Max Bessler Professional Website

Hello! I research how technology companies navigate geopolitics at Oxford. Before moving here from the United States, my jobs and undergraduate studies were in economics and national security. Occasionally, I got to answer big questions of “how technology impacts the world”. I enjoyed those so much that I pivoted into it full-time: researching and writing about technology companies’ corporate strategy, their role in the global economy, and what they mean for governments’ national security.

I am an MPhil candidate in International Relations at the University of Oxford, a Research Engineering Leader with the Oxford Computational Political Science Group, and a Visiting Fellow at the Bay Area Council Economic Institute. I also run seminars for Oxford’s Emerging Threats Group, which examines the national security implications of critical and emerging technologies. Before moving abroad, I was a strategy consultant, a chief of staff for a defense tech startup, and an economic analyst in the CIA’s East Asia and Pacific Mission Center. My full CV is at the bottom. I graduated magna cum laude from Dartmouth College with a B.A. in Government modified with Economics. Outside of my research, I love triathlon, writing for fun, and coaching rowing.

maxwell.bessler@sant.ox.ac.uk · LinkedIn · Oxford Bio · @MaxBessler on X

This November!

Dinner Lecture and Livestream! Thursday, November 19, 5:30pm Oxford (12:30pm ET / 9:30am PT). I’m giving a talk on technology history and how industries shape state power, from Venetian glass in the 1400s to today’s American and Chinese AI competition. RSVP here to attend in person or watch the public livestream.

Recruiting researchers! Join me and a team to learn about and build an AI method that beats manually tracking how tech companies invest in foreign markets. Check out the role here. It’s a great way to get technical and cut through the noise about the future. Closes November 22.

Public Writing

• The Limits of AI as an Economic Weapon, Palladium Magazine, 2026
• Bay Area Abroad: Innovation through Fragmentation (forthcoming), Bay Area Council Economic Institute
• Echoes of a Big Bang: How Westphalia Calls the Centrality of Sovereignty into Question, Example of Oxford Tutorial Essay, 2026
• The Debate to Decouple, CSIS New Perspectives on Asia, 2022
• The Drive to Decouple, CSIS New Perspectives on Asia, 2022
• Five Things We Watched in 2022 (co-authored), CSIS New Perspectives on Asia, 2022
• The Use of Economic Statecraft to Purchase Power: Structural Explanations of the Louisiana and Alaska Purchases, Dartmouth College, 2022
• How smart are you? Measuring intelligence by intention, 2026

Active

Oxford Computational Political Science Group, Oxford, UK — Oct 2026–Present

Research Engineering Leader
Call for Researchers! Learn more about Measuring Fragmentation

Bay Area Council Economic Institute, San Francisco, CA — May 2026–Present

Visiting Fellow

• Hosted events for Council members (including frontier labs, leading California researchers, and large tech companies) to meet with envoys from Asia and Europe
• Author of Bay Area Abroad: Innovation through Fragmentation (forthcoming), a report on technology geopolitics, of past and present, which assesses how geopolitics have influenced Bay Area technology companies since World War II.

Experience

Lake Partners Strategy Consulting, Seattle, WA — 2025

Analyst

• Responsibilities included scoping, research, interviewing experts, project management, briefing, and writing products
• Developed software that indexed thousands of final “deliverables” for use by LLMs or current analysts.

LoneCypressAI, Seattle and Washington DC — 2024

Chief of Staff

• Successfully project-managed and wrote non-technical sections for a proposal to secure $180,000 in USG funding.
• Employee #1 at growing defense contractor—researched & initiated marketing, recruiting, and DoD customer engagement.
• Responsible for briefing co-founders on upcoming events, networking into new areas, and internal project management.

Central Intelligence Agency, Langley, VA — 2023

Economic Analyst – East Asia and Pacific Mission Center

• Delivered actionable economic analysis that shaped strategic decisions for senior policymakers.
• Developed quantitative macroeconomic and financial modeling skills across a variety of public platforms.
• Briefed key Intelligence Community and White House policymakers on current trends and upcoming events.

Education

University of Oxford, Oxford, UK — Oct 2026–Present

MPhil in International Relations, St Antony’s College

Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH — 2018–2022

Magna Cum Laude: B.A. in Government Modified with Economics
Awards: 2021 Rufus Choate Scholar, IRCA Scholar Athlete

London School of Economics, London, England

Study Abroad

Extracurricular Highlights

Seminar Co-Lead, Emerging Threats Group, University of Oxford
200-hour Registered Yoga Teacher, 2025 – Present
Division 1 Dartmouth Men’s Heavyweight Rowing, 2018 – 2022