck of a Russian naval ship, the forests of Cameroon, the back alleys of Manila, and prisons on four continents.

As a podcast host and writer, he has hosted or cohosted four shows, all of which have risen to the top 50 overall on Apple and two of which have landed in the top three. In 2024, he wrote and hosted Shell Game, an independent show in which he created an AI replica of himself and set it loose on the world. Shell Game won the 2025 Independent Media Initiative prize, was featured on This American Life, Radiolab, and Pablo Torre Finds Out, and named one of the best shows of 2024 by Vulture, The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Economist, The Information, and others. In 2022 he wrote and hosted Persona: The French Deception, about a scam that took over the world—and the man who made tens of millions of dollars fleecing some of the richest people on the planet. The show reached #3 on the Apple overall charts. Guy Raz called it “the podcast I wish I’d created… It’s so good. So smart and such a crisply written narrative.” In 2023, he hosted On Musk: with Walter Isaacson (Kaleidoscope/iHeart), a 4-part conversation about biography and reporting that reached #1. Their 2024 follow-up covered Isaacson’s biography of Benjamin Franklin, and what Franklin means today.

For over a decade he also co-hosted the acclaimed Longform Podcast, one of Time magazine’s 100 best podcasts of all time, and a best-of-the-year selection by The Atlantic, New York, Time, and other publications.

As an editor and entrepreneur, he was the cofounder, editor in chief, and CEO of Atavist and The Atavist Magazine, which under his editorship was nominated for two Emmy News & Documentary Awards and nine National Magazine Awards, among other accolades. (Atavist was acquired by Automattic/Wordpress in 2018, where the magazine continues to flourish.)

He was also the cofounder of Pop-Up Magazine, the live magazine that The New York Times called “a sensation.”

Evan is a native of Atlanta, Georgia.

Writing Awards and Honors:

National Magazine Awards (two-time finalist)

The Livingston Awards for Reporting (two-time finalist)

Deadline Club Award for Newspaper or Digital Feature Reporting (finalist)

Headliner Awards for Magazine Feature Writing (third place)

Overseas Press Club Award for Digital Reporting on International Affairs (citation recipient)

Al Neuharth Innovation in Investigative Journalism Award (finalist)

Clark/Payne Award for Science Writing (winner)

Writing selected for The Best American Magazine Writing, The Best of Technology Writing, The Best American Nonrequired Writing, and The Best American Science Writing.

2009 Wired cover story “Vanish,” about Evan’s attempt to disappear and the public’s effort to find him, was selected by the magazine as one of the 25 best stories in its history. The article was published in French as a book, Disparaître Dans La Nature.

Podcast Awards and Honors:

Shell Game

Independent Media Initiative Prize

Webby Awards finalist – Technology Podcasts

iHeart Podcast Awards finalist – Best Emerging Podcast

One of the best shows of 2024 according to Apple’s top ten “Shows We Love“, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Vulture, Podcast Review, The Information, and The Economist.

Longform Podcast

Best shows of the year from  Time, The Guardian, The Atlantic (again), and New York . 

On Musk

Signal Awards Gold Medal for Business Podcast

Editing and Producing Awards and Honors:

National Magazine Awards (oversaw nine finalists and one winner)

Emmy Awards for News & Documentary (executive produced two finalists)

The Livingston Awards for reporting (oversaw six finalists and one winner)