GoKawiilToday, I’m talking with Evan Smith, who is cofounder and CEO of Altana, a company that develops software tools to manage big, messy supply chain networks around the world.
We last had Evan on in early 2025 to talk about how Trump’s first few waves of tariffs were starting to affect global trade and what patterns Altana was seeing in all that macro-level data about shipping and trade. It was a very alarming and also very illuminating chat; Evan and I got into the existential weeds of international relations and economics almost immediately. It was a great conversation.
A year and a half later, and everything is somehow even more chaotic than it was the last time Evan and I talked — and that’s true both about trade and in the business world. And, as you’ll hear, we jumped right back into the weeds yet again.
Developments in agentic AI have changed what Altana can do, but like every software company, they’ve also changed how Altana can do it. You’ll hear Evan describe how AI is changing how they make software for a very demanding set of clients that manage billions in international trade — which is causing some big debates about how a software company even runs in 2026.
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And of course, what they do also needs to change more or less daily. Trade policy is changing rapidly around the world but likely nowhere faster than here in the US. Between the Trump administration’s whack-a-mole tariff policies and war in Iran, it’s very hard to keep up with the current rules.
That’s where Altana comes in. All that data coming from all around the world gives Evan a really high-level view of what’s actually happening. All those tariffs, for example, were supposed to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States. So I asked Evan directly: Is that actually happening? Spoiler alert — you won’t be surprised to hear him say “no.” And while it’s clear the world still relies on global supply chains, the pressure placed on economic chokepoints like the Strait of Hormuz is going to get higher than ever.
There’s a lot going on in this one — as you can tell, Evan and I really enjoy talking to each other.
Okay: Altana CEO Evan Smith. Here we go.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
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