Circa

Vipulesh Thiyagarajah

Circa is a weekly podcast hosted by Vipulesh Thiyagarajah — Sri Lankan author of Sonder: An Existential Manifesto and entrepreneur. Each episode features in-depth conversations with some of the most interesting minds in business, politics, philosophy, economics, culture, and sport. Guests include business leaders, politicians, film-makers, tech founders, economists, authors, and athletes. Topics range from existential philosophy and geopolitics to entrepreneurship, investing, sport, cinema, and what it actually means to build something that lasts.

  1. 2D AGO

    Iran War | US Debt Spiral | $2.5M Treasury Fraud | UAE OPEC Exit | ft. Kusum Wijetilleke

    In this episode, I sit down with Kusum Wijetilika—political commentator and SJB working committee member—to dissect the systemic rot inside the global financial architecture. From the "spoofing" of the Sri Lankan Treasury to the geopolitical earthquake of the UAE leaving OPEC, we use Ray Dalio’s "Big Cycle" framework to explain why the world feels so volatile in 2026. All Links → https://linkin.bio/vipulesh Topics covered in this episode: ✅ 00:00 – Intro: The intersection of Finance, Media, and Politics. ✅ 05:22 – Treasury Fraud: Was it a hack or just pure incompetence? ✅ 11:00 – The NDB Scandal: How 13 billion rupees went missing for 18 months. ✅ 29:17 – Real Estate Crisis: Why Colombo is now the hardest city to buy a home in globally. ✅ 52:19 – Ray Dalio’s Big Cycle: Are we in the "Debt Death Spiral"? ✅ 01:00:19 – Tariffs & Inflation: Is the U.S. restructuring or just desperate? ✅ 01:28:10 – The Iran War: Oil at $117 and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. ✅ 01:43:00 – Resource Nationalism: What the UAE’s exit from OPEC means for you. All Links → https://linkin.bio/vipulesh— new episode every Tuesday. 🎙️ **Listen to Circa Z**Youtube → https://www.youtube.com/@CircaPod Apple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/lk/podcast/circa/id1552622208 Spotify → https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/circa-z/ 📖 **Read**Substack (P.E.S.T.) → https://vipuleshthiyagarajah.substack.comMedium → https://medium.com/@vipulesh123Website & Blog → https://vipuleshthiyagarajah.com 📚 **My Book — Sonder: An Existential Manifesto** Amazon → https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DB2RQYNL All Links → https://linkin.bio/vipulesh ---*© Vipulesh Thiyagarajah. All rights reserved.*

    1h 44m

  2. APR 26

    Space-X IPO, Y-Combinator & VC Playbooks, Shifting Equities Markets, AI-Driven Unemployment. (ft. Raveen Kariyawasam)

    Circa By Vipulesh Thiyagarajah. On this weeks episode: Raveen Kariyawasam went from a Sri Lankan school kid to a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, a Wharton graduate, and a two-time Y Combinator founder who has raised Millions in Silicon Valley. In this episode, he sits down with Vipulesh Thiyagarajah for a wide-ranging, unfiltered conversation about what it actually takes to build at the frontier. They cover: firing an entire engineering team and replacing them with AI agents, why the real moat in today's AI landscape isn't your model — it's your taste, the "wrapper" debate and why calling something a GPT wrapper is a sign you don't understand the market, what AI job displacement actually looks like from the inside (it's not the workers you think), the quantum computing encryption crisis that could expose every bank, government, and crypto wallet within a decade. Plus: Gary Tan's "boil the lake" framework, context rot in LLMs, AI guardrails and the Heretic repo, robotics timelines, and why storytelling has replaced engineering talent as the new startup moat. Raveen Kariyawasam is the co-founder of a YC-backed robotics AI startup focused on communication layer optimisation for robotic systems, previously co-founder of a deep research AI agent company (before OpenAI's Deep Research), Oxford MSc, Penn + Wharton dual degree. Topics: AI agents, YC, Y Combinator, startup founding, Silicon Valley, immigration, Rhodes Scholar, quantum computing, encryption, robotics, AI job displacement, LLMs, Claude, Anthropic, OpenAI, deep research, AI wrappers, founder storytelling.

    2h 4m

  3. APR 21

    Your Desires Aren't Yours — Mimetic Theory, Cancel Culture & the New Religion

    Five years ago, this conversation hit #1 on Apple Podcasts in Sri Lanka. We're back.  Wimarshana Wijesooriya — philosopher, author of Modern Heresy, and the man who introduced me to philosophy at seventeen — returns for the Circa Z relaunch. Two and a half hours on the ideas that actually matter.  We get into René Girard's mimetic theory and why your desires probably aren't yours. How mimetic rivalry produces scapegoats — and why cancel culture is just us ritually hanging Louis XIV. The Harvard Grant Study's 75-year answer to what actually makes a good life. Why late-stage capitalism functions exactly like a religion, complete with its own clergy and confession booth. And why this age is not intellectually superior to any that came before it.  Closing with Oscar Wilde: "Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation." Find Circa Z on https://linkin.bio/vipulesh

    1h 54m

  4. 09/22/2025

    What If Everything You See Isn't Real?

    Exploring Plato's Cave and the crucial act of questioning the world around us. The following post is an exploration of a passage from my book, "Sonder: An Existential Manifesto," and honestly, it’s one of those concepts that keeps popping back into my head, no matter what I’m doing.

    5 min

  5. 09/15/2025

    The Hedonic Treadmill

    Why You’ll Never Be Happy — and Why That’s Exactly the Point. The ideas explored in this essay are drawn from a chapter I originally wrote for my book, Sonder: An Existential Manifesto (2024). The book dives deep into the hidden patterns of our modern condition — tracing how history, identity, and meaning interlace in our lives. What follows is a distilled meditation from that chapter, adapted for Substack. If you find resonance here, you might enjoy the broader philosophical arc the book attempts to draw. https://vipuleshthiyagarajah.com/novel  Vipulesh Thiyagarajah Author of "Sonder: An Existential Manifesto"

    7 min

  6. 09/08/2025

    The Wrexham Way: The Greatest Story in Football

    Triple Triumph: Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds' Fairytale Rise from Non-League to the Championship

    11 min

  7. 08/25/2025

    Augusta Is a Feeling: Why The Masters Is the Most Beautiful Event in Sport

    Inside the Veblen good that every luxury house envies.

    8 min

  8. 08/18/2025

    The Bitter Lesson of AI

    Why Brute Force Beats Human Insight in AI—and What That Means for Geopolitics, Energy, and Civilization

    15 min
See All (19)

About

Circa is a weekly podcast hosted by Vipulesh Thiyagarajah — Sri Lankan author of Sonder: An Existential Manifesto and entrepreneur. Each episode features in-depth conversations with some of the most interesting minds in business, politics, philosophy, economics, culture, and sport. Guests include business leaders, politicians, film-makers, tech founders, economists, authors, and athletes. Topics range from existential philosophy and geopolitics to entrepreneurship, investing, sport, cinema, and what it actually means to build something that lasts.

Information

  • Creator
    Vipulesh Thiyagarajah
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    19
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Vipulesh Thiyagarajah
  • Show Website
    Circa