Trust Forward
Trust Forward is a six-part podcast series hosted by anthropologist and archaeologist Mary-Ann Ochota. It explores how trust works as an invisible force that holds society together, tracing its evolution from the invention of money and the Scientific Revolution to conmen, pirates, spies, and today's digital world. Each episode features conversations with experts such as poker players, astrophysicists, mafia specialists, and cryptographers. The series asks how we build the invisible agreements that support civilization, and how we decide what and who to believe. It is produced by Sumsub, a compliance technology company.
Episodes
Trust Me, I’m a Scientist
Science is meant to be ruled by reason and evidence. But for centuries, only certain people were trusted to practise it.In this episode, Mary-Ann Ochota takes us to Cambridge in 1897, where crowds gathered on the streets to protest against women being allowed to earn degrees. Journalist and author Angela Saini explains how the Royal Society, founded in 1660 on the radical idea of testing claims ra
Money Is A Made-Up Thing
Money only works because we all agree to believe in it. It's not backed by gold, or by anything you can hold, but by trust. And that trust had to start somewhere.In this first episode, Mary-Ann Ochota takes us back roughly two thousand years, to a Roman trading site buried beneath a working farm in Yorkshire. Guided by archaeologist Dr Brendon Wilkins, who's spent the last decade excavating the si
Trust Forward - A History Podcast - Coming September 1st
Trust is one of the strangest things about being human. It's completely invisible, entirely made up, and yet it holds all of society together.Every time you hand over cash, cross the road, or click "buy," you're taking a small leap of faith that the whole system will hold. These are systems we've quietly built to make life with strangers possible. But trust is fragile, it has to be maintained or i
