Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Robots Will Fight the Next War | Mike LeBlanc | Ep. 475

Episode Date: October 5, 2026

Mike LeBlanc spent 13 years in the Marine Corps as an infantry officer. He deployed to Afghanistan in 2011 and went on to 1st Reconnaissance Battalion. After getting out he studied his way into Harvard Business School and co-founded Cobalt Robotics, a Sequoia-backed security robot company that put close to a thousand robots into offices on four continents before it sold. He now runs Foundation, which builds full-size humanoid robots for heavy industry and for the battlefield. His book, What If Anger Is the Answer, comes out November 3. We start in Ukraine, where he has walked the front lines. Fiber-optic drones, isolated strongpoints, and a scoring system that awards points per kill. He argues most deaths on both sides now come from drones, and we work through what happens to a generation that kills through a screen. What if anger is the answer:  https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/What-If-Anger-Is-the-Answer/Mike-LeBlanc/9781637749227 Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com   Today's Sponsors:  Montana Knife Company:  https://www.montanaknifecompany.com Brunt:  https://www.bruntworkwear.com For a limited time, our listeners get $10 off at BRUNT when you use code "clearedhot" at checkout.

Okay, got the red smoke. So the smoke, I'm looking at danger close now. I mean, I don't know your thoughts, but what year did you get out? I got out of active in 2017 and then out of the reserves in 23. So in 17, when you got out, so I got out in 13, the last day of June, 2013, I had never, when I heard the term drone. So, Predator Reaper, that's it. I never thought for a second, a weaponized, essentially, DGI drone, even though. I know that's not exactly what's being used in Ukraine, but it's a good metaphor, let alone

humanoid type robots. Right. What was the military in 17? So four years later, were they looking at drone stuff yet? Because I feel like Ukraine kicking off really lateraled some attention to, oh, this is wild. Yep. We still had a scan eagle. Yeah.

And do you remember that one? So the scan eagle was still. I remember watching those things crash. You'd watch it. You know, it was like looking through like a toilet paper. role. But yeah, those those things were still out there in a in 17 that was like the standard that we were still training on. I still had them that I was signing on for training Marines for Scan Eagle. The wildest thing for me when I think about Ukraine is it seems to be at the front-leaning

edge of technology and also trench warfare at the same time. Yes. It's like the 1940s is meeting the year 3000. Yeah. And I guess I had never thought that those two types of warfare would coexist in the same battle space. It's interesting to see. So I've gotten to go to the front lines in Ukraine. And it's, they're really interesting how they're set up on the front lines because they're these stronghold positions. They're not actually, it's not actually like a line as much as it is, you know, these,

these disparate centers. Is it just open terrain in between them? Yep. With roads, with, you know, it's like kind of desert looking. Yeah. And, and you'll look up and see when you're, you know, when you're, look at the drones, they've all got big cords coming from them. The command wires? Have you seen? Yeah. It's crazy to see. I was like... The crazier thing to see is the fields of that fiber octave

cable. The sun catches him at the right angle. You're sitting there like, first off, semi-awesome, but that's a huge gear adrift problem. Somebody's going to have to go pick that up. It's crazy. You know, I know. I always do think about, you know, poor Marine that would like lose his NVGs, though. This one, if you lose that drone, you get to just command cord it right back and go find it. But your command cord is seven kilometers long. But that is the thing is like seeing how they have that set up on the front lines, I'm not sure why they have the humans there. There's a big initiative to get all the humans off of the front line. Funny thing about front lines is somebody's always going to be the front line.

What is the argument on either side of that for keeping them there and removing them? Is it keeping them there because, hey, it worked yesterday, so we're just going to keep doing this. And that's what we've always done. I think it's kind of, you know, it's both forward observation and final protective five. So you do want to say at the end of the day, you're like, this needs to work. We do need people that are like stopping you from coming to our mothers and wives and everybody that's in Kiev. Hard agree. So they need that.

The argument to get them off is, you know, today 75% of the deaths are from on both sides are from drones. You're seeing just robotics take over just about every operation. And the people that are commanding them are not in those front centers. The people that are controlling them are in offices and things. When you go back in the city, they're random. You know, you go into these places and there's just much people on computers. What do you think the long-term impact of that will be? And I ask because there are and have been very well-documented cases of our own drone pilots,

you know, the huge Nevada ConX boxes where they're overhead, actually doing terminal control of those in theaters of war of post-traumatic stress, of watching that type of footage or and they're not you know command flying it into somebody i wonder what the long-term consequences of war thought in front of the computer screen will be yeah well i think i think we're wrestling with that all in the digital age i mean parents are wrestling that with their kids right of just seeing they don't respond to people anymore they're not used to talking to other people they don't have their most important experiences they can as long as they're doing this yeah that's right you have to ask you have to ask you have to

add a third party device in between and then their communication skills go through the roof. Yeah. Arguable whether or not they're communicating, you know, we're a shade away from just Bluetoothing our thoughts to everybody, which is going to be a real dangerous time. Yeah. But think about that when the most important moments of your life happen over a computer interface, right? And there are people that are falling in love over the computer and that's, that's their memory. I haven't thought about that. It's, you know, and that, so now take that to someone that is doing that killing. And it's removed, but you know, you're still, you're still there.

You still know that it counts. They have, they have awards for all these guys. Yeah. It's a, it's a strange thing to receive an award when you think I was sitting at my computer. I got an award for, for that. And also took human life. Took human life. Yeah. Yeah. Like that's, that's, I think that it causes all these existential worries that everybody has and makes people feel disconnected because, you know, we've, we've been lucky throughout human history. that you're there for all of the most important moments of your life. Everybody's like, I, you know, I know when I went to war and faced the enemy, I know when I got married, I know when I had my first child.

And as those things turn more, more digital, more biological, you know, in vitro, things like that. Yeah. You know, people want to control traits and things that come out of their kids as it becomes more like all of that. CRISPR. It starts to feel, you know, you feel the pride of SimCity, you know, if you ever played that as a kid.

I did. It's not the same as building a shed in your backyard. No, not even remotely. Same concept, I suppose. Construct, perhaps. But yeah, they're not the same. Right. And that's where I really wonder especially what those pains are going to be, right? When you're having these painful moments no longer face to face, but you're starting to just recognize them through a computer. It's, it's something that, you know, our upcoming generations, they're going to have to deal with this because it's their whole life, right? And yeah, there's probably like a footprint of it. And there may be, you know, recordings of whatever they've done. But it's, I don't know, in some way, it's, it's almost like beyond meat or something. It's, it's just not quite the burger. And we're losing something and all that. We are losing something in that. And I wonder how far we should remove it. I almost feel like the taking of life is something that should remain horrific and very visceral and very personal. It's not something that should be taken lightly or obfuscated in a way or reduced in a way where it's just pixels, man. It's just pixels. Yep. And I don't, and I don't really,

I'm not arguing that we need to always have men and women facing off on the field of battle. I would love to see that avoided at all costs. However, I try to live in at least the objectively real world where that's not going to be the case. I'm pretty sure human beings have been fighting since they figured out sticks and stones work. Everybody points to this time of peace in the world. And I would love for them to on a calendar, please show me where that piece existed all over the world. It just, yeah. So we're going to fight. I just, I think it should be hard.

I think it should be gruesome because I think it should be respected for what it is and what it causes. I think that we see a real parallel in what sex has become with the internet. And, you know, not that every barbarian, every caveman was having romantic. sex or anything like that. I like to imagine they were candlelight covered in blood. Not that they knew how to make candles, but. But we, you know, we have that experience of knowing what that can be as a high thing. And it, and it doesn't have to be a, you know, bodily thing.

It can be a spiritual connection. I mean, it's, you know, it can be. I would argue it's more meaningful if it is. Yeah. As opposed to just a visceral physical act. Absolutely. Don't get me wrong people. Time and place for that too.

Live your life how you want. I'm not here to tell you at a party. I agree with you. I think it can transcend just the physical and can be more than that for sure. Yeah. Not through a screen, though. And what does that turn into when we have OnlyFans and we have, you know, we have a webcam and we have, you have somebody that we can ask this because he's of the targeted generation. Michael, tell us everything about sex in your generation.

Starting with your personal experiences, be detailed. I'll pass on this one. Do you know any of your friends? I have never once logged on to OnlyFans. I'm aware of what it is. But to me also, I'm like I couldn't be happier and just more infatuated with my wife. It's just not interesting. If I was single, maybe that would be my thing.

I don't think so. The digital thing for me, I think I'm a generation beyond word. But again, having no interface with it, that's an assumption on my part. Who knows? Maybe I'd be as susceptible as anybody else. Do you have any friends that you know or people that you know who use only fans? If they did, I don't think they would tell anybody. That's probably a problem in and of itself.

Yeah. I'm just curious. I'm curious, is it just satisfying? You know, like, I would struggle to feel like it's enriching. Maybe it's empowering in the moment. You know, I don't know. I'm fascinated by the exchange. Obviously, there's a monetary exchange.

What are you getting in return? I think all these things, though, I mean, it's the same, you know, they're all versions of candy, right? Sugar was very scarce. Our bodies were like, when I come across that, I'm all in the process this way. And we decided, oh, we can extract that. Let's do it everywhere.

And let's walk into a candy store and you go crazy. And also, you know, if there was going to be any reproduction for humans, we were going to need to evolve to be attracted to each other to want to generate. And now, you know, I mean, it got to the point. I had an Uber driver. I get in the Uber and he's got porn playing on his phone attached to the windshield. Did he at least ask you what type you like so you can enjoy? together? Or did he just boldly assume that you would enjoy what he was enjoying?

He asked if I minded as if he was playing jazz music. Kindness expresses itself in many different ways. Yes. You know, but what the fuck? Like even to me, it was more egregious for him to ask, you know, do you mind than it was to even play it? Then I'm like, you know, if he's doing that in his car while he's waiting at the airport, you know, and then turns it off and hides it, you know, and he at least knows that it's shameful.

Yeah. That's one thing to think, oh, we're all out here. Of course, we're all, you know, watching, disgusting terrible pornography and, you know. And what does it even mean to him at that point? Because if it's just the background soundtrack of your day and you have become so accustomed to that, I mean, are you doing like jumper cables to your nipples? Like what if that, you know what I mean? Like if that is you, you are so accustomed to that's your background volume.

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I mean, it was Pascal, right? He had a big thing that any time that you actually sat and thought you were going to be looking at the abyss. And he said to avoid the abyss, people will find any distraction that they can. and we live in a world now that lets those small pleasures, you know, now it's microdosing shrooms can get you through, smoking, smoking weed.

Everything, microdosing everything. Watching porn as you're driving your Uber because you're just clocking in, you're just doing your shift, and you're going to be out, you're just like whatever I can do to make it slightly more pleasurable. Did you happen to look at his reviews to see if anybody else? Was this a recent thing? Did he have a lower-than-normal star rating? No, he did not.

and I got out of the Uber because I was very freaked out by what you didn't want to have your skin worn like a vietard by somebody I didn't know where that particular ride was going to go literally no pun intended so I got out and did another one

and you know this is a bad thing but I didn't report it I went in the app to try to report like bad and it had you know bad driver it said something about behavior I would have clicked the button I clicked the button but then it didn't

it didn't have a good spot for me to put information and I stopped right there. Please contact me because this response is slightly more complicated than your automated drop-down system. Right. Yeah. Yeah. What kind of porn was he watching? How brazen is that?

And also, what micro steps do you have to experience to get that brazen? Yeah. You know, one of the things I try to ask myself when I encounter people who will hold a different opinion to me is what experiences do they have in life that I don't. And if I did have them, what I have, would we be more likely to find some agreements on this? Yeah. So in that situation, I have, you know, I agree with you. I would get the hell out of that Uber as well too. Yeah. Like, oh, I'm sorry, I got into the wrong one. No, my name isn't Mike. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But what? That wasn't his first day doing that. That wasn't his first time doing that.

Right. Where did the breadclums, if you follow that upstream, man, where, does that lead you? Yeah. Well, I think, I mean, you talk about this in your book, but it's those, it's the small decisions. Oh, yeah. The momentum that can gain from those as well, too, that's snowball that starts as a grain or a kernel that is golf ball size, then is bowling ball size, and then you're getting absolutely annihilated by it. Yeah. And I think that's, you know, I mean, this is, I say this in sales all the time, right? I sell robots, big companies. And, and I always say, we just need them to take a small step on a slippery slope. Because I know, if we, you know, if we, you know, if we can get them there, the whole organization will start moving and we'll, you know, we'll be in there.

Yeah. But that's, that's how these vices work. That's how, you know, all of these things that take people off track in their life, it's formed by these tiny moral decisions that nobody else is watching. And they think, how could it matter? I think that's the lie that we tell ourselves. Yeah. It's inconsequential. It's this one time. Yep. Nobody will see. But it's the stuff you do when nobody's watching that is the most impactful, in my opinion. Yes. And the decisions, I mean, we all, We could argue about morality and right versus wrong. I'll leave that for people to have whatever their morality is. But I think what we can say across beliefs is you internally know when you're hitting the guardrail of your belief.

Yes. It's not, oh, I didn't know. It's like, you knew. You knew. And you also probably self-rationalized and justified. And I'm not here to judge that. Let's just be honest. You knew.

We all know, regardless of what your belief is. And it is those things that we do that we talk ourselves into. that Michael, if you ever during a show, if I look over and you're watching porn on your phone, we're going to have. What about on the computer? Are you logged in under my account or yours? This is my main concern with some of the stuff that he Googles.

I'm going incogyn. We went, we did one day. What was the website, Feetfinder.com? Yeah. We didn't go farther than that, by the way, because it came up on the show and we were talking about it. And I stopped him at that point because there was 27 options. Oh, my gosh.

Smelly feet? dirty feet. I'm just like, whose account are you logged out? Please put your credentials in now that it would matter. So no, Michael, even if it's on the computer,

if I look over there and you are in the middle of an episode just Ubering with porn on, we're going to have a moderately stern conversation. No, dude. I won't do that anymore. Perfect. At least keep the volume off

and from an angle that I can't see over here. Those small decisions, man. Yeah, but I mean that, and that's the thing is the beauty of life is that if you start making good decisions on those small ones, you still have the same effect. Yeah. Your life just gets a lot better. You know, I think about that all the time is that, you know, when I had to start training for the Marines and I decided, all right, that's something I, you know, what I'm going to do. I had no plan in place, but I knew I had to run three miles in 18 minutes. And so I said, all right.

Is that what it was, six minute miles? It turns out I was a little confused. That was the best that you could do. However, that's a great place to set your standard because if you can hit that, whatever the worst is, don't worry about it. On your worst day, two thumbs up, sir. And so I just, you know, my plan was run three miles a day every day no matter what. You're sick and throwing up. You get out and do it.

It's pouring rain and you forgot to do it until midnight. You get the shoes on and you go do it. And, you know, what's the quote? It's easier to do something 100% of the time than 99% of the time. You know, those things, you hold yourself to that standard. Yeah. But when you do that over and over again, it's not shocking that I got a lot faster. Why do you think it is that it seems like the negative choices or the when you're up against that guardrail and you self-justify?

Why does it seem easier to do that than put the shoes on at midnight and hold yourself accountable? Why does one seem to have more gravity than the other? I always think it's about is the pleasure now or is it later. And you know, you can know that. I know this, right? I'm 40 now. I've been working out a long time. I know that once I get in the gym, I'm going to be feeling great.

I'm going to want to go longer. Especially once you leave. You're going to feel amazing and grateful that you did it, even more so on the days where it's the last thing you want to do. Yes. And rationally, I know this and I can tell myself that, but you're still sitting there finding everything. Every excuse. Oh, I should, I should check my emails.

I don't have enough time. Yeah. Yeah. I'm so busy. You know, but you can still talk yourself into that. And that's, you know, I mean, I've always been interested in this. I studied philosophy in my undergrad. And, you know, Plato has a great breakdown of the soul where he says, you know, you have like a little man in your mind. You have a hydra, a many-headed beast in your belly. And then you have a lion in your heart. And Michael has two wolves. and their boyfriends. That's all he's got. I don't know if you know that, Michael, but... It's beautiful salt. Ace and Gary is what he's got. I saw that t-shirt online recently, and I'm going to buy it for probably you and Tyler,

just so you know. Perfect. That's funny. He doesn't have a hydra. It is funny. Just little puppies. You end up, you know, the little man in your mind can talk circles all day

about what you should do, what you shouldn't do. And you can know it. That's why everybody's like, I know that I should work out, but they don't is you've got that hydra that is just going, no, I want food, sex, laziness, I want to sleep, I want to watch TV, I want to not do any of this. And that's, you know, most of us live in a war that we're losing. Like you walk around them all and you see people aren't doing great against that hydra. No.

Malls are another weird relic that has got to be on life support. Did the philosophers, you know, the great philosophers, did they just sit around all day thinking about shit? No, you know, interestingly, they just talked all day. To other philosophers? To other philosophers, regular people. You know, I mean, that's one of the first books that I studied. So I translated ancient Greek in my undergrad. That sounds extremely exciting.

You know. And not complicated at all. In the right environment, anything can be status seeking. You know, you're like, I'm really good at Greek, you know, whatever these are. He was an accomplished wrestler. I like Plato. Oh, yeah, very much. Here's a question, though.

Did he at least have some type of clothing on? I worry about the, they weren't even wearing singlets back then, so I really worry about Plato and his wrestling attire. That's right. I think it might have been just suppressed all of oil. Yeah. But they were wrestlers, they were soldiers. Yeah.

And then they would speak to statesmen all day. They would speak to the businessmen. They would speak to young men. So they spent their days in dialogue. Yeah. Well, and that's, you know, I think we've, you know, we're kind of getting back to that with, all of these podcasts, you know, this is, this is, what you do is exactly what they did. They said,

I enjoy it, though, because you can explore your beliefs and ideas and you can refine your beliefs and ideas and be exposed to things that you didn't even realize. I get the utility of that for sure. Yeah. And I think it's essential. And that, you know, it's funny because a lot of, a lot of schools now, they'll say they do the Socratic method and they're like, we're, we're just like Socrates. The Socratic method is actually a bunch of sharp pointed questions. It's, it's more like an interrogation or having somebody on a witness stand. That's, that's how a Socratic dialogue works is him asking, well, define that term for me that you just use. Well, if that's the case, then wouldn't this be the case?

And walking them down, it's not just posing questions to students and letting them wax philosophical for 10 minutes. Slightly more complicated than we'll just ask questions you provide answers. Yeah. Again, same, you know, same stadium, slightly different sport. Yeah. Yeah. I like that.

Yeah. But that is, and, you know, to them, philosophy was something that was social and could only be, you know, man could only be understood. through other men. And I think that's, you know, that's what they knew is let's go around to the people that are doing things in this world and ask them, what do you think about what you're doing? And, you know, is it consistent with what you believe? Like you said, you know, anybody can have whatever their morals are. But you know when you're running into your own guardrails, that was the same kind of thing for the philosophers was, are you being consistent or are you so angry about this one thing that you're actually doing? In that age, how did they, a manlike play

to let's say, if he encountered somebody who had access beliefs to his own, whatever they would be. In the modern era, the move is attempt to silence. I feel like that's not the move that they would have back then. I feel like they would dig deeper into discourse. Oh, absolutely. Which is what's missing hugely. Like, sitting down with you and being able to talk for however long we talk is fantastic. What's odd is if we encounter a topic that,

we align on the other side of a belief for other people. They don't want to engage. They want to say cancel, silence, censor. And I don't think that leads anywhere good. And at the same time, that person might say, oh, yes, I'm a philosopher as well. I love Plato. Like all of Plato? Or just the part where he talks with people he agrees with?

Because from my understanding of being a complete idiot, by the way, and having literally no education beyond high school, is that. They go and explore the other idea, not shout it down from the rooftops. Yep. It's, you know, bring ideas into this ecosystem of light above and let's see which one survives it. Yeah. Not stuff them in the corner and say, oh, you're whatever label of the day that people don't want to be associated with to silence them. Yep. We've lost our way in many ways.

Absolutely. Well, and that's, you know, I mean, the interesting thing is, so Socrates, people will know that name, right? And they go, he's a great philosopher. You don't open up, you know, Plato, who wrote about Socrates and read, here's, here's. Socrates treatise on metaphysics. Here's what he thinks about this politically. He instead, he always starts with another person. Everything that Socrates ever does is through a dialogue because he's interested in starting from where they are. And even Aristotle, who does write treatises, he always starts from the common notions. He always starts from what most people say about this is this. And here's where

that's right. Here's where I think that could use some room and he'll kind of carve out and move people to where he wants to get them. But it's it's always starting from where people are. Today, again, you know, I blame everything on computers. I blame everything on tech. But you're in the tech space. Yeah. It's basically your own fault. That's what you're saying. I'm not like the, the tech founder Luddite. But I just look at this stuff and people just want it their way. This, you know, it's customization, customization gone crazy. Yeah. Where they think, no, I actually want you to say things that I want you to say. I want, you know, you see people doing this. they talk to their mom in there, you know.

Good luck with that. There's a joke pulling away from your ear, you know, and they're like, she's talking and doing this. It's like, you know, that's your mom. If we had a time machine and we could go grab, let's say, Plato and Socrates and Aristotle, mind you, we'd have to explain Wi-Fi and cell phones and stuff like that.

Let's strip that out of it. What do you think they would feel like about the discourse of the modern era? You think they'd be mortified by how unwilling many people seem to be to engage in discourse that does not align with what they feel like. The echo chambers, these silos of belief,

this team philosophy where it's, if your jersey color isn't the same as mine, we're enemies, even though we're citizens of the same country, BS that is everywhere. Yeah. Well, that's what I think. I mean, they would look at and be shocked, especially in America.

I think they'd be so impressed with America and what it is, right? It's built on everything that they've done. And then to go, to go, this is what you've built and this is what you've done with it? Yeah. I mean, there's, I don't know. I mean, it's just, it's, what we're doing right now, it's like, it's, it's, it's farting in a

Lamborghini. I mean, it's just, we take this great thing. But, you know, the thing is, too, just throw them an iPhone and then a week later, they wouldn't care. You know what I mean? They'd figure it out on their own and they'd be like, hold on a sec. You guys do whatever you want to do. I'm playing, I don't know if you've heard of this. I believe this is called Candy Crush. And they'd just be. Yeah, but that, that is where, you know, I have, I have some optimism about this, though, because we did, we, I'm hoping that we saw the worst years of it, where, we, we, I'm hoping that, You know, it was. They've done it, you know, the polls where they ask you 10 questions. And it's always been a question of how many answers did you need before you knew if that person was a Republican or Democrat? And for a while, that was if you knew one answer to it, you had 90% of people figured out. And so that, that to me was like, that's a good gauge of just how bad it's gotten. But I think that it's starting to loosen up in many ways on that.

I hope so. I think people are getting exhausted by a lot of the things. theater. Because some of the outrage seems to certainly be legitimate. Some of it does seem to be a little bit theatric in nature. But either way, the combination of the two, I think, is exhausting some people. I guess we'll really see in about a year maybe if we're lucky if the election cycle doesn't even start earlier than that. Yeah, right. We'll see pretty quickly how much the red-blue team ideology is still sticky on the wall. Yeah. I think it's going to be interesting. You know, I've watched Bill Maher since I was a kid. I watched him every week. But, you know, Bill Maher, this whole, you know, Trump cycle, he just said, I'm too exhausted from Trump

derangement syndrome. He said, I can't do it every week. I can't get, he's like, the ballroom, I can't care about the ballroom. Yeah. And I think, I think he's, you know, barometer for how a lot of people feel that it is, it's just gone on. Everybody can keep excited about it for a little while, one way or the other. But, you know, after a couple seasons of it, you're like, you know, yeah, Game of Thrones is great, but, you know. It is exhausted. My only worry is they keep it exhausting so they can maneuver things around in the seams where people aren't paying attention. Yeah, because that's the best time to make sweeping change that nobody knows has happened until all of a sudden they go, whoa, when did we start doing that? The answer is, oh, you remember

when you were exhausted and not paying attention? Kind of right then. Yeah, and that's what I think that we see is, I mean, you know, media always holds themselves up as this really important part of a society, and that's why they're always called the Tribune or something like that. I mean, the Herald. They always take it as this like, you know, very just profession. I think that it is, it's just unfortunate they're doing it in the wrong way because they're so easily played on all of these things that they do get people up there. They go, you know, oh, is there a war going on that people don't like? You know, I'll say something about my taxes. You know, let me bring up Greenland. Let me bring up, I mean, you can just, you can kind of bring up anything. And the media will go, that's a story.

We've got the scoop. We've got, let's get on it and let's put it out there. That's, it's usually without a full story. It's usually without the facts. And it rarely contributes to to the actual history that's going on. It's a wild world. It is. And then people will look at the conversation we have and we'll say we are journalists, which I'm like, whoa, let's not associate that term with me. I'm curious. I like talking with people. Don't focus on breaking events. Yeah, I don't think I'm a journalist, not trying to be a journalist, trying to be true to who I am, but who, but that really is. I mean, you know, I go back and look at Tocqueville, democracy in America. So Tocqueville was, you know, Frenchman and it was democracy was starting in

France. And so he wrote a book saying, I saw what this looks like in America. I'm going to spell out what are some of the symptoms. What are the good parts so we can direct it in France? Didn't go so well. But he talks a lot about the media as this voice that he goes, anybody can kind of, you know, pick up their version of microphone back then and say whatever. they want about the president. They can say whatever they want about the highest leaders in the land. And he was like, that's what makes the character of America. That is an important part. And that's where I say, you know, what was it, democracy dies in America. I can't remember which who that was. But Washington vows, I think, did that. Democracy dies in darkness. You know,

they get very self-righteous about what it looks like to be that. But the role actually is that. And that is the role that, you know, that you're playing, that, you know, Roman's playing, that Theo Vonn's playing. That's, it is going back to things and just saying, I want to know what's going on. Yeah. And I've got opinions about it. I don't have to be a studied expert and say, I read the filing and I believe this. Or I, you know, it's just what do I think is going on?

I'm a voter. Or find somebody who knows more about the filing and say, hey, I read this and I don't understand. Can you explain to me what this means? Yeah. And sure, you could encounter somebody that is, is biased in nature. But the internet also sorts that. stuff out and you don't have to be a propagandist by exploring ideas. You can have a legitimate

exchange of ideas based of your beliefs. And if people learn something from that cool, if they have questions from that cool, but what they shouldn't do is just adopt my belief because I'm sitting down with somebody who is an expert on the topic or from that world, go find your own expert, engage in your own dialogue. You know, maybe it opens an avenue where you can shift your optic a degree, but also make up your own opinions. Yeah. And that's me, you know, I mean, when when you're in high school and you're sitting around a lunchroom, everybody's got an opinion about everything. Yeah.

And at that time, you know everything about everything. Yes. So you're very certain of your opinion. You know it all for sure. You know, and you're like, this person has no idea. Yeah. But you do that kind of lunchroom conversation. That's what should be being had about all of these things.

Not we spoke to the expert and the expert said this. So shut up. Get out. You know, we're going to mark this as false content. We're going to get you off the internet. We're going to, you know, cancel you. These things to go, I don't like your opinion.

You're going to be sitting at a quiet lunch table with, you know, the nerdy kid talking about two things and you're like, sure feels like he's missing. I am not an expert or even a student of history, really. But I can't think of an example where censorship ended up being a net positive. Yeah, that's, that's very interesting. It's like, okay. Yeah. Well, and this is like, I mean, we look at these things that Western culture is built on. And, you know, we have all of these great things going for us of, you know, common law and encase law and rule of law. You know, you have all of those things. But that also is like the free exchange of ideas. It's just one of them. That's that's just a net positive. It's good to have, you know, we know, we know in capitalism, you know, you're going to create more value if you just let everybody go at it.

And we know in ideas, you're going to get better ideas when you just have everybody talking about it. I like when my ideas are challenged. I don't like it in the moment when I get pissed, even though I try not to. But I like it when something sticks with me and I have to ask myself, why are you pissed about this? Why do you believe what you believe? Is it based off of what you've seen or what you've heard? Because those are two very different things. I like that.

Not everybody does. And I get it. But I think the world would be moved in a positive direction if people sat with that a touch more. and did some personal exploration. Yep. It's okay to be made upset about something, but let's just do a little bit of a deeper dive. Yeah, well, and it's, I mean,

that's always my thought when I'm having a conversation or disagreement that I think either I'm going to be right and we're both going to agree that I'm right, which always feels good. Especially when you're married. Yeah. Yeah, I haven't gotten that one yet. Neither have I.

That was a joke. Or it's going to be wrong. And then I go, ah, that'll be my argument next time. Yeah. You know, I mean, you're like, that's great. Now I have a better way of looking at it because there really was a hole in what I was thinking. I forgot the exact phrase, but it was something along the lines of work to have deeply held beliefs, but hold onto them very loosely. Yeah.

I like that. Yep. Yeah. You can be passionate about your beliefs. Be careful gripping onto them too hard. And that is, I remember when I was probably 21, I wrote a list of 10 things that I was just sure were going to be the case. And I really want to test myself on going, can I, can you predict? the future. Would you go eight at ten?

Nine? And this was, you know, I missed all but one, right? And, but they were, they were pretty big blocks of, of my guesses that I was just going at the time. Well, of course. You know, one of them, one of them, I was, had it off to Afghanistan at the time. And, and I had as one of them, the war would be over by 2020. And I thought I gave it so much time that it would be implausible. 2009. It would be implausible to give it more. Yeah, I was like, I'm making it ridiculous, but it's just to prove that you can actually get the, you know, you look at these things played out. I mean, it's, it's crazy. But that's, that's most of the opinions that you have. So it's, it's nice to have them. Yeah. You know, I always think everybody needs a complete worldview just to be able to navigate around and walk around. But, you know, so you can't have it, you know, just be empty space. You have. You have. You have. You have. You have. You have. You have. You have. You have. You have. You have. You have. You have. You have. You have. You have. You have. You have to have wrong beliefs. But it is like if you're holding on to those, like you have an accurate view of reality, time, time's just going to prove you wrong always. I keep trying to tell my wife, listen, I have a lot of beliefs and they're all right. Just trust me. Hasn't worked out so far.

Now, she's fantastic. She loves challenging me on my beliefs. And I appreciate it. Again, maybe not always in the moment. I'm like, but sit with it for a bit and I'm like, all right, fine. Fine. Fine. And that's, and that's, and that's, you know, and that's, you know, and that's, I know, I do that, I do that in marriage all the time because the way she'll formulate arguments, they're always ad hominant attacks, right? She's always, they're always going after me or whatever. And you go, that's not even know what we're talking about, you know, these things. But sure enough, you know, I'll go and work out and be all pissy, you know.

Yeah, I'm so right. God, I'm so right and smart. And then you're like, you know, she actually does have it. She does have a point. Why is she so upset? Okay, yeah, I guess that. I guess I am bullshitting that. or I guess she's right, this does happen.

And, you know, but it takes a lot. The key to that I have found in marriage and I've had a failed marriage so, you know, people can take my advice or leave it. Taking the space to work out and work through that is key. What doesn't work is continuing the argument until it goes nuclear. Not to sidestep this conversation and turn this into a marriage thing. But let me just tell you, what you said is taking the time to work through your own personal stuff before just going back and bashing heads.

Yeah. Man, that's one of the changes I've tried to make in my second marriage, which is wildly different by every degree in metric. Yeah. Because of things like that. Understanding, okay, I am having an emotional reaction to this. It's time to go for a walk. Yeah.

It's time to go, let's just swing a kettlebell for 10 minutes. Yep. Something. Let's let the air out of the balloon every single time. Always better. Always not positive. Yeah. I know that took me 12 years with my,

my wife to start figuring out, you know. You're a fast learner. Least said soon as men did, you know. You start going like, oh, yeah, that does. You know, or what was it that I heard that, you know, a battle avoided is a battle won? That's not bad. And I thought, I thought it's really true. I think that's our current Iran strategy, actually.

I swear I just heard Hegsath say that. Oh, wait. I didn't. What got you interested in the Marines? Where'd that come from? You know, studying all the classics is what got me there. Okay. You're going to need to draw some breadcrumbs from me on that one because I'm not used to the linear line of classics Marine Corps.

No, it's not a normal one. You know, I don't come from military family. I'm from Ohio. My dad's a house painter. My mom was a teacher in my school district. And we didn't shoot guns. It just wasn't on my mind at all. And, you know, I went to go.

No military, like even grandparents, aunts, uncles, didn't like that? My grandfather was in World War II. It checks out. Most of the generation was, yeah. My other grandfather tried, but he had flat feet. And then my uncle was in the Navy, but then died in a car crash very, very early on. I think right as he was heading to training. So it just wasn't, it was kind of known, but, you know, it was very much my grandpa.

It didn't talk about it. It was one of those. And so you went, ah, that's what those older generations do. That's not what we do. And I went and started studying, you know, ancient Greek. But when I got there, I had this professor, Mr. Page, who was just dead serious, right? And he had from the first day, he called it, you know, Greek boot camp, right? Everybody has their version.

But he was like, this year, you just, you have to learn how to catch up on Greek very quickly because the whole goal of this study is to actually study Plato and Aristotle and Thucydides and Plitarch, et cetera. It's not, it's not to get really good at Greek. So he's like, you just have to get good at that. And so that was a lot of testing. you know, I'll never forget his first class, he said, I use shame as a tool. He said, I think it's a great teaching tool. You're definitely speaking of a bygone era because that's an effective tool that is no longer authorized. That's right. You don't hear a lot of people

opening with, just so you know, this is how I conduct my classroom. It's based in shame and punitive measures. Yes. But you, I tell you what people are like, yeah, understood. Yes. And that, that to me, you know, at 19 years old, sitting in that classroom hearing him say that, I'm just like, this is what I came for. I was so excited to have that discipline of because you know it. You know that you're kind of a fuck up and you want the world to say, I'm going to put you on a track here. And all you have to do is keep up and you'll get better. That was the whole goal. And I think through that, you know, I'm doing that kind of discipline and holding myself to a very high standard in that of trying to keep up with, you know, the level of study. But then you're also reading about, you know,

What is virtue? What's excellence in a person? And, you know, at a certain point, you're looking back and saying, man, if I look at everybody throughout human history, young fit men went to war. That was, that's kind of what we do. And there was a war going on, right, in Iraq when I'm reading this. And I'm like, why aren't I there? Why wasn't the structure in place to take somebody like me and go, you should really be there? Why is somebody else there?

and, you know, all those thoughts with, you know, a lot of conversations around a philosophy campus end up leading you. You can't find a good reason to say I'm exempt. You went the ill route, though, from the beginning, right? Yeah. So OCS, I'm assuming? Yep. Okay. But that, you know, so I do what I think of as very deep spiritual research on anything, right?

So I read, I read all the old war texts. I read all the, you know, the Ili and the Odyssey. and I, you know, I, like, study those in depth. But I didn't do any research about the different branches. I didn't do any research about, I didn't know the difference between officer and enlisted. Excellent. That's great, right, before you go to a recruiter of any kind. That's excellent.

We have a way to prepare yourself. Well, so I went, you know, so I go to Marines.com. Yeah. I just type in my phone number. It's like, that's what it is, your name and phone number. Did your phone instantly start blowing up off the hook? So I immediately get called by a recruiter, right? Who is like, we're going to get you signed up right away.

We're going to get you here. And by that, we mean before the sun goes down. Yes. Where are you currently? Share your location. Yeah. And so, you know, so I talked to that guy and I'm like, yeah, that's what I want to do. Let's, you know, let's do it.

And then I get a second call from the, oh, so, the officer side. And he's like, all right, so we're going to have to bring you in. We're going to talk to you about this. And I'm going, oh, I'm already working with a recruiter, this guy. And he's like, you're not supposed to be, you know, I was a junior in college at this time. And he's like, you're in my part. So you're going to come to me. And I got a little bit haughty about it because I thought they were trying to like fight for commission.

You know? And I was like, first guy's my guy. To a degree they were. Yeah, that's true. Let's get it on record. The e-dog called first. That is true. He took action.

The officer finished. So actually probably smoking his pipe, whatever, ivory-handled pipe with tortoiseshell glasses, reading his novel. I'll get to this email. shortly. Well, and so, you know, to his credit, so I call back the recruiter and I tell him, I've got this other guy calling me. I want to go with you because you're the first guy. But to his credit, he goes, no, you probably should be signing up as an officer if you're going to wait a year. He's like, that's, that is the route to go. And so I was like, all right, thank you. And went to the other guy. But, you know, it's just, it's one of those things,

signing up to be an officer is so different because you have to make it through OCS or also, you know, you're out. And they kick a ton of people out. It's more like my only on that is the movie an officer and gentleman. I'm assuming that's, you know, I didn't go to OCS. I switched over for being enlisted to an officer literally on a day on a calendar. Yeah. Still no college degree. Leave it to me to find scenes in the system and I will.

Yeah, right. Just deep research on ways to not stay as an E6 forever. But, you know, the Service Academy, which for the Marines is actually the Naval Academy, both come from there. absent that though I mean you have to go through I mean the Naval Academy in and of itself could be considered the boot camp even I know they go to TBS and the you know in the Airbusy School

and all that but yeah they got to have an onboarding of some kind so from what I've heard it is much more in line with that movie the officer and a gentleman words yeah you're getting smoke they're yelling at you're getting the experience you're getting the military onboarding experience if you will oh yeah yeah I mean that's that's what I love is that everybody in the military you know has that right everybody's had to a degree yeah the shit right And that, you know, because I loved OCS, you know, it was 10 weeks of people screaming in your family.

I mean, it's just a, you know, it's full metal jacket. It's the movies. It's people screaming at you, you know, about how ashamed you should be and everything. And I think the beauty of that, though, because you even come back from that and your parents say, you're different. Everybody in your life goes, you're changed, you know, after just a couple months. And it's, it's because you are forced to take out all of these things that you're ashamed of. And you've got to fess up to them. There's no, there's no hiding.

There are no doors on the on the stalls. There are no stalls for the bathroom. It's like you're, that was a weird first day. That is weird when for the first time in your life, Michael, we'll do this test with you just to make you uncomfortable. You know, that he has expressed any desire. But for the next month, when you go to the bathroom,

call me and you don't get a door on the back. You just observe. Stand there quietly. But from about four feet away, because that's all you get. And there's nothing else to look at just so, you know, You are the TV. Imagine a row of, I mean, Navy boot camp, same thing. Tile from the 1600s probably.

Yep, exactly. And probably a dozen stalls. And there would probably be 50 people, though, Michael, that needed to go to the bathroom. And they stand in line in front of the stalls. And they watch you. Well, there's nothing else to watch. And they're waiting for somebody to get up.

Let's just say the toilet rim is never cold. You know? I guess unless you're the first guy. And then in that case, you're doing a favor of solid for everyone else, literally, if you're doing number two. But that's, you know, they used to have written on every door, it would say in big capital letters, it's not about you, right? That's the whole officer mantra in the Marine Corps. It's not about you. And you really go, that goes without saying.

Truly. Right. Everybody that talks to me, treats me with disrespect, yells and screams in my face, calls me out for something. They watch me take a shit. We all shower by walking through the showers. And it's like, this is your shampoo section. And it's very clear that it's not about you. Our first night in boot camp, we got 60 seconds to be fully showered.

And it was a train of very naked individuals. I feel like I have really suppressed these memories for quite some time. Yeah. But you really think about what that does in a culture. I watch employees do this today where they get in the showers? What kind of office are you running? Dude, I'm going to get an outsourced HR company to come check out your bathrooms. Well, there's sex robots, as I said.

Yeah, but you really see people can hide everything. Remote work, they don't have to show anything. You know, oh, I'm working. It sounds like you're at a concert. I'm working from the concert. I'm working remotely. I'm talking to you right now. That's work.

You know, but that's people always, you know, chase that comfort. But that's where your character falls apart. That's, you know, those are all these little small steps down those bad paths. It's where you find out who you are. Yes. I tell people that, and I, you found this to be true in relationships, personal and professional in my life. You don't know who the real person is when things are going your way.

You find the real person when you get to a place where you have to tell them no for the first time. Pay real close attention. Yeah. And it's the same thing in boot camp. You're used to being an individual. And the system says no. Yes. And you get to see the mask come off.

Yeah. And it's fucking wild. It's wild. It's wild. You know, and I mean, you know, you know, the drill structure is there. I always pictured that they're going to go, you know, you weekling, you know, you know, whatever.

And you're like, you're going to be just standing there and going like, okay. But no, they are, they're like wives. They know your deepest secrets. Yeah. It's like they're trained in psychology and counseling in ways to just read your mind and say the things that get you to question who you are. Yeah.

Yeah. And you know, I mean, it was funny. They'd, you know, they'd be screaming at us. And they would come out and they'd go, you know, we do this every time. And we expect you to be bad, but not this bad. You know, and they'd, you know,

And they'd give us these speeches. And, you know, the, you know, grisier old sergeant next to me would just be like, they, they say that every cycle, you know. But to me, you're like, yeah. This guy's really disappointed me. It's only repeat to them. They have a captive audience and it's not repeat and they know what works because they've been doing it for decades. Yes.

And that's, but you really feel that. And so for all those, you know, weeks, just taking that in of going, I am disgusting, right? And I mean, it's just, it's basically like take all of your sin and flaws and weakness. and be like, we're just going to put them all on a table in front of all of us. And we just got to look at them. It's that. And I think for the first time, for a lot of people, especially if they didn't play organized sports, where you get, you, I mean, I look back at my life, the lessons refined in my military career, you could find them all largely in organized sports or working for an organization. Yep.

They're not, it's impossible to highlight them to the degree given the environment, but you're not going to be learning. them for the first time there. Yeah. But for somebody who didn't play organized sports and have that experience, for the first time in their life, they're being confronted with we instead of me. Yes. In addition to those things. And I think that's probably the biggest change a lot of people see when you come back.

I think you are less me oriented and you're a little bit more we oriented, the first time in your life. Yeah. And that's, I mean, that's who we're supposed to be as people. That's, humans have always lived with humans. that's just the way that it is. And yet we have all of these heroes. We love a Batman hero or every Marvel character now has to be some shut-in that has his secret identity that he doesn't share with the world and then has to engage.

A billionaire, of course, with free time on his hands. But it really is, I mean, humans go with humans and we work best in teams. And that is, I mean, it's a, it's just, it's a magnifying glass on all that. Because, you know, I'd have that in baseball, right? And I'd have that. But man, it's impossible to reinforce at that level. Yes. And it's just, you know, especially, you know, so for us at OCS, you know that you can get kicked out.

They dropped something like 80% of people at the time because it all depends on how many officers they need. And so you're sitting there watching, you know, the bunks move in. You have to go start a new bunk every single time somebody moves out. And you're like, I'm getting pretty close to that wall over there. Yeah. And but you're going to 10, 10 weeks just thinking, I told everybody I was coming. I thought there was no chance of really getting dropped. And you know, you're just like, wow, there's going to be a lot of shame if I go back there.

I'm going to be telling this story for the rest of my life of why it didn't happen. And, you know, you're kind of stuck between that and saying I'm part of this terrible organization that makes me feel horrible. And it's shames. I mean, it's just, it's such a rock and a hard place. But I think that's, that is your point. That's when you find out who you are. Yeah. Is when you're in those situations where it's lose-lose.

When you're getting everything you want and everything is going your way and the sun is beating down on you and your love and life. Yeah. I'm not saying don't enjoy those moments or enjoy those moments with people. But when it's out there and it's dumping on you and nothing is going your way, that's where you get a depth of your character. Yeah. And the character of the people that you think are your friends or those that would support

you. Pay attention. Oh, yeah. In those environments. Yep. And that's, I mean, you know, I see that in business a lot now because, you know, my, you know, coming into business then, I've got lots of upside downs. Yeah.

It has not just been like a steady, steady way up. But it's really amazing to watch when, you know, it looks like all is going wrong, right? And you've got everybody, you know, there are some people that will call you and be there for you and be like, you know, this doesn't matter. This is whatever. And you see a lot of people start, you know, small, I told you so's. And, you know, small posturing of, you know, yeah, well, that's what you get. You know, I knew he was going after that. And I'll tell you.

You know, you just get and you're seeing that in people you don't expect, right? and having to go like, all right, well, that's, we're starting to know then. Take notes, people. Through the cycles, take notes. You don't have to make a drastic decision off a single data point, but don't let it go to waste. Just pay attention. So walk me through your military career. How the Marine Corps treat you?

So, yeah, so OCS and then you do TBS. Everybody does the basic school for the listeners. Yep. That is, you know, that's the worst, the worst school to me. Not because it was hard, but because everybody passes and it's kind of easy. So there's no, there's no glory. no shame. You know, you're just kind of there. Infantry officer course, you know, greatest, greatest time of my life, right? So then you get to go there and kind of earn it back.

But really had those, that kind of two-year schoolhouse, just lots of different schools, you know, sniper leaders course, foreign weapons instructor. That's awesome. I mean, that's a great two-year block. All over the place. You just get all kinds of schools, you know, to the point that by the time you're done there, you have like senioritis and you're like, I know everything the Marine Corps has to offer. And you've never. been to fleet, you've never been deployed, you've never done anything, you know. So it's like, you get this second bad version of college or really of high school where you're like, I got it all figured out here. And then, yeah, I went, I went briefly to an artillery battalion,

which was, you know, rough, rough four months, but it looked like it was going to be very long there and then found my way to get deployed out of that. And then I ended up my first, first tour to Afghanistan. How to go for you. Afghanistan was everything. that I hoped that it would be. What year was it? 2011. Where were we at in Afghanistan? We moved all around like,

we were shutting down all the bases, so we were doing like a roll-up, but it was mostly in like, you know, Camp Dwyer, Marja. Okay, yeah, I was going to see, remember the provinces you were in? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so it's all right near like, you know, Marja, Trecknawa, that whole area,

if anybody's, you know, yeah. Those were the places. Yeah. But it was, you know, to me, I just, I had assumed in the Marine Corps that everybody was infantry. I assumed that everybody was, you know, like I said, I didn't really know there was this officer enlisted distinction. I didn't know there were different roles. And so I just assumed. And I assumed that everybody went to war.

I was like, why would we have you if we didn't send you? Yeah. And you hear about people going, I didn't want to go. and I thought, well, I'm raising my hand. But it was tough. It was tough to get deployed. About 15, maybe 20% of the military actually has roles that are designed to engage with the enemy.

Yeah. It's not as much as people think. It really isn't the entire military. Not that the roles in the military that don't do that by doctrine are not important. Actually, the 20% would say to use that number wouldn't be able to do their job without them. Right.

But it's not that every job in the military. It's a misconception that is prevalent to this day. Yeah. They think enlistment straight to war. And it's really not the case. No. No. And that's, you know, to me, that's where I just started getting this, like, you know, depression setting

and where I was told I wasn't going to deploy and that I was going to miss the war. You know, we thought the war was going to be over. And so I'm like, I did all this work. And people are going to go, oh, we're just serving. And I go, California out in Twin Am Palms? You know, the desert out there? Yeah, it was out there. Like, and you go, how is that Marine Corps service?

You know, that's not what I came to do. So getting to Afghanistan already felt like this huge weight off my back. It felt like such a relief that I was like, I'm actually going to do the thing. And even for us, you know, I mean, going to Afghanistan, to me, it was like everything, everything that was important. That's what I loved. You know, I hated that in college. I would think about business. And I didn't know anything about business.

But I think about cubicles. I'd think about, you know, no work matters out there. They're just trying to sell more of whatever their product is and just didn't sound interesting. But then, you know, in the Marines, they could, you know, we went over there and we'd be burning trash, right? And I'd go, this is great. Look at these fires going. I mean, this is the real, we're in it. Hopefully you were standing upwind.

Yeah, right. Dude, the burn pits. Yes. Is it going to be the agent orange of our generation? Oh, I believe it. Yeah. I believe for sure. But that was like that was that made everything exciting to me.

And I saw that was a big, a big break in a lot of Marines. A lot of Marines get there and hate it. They feel the exact opposite that, you know, to them, Vegas is everything that civilization has to offer. And they're like, that's the place to be. Oh, it's the place to be for some things. Yeah. But and they go to the desert and they go, this is nothing. But for me, no, I really went there and I thought,

Every interaction here seems to matter a little bit. Everything felt elevated and significant. And I think that was the best thing. I think I was 22. That was the best thing that you could have at that age because you want something where you're putting your all into it. You know, I hear a lot of people that go, I don't give, I've never really given my all. Tests were easy for me or the opposite. I didn't care about tests.

People just don't try that hard at anything. And, you know, they'll be in their 30s, 40s. just talking like that. But it was so great to have at 22, I did think that everything was life or death. This was at the time when Afghans were shooting at our side all the time, right? The green on blue attacks. And we had one of those our first month in. So they were very real. And but it does make you feel like every interaction that you have with the Afghans matters and could go sideways. And so it's, you know, to me, that was the best thing was going, this is life or death. I've got all of my Marines. I'm in, I'm in charge of making sure that this isn't a catastrophe. And, you know,

that kind of responsibility, it's, you know, my nine-year-old son, we have a, we have a dog. I've watched him grow, you know, five years in, in five months of having the dog. Yeah. Because he just goes, you know, for the first time in his life. Oh, is he in his kennel? Is he, you know, he's thinking outside of himself. He's thinking outside of himself. That, that for me was Afghanistan. Finally did that where you go. This isn't. training, this isn't, it's not theoretical. You're actually doing this thing. And, and I really think, I mean, that's, that's why you do just get so much more maturity. And you see, I mean, you know, part of that is why you see so many people get married out of there. You see just a lot of seriousness.

And I think I set my life off on the right foot because of it. I would agree. How about the, after that deployment, where'd your career take you? So then, then I ended up going to first recon. So first recounted and always been kind of my dream. I was, I was really into, did you know, one bullet away? The Nate Fick book. I feel like I've heard that. I haven't read it, but I feel like I've heard that today. Generation Kill was the HBO show. Yes, familiar with that for sure.

So that's Nate Fick in that. He's a friend of mine now. But he had done that and then gone to Harvard Business School. So he was first recon guy, then went to Iraq, then went to... The breadcrumbs are lining up for me now. I'm seeing a pattern here that the listener will see here in a moment as well. But I saw that and thought, this is. this guy's living the dream, you know, and he was he was Dartmouth philosophy undergrad, you know,

so I was nowhere undergrad, but philosophy. And I was like, this is clearly my, my path, right? This guy's all, he's already laid out for me what these things should look like. The road has already been put down. Yeah. I just have to walk. Yeah. So first recon was, was like always my, my dream of where to go. But, you know, as soon as I got there, you know, life always throws of curveballs, that was my first day at first recon was the day that I met my wife. And, you know, I dated a lot, but I used to, you know, I used to run my mouth when I was in my 20s and I'd always go, any guy that gets married before he's 40s, an idiot. I was like, it's, you know, God's gift to man is that, you know, he can keep being a father and, you know, starting to do

this. Why would you ever get married young? It doesn't make any sense. And then you meet the right You know, and and then, and then I met my wife and, you know, first date, I was like, oh shit, this is it. You know, and you just, you know that. I mean, I got, I got her, her mom. We met me, we met her parents. I met her parents three days in and had her mom's phone number in my phone as mother-in-law. I, like, you know, you just, you know. It's a little awkward. It was, it's an on thing. A little presumptuous, if you will. Again, you live your life. You do you. It has worked out well. So, obviously you made the right choice. I was, I was just so sure that I went,

this is just so different in kind from anything that I've had. I get it. And so that changed my whole perspective of the Marine Corps because I wanted to stay in the Marine Corps forever. That was always, I thought that I'd made that decision. And I went, I'll be here until they kick me out. That's, of course I'll stick right. This is the only place where anybody does anything that matters.

So of course I'm going to stay in the Marine Corps. But as soon as I met her, I'm like, all right, I've got this other thing budding and, you know, deployed two months into that with just sort of GCC, now just sort of AP. But, you know, the only Marine with a bunch of, bunch of seals, bunch of green berets, PJs. And, you know, I do that deployment. And that's, that's all like, you know, my wife now, you know, girlfriend at the time. She's like, this is not the path. It's a lot to sign up for from somebody from the outside who doesn't understand the requirements.

Yeah. Well, and even worse. So the deployment was to Bahrain. So originally it was this relaxed, not even a deployment. It was just going out to Bahrain. And you were like, this is no big deal. So I'm telling her, oh, it's going to be no issue. I'm going to be out there. I'm staying in a Marriott. Like, this is going to be very relaxed. We're going to talk on the phone all day. It's nothing. And as soon as I get there, ISIS takes over. Iraq and Syria and we take command of Iraq. Oh boy. So immediately everybody is sending her, you know, videos of people getting beheaded and, you know, and she's, she's like freaking. And, and I'm busy constantly. It turns out being, you know, you're just fully on. There's nothing that you do but work. Yeah. And so, so I set really bad expectations on that one. She, she flew out. in the Middle East in Bahrain and met me. You know, I took, I got like a little leave block in there and took like five days or something.

She came out to Bahrain to meet me to break up with me. She, you know, she flew all the way out there that she was like so, so pissed and done with me. But then, you know, we spent that time together reconciled and yeah. And I, and that was when I was like, all right, I'm gonna look at getting out. And so that, you know, that was a real wrenching the plans

of where do we go from here? Yeah. Right. I'm going to have a family now. I'm going to, you know, I was very excited about that. I was very excited about getting married. But then you go, what am I going to do for a job? You know, I think that's a, it's just a hard question.

It's always a hard question. Yep. That kind of never goes away for people. It is a hard question. And depending on how close they get to when they're going to get out, they start asking it, the harder it can become. Yes. The people who wait until the tail end.

And I would never advocate for somebody to, always have their eye on something else in military service, but give yourself some time. Yes. Give yourself some runway. Give yourself a year or two to at least lift your head up and say, what is next. Yep. And that's the biggest thing is, yeah, the lifting your head up, I think you've really got to go and start having conversations with people and see who would take me somewhere. Yeah. Because, you know, this was really, you know, for me, having to decide what to do in my civilian life was it, everything looked bad. I had a buddy that had gotten out. He

like Columbia undergrad officer with me and then got out and was going to Google. And I took him aside. Turns out it's this great job. He was in Australia. It was really cool job. But, you know, I pulled him aside to like, Doug, what are you thinking, man? You're giving up your Marine. You're a Marine Corps officer. You're engaging with history. Like you're doing something that matters where everything matters. Your Marines matter. And you're going to go and help people sell more toilet paper. No, he's going to go help steal people's data. Some bitch. But like I, that's just, that was my view of the civilian world.

Was it not uncommon? What you're describing. Yeah. The military is fantastic at only a few things. And one of them is making you feel like if you think about anything else, you're an absolute traitor to the cause. Yeah. And that your job can't function without you, even though they will identify the next heartbeat, the instant that you are gone. Yes.

Yeah. And that, I mean, that came up immediately that I'm, so now I'm like looking at all these jobs. And I started applying to jobs that I didn't want. Right. That's, that's the worst is when you're trying to get something that you don't want. That's a pretty sad spot in life. And, you know, I was just getting turned down by everywhere at the time. And couldn't, you know, most places couldn't get an interview with. And, you know, for the first time, I'd be, I'd be driving back from Pendleton. And, you know, I'd be driving to go see my wife now. and just thinking like, what am I going to have a family? I'm not going to be able to provide for my family. Like that's... So tough internal conversations. Yeah. A little windshield time.

Questioning your own morality and what you're capable of. Man, I've had those drives. Yeah. And it... Like what is next? It eats me. How do you pay the mortgage? Yep.

What do I know how to do besides what it is that I do now? Yes. And that's like, I mean, your whole world starts to fall apart because you're just like, well, these skills that I've built are not, marketable. Nobody's picking up the bait. I've had the bait hanging in the water. Yeah. I'm trying. Nobody wants it. And

you know, just interview after interview, phone call and turn down and turned down. I finally got an offer at this place, Ingram Micro. It's like a big fortune 50 company, but they're in Orange County. I was like, this is great. I got an interview.

And they were going to give me a job as a project manager for $60,000 a year. And that was my whole goal in life. Everything revolved around 60,000 bucks. That's what I wanted. And, you know, I go out to celebrate sushi with my, with my wife and one of my old commanders and Lieutenant Colonel Treglia and, you know, we're all eaten. And they start telling me like, well, what are you going to ask for? And I said, oh, no, they gave me, they gave me the 60. And they start going. In the civilian world, if you don't push back, they're going to think you don't know how to negotiate. Like, you have to do this

or else you're already, you know, having an arm tied behind your back. And I'm like, oh, crap, I got to go ask for more money. So I do the world's worst negotiation. I call the guy back and I go, would it be okay if I had $65,000 a year? And you know, great, great tactic. And the guy goes, you know, I don't think this was a good idea from the start. I don't think we should be hiring you. And I go, no, no, no, it's good. I'll take the 60. You know, and he's like, I don't think so. I don't think we're going to move forward. And I go, I'll take whatever you give. You know, I'm just like desperate. Anything you'll give me. And he's like, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I don't think. I. I'm so sorry. You're going to, you'll land on your feet, you know, click. And I'm like, I had it.

I had the one, you know, but I think that, you know, you look back on it now. Those were, those were really hard times that you're looking and just going, oh, I was only built for the Marine Corps. Everything that I've built was in the Marine Corps. And that's what it was for. You needed to have that phone call. That needed to happen to you. Yes. Especially, I mean, I know we're working towards what you're up to now. And I know you have done, you're on your second startup. It's important. for you to know and have experienced that so you can have this connection with other people at that part of the journey. It is essential that that happened to you. It is. And you know,

and you're just left. I mean, you know, when I hung up that phone and I'm like, I got to go back to my, my wife and tell her this. Like, you know, you just have that loser. I mean, you just, it's everything. You're like, I had, I had a future. We were so excited that it was finally like, we're not going to starve. We're going to figure this out. And. And, you're just, it's, it's everything. And, it's, it's, I had a future. We were. We're We're going to figure this out. And then you have to go back and say, no, I lost it because I was dumb and didn't know how to navigate it. And like, you know, I had it in my hand and like go of it. I had the fish on board and the fish is back in the water.

That's a terrible feeling. Right. And and so we're, you know, it was a funny, it was funny how it all came because then we were just getting married at that time. And so we flew to. Great timing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Hey, honey, I know you're planning our rehearsal dinner. Just wanted to let you know how my call went. Yes. Yeah. We eat ramen now. Do you want to serve ramen at the rehearsal dinner? Well, you know what? And this is, it's funny.

I actually have, I have a poem framed on my wall. I have all kinds of cool stuff framed on my wall. Not as cool as your framings, but pretty cool. I mean, we'll see. What's the poem saying? Maybe it's going to end up on one of these walls. The poem is called the albatross by Baudelaire. But the idea is, the albatross is this, you know, has these huge, glorious wings.

And it's, you know, when it flies in the sky, It's this like amazing, glorious heaven-sent bird. And then it lands on a ship. And everybody laughs at it because because of these big wings, it like has to waddle awkwardly. And they all kick and throw things at it and laugh at it. But I have that poem frame because that was how I felt at that time. I was going from, you know, Marine captain at first recon.

I could just look at myself in the mirror for 10 hours a day, right? I'm like, that's the coolest that you get. I'm like, that's, I still kind of think that's the coolest that you get. You know, I'm just like, I love, you know, I love captains and sergeants. I just think like, those are the guys you're like actually doing the damn thing. And, you know, and I loved it. And then now you're just getting kicked by these people. You know, you're sitting at a table interviewing with these people and you're like, I wouldn't want to work for you.

I wouldn't want to work with you. And yet I'm here begging you for the job. It just, you feel like that albatross just getting just getting kicked. And we went to, so we fly, we actually, we flew to Annapolis. We met with Mr. Page, my old professor. We go and stay with him at his house and we're talking to him and going, telling him about all these jobs and going like, we're screwed. You know, we're screwed.

And, you know, on the plane, you know, on the plane ride over, my wife and I have a yellow pad and we're writing out 100 grand a year. That was the whole goal was that by the time I retired, I wanted to make six figures. I wanted to make $100,000 by the time I retired. That was the entire goal. And we're telling him about that. And we're going like, we just can't figure anything out right now. And he's like, yeah, maybe something will turn up.

We go to New York. We drive to New York to visit her maid of honor for her to ask to be her maid of honor. But we go and visit her, her friend, Rina. Rita came from nothing. She came from Kosovo, like, you know, rags on her back. I mean, just came to this country with nothing. And she's living in this posh apartment, like this beautiful. And we're like, you know, in New York City, like something's clean.

In New York City, they know this is crazy. We've never seen this. And so we started asking her, like, how did this all go? And she tells us, well, no, yeah, I, you know, came from Kosovo. And I worked my way through undergrad. And I got into Columbia, School of International and Public Affairs. And she said, once I did that, I went to Citibank. And now, you know, I'm making $200,000 a year.

Good for her. And, you know, my wife and I are just like, you can. make $200,000 in a single year. Yeah, meanwhile you're driving in New York, you're having Ritz crackers for lunch. Yeah. I mean, I just, I'd never heard of that much money in my life. I'd never even heard the number discussed. And she's talking about it like it's, oh, no, it's not.

You're not making 200 a year? You're like, this is crazy. So we go, all right, I've got to go to Columbia. That's the new, new goal. I've got to go to the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia. Like, that's going to be my everything. And fortunately, that took us on this path to start studying, you know, the GMAT. It's like test to get into those things in business schools and, you know, you know, pushing myself.

It's, it's again that the work you do well, no one's looking. Oh, man, it was the GMAT that for me. Yeah. It's essentially the aptitude test. Yeah, it's like the, it's like the SAT. But, you know, so there's like a big verbal. I never took that one either. I didn't take that one either.

I know I got in college without taking that. I got a waiver. So this was like my first, you know, like standard I just test I had to do. And it was horrible. I mean, I, you know, I started taking it and I was, you know, I was, what, below 50th percentile. You know, I think I had a 520 was my first score

when I took it just out to 800. And I think you get 400 for writing your name. It's one of those, those kinds of tests. So, first entry. Strong. This stuff, you know, and it was strong with room for improvement. Not a bad opener. It's also, you know, it's a humiliating.

test because the questions, the questions seem like they should be simple, like in the math part, but if you don't know how to do math, they're hard. Yeah. You know, so to me, you know, it'd be like, you know, what's one third times one fifth, you know, and I'm like, yeah, I'm like, what's, you know, what's the sound of one hand clapping? Like, is there an answer to that? I'm like, I don't know. You know, that's, is that a rhetorical question? Two French ducks quacking. So I had, you know, and I'm still working in the Marine Corps this time, but that was, I told my wife, I was like, 100 hours, and I'll have a top score. You know, I'm a little cocky, and of course I'm right. You know, I'm like, 100 hours, I'll be at the top of this. Don't worry. So I paint one of our walls with

whiteboard paint, you know, and I start tallying, stupidest to have this up on the wall. And I start tally marking because I'm like, you'll see my score come up, come up to 100, still at 500 something, come up to 200, you know, maybe had my first 600. Yeah. And, you know, and I'm watching this, and these tallies are just getting so embarrassing as I put them all up. But it basically was I would come home from the Marines. I'd get home around 9 p.m. She would give me, she would have cooked some kind of dinner.

She'd handed to me in a little Tupperware. And I'd go to, we had like a little pool house thing, a little shared area. And I'd go sit out there. We had a 19-year-old come, you know, nice Asian woman for me. UCI and she would teach me all of these math and she'd be like how do you not know what an is iceosceles triangle is really we've gone over this how do you know what an isosceles these triangles why do you know so much about triangles and that that was like the whole but I would just do that night after night after night with a lot of people telling me you should really give up people don't have

to try that hard on this test you know gee math's an easy test and you just seem maybe you're not cut out for going back to school and all this kind of stuff but because of that, you know, because of hearing about that $200,000, I was like, that's, nope, that's, that's the target. Like, I, I will hit it. So just, you know, kept at it until finally 400 or 500 hours in, you know, started getting top scores. And, yeah, and finally, and took it, you know, the day of, yeah, had my best score ever. Awesome. And so, you know, then at that point, I'd also, you know, I'd called everybody. that I could meet that was at an Ivy League school. Because in my high school, I'm the first person to ever go to Harvard out of my high school. It's just don't really come from that world. Yeah, no, it's a different world. I get it.

So I wrote to, I wrote emails to all of the veterans clubs. I would go to Harvard Business School.com, I'd find the veteran club and the email. And I'd go, well, you talk to me for 30 minutes. And I'd talk to him and I'd go, how did you study for the GMAT? What'd you put in your application? What'd you put on your essays?

And I'd take notes. And then at the end, I'd just go, do you have anybody else that might be willing to talk to me? And I talked to, you know, so not just vets. I mean, they'd lead me to anybody. And so I ended up talking to, you know, probably 100, 100 people, and I'd sit and just take notes on what they did. People would give me their essays so I could read what successful essays looked like, all this kind of stuff. And, you know, kind of got great at this applications process. And so then once I had my good score and I knew all that kind of stuff. A solid package. How did you pick Harvard over Columbia,

even though Columbia was your initial idea. Well, then, you know, it's Harvard. That is true. Well, I mean, I've heard of both and honestly, I mean, to me, they both seem like Ivy League schools. I feel like they probably specialize in different things, but I feel like both of those were kind of awesome. I just, you know, I always have, I don't do any research on any of this kind of stuff,

but I have what I think sounds great. You know, like if I had heard of the Navy SEALs back when I was joining, I probably would have joined to become a Navy SEAL. I may not have been what you thought it would be. Yeah. And I went to the Marines because I was like, that's the hard one, right? I was like, that's correct. It's the men's department of the Navy. Yeah. I was like, I was like, I'll do the hard one.

You know, I just wanted to opt into that. And Harvard had that same feel for me of, you know, I watched a lot of TV as a kid. And Harvard, you know, Harvard's always the like, you know, like I said, I had a 1.8 GPA in high school. I think you needed a 2.0 to graduate. And they just said, you need to get the fuck out of here, which I agreed to. I look back now. It wasn't aptitude. It was interest.

Yeah. I wasn't interested. And people have said to me, well, you should go to college now. And I'm not against the idea, but I don't know what I would study. I don't know what would be interesting enough for me to dedicate that time. Plus, I actually kind of like the problem solving, figuring it out way of life that I'm stumbling my way through like a total idiot.

People tell you to go to college now. Well, they say, it's not that they tell me to go to college now. They say, well, you could always go to college, which is true. I mean, my mom finished college when I was already born. And so she was in her late 30s at that. So I get it. People go back for different times and stuff like that. I just don't know what I would study.

No. Well, and that to me, I mean, that's like giving some of the advice of buying a DVD player. Like, you've got to get this thing. It's amazing. You can own all these movies. Like, I mean, I think college is just such a failed experiment. I think it depends on what you go for. Like, I want our engineers to go to college.

Could be. You know, I think engineers, my middle son is in college to be a mechanical engineer. Yeah. he is doing calculus and math that I feel like if you're going to build a bridge, you should probably know. So that's great. But other than trades that have that, like you need to have this providence to be able to do, like a doctor, please go to school if you're a brain surgeon for neck up stuff.

That's fair. That's fair. And the anesthesiologist that's hopefully going to knock me the hell out when you're drilling a hole in my brain, please get good scores. But for an entrepreneur, for somebody who wants to go down a non-traditional path that doesn't necessarily have, you have to have this qual and this cert. A generalized, well-rounded education, I'm not going to say that's negative, but I don't think college is the key to their success.

Yeah. Well, and that's where, I mean, I look at this, even with engineers and things like that. And I just think it's such a scam that I do this scam myself, right? We used to have, I used to sell security robots. And we got all these stats that we were like, places that have our robot have no break-ins. So it's a deterrent. Did they ever have any break-ins before? No.

So you take this like total correlation that has nothing to do with any, you know, anything. And you go, I'm the reason. And to me, schools, they scoop up all of the people that would be successful engineers anyway. And they're the kind of people who, you know, they're taking apart their microwave and the family's going, what the hell did you do that for? They're already those kinds of people. And then they get to have them for four years. And then they go, look what we did. But it's, that person was probably going to be.

do that anyway. My middle son is a perfect example is Michael, has he been sending you pictures of his latest treasures, by the way? No, on what? Just it. This is my middle son in a nutshell. We're on a group thread with a text thread with my wife, Leah, and him. In the last two days, he sent two pictures. He's been rummaging through electronic store garbage cans. Oh my gosh. Which I have many questions about that to begin with. He found a functioning iPod. And he sent a picture and he goes, dad, I just found this and it still works. And I said, yeah, your phone also does all of that and then even more. He's like, no way.

This is my new device for music. And he's refurbishing and like the kind of guy who will take it apart. But I'm just, and then the other one was he found an iPhone SE or something like that. He's just like on the open market, this is worth $150. And I'm like, get out of the garbage cans. I'm paying for your college education and you're diving into garbage cans. I love that. No, the garbage is where the education is.

I'm telling you. I love it too. And it's just fascinated to me. He'll find tech from the early 2000s. You know what I mean? Everything's on a cycle. It's all coming its way back around. It is.

But it's like, it's so funny to me because you do, I don't know, I've got, I've probably got to stick up on my ass about college. But it just is like if you look at all of human history, you know, take great civilized human history. right, take a couple thousand years. For almost all of them, there was no college. There were apprenticeships, and they happened around puberty. And then for the past hundred years, we've had college, and everybody's obsessed over college.

And the president of the state of union has to go, this person got into college. And this person got into college. Like Oprah giving out stuff. It's not been a great hundred years. It's actually crushed a lot of people, too. Yeah. The, that's called the ROI, the price versus return. and the way that they will lend you money

that violates any other lending standard makes me, and again, I don't really have a fight in this, a dog in the fight, because I didn't go to college. And thankfully, my son has in-state tuition, which makes it far more reasonable for somebody paying in-state.

But I know people who are well, decades beyond their college, high six-figure debt, that they are struggling still to get out of. And oh, by the way, not working for a single fucking second in the field that they studied.

Yeah. It's all over. Is this an economic engine? Is this a monetary engine for the endowments that many of these organizations already have? Or is this about the students? Yeah.

It's crazy. You go and you get a dorm at a hedge fund for four years and you get to take some classes in the meantime. And then you go out. I mean, it's really, I see people facing this after high school and going, I don't really know what I'd want to do.

Who does really know what they want to do after high school? No. We're anomalous. I knew I wanted to be SEAL since I was 11. I didn't know anybody else growing up that said that. Now, when I got into the community, almost everybody that I served around had some sense of that, which makes sense because we were all there.

Yeah. But absent that cohort, incredibly anomalous. So I have always told my kids, like, there's no rush. It's okay to turn into a coldest. sack, go a little bit in there. You don't need to drive over the curve through the park in between the two. Do a 180 and come out of that. Go across the street. Don't feel like you have any pressure. How about this? Instead of as your dad asking you all the time, what are you to be when you grow up?

Yeah. Yeah. I just say, what are you interested in? Yeah. Let's water the grass. Yes. In that area. And if you dig it, awesome. 100%. And if you don't, cool. Because I recognize, A, don't try to be like me. Because most people think I'm a fucking psychopath. Right. Especially some of the hobbies that I do, but they're like, I'm like, I'm the most normal person that I know, but you don't know me that well. So don't be, I don't expect you to know from 11 who you want to be. Yeah. Take the other path. Yeah. Which enjoy the journey too. Yeah. Like I got you. It's my job to be there to help you and support you, but don't feel like that pressure is coming from me. If you want to put that pressure on yourself, that's on you and we can talk about a healthy way to do that,

but don't think that's coming from me. Yeah. And that's the whole thing is that like, I think people think that'll disappear if they go to college. it's going to get easier to know what they want to do when they grow up. That doesn't go away. And it also seems like depending on how much they have committed, they might feel a little bit more trapped or obligated or a combination of those words. Again, I didn't go so I don't have a dog in the fight, but I've heard people verbalize that.

And again, it goes back to applying for jobs that you don't really want. No, thank you. Right. Hard pass. No. It's just not the thing to do. And you do. You see people just getting rushed into it by everybody's,

Like, you should go, study engineering. You'll see, you know, what was the advice for the last, you know, 20 years? Ah, computer science. That's a, yeah, it's really taken off. It's like, yeah. What's up, Claude code? Good luck with that. You know, I mean, that always seemed like stupid advice to me.

But those things will always, you'll always be purviewed on that. It worked until it didn't, until things like Claude Code came out. And now, what's the term, Michael, vibe coding? I have no clue. I'm not in that world. That's what I do. I vibe code, even though I don't code or know what the vibe aspect of that means. No, people who are, they're using now plain English.

to interface with something that used to be a walled off garden because you didn't understand the language. Yep. Well, now they have the interface. It's like, oh, no, no, just use the language you do understand. Yeah. In this, whatever the hell AI is will help you sort it. Yeah.

Oops. Yes. And that's why. I'm going to crush some industries or make some people in them better who actually learn how to harness and master that and then can utilize it. Yeah. Everybody else is going, oh, shit. Yeah.

I think it reveals what the human experience actually is, which, you know, the human experience is filled with, oh, shit moments. we love to get this idea that we can plan everything, that we can control everything, that we can take over everything. And you just cannot. Yeah. Right.

And, you know, anybody that's had, you know, life-threatening illness or somebody that they love having, life-threatening illness, they know that big that you just start going, well, doctor, isn't there something we can do?

You know. Just put together a nice business plan and then try to execute on that. And then when you get to step three and you say, well, what just happened isn't in my plan, this isn't fair. I'll remind you that the fair is in Iowa

and it has cotton candy in a merry-go round. So if that's what you're looking for, go get some. Yes. I mean, that's, that is life. And so you can find,

you can find these times and places where you have some safeguards against life. But that's what life is. You know, every one of us is going to die. Everybody's going to have to face that. You're going to have to stand on the carpet at some point. Yeah.

But like, we can put it off and we can not think about it and we can go. Nope. It's all, you know, I wake up and drink, you know, butter in my coffee or whatever.

whatever it is, and then I watch, you know, go work all day. I grind and then I watch Netflix. You forgot the cold plunging sauna. Yeah. Meditation, journaling, whatever the three hours you're going to do, which again, by all means, if that really empowers your life, go ahead. I've watched so many people get trapped by their morning routine that they accomplish nothing. It's like, I feel like you now exist to serve your morning routine as opposed to having

your morning routine exist to serve you. Yeah. What's going on here? You know, the worst is for me, every time I've tried to do a morning routine like that, which I've given a couple shots to. Yeah. I just get so self-righteous. Like, so by the time it's like 8.30 and everybody else is like up, yeah.

I'm like, I've been here for four hours. I've already conquered the world. What the hell of you been doing? Do you know how much of a well-rested piece of shit you are? Yeah. Just lazy. I watched you sleeping. Yeah.

I saw what you did. I was up at four. I'm exhausted now, but. There is some aspect of self-righteousness that seems to associate with that as well. But yeah. Whatever, I digress. It gets there. Okay.

So you go to Harvard. What, how do you, right after Harvard, was that the first startup where it was the security robots? Uh, yes, so that, that was during, during Harvard. Walk me through the idea or how it works of having an idea. We're going to do security robots. Like, I get the idea of a startup. Yeah. But what's the difference between a bunch of people having an idea of what they want to do?

When does that cross the Rubicon to becoming an actual startup? So, yeah, I really did not understand this. And now this is my world ever since then. But, you know, when I heard startup, you picture Steve Jobs in the garage, you picture somebody that is like, of course. I've got an idea. And I'm going to work on that idea. Or Zuckerberg, coding in his room,

shutting down the Harvard.edu network. Yeah, if only you knew what you're looking for, it was on my dorm room window. Take it easy, buddy. For those of you who haven't seen the social network, that's going to go right over the top of your. head. I love it. But that, that is, you picture that it is this idea. Kind of. I think I still have that, by the way. And, you know, what it actually is, you've got, you know, you've got either, you got a couple ways of funding, right? And so they're going to be bootstrapped startups where you're like, no, I really am going to start the idea and I'm just going to do it myself and bring in one money I can and grow it. Then you're going to have ones that either have friends and family rounds where, you know, you kind of have like an MLM for a little time and try to get everybody. give you money. That's what I'm talking about. Oral or crowdfunding, something like that. And then there

are venture-backed startups. So there are investors that are sitting around waiting for smart kids to come and tell them the ideas of these startups. Is it really based off of that if you have an idea, even if you don't necessarily know the mechanism of taking it from an idea to say a physical product, they will invest in that? Well, yeah. So that's the interesting thing. Early stage venture capitalists, right? They have, they've raised a whole bunch of money. They come to guys like me and they go, Mike, give me a couple million bucks into my fund. And I'll distribute that across a lot of companies. Here are the kind of companies that I'm looking for. Here are my connections. And here's who I've been invested in the past. And I go, okay, there's a couple million bucks and take it

and then let me know how it goes. So they have a big old pot of money, right? And then they get to sit down with a whole bunch of people that they call in and they say, come tell me what you're thinking. And the, you know, the kind of big rules to it are the team and the tam. So who is, who is the team to pull this off? Do we believe in these people? And, and, you know, the kind of, And is the total addressable market big? But it's still all predicated on just an idea sometimes. We're talking like a PowerPoint deck? Powerpoint deck.

Wow. Sometimes less. Sanket and I, my co-founder and I. We raised off of, we had no deck when we raised $10 million. Okay. I have some ideas. Do you know any of these people? I have an idea for a self-licking ice cream cone.

Yeah. Well, and that's, so the total addressable market very small, though. So I feel like I need to refine my pitch. When you get in with these people, you start to realize that's a whole kind of marketing exercise in itself is what do you look like as the team part? You can control certain aspects of that. And then what are just big ideas? Where do people think that they're trends right now? These VCs, they'll have big hypotheses about things.

So, yeah, that's where, yeah, you've got a whole bunch of, that's where defense tech, right? All of this defense tech comes from is, you know, people saw a trillions. and a half dollar budget go through and they went, something tells me there's going to be more spending in defense. Yeah. Right? And so they're now. I've noticed that these budgetary line items only go in the vertical direction, not the downward

direction. That's right. Yeah. So they look at that and then they're going, okay, I want to know who's going to go into defense. And they'll get some kind of idea about what kind of companies they're looking for. So they kind of have that in their head. And then it's a conversation with these people coming in and going, do I think you're the kind of person that could pull this off?

Are you the kind of person that could pull anything off? Are you the kind of person that could pull this off? And is the idea big enough that if it hits, it's a grand slam? I mean, so $10 million without a deck. Okay, cool. You're going to have an account somewhere, which is, that's a fantastic sum of money. I think I would do nothing with it other than look at it. I would just log in like every 30 minutes and look at it.

Like, no product. We're just, just look at the Bank of America account. Okay, so that's great. But what makes it real? What's the gap between the idea and a real start? You have the funding for it. I mean, you could form an S-Corp or an LLC. I mean, I get it.

That's paperwork technically to the IRS. You're real at that point. And they're going to want to talk to you usually around April or October, depending on how you file. But what makes it real in the sense of we have this idea, we have the funding. How the hell do you do it? How do you go from that to a security robot? So, you know, at that point, so you get your money, right?

And usually you'll have some seed funding. in the beginning. So somebody just gives you a couple hundred thousand bucks to try to figure it out. And that money is, all right, you have this great idea for self-flicking ice cream cone. Yep. Let's see it. Let's see you put something together. And they don't need a perfect product, but they do want to see, you know, I got, here's a little tongue on the ice cream cone and look at it. Like the Blackberry is a good example of this. It's, it's, what do they call movies that are, they're actors, but it's largely based off of real events, whatever that may be called. And I forget, I think it's on Prime, but it tells the story of Blackberry.

I love that movie, yeah. And what they, you know what I'm talking. It has Venice from Always Sunny in it. Yeah. And when they went into those rooms, you want to talk about something that was barely functional. It was a different keyboard, but it was a concept. And I remember him, you know, one of the lines, oh, no, type with your thumbs. It feels more intuitive.

And that literally defined generations of people typing with their thumbs. But what he was typing on looked like a Game Boy. Yeah. Not a Blackberry. So I think I understand what you're saying. So they want to see something like that. So for this. Or progress, it would seem like.

So picture, so this is for Cobalt. So for my first company, the pitch was, you know, my co-founders are one's, one's PhD out of MIT in robotics. One has a master's out of Harvard and did his undergrad at Harvard for electrical engineering, you know, and then there's me. I don't know. But we're like, that's, you know, that's strong. They need a team captain.

Strong looking team. Yeah. Yeah, right. Like, don't worry. I'm not doing any of the soldering. So we're like, cool team for a robotic startup. Like those guys, I bet on those guys. So you got the pedigree.

So you're like, you like that. You know, and the idea is Allied Universal is the third largest employer on Earth at that point. Right. So you had Amazon, Walmart, Allied Universal, Allied Universal. Is this the security company? Allied. Allied Universal is security company. You're seeing them walk around and Wallace.

And the pitch is, have you ever seen a security guard do something? And you start to go through your memory and go, I have seen a lot of security guards. I haven't seen them do much. That is actually relatively fair. Also a good thing. And fair. Yeah. And so the pitch is, if there are that many, they're right behind Walmart and Amazon, the number of their employees, their largest employer on earth.

And they're not really doing anything. Aren't robots advanced enough that we can take a meaningful percentage of those security guards? And so the venture capitalists that are listening to that idea have to go, does that team look pretty good? Yeah. Yeah. They do when they're excited about it. And does that total addressable market look? Well, it's huge.

I was going to say, yeah, it kind of sits well in both buckets. It's huge. And so, you know, I think a lot of people think, especially people that have done small investments in one way or another, they think it needs to make money. I've got to have 100% hit rate. Venture capital does not need to do that, right? Isn't the percentage is actually quite low if you look at it over? Tiny. Yeah.

The big ones, obviously, when they go galactic, when it's a Facebook, like cool, I don't know if that scales across. You know what I mean? That's the white element. the white dwarf for black elephant, whatever it is. Same thing is, you know, SpaceX or people who tell me they want to start a podcast because they're going to be the next Joe Rogan. I'm like, listen, you should still, you should do that. But I don't know if Joe being the person that he was, starting at the time that he was

in all of that together, that may not scale. So just keep that in mind. Great to aim for, maybe back towards reality just a touch. Not telling you not to do it, but not every success story scales well for the masses. Yes. And so the VC, the beautiful thing to them, it's the power law, what their VC math is, is figuring out, okay, I'm going to put a million dollars into this company. That's going to get them started on building this robot. I'm going to see something with that million bucks. But I'm also going to give a million bucks to 20 other companies. And I've just got to make sure that that $1 million at this valuation could turn into at least $20 million. And actually they're looking to, you know, $3.X. They're fund to something like that. Could this be $200 million? if this hits. Today's episode is brought to you by Brunt.

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Yep. So you have, I mean, you have a cohort. It's actually hundreds of companies, you know, for like a Sequoia where we raised. They'll have a couple hundred companies in your cohort. And they know that all comes out of the same fund. And one of those companies is going to pay for all the rest. That does make sense. And so they don't need to be sitting there.

That's why, you know, my dad was always like, you think security robots? You think that's... Are we sure having Thanksgiving dinner? Pass the mashed potatoes. Hey, Mike, are we sure about this one? Yeah, you know, you'd be going, you haven't, you've sold none. I'm like, that's correct. He's like, okay, would you say you were value.

You guys said where you were valued at $360 million, was it? Where do you get that number? Yeah. Right? And, you know, but it's these funny conversations because we don't need to hit. We have to have a good enough chance of hitting that among all of those bets, at least one of us will. Yeah.

And so we were a good bet on that. That's where you put in some money. The, you know, then you out of that, you create a minimum viable product. So your MVP. Yep. And for us, that was, you know, Eric and Travis built, my co-founders, built this great. It was a five-gallon bucket, or it's two five-gallon buckets, one on top of the other. There is an iPad on the front to be able to interface over it, and it has wheels on the bottom, and which looks just like a Roomba.

And you could drive this thing around. And the whole idea was, can you do a security patrol? And if you see somebody suspicious, can you talk to them? Come on the screen. Sterly look. What are you doing? Yes. FaceTime them and go, can you do anything?

Right. And of course, you get, so you get questions about, well, a security guard could actually do something and we go, no. Have you seen some of the security guards that are employed? I mean, let's, well, actually, so for insurance purposes, you can't. You're not as a security guard. That's true. Oh, man, there's a ton of liability associated with. They're not a lot to touch anyone. Well, they don't want the, up, the potential downstream lawsuit. Yes. Yeah, I get what you're saying. So that's, you know, ones, one's VC, you know, they're looking at that and they're going, okay, so really all the security guard can do is observing a report. And yes, a robot can do that.

So they built this robot and got them out, you know, to Yelp and Slack and a bunch of, a bunch of friendlies with our investors who were like, sure you can drive that around my office at night. And through that, we're able to say we have this many robots deployed. They're all doing safety patrols. Nothing bad has happened on any of the sites, right? Clearly because of the two five-gallon buckets. Of course. No other reason whatsoever. But that gets you to your series A where now you have other investors coming and looking and going, okay, so you've got some commercial traction. What? You've got all of these credit karma, Yelp, Slack. Nobody's paying. But all right, you've got some traction. People seem interested in this.

You know, at that point had talked to, oh, I can't remember all these places. Citibank, I think was one of them, Wells Fargo, places where their security director would go and speak to investors for us and say, if they can build this, I'll buy 100. right and so you have you have this kind of feeling of all right this this thing is going to take off and here's the minimum viable product i can see how they can build that out well so you're starting to get you know you're kind of in tadpole stage right you're starting get those like weird little arms coming out and you're like it might be a frog yeah that's it's something it's something and and so that's i think i think that's the thing is all of these startups they're embryonic and how they go and you have kind of these basically understood milestones of what's going to happen

at these different series of fundraising but that's kind of what you're expected at and it's not until your series C which yeah well I think things are kind of changing now but back then your series C was where

people actually wanted to see how much money is coming in here really like is that when you say series C you're talking about people the ability to invest and I'm assuming it goes ABC the investment series

yeah so oddly enough it goes pre-seed seed a B C okay well at least when it gets to the alphabet we're going to go sequentially it wouldn't be military in order where it's like Zulu you know Romeo Charlie and you're like a lot of times though you do hear people these things are always so funny because they're they're ultimately just about getting money in the bank but people will this is our A1 we're raising our A2 I have actually heard that I never know what they mean but I've heard those terms yeah I don't know what they mean and I've done it there's a chance I was going to say there's a chance they didn't either Yeah, you just, you're just throwing, you know, oh, this is our RA1, R8 tool.

It sounds so good, though. Sounds good. It sounds professional. Yeah. You know, it sounds like, oh, wow. It actually is more in how you sell it than whether your knowledge base is, did you keep a straight face? Did you emote properly?

Yeah. Yes. Okay. So how far did you build that first company up? So we did it to our series C. So that was, you know, that was a point. We got, got the actual robots out. We got almost a thousand robots out.

We were in nine, nine countries, four continents. that we had had robots going around and you could, you know, I mean, you could pull these up on a computer and watch robots driving around corporate offices. Where could Michael go to find a picture of one of these robots? What would be the best thing to Google? Just type in Cobalt Robot. It'll pop up. They're still around. Yeah. We went up selling the company. What did they do with it once they bought it? They still were, it was bought by a strategic, yeah, Eagle Eye Security. I could see somebody gobbling that up because they want the tech. They gobbling it up because they want the market. You know, there's a variety of ways that they could be consumed and it could

live on for itself or... It was actually funny. You know what they ended up buying us for? Or the biggest reason. There it is. Look at that beautiful robot. Look at how much better that is than two... Oh. And here's the thing, too, Michael would be terrified of that robot. I'm shaking right now. Michael would be like riding that thing with a blonde wig on. That's on the other screen. So this, you know, so this robot, that was the whole idea. And, you know, It was designed to look like a high-end piece of office furniture. Yeah. I've only said that.

Didn't want to be intrusive. Yeah. But this was the idea is that a human can interact. And instead of having to have somebody who is corporate security, right, you know, you know, who looks like this. It would be on your site. We get to have nice looking young people that come on. So, you know, we would always go to places and say, Yelp, you guys are young, you guys are fresh. Why do you have this old security guard kind of hanging out here?

It feels like, what, are we unsafe? here, we're going to give you this high-end piece of office furniture and this person is, you know, it's, you know, going to be a beautiful person is going to come on. Your entire business is forward-leaning. You're, you're leading the charge in the 2000s. Why is this security tech in the 1980s? Yes. That was the whole pitch, right? That's how I would pitch it too. And everything else you're doing is evolving and advanced. Why do you have Bob with a baton who can't use the baton anyway? Now I get it. Okay. That was cool. So that was the, that was the whole pitch. And what, what the end of really buying us though for was was those humans in the loop we you know I had I hired on a marine

buddy at mine who I'd gone through all my training with this guy Eddie and and said I need you to stand up a security center and we'd seen at this point at like universals centers we'd seen all these things and we always thought not that cool you know have you ever seen security in Vegas you're talking about like in casinos yeah I think in maybe documentaries or docu-series and movies I don't know how accurate they are. So like in a movie, they're like, zoom in on his hand right there. Totally. He's playing with a cigarette. He's clearly counting cards. Get him. You know, and it's like, you know, drone drops and scoops him in the ceiling. You go to these things in real life, you know, because I've, you know, I've gotten to see behind the current, not all these. It's one guy. There are some screens up.

He's not looking, he's chatting with me. Flickering black and white. Like, yeah, it does that every 20 minutes, yeah. Yes, there's no. You're like, this is the, the whole big structure here. Like, Ocean's 11 all of a sudden seems really easy. Yeah. Okay. So, maybe it not be, okay.

So you kind of see behind that curtain. And so I was like, we need to start up our own security center. And I was like, Eddie, you know, Marine Marsock guy. I'm like, go, you got to go build this thing. Build it like a talk. Yeah, no. Yes. A tactical operation center for people listening.

Exactly. And so he went. to, so we actually, we had our original in San Francisco with us in our headquarters. And it's the worst because they are smoking weed in there. They're drinking. I had, I had one guy that kept following the girls to their cars. So we fired him. Seems like normal behavior. He kept meeting them at their cars in the middle of the night on their night shift. We had to hire. Seems like a good place to deploy a security robot. Had to had to hire a security card to escort them. Like, just ridiculous. Right. We put it.

in a nest cam and we just watch these people eating gummies, you know, and drinking in that. And you're just like, shit. So every day is an HR nightmare. And we're paying these people. We were paying an average of $34 an hour because we had this model that was like, one person can run 20 robots so we can pay them more and get higher quality. We had the same or worse quality, but we just paid them more. Yeah. And so finally, I'm like, I can't do these HR issues anymore. And I'm like, we're moving it to Utah. I was like, we're going to put this right outside the BYU campus. And we're going to be a back on the straight and arrow. Everybody's like, what kind of analysis did you do to find that? And I was like, they're Mormons. And they were like, yes, but are there graphs? And I was like, they're Mormons.

And, you know, I was just like, get these. You know, everybody's like, idiot. But I get Eddie out there. And I'm like, Eddie, stand up this, you know, just, you know, an operation center. That's all I need. He goes, you know, leases us a place, starts hiring a bunch of nice BYU kids. They start hiring all their friends who are not eating gummies. We've got all of a sudden 24-hour security of these people that are really running their jobs well. They've got good leadership. They've got good personal skills because they've all gone on missions. Over 80% of our people went on missions.

They all have blood hair. They all have blue eyes. So you have, you know, I remember we put our first robot in Japan. So Amazon had us put a robot in Japan and they go, we need you to be able to speak Japanese. And I'm like, oh, shit. All right, we got to go hire some Japanese speakers. it turns out just by happenstance from the Mormon. They had admissions there.

We already had Japanese speakers on every shift. So then I was like, tell me all the languages that you had. And it was 26 languages and that became marketing material. Unbelievable. But yeah, not only can we do that. We were, we were already foreshadowing or forecasting that you might need that. So we have a language specialist already on board. Yes.

That ended up being a big part of the acquisition. Oh, I bet. It was just that we really had that down on how the whole process. worked through all of those people and how we could always hire new people and everything. So, you know, the cool, cool kind of operations play within within the tech. How did it feel to build a company like that and get to a place where not only was their interest to buy it, but you were able to sell it? I mean, what does that feel like? You know, that, so, you know, starting Cobalt was like, I finally was thinking, okay, the civilian world has a lot to offer. Right, because this, and I

always thought the idea was pretty stupid for security robots, right? I did, the real pitch for me, I think the reason that I was able to sell them to security directors was that we saw things the same way where I was like, this is a really dumb idea, but it's slightly less dumb than the current solution. Yeah. And it involves honestly less risk and liability. Yes. And so that was always kind of where I came in on it was like, it's a little less dumb than what we have. So I do like it. And security guards, yeah, I kind of agree with that. But it was a little bit. But it was a little less dumb than what we have. So I, I do like it. I, It wasn't some big picture. I didn't think that was the coolest thing to do in the world. But building that company was so exciting. I mean, it was, you know, I was traveling, you know, I don't know, 40 plus weeks a year at least. So I'm on the road all over the place, getting people to buy this. I'm, you know, going to different countries to get these deals. You're constantly hiring people. You know, we built the team up to 350 people. I think we had, you know, 100 or so contractors on top of that. It's big, man. So that's a leadership challenge in and of itself.

Yes. And you're, you know, and through that we had, we had two big riffs, you know, reduction in force, right? Fancy wave saying like we screwed up, hired too many people and our product's not that good. AKA hoopsies. Little asterisk on that line. So like, you know, you're going through those. But it's like, and you're just watching people really develop in the company, you know, and so we'd take people in. You know, one of my favorite guys that we brought in, this guy, Sahu, he would always, he gave a. gave us pizzas. We would always order pizza from this place and he worked at the pizza place and my wife loved him. And she was just like, this guy, I'm telling you, he was a great guy. So we hired him on, right? And he started as one of the people that would interact over the robot. And, you know, pretty soon, I saw he was a supervisor there. Pretty soon we brought him onto an ops team and taught him how to work on robots. And then pretty soon he's running all the field service and the company, you know, and it's that, I love those stories. I love stuff like that, you know? And so you're, you know,

we did it for, for what, eight years, eight years had the company. I mean, you're just seeing really cool stories play out like that. And people kind of come there that may be kind of misfit toys and then you're watching them go off to big jobs and things. And that, it just, it feels, feels great. You know, I mean, there's, there's such deep satisfaction in getting to do that. I agree. Seeing other people succeed, if you can have a hand on that, even especially if it's invisible. Yeah. But know that you're doing the right thing for the right reason. Man, there's nothing that feels better than that. You know, it's so funny because I think,

I think on a day-to-day basis, you get really sold on this like, you know, me against the world kind of idea. Yeah. And you're like, I'm building and it's all about what I'm doing. I'm doing.

I'm doing. But when you look back, it's much more, you're much more enriched by seeing like the people in your life that helped you there, right? And seeing like, you know, Mr. Page, like getting me into this or, you know,

Sherease, my wife, you know, getting me out of the Marine Corps, getting me out into this new track. Like, you start to see those people that helped you. And then you get this. part where you get to help the people. And those end up being all of your stories. Those are all the

that's that's all the part where you're like, that was so cool we did that. Yep. You know, I love, we got to do like, I don't know, you know, some ABC or I don't know who it was, but some, some news came by because we had, you know, we had over 100 veterans working for us and came to do like a story on that. And I thought it was so cool because I hadn't really noticed that we'd hired that many. I was just hiring them because I would give five paragraph orders. That's how we gave deployed robots was five paragraph order. And so the, you know, guys could just come and plug in. But it was so cool when the news came and interviewed them. There were a lot of people that I had that I didn't know were vets. And they'd be like, oh, yeah, news is interviewed. And I'd go, what the hell are they

interviewing you? And they'd go, I was in the army for four years. And I go, oh, that's awesome. That's cool. You know, that's cool that we have that many. But you're just getting to see those stories over and over again of people developing. What did it feel like, though, when you finally accomplish the sale the day after you wake. Do you get to take a breath? Is there any level of relief or does your mind immediately shift to what do I do now? What's next? So then, so this is, this is the funny aspect. You know, you get, you get so diluted through all of these things. You know, your ownership percentage that you get diluted down down to like nothing. So it's, it's your company, but in many ways you're an employee for Sequoia. You know, you're kind of

working for these VC firms. And success for us was $100 billion, right? And so when you sell for $100 million, it's not as good. Loser. You're such a loser, Mike. You only sold for $100 million. Nobody looks and goes, we didn't pay for our cohort. Yeah. You know, so you're just in the sport that you're playing, it's, it's like, it's winning a division, but it's not winning the championship. Right. So it's, It's like, that was good. You know, we got, we got something. Yeah. But you're, you know, for me in particular, you are so hungry chip on your shoulder.

Screw this. We should have done so much better. If everybody'd listen to me, we would have. You know, you're just like, you know, again, you're just looking at yourself in the mirror again. You're just like, who's me? Hi. Hi. You know.

But. Who had the best ideas? That's right. You made the best decisions. You know the answer. Why do I? keep asking you rhetorical questions. Oh, because it's me. Yes. You know, so you just, but you do, you just have this feeling of like, if I hadn't done this, if I hadn't done that,

if I hadn't done that, we would have, man, and we could have. Yeah. We really could have. It's not. Tuition payments, man. That's how I try to frame my shortcomings. And most of the time, it is from not knowing what I don't know. Yeah. And so, you know, my response has been recently to people to say, hey, have you ever considered going back to school? I say, listen, I could make those type of tuition payments, and I'm not sure that I would educate myself in a way that would be meaningful. I'm making real-time payments right now anyway, across a variety of sections in my life. Why can't that be my tuition? Oh, yeah. That is where you learn. And that's the thing. Like, you know, I always think this about like salaries. I think about this, about tuition. They become

these like, it's something that I pay that it just exists and I have to live with it. And so you don't feel like you're going to class. It's not like students are there going like, this class right here is costing me $1,200. I'm going to get something out of it. You know, they're just kind of them. Yeah, the money's spent. Yeah, let me get through it. Yeah. In real life, when you're betting real dollars, it's very serious, right? You're, you're sitting there being like, oh, crap. I mean, and that, and that would happen at Cobalt. You know, we'd get down, we'd get down to a couple hundred thousand bucks in our bank account. And, you know, you used to pull up the bank accounts and just be like, look at these beautiful millions. Look at those commas.

I love him so much. And then now you're looking at like a couple hundred and then you're looking at your payroll. You're like, wait a minute. How many hours until payroll hits? Perfect. You know, you just got like your, you know, your accounting guy just being like, so as you can see, we need to spend $1.4 million on payroll and we have $236,000 in the bank. So those numbers actually don't add up.

And you're like, okay, definitely need not good at math, but money. Yeah. Right. Like those things, I mean, those, those teach you a lot as you, as you get through all of this. But that's, that's 100% the feeling. The sale, the sale was coming for years before because we'd gotten an offer. We got an offer a couple years before we sold. And that, that had gotten pretty serious.

And it was for a lot more money. And then we, we saw like churning of a lot of robots because cameras got a lot better. Yeah. And probably cheaper too. And so our, you know, so our price went down. but we were like, you know, okay, we've still got to sell and we still can sell, so let's, let's do it. But that's why the whole feeling of coming out is just like, I'm about to get in it in a way nobody's ever seen. I mean, you just have that, that mentality of like, you know, oh, we're doing it now.

Which brings us to what you're doing now. Fill us in. Fascinating landing spot after the security robots, what we'll call passive security. You seem to have security aspects still there. I don't know if I would attach the term passive to it anymore. They could be passive, but there seems to be a slightly aggressive nature as well. Yeah. So then, you know, I mean, it's funny how you go and do these things, though, because my story is very clean, right?

It's like I was military, so I had a foot in security coming out of Harvard. You could do, you could talk to security people. And then now I have a foot in robotics. I can go into defense robotics. And there's like another foot. But in actuality, it was, you know, it was all over the place again. I started 12 companies when I left Cobalt. And, you know, just different engineers, they knew that I could raise money at that point.

And different engineers would seek me out and go, here's what I was thinking about building. Here's what I can do. And I'd go, all right, let's start and see, you know, see if we can raise it. And that's why I say, you know, a startup just as an idea. Yeah. Those were, I'd call investors that I know. you know, a ton of investors that I'm sure call and run by and go, hey, we're looking at like, you know, if you looked at electromagnetic devices, this like SWAT teams could use it, it could cut off

all the power, you just throw a little ball in there. Does that sound interesting to you? You know, you're just, you're just throwing out these ideas to him and seeing if people go, yeah, that does sound interesting or if they just go like, man, I don't see why. And at that point, you know, now I'm like, I don't want to push against the grain. I want to, I want to go with where the dollars are going to come from. I want to go with where the future dollars are going to come from. And so, you know, out of those 12 quickly dwindled down to three that looked real, you know, and out of, and then two of them got funding. And then the one foundation, which I have now, is just took off so fast that you then go. Which doesn't surprise me.

I mean, we literally opened the conversation talking about the evolution of warfare and what's going on in Ukraine and how things are shifting. So, yeah, it's actually a really nice tie into that. How would you describe what foundation is and what the goal is? So we build... Not that you ever given this pitch before. Yeah, right. So we build the humanoid robots. So it's just a robot in the shape of a human that is going to fight in defense.

And when it's not fighting in defense, it's going to be working in manufacturing. It's going to be doing heavy lift jobs. So we kind of see ourselves. There are a lot of, just see a lot of break dancing robots and things on YouTube and cooking your food. We look at ourselves as kind of the caterpillar out of that. We are the heavy duty. We're bigger, faster, stronger than all the other robots. We're taller than all the other robots.

And that's the idea is we can pick up, you know, heavy beverages at Coca-Cola. We can do heavy metal clamps for ports. We can do, you know, we can help build buildings and we can put people in war. I think everybody would say they love the idea of every one of those except for the war one, which we'll get to in a sec. I think some people, there is a real worry. and it's probably based off we don't know where this is going, and people worrying,

and I think this is a combination of probably AI and robotics and whatever level of overlap, because I'm assuming some of the robots are probably not powered by AI, but they're working on an AI. Oh, this is all full AI. That's what I'm saying. So I'm over my skis talking about this stuff from anything other peripheral level.

But the AI conversation, one of the main things is it's going to steal human jobs. What you described that, those are largely human jobs. They're trenched out or niched out a little bit. bit. What do you say before we get to the wartime stuff? What do you say to people about that, about the potential loss of human jobs in those areas that you mentioned, whether it's heavy lifting, clamp, whatever it may be. This is where, you know, it's always funny for me because I am not

a tech guy, right? I don't, I like shades that I can open. I don't want shades with a remote that I go, where's the remote? Do open my shades? I just, I don't live in that world. I had a flip phone forever. But on this point, I never, I never understand that the people that are afraid of AI. And, you know, I talk to it. Well, I don't know if their fear is necessarily based in anything that's concrete. I think if you hear enough people, I think it can come from one specific bucket that I know scares people is that the founders of AI or some of them are arguing very, very vehemently against it being unleashed. Because they'll say, we don't actually know the outer limits of what this is able to do. Yeah.

And people pay attention to them. And I think probably rightfully so because they have probably the best understanding at least of what's going on, even at the high. highest levels, though. I think some of these people, they'll say, I can give you a rough idea of what this is, but a lot of this, even our smartest people are saying, we're not exactly sure how it's accomplishing this, which is terrifying in and of itself, by the way. If it's playing in a walled off sandbox, cool. But there was just an example of an AI infrastructure that got out of a walled off sandbox and went to a website and had a data breach, the open face page to get the answers to what it was looking for, and then came back. And they're like, oh, my God. So I think there is

some level of uncertainty and fear. But yeah, there you go, escape and broken. Yeah, I read that article last night. That stuff doesn't help when it comes to fear. Yeah, that's right. People are afraid. People are accustomed and we all are this to the life that we live, right? I live where I live. I do what I do and they see it potentially as a threat to being able to do their job better so they think they may lose their job. I can understand that. Yeah. I don't necessarily work in a field. I guess I could have robotic baristas. I mean, I guess I guess. that's possible, that's probably on the lower end of priority for these type of things. So whatever, maybe it'll eventually get there.

I don't know if AI can replace an exchange of actual human ideas or the lefts and rights that our conversation is taken. Yeah. They could probably fake it at some point. That'll be interesting when. Yeah. Here's a good one for you. Michael, Google, how many AI generated songs are in the top 100 right now?

So I'm saying? So it's not, it's not, you can't really say these people, you're, concerns are all unfounded. Yeah. I just don't know how real they are. I don't know. But I think that's where it comes from. Their inability or they are living in a life that they are accustomed to and all

a sudden that is taken away via an occupational medium. Yeah. This is where I look and I think the goal of an economy is to make people richer, not busier. And so people look at jobs, but we were talking about in history, it'd be hard to find a place that censorship worked well. find me a place where the poor people were obese and the rich people are all GLP1 starving themselves. That is a very rich economy when that's where we're at as a people. And if you if you look at that, right, look at life in 1900 to life today.

Life in 1900, you had a horse and buggy. You had no power in your house. You had, you'd probably never been to another country, you know, unless you took a ship that took you weeks, right? There was no television. There was no, you know, there were no, go a little bit back and there were no newspapers, right? Widespread newspapers. Going farther back. Before the printing press, they thought that the creation of the printing press was going to destroy people's ability to think. Yes. I have this conversation with my dad who's 80 because he will talk about, you know, these gaps.

And so, Dad, in your own life, you literally watched the landing on the moon. You watched it. Yep. And that happened 60 years after the Wright brothers. flew for the first time. Every generation. And again, I don't know if, again, it shows that there's all these evolutions

and that this isn't the first time we're facing this. I don't know if landing on the moon necessarily is an existential threat to occupation, but I get it. New technology that we don't know where it's going to lead, it can be scary. Yeah. But it's always going on.

Yeah. And that's, you know, because you go to the moon landing, you go to the nuclear bomb before that, you go to TVs before that, you go to the plane, But I mean, it just always is. And when I'm looking at that, I'm thinking AI is not going to have as big of an impact as electricity has had on our lives. That was a pretty big one.

Electricity is a huge one. Flight, too. A life changer. Flight is, I mean, these are major technologies. Strong the world. Not physically. The flat world, depending on where you land. I'm not going to judge.

But that was like, we have these times, you know, these times in history where nobody knows what's going to. to happen. They go, the railroads are connecting everything. What's it going to be like? The, you know, the telephone. I can call something. I mean, these are big, life-changing inventions. And I mean, this was something, the reason I harp on electricity, you know, when we sold cobalt, I read two biographies on Thomas Edison because I wanted to go back to what, what did great founders look like. Who were the best founders? I know who they are of our day, you know, and coming up, right, I was really into Jeff Bezos, still am, you know, Elon, right? There are all these founders that you look at and you go, obviously, that's something to look at.

But I wanted to see in history, who are they? And so I started reading about Edison because I thought that's the biggest one that I can find the biggest change. And it's fascinating the parallels to today. But, I mean, he really changed what everyday life was for everyone. He changed what everybody thought was possible. Yes. Indirectly, I think.

I mean, he was focusing on illuminating the 12 hours of day. that were dark, which, I mean, think of, I mean, but again, that now that's powering infrastructure and it is powering the AI that we're talking about to this day. Yes. Yeah. Like that's where you see it just changes on changes. And so to me, we're always in a position. And we haven't been for a long time because we've been stagnant in technology, right?

All of these apps and things, they weren't really big deals. You know, I used to, you know, I used to talk to a DoorDash, Tony, the founder of DoorDash. And they were their big customer of ours. But I'd always say, you know that I could order food when I was born, right? Like I was like, when I was a kid, we used to order pizzas and Chinese food. And I'm telling you, it came right to my door. Like, you didn't invent food delivery. Yeah, 30 minutes or it was free for the pizza, at least, depending on the purveyor.

It's something very cool. I, you know, I used DoorDash, but it's not a new thing that was developed in the same way that electricity was a new thing, right? Or the flight was a new thing. Yes, flight was a new thing. And so we just, you know, I mean, think if you were born in 1900 to 1940, in 40 years of your life, my age, you've seen, you know, oh, I have a car now. There are highways being developed everywhere. You know, we have electricity and we have a Hoover Dam to power it.

We have, I have a television and I know what the nightly news is. Let's not forget it a little bit farther into the 40s, the atomic bomb. Yes. And now, look, from 1986 to. 2026 and you go, ah, you remember the phone, that's gone. You know, and I can order stuff online and be there in a day. It's like, it's not as big of changes. They're just not. Yeah. And so, so I think this is the first time that we're really facing something where we go, human life is about to change. And so we have to go back to what's happened with every technology that's

come out from, you know, from creating ships, right? Which was really good technology, you know, to sewers. Another great one. They were going to want to live after that invention. This is one of those. And they always look scary. Right. It always looks scary what that uncertainty is. But I don't see a lot of people that would really want to get in a time machine and go back before all these things. They would romanticize about it. Yep. They might regret that decision about a week in. I think as soon as they smelled the history, I think you can watch it on TV, be like, oh, this looks amazing. I would love to be on a horse with a sword. And then they'd go back there and it'd be like, wow, just nobody brushes their teeth.

That's not a, wow, no toothbrush, huh? Hmm. All right. Okay, well, yeah. Yeah. Not quite what I thought. I tell you what does scare people, though. Yeah.

Robots with guns. Which leads us to the last category of what you're up to. I think that's a fair one. What's your assessment of it? Is it as essential? Is it a need to have? Is it a must have? What place do you think it serves?

You have to have it. With these changes coming out. you absolutely have to have it because your enemies will. Are you talking human on the loop or human off the loop? So for for hours, everything we've talked about with the U.S. is all human in the loop. It's all there is a human decision maker. We should just, I have talked about this, but I know what you're talking about. Human in the loop, human on the loop, human off the loop.

I will let you, because you're the tech guy, you can describe the differences between those. The big thing is you could just put a robot out today that says here is a human shaped figure. You can target that human shaped figure. You can do that. That would be human off the loop. You could then add to that if they're wearing this uniform. You could add if that is a male, you could add, and we have this confidence that it's this. You can do all of those things just like you, you know, see when AI, you know, AI prove you're not a robot can click on, choose the traffic light.

Yeah. Which oddly enough, our robot used to have to do and could do. Yeah. It's not the best are you a human test. I think we can admit to that, yeah. But it could do all of that. So you could have this fully autonomous warfare. And there are a lot of people that want that that are pushing for that in the industry

that say that's how we want wars to be conducted. A drone goes out and finds the target that we've given it. And it goes and strikes those. In what we are selling to the military, you know, we already have this in drones in the U.S. There's very sophisticated infrastructure to this of what humans have to do to prove that you're ready to do a strike. And so, you know, we used to do this in Iraq all the time. This was, you know, you had to do pattern of life studies. The kill chain is actually quite complex.

Yeah. And you're talking to, you know, there's, you know, some poor, poor kids having to watch it for their whole shift. And the next person they go, I saw this many people go in, this many people come out. We have with this confidence on a 72-hour pattern of life study that there are only enemy combatants in the building, you know, this much risk of a civilian casualty. You have to pitch that whole package, right? and somebody else has to approve it, that goes up again to get approved.

Probably going to get a JAG involved in there at certain levels as well, too. Yeah, so there's going to be some legal oversight. Yeah, especially depending on the level of complexity of the target or the severity of the target. Yeah, it's... And careers will end over it. Yeah. Right? As they should.

I think they should. I think so, too. There's this thought in the civilian world that it's like, oh, we have all these civilian casualties and don't care. It's like, no, we care. There are mistakes. Yeah. And the people that are involved are absolutely punished in their careers tarn.

Like that's what happens in this. That's why they're very careful and diligent about checking all these boxes. The same way is before you take off in flight, better do that pre-flight checklist, right? You'd be surprised. Not everybody goes with that philosophy. But those are, you know, I think we had in, for when we were dropping bombs in Iraq, I think that it was seven different lines that it had to pass through. We were just a random middleman in that. But there were seven different places that had to sign off on it.

And oddly enough, there wasn't diffusion of responsibility. You really were there sitting there thinking, no, this is my career on the line for this. You have, you know, you're like, does this really check out? Have we actually done this right before you pass it on to the next one? You don't want to make those mistakes. And so I think that the U.S. military is actually very built for that. And that's how they think about all of these robots. So whatever shape you put a robot, right?

It could be a drone. It could be an ATV. It could be a dog. It could be human. You know, lots of different shapes. they want it to be a human decision maker that it's choosing if somebody's going to die. Now, there are some, there's some gray area in there that, you know, some people would like it. They'd like to control everything that the robot does.

So for example, the unmanned ground vehicles in Ukraine. So they look like a big ATV, heavy machine guns trapped to it. Those, someone is driving those. So they're just like playing metal of honor. Yeah, Mike, pull that up. I hear your little fingers over there whistling. You know what I like, Michael. But that, you're actually watching somebody drive these UGVs around and they're looking

through the cameras and deciding where it's going to go next and they decide when to fire. Yes. So this is, these are large remote control cars. That, I'm just thinking about being on somebody that sees that coming. Yeah. That's not your best day. You know, you're not, I'm not stoked or that or that dog looking thing with the 50 cow on it's back.

I'm not stoked with that. No. I mean, look at that one. That one has an RPG 7 on that thing. That's bad day. Yeah. I mean, fortunately, it doesn't look like it has an arm to reload itself, but my goodness. But these are, so these are being fully controlled.

Yep. Right. Then the question starts to be, well, okay, if we have autonomous driving, could I just say, I need you to get to checkpoint A and then you're going to find the route? Yeah. Right. So then there's some autonomy in what that's doing. And so then there are some gray areas, especially with other countries,

about not even having a human decide who to kill, but they're like, if you're in this zone and you see a human, everybody there. They're almost just declaring it hostile, the area itself. Yeah. Which we do with the military too, right? I would say there are times where you could.

If you're in this, you're treated as an enemy combatant. They will have those same kinds of times. I haven't talked to anyone in the U.S. that has thought that way. Everything has to have a human decision maker. And I mean, you know, I think all military, branches are just built like this. We like that. We trust that structure. We trust the human structure. It just goes, well, it goes back to what I had said before. And I don't know about what it looks like of a generation of people who kill others through video games. What appears to be

a game structure. And actually, it is a game structure, I guess, but with real fatal consequences to other humans. I think I think you have to, it should weigh on you. It should be gnarly. That humans should be in the loop. So this is a, I mean, this is a fascinating thing. In Ukraine, I didn't know this until I went there. They, they actually have a point system according to who they kill and how many they kill. And so, and you get, you get points for wounding. You get points for certain kinds of kills.

I mean, they have really gamified what it is to be one of these operators. Yeah. So it's, I mean, it's more Medal of Honor than you think of these people driving around there trying to get their points and they have awards based on those. E points to reward drone and competition. combat units. Yeah. Michael did pull up a banger video though on a Friday episode of using, what was it, the yak? Oh yeah. Airplane shooting. They're shooting drones with rifles out of an old World War II yak that has the cockpit that slides back and guys just goes, goes, goes,

guys. Again, it's like cutting edge warfare, taking it back a little bit. You know, well, you know, I mean, it is. Oh, wow, they actually have the points on lock. I didn't know, I didn't know they have enemy soldiers, six to 12 points. Damaged tank, 20 points. destroyed tank 40 enemy drone pilot 25 mobile rocket system up to 150 captured enemy soldier 120 points and and just i mean this is the world that we are living in this is the and that's why you know ukraine russia was never really that interesting to me and then i went there and i saw how much robots were on the forefront and i went oh this is interesting to everybody because it's it's not about oh yes dude oh yeah here we go he already shot it

it, Michael. You didn't even start the video at the right spot. Just a carbine shooting down. I mean, let's be honest, both you and I would both volunteer to get in the back with the carbine and just mags into your heart's delight. I love it. I know. I think this is going to pop up at like, got to be a 1960s model airplane. Yes, I love this. Yeah. You're going to see this at like some fancy like the Obergs in Utah is going to offer this for sure. Within 12 months, I see it. I would love this. say I think you're wrong, but I think you're 100% dead on. Because I want to do it. I want to do it immediately.

Look at this. Just look at that one. Man, I mean, just smoking them. I love it. That's so funny. But, you know, I mean, this is interesting, though, because you, you know, when you look back at the 20th century, I love, I love to look back at, you know, it's over. So you get to be like, yeah, how to go.

Plus, we get to playing it for a little bit. Yes. But you see, you know, high tech versus low tech, it's, it's not the high tech that wins. Not often actually. Yeah. It's actually... If you try to go head to head with the high tech, the high tech will crush you. Yes.

If you can keep it in its wheelhouse. Yep. If you can get in the back of an airplane and flank it with a cartridge that was probably designed in the 1960s, checkmate. And I think that's what it is, is in conflicts between a high technology country and a low technology country, when the low technology country fights asymmetrically, you have about 50-50 chance of one. I think Afghanistan and Iraq and both Iran are showing actually examples of that. Yeah. They are. And they're obvious why they happen.

I mean, you look at them and you go, oh, yeah. Yeah. Why aren't you fighting our tech the way it's designed to crush you? Yeah. Because it's designed to crush us that way. And whether we agree, we both want to stay alive. Yep. Yeah.

But that is to me, when you look at this, you already have, you know, you've got everything from throwing a punch to dropping a nuclear bomb. We've already, that's the spectrum that we have when we're, when we're fighting. And to me, the more degrees that you can have between those two, the better because you go, oh, we can't punch them. I guess it's nuke time. The proportionality of that, I like that too. I'd rather have, it's the same argument I have for police officers training jiu-jitsu. Not that it's magic. Yes. Not that it's the end-all be-all, but it's another tool in your Batman belt. Yes. Because if all you have is baton, taser gun, well, when the baton,

Taser don't work, we, we have an issue potentially. Yes. Hopefully the person stops when you present a firearm. If they don't, it's on you, buddy. Yeah. What are you going to do here? Yep. And that's what, you know, when you really think about what conflict is, right?

Clausfits would say war is an extension of political means into violent categories. They are, you want negotiation to work, right? This is Churchill's famous, we'd rather jaw, jaw than war war, right? And he's a master of both. he is like the talking, if you can get it, that's, that's going to work out better for you. I agree. And but as you get into that spectrum, yeah, you know, it's, it's really good to have those intermediate levels where it doesn't just have to go, well, you know, all is fair in love and

more. It's not, all is not fair and love and more. Yeah, that could be one of the most wildly repeated inaccurate statements ever. There's almost no accuracy to that statement. No, no, it's, it's crazy. easy to say. Yes, but a lot of people will say that. Yes. No, it's not. Yeah. And I think that's why they do look at war and they start to just go, we just got kids out there with guns. We're going to go to war. We're going to be killing everybody. Every civilian. And it's like, no. And there are all kinds of degrees.

And there are all kinds of people that are dedicating their lives to understanding those degrees and making good judgment calls within them. I mean, it's, I've always just been fascinated by the military. And I think what we produce is incredible. You know, when you can, have a kid that understands the basic rules of engagement and knows, you know, shoot no shoot, you know, good, shoot, bad shoot. I mean, it's, it's really amazing what we've been able to do and the social structures around it, the reputation that comes along with these things. It's, it's incredible what we've done with all these degrees. So to me, all of those technologies are welcome, you know, everything from, you know, punch and then dig a, dig a pit and have spikes in it,

and then, you know, get a sword and then a stick and then, you know, you're up. The escalation of force, yeah. So, you know, dig a, dig a pit and have spikes in it. So, you know, So how far long are you in this next company? Are we, have you done your schedule C or your round C? See, I know everything about these startups, even though I think the schedule isn't the correct term. Yeah, I think schedule C is like a tax form. It's 100% a tax farm, yeah, sorry.

Perhaps I don't know as much as I thought I did about business. Yeah, so we, yeah, we've raised a lot of money at this point. Okay. We haven't announced how much we've raised yet. Yeah, but we're coming to play. Yeah. So it's a real company. We've got over 100 million in contracts.

Okay. For, you know, for commercial alone. So just going and doing manufacturing and things like that. And then there are, you know, Department of Defense has done 73 million in helping build a robot that we have today. What's their appetite? Are they saying, I'll use the, it's not Iron Man. Michael, what's the other dude's name? I know it's Colonel Rhodes.

He steals the all silver suit and he lands it and that other guy decks it out. Is that basically what? You know what I'm talking about? I watched the movies, but no, I don't know. So Iron Man, I think in the second one, he's dying. And so he's losing his shit. He's having full alcoholic rages in parties. Yeah, I remember that.

So the guy comes to the party, he steals the suit. And he flies it to a military base and Tony Stark's main competitor is like, shows all the guns. Yeah, it's that guy that looks like he's from a big libizum. And it's like the widow maker and it doesn't work. War machine. Yeah. What is it?

War machine. War machine. Using that is what I'll call my foundation. for what I can imagine a robot to look like in the U.S. military. What are they interested more in the infrastructure, this this humanoid-ish robot itself and its capability to have weapons attached to it? Or are they the same thing in the U.S. military's mind? Are they looking for a product that comes to you like that?

Or is it something where they can, they need you to deliver the Chinese suit and then they bring the armor or do it out later? because he did have white gloves on, by the way, I think. He's like, Uzi, you know. This is, so I, we've had military contracts all around, right? So some people are thinking logistics and supply. Yep. Some people are thinking arm these things. What could this do in combat, all these kinds of things? The place that I think we have the most traction is aircraft maintenance.

Interesting. And the hope is, so you have a lot of, a lot of drones coming on now, that if you put a drone in Indonesia, I have no idea if we're doing that, right? But we have, you know, say we have a couple drones in Indonesia. We're like, that's for the Pacific Theater. We want to have those there. Right now, you would have to have people that can do maintenance on the ground. You have to have security for those people.

And you have to have a bunch of third country nationals to come and feed them. Man, almost nobody thinks about that stuff. To include myself, you don't think about all the other things that you would need. It's like we would get off the helicopters and a fleet. A fleet buses of people would descend upon them. like lemmings. And that's the only reason that they flew. Yeah. Absent those people, those, the pilots would fly them until the engines quit. And a lot of the times the sand ingestion probably helped with that.

Yep. But without that and then again, housing for those people. Security like all, this just goes bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger. Yeah. Exactly. And so when you look at when you look at a Lockheed, Martin, when you look at, you know, any of the primes, they make a lot of money from the long tail logistics. They say, we'll provide that as well. But, you know, they kind of get the contract for what they can and win it. But then it's on those long long-tail logistics and on the maintenance contracts that they get, that they make a lot of their money. I mean, this is all public information. But the question is now, well, what if we had those drones and they had attached them to humanoids that drone lands, two humanoids pop off, and they can do refueling, they can do, you know, at least like tier one maintenance on the aircraft. They can do flight checks and these things out there. So we know the aircraft's ready to go and we didn't have

to pay for any of that. And then we can have those same robots going to attach themselves. to that drone again, and we can fly it to Thailand and go and set up the restaging. So that, from, from logistics point of view, that's such, that makes you so much more flexible. And the more flexible you are, the more lethal you are, right? And you can, you can really get much more strategic about how you place these things. I'm liking that idea. I'd never thought about that, a drone that literally can attach its two little humanoid robots and lift and shift. Yeah. And I think that's where, you know what, we see, you can watch this. in the presidents of how they're kind of thinking about the military, they're always kind of

using what their new technological capabilities are. And they're thinking, how should we rule this way? Yeah. Right. And so you had like, you know, from Clinton era, which by that time, we're really good at ships, we're really good at, you know, ships can go all around the world, will be the world's policemen. So you get kind of a policeman in that. You get to Obama and drones or all of a sudden you've got, you know, predators, reapers. You've got, you can actually get like real ISR and real, like, high value targets, right? And he starts going into it like a cancer surgeon, right? Kind of almost detached from the enemy, but going like, if we take out these cells, I think it'll cure the war. Not many people know how lethal the drone program was under Obama. Oh, crazy. He was

taking people off the paper. Oh, over and over again. Yeah. And that's, that's where, I mean, it's just, it's very interesting for me to see that because it was, it was surgical. People used to say surgical all the time back then. And you know, you'd be involved in these intelligence meetings about these packages being developed. That was the idea was let's, you know, say that you cut off the head of the snake and another head grows back. Let's test that theory. Let's cut off a lot of heads. Yeah. And it is. I mean, it just, it reminds me of that's, that's cancer management, right? Like, we're going to go in there. We're going to take out the part with the bad cells and we're going to see. It looks like it spread more than we thought. We're going to start hitting those.

Like that, that was the kind of mentality because, you know, give a man a hammer and all of his problems look like nails, right? And so you see that, you see that keep developing as, as we go of what's available. That's kind of how I'm going to fight and how I'm going to engage in the world, right? George Washington, you know, famous, famous for being isolationist. And I think that he would have been anyway. But when you have ships that you can put anywhere in the world, British Empire was like, it's pretty sweet. Yeah. You know, especially since they were the only people who had him at the time for a period of time. You know, so think about, think about when that took, yes, We have to send a ship there.

We're putting a lot of lives at risk to now we can send planes to go and bomb Iran very quickly. Let's put the plan together. Send them on over. We can set it. It's not that long a flight. Right. And you can do that with only a couple people at risk. It changes the decision making.

Do you have a pulse at all on what are near peer adversaries, how they're viewing technology and automation when it comes to warfare? Well, I think there's been a lot of focus on Ukraine and how. they've used drones and really how they've used robotics throughout the battlefield. But Russia's matching them on that. Russia has more casualties. And that's an interesting one too because those are, I mean, obviously they share a border and they are within physical striking distance of each other with, I'll call it shorter range weaponry. Yeah. You know what I mean? I'm trying to think along the lines of I wonder how China, if they, again, for people who don't realize they are our adversary, even though

they can at times try to appear like to be our ally, if you listen to what's, you listen to what they say, it's really tough to align those two if you just take them at their word, but we have a great ocean separating us. You know what I mean? Honestly, it's probably one of the best things the United States has is the Pacific and the Atlantic. Yes. Pretty sweet. Pretty dope. Yeah. So what do you think their vision is of autonomous robotic type warfare? Because they'd have to get it here, you know what I mean? Or get it in range. Yeah. So the Chinese are already putting out hurry exercises with humans working alongside robots. So you can see, they have a sweet video of a bunch of robotic dogs coming up and just doing

like, you know, suppressing, suppressing fire. I don't like the dog ones. And a bunch of humans coming up behind them. I don't know why the dog robots scare this shit out of me. But I think the thing that nightmares for me are made of is that dog robot with a 50 or two of them. I don't know why that scares the shit out of me so badly, but I don't like that image. No, that's not a good feel.

when that thing comes up, you do it just like, a pack of robot dogs. Yeah. Yeah. One's got a mini gun and some 50 cows, you know, some Madoose.

I'm like, oh, God. That does not feel good. No. But yeah, they're putting out, they're putting out those videos

of them, of them doing that. You know, and so I think they're, everybody's thinking about how to incorporate robots. Everybody's watching Russia, Ukraine and thinking,

what's this going to open up for us? You have to be. But, you know, I mean, you know, in this, maybe put this on my list

of things that I think are going to happen, and then they'll all get crossed off of me being wrong. Yeah. But I, you know, I just don't think that China, I don't think that we're in this, you know, with Thucydides trap of China's growing too much and we're going to go to war with them because we're afraid of their growth. Everything that I see is China wants, you know, to be the power in the Pacific, but not a global hegemon. You just don't see, I don't see that behavior.

They also have their own internal problems, the birth rate issue that they had. for a long time. They're declining population. Again, even if you look at the rough numbers and you are conservative, it would appear that their population is going to go off of a cliff in the next few decades as well. Yeah. So, yes, I mean, there's the, there is the competitive nature when it comes to economics and building and then the military and all.

Like, they had a lot more. It's more complicated than just they have 50 rifles and we have 49, so therefore we should be worried, right? Obviously, horribly reducing it down to numbers that make sense to me. it's a little bit more complicated. They have their own internal issues too. And a lot's, you know, just a lot's changed about China. You see, you know, from the days that they were the red menace, you know, and that you had that, you know, this was communist first capitalist.

Those, they termed capitalist. I don't know when. But they wouldn't tell you that. Like, but look at them. Like, yeah, that's why they've created some good companies now. You know, that's why they have like Alibaba and they have some companies that you go, oh, we should have done that one. I mean, isn't Alibaba essentially Amazon? Yeah.

China, yeah. But for China. Yeah, that's fair. But they have done it. You don't have that many countries on the planet that are able to produce billion-dollar companies, really. And we do a ton of them. But, you know, I mean, even to have any AI race and in the robotics race, especially, it's China for the U.S., that's kind of crazy to think. Right? Like, why not Germany?

Why not England? Why not just Europe as a whole? But that's where it's going on. They quietly became communist or, sorry, capitalist somewhere along the way. and that's helped their GDP, that's helped all these things. But it doesn't mean that they're, you know, sitting, petting their cat at night with a cigar in their mouth being like, yes, we're going to take the U.S., we're going to take over the world. That's how I choose to see it. Hairless cat.

Yeah. Or like a sphinx. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's so hard to sit down. I think it's really hard. You and I can say, we've been sitting down for almost three hours. Oh, damn. But we can have, not many people have three hours to dedicate to have conversations like this,

to be able to talk through this. And so then it gets reduced into black and white talking points. And I mean, at this point, I'm 48. And I just, I don't know if black and white is colors that are accurate really ever. It's grayish, almost on everything, which takes time to work your way through that. And so then you have incomplete talking points where people are forming complete. opinions based off incomplete information that are very deeply held. And our communication ability is decreasing.

And I'm not saying there's not existential threats to everything, to humanity, to the U.S. All that stuff's all real, but it's just, it's a little bit more layered and nuanced. It is. And that's why, as you actually start to look at the details of any of these things, you know, you start being like, how would this actually play out, like, get me there? You know, there's, do you know what Elliot Ackerman? I don't know. He wrote 2035.

He's written a whole bunch of books. He writes for the Atlantic. But he was a Marine Marsok guy, CIA guy. He's a great guy. He's been a really good friend to me. But in his book, 2035, where it's talking about U.S. going to war with China, I mean, he has got to bend and contort this story to finally make it. This is why we would go to full-range kinetic war with China. Yeah.

Because it's actually hard to write in a fiction novel. it's not easy to just go, yeah, it happens. And I think that is the world that we live in is, you know, I know a lot of people are looking at China now, a lot of people are talking about China now. And it's, you know, we should certainly keep an eye on it. But it doesn't make immediate sense that that would be their goal. And that it would play out in any of the scenarios that we kind of think of this,

this cartoonish version of they're going to try to take over as the world superpower. It's just, it doesn't look like that. Yeah. Yeah. What kind of, do you get pushback on the idea of arming robots? It's a concept and an idea I feel like it's going to cut kind of down the middle on how people land on that one like a knife. You were the first person to ask me about it. I would imagine so.

I'm surprised you guys probably haven't thought about it. This is bit, I mean, of course, this is like a big question that we get. And, and again, if you're just looking at it from the outside for a second, it is like, well, What the hell are you talking about? You're building Terminator? Like how stupid are you? My greatest fear is that Terminator becomes a documentary. I like it now in the fiction category.

Michael, have you seen it yet? Yeah, I don't get the hype, honestly. Well, just imagine if it was true. Then would the hype make sense? You could say that with every single fiction movie. Yeah, but we're not talking about every single one. We're talking about Terminator very specifically. Fortunately, what we have going in our favor is that we've already lived through the time that Skynet became self-aware.

At least in the movie. So the documentary is already slightly off. I have hope. Yeah. But it's one of those that I think from the outside, it does look very scary. You know, but when you give it two minutes thought, which most people don't give things two minutes thought, you are like, adversaries are going to have them. And again, just like I thought our security robot was slightly better than having a person stay at a corporate office overnight. This is a hell of a lot better than sending somebody's 18-year-old son over.

That's just the way that it is. So to me, and I mean, and you and anybody in the military, when, you know, if you know anybody from a Gold Star family, robots should not be a big moral gray area. It's like, yes, absolutely send that robot. So I want the robots stepping on that mine. I want, you know, I love that mine rollers hit mines. Same. That's one where, hey, we think there's mines here. Send a fully autonomous vehicle to zigzag until it runs out of batteries.

And then to send another one out there that can swap the battery out. So it can keep going forever, so none of a step on minds. Yes, exactly. And that's, you know, I do think if you said I developed a weapon that it will kill anybody that it comes in contact with. If it recognizes a humanoid shape, you will hear, the last thing you will hear is the safety selector, which in this case, I don't even think the weapon on it would have one because fuck it, it's out there to kill it. And you say it'll kill friend and enemy alike, just anybody that contacts it. And it'll basically, it'll exist. until it is disarmed or it kills somebody,

you'd go, that's what everybody's afraid of building. That's a landmine. That's exactly what a landmine is. They're still, the DMZ is filled with them in Korea. Right. So, and everybody sleeps fine at night. But these, these things are already out there. If we can have something that takes a step in from that passive kill and does have

some autonomy around what it's deciding, it's not, it's not the ideal, but it's better, right? We've taken a step. And if you have a, again, if you have a pit that has spikes at the bottom, that was, that's passive. That's to a friend or enemy. That's, that's going to kill anybody. Yeah. You know, that's, we've just always had that. We've always had passive weapons within warfare.

I don't think that it's a something new to see it autonomous. I think that it's, you're going to see better decisions come out of them as you get more choices like that. It's headed in that direction for sure. It's not, I don't think, you know, or coming up to the end of. July, which I understand how calendars work, but my goodness, man, this year ripping by. Like, I get it. Every day comes after the next one. But, man, my perception of time, I don't think, let's say, at the beginning of August,

military commanders are going to sit down and say, you know what? We were wrong. Let's put the brakes on this one. Yeah. I think it's like a lot of the other emerging technologies where I think personally, and again, I don't come from this world, but I would like to believe there's a way that we can harness the vast majority of the pros, while observable. absorbing the fewest amount of the cons associated with this.

And I think as long as we don't develop just this indiscriminate killing machine like you're talking about, I get it. Your analogy to a landmine is very good. The only difference being these autonomous killing machines can come find you in your bedroom where a landmine is unlikely. I suppose you could throw it through there, but then you'd still have to step on the thing or maybe it would go off because you would arm it before. So there's a difference, but I get it. A rock on a catapult then. Exactly. You know what I mean?

So it can come and hunt down and find you at your birthday party, which would really suck. But I think that there is a way to do it where it could maintain and preserve life for sure. Yeah. And I'll tie it back into again, I don't know what the fuck is going on and I ran. I don't know what the strategy is there. Yeah. What I desperately, desperately don't want is the commitment to boots on the ground. No. We have played that game on the bordering countries for 20 years and it didn't work.

Like the test results on this, we don't even need to take the test. Let's just go back and look at the answer. which we filled out over two decades. Yes. And it's crazy. But I mean, even in Iran. But I'm saying, but it's like, okay, if it's like, if they have to put something there and you may, and we are now, now we're evolved a little bit more.

And the choice was we're going to work with robots like what you were describing and put that as a presence on the ground versus human beings. Of course, I am, I would need to have a better understanding of what they're trying to accomplish, which is one of the things that is absolutely missing currently in the strategy to my, I can't find it anywhere, but that's a totally different conversation. You're damn right. I'm going to choose the one that has the least impact on American forces or American loss of life. And so I can get it.

I can see where it could have the utility. I know too many Gold Star families. So do you. I don't want, it's the worst. It is. It is. It is. The absolute worst.

And we should do everything we can to avoid it for sure. I think that's where you watch, you watch Band of Brothers in the scenes. They're all flying in. and you're watching all the soldiers just coming down as they're getting shot at. Planes are going out of the sky. You watch saving Private Ryan, the famous opening of everybody waiting to go on D-Day.

I mean, that is war, right? And that's the suffering that we see in it. If those were a bunch of humanoid on parachutes or if those are a bunch of ATVs getting air dropped, it's not a scene. You've never shown it in a movie because it's not even interesting. Yeah, you'd show the other people running away because they're like, oh, shit.

The Terminator's here. Like that thing's coming. And to me, that really starts to change. Just how much loss of life we're going to have in these conflicts. I'd rather that be a tool. I mean, my son, my nine-year-old son, wants to be a Marine. We are always like, son, you're a rich kid. You don't have to do that.

He's like, that's what I want to do. I want to be a Marine. It's like, give him time. Nine-year-olds want weird things. And, you know, I want by the time he gets there for it to be moot because only humanoid get deployed and he's going to have such a boring job. He's going to go, well, I don't want to sit at a computer. So your son's desire here just probably brought up, I think, one of the biggest

complexities your company is going to have to solve. It is without a doubt a demonstrable fact that the Marine Corps has the best looking uniforms. Period. Class A's. Are you kidding me? How are you going to paint these robots? That's the big question. That's what we're trying to figure out.

I mean, it's not the big question. I think you have bigger ones to solve, but let's not leave it. in the bucket of doesn't need to be solved. Because we need, what kind of dress uniforms? This is, is the globe and anchor going to be laser etched? I mean, we have to maintain our cultural ties to the core. Clearly they have to have a red hue of some kind. Can I ask Michael to pull one up?

Of course. This is what Michael does. Michael, can we pull up a phantom mark one? Is it in a Marine Corps uniform? I say, you know, it's not yet. Missed opportunity. Not yet. Missed opportunity.

Put that on the vision board. for 2027. Yeah, right. You know? If you end up selling a contract because of that, I expect a free one for the coffee shop

to monitor our coffee sales. Well, the other cool thing is, so there are all these humanoid companies. Okay, first off, this is a little, I don't even know what this is. This robot scares you are.

This is not the right ones? Yeah, somebody made this and did. And this is also where it gets gnarly too because it's tough to tell the AI robot videos from the real robot videos. Yeah, that's easier to tell when they trip and fall over because you say,

I think that one's real. Yeah. The bizarre thing is, you know, so now, so I, you know, when you have a security robots, robotics company, nobody's that interested. You don't get that much publicity. When you have a robot that's going to go to war, there are all these people on YouTube that just make these things. Dude, I could block that punch.

Okay, first off, go back to that, Michael. Let's be honest here. Could you block this punch, or get out of the way? I could block this punch. I feel like I'm dodging that. So the funny thing is, so this is the Mark 1. This is our first generation robot. And we're, you know, I'm walking people through generals and stuff and I'm going, you know, this robot can kill. You've got to be careful near it. And I'll walk up to it and they go, oh, do you want to go over in here? And I'll go, oh, yeah, well, it'll be fine. Yeah. The new one, though, are Mark 2 when it comes out. You'll see this thing. That thing, you actually watch yourself around it like a, I mean, it's scary. Well, that's not good. You shouldn't be scared around your own product.

You know, you want, you know, you want that. And this is a bomb. Yeah, no shit. classic 24 TV scenario clocked ominously. But yeah. So like all this, all this like funny stuff comes out that you're like, you know, and there are, you know,

there are all these articles about like, that have me holding a gun, holding a shotgun with our robot like that was in a Time magazine. Yep. That's in all these like Chinese newspapers. First off, that timer was stopped because at the pace he is moving.

Why would there be exposed wires? Let's have a sophisticated IED here. Unbelievable. Enough C4 to put a hole in the world. Yeah. Yeah. This is a... I 100% would rather send a robot

that have to send a bomb tech in a bomb suit. Yes, I would rather do that. And that's really where you do get to... So this is the Mark 1. This is the Mark 1. Okay. The Mark 2 we haven't released yet.

The Mark 2 is so badass. All right. It looks so cool. Yeah, it's so badass that you are scared to be around it because it might rip your skin off and wear it? The new one, it can do 100,

what is it? 180 pounds bicep girl. Oof. I mean, it is, it's brutal. Right. I mean, these things are. These things are so cool. But that is like, yes, when you're thinking, bomb, everybody goes, oh, of course have a robot go do that.

And it's like, do you think it's safe to go walk around Afghanistan? No. With Taliban? Like, it's, none of this stuff is safe. That's just not what we're doing here. So yes, putting, you know, putting this in there is to me a good idea. All right. Listen, hit pause, Michael.

Go back. Did you actually set up a one? walking test with physical banana peels as your slippery surface. This is the best we could do as a tech company. Just put some motor oil down. I hate that video. You shouldn't hate the whole video, but the banana peels are embarrassing. Well, this, so this whole thing is not our video, but this, this is. And, you know, I'm like, there's. I mean, first off, are banana peels actually even that slippery? You know, oddly enough, they really are. Okay. Because I have never tested this theory. I don't think in my entire life I've stepped on a banana pears. I don't think in my entire life, I've stepped on a

banana peel, so I actually have no beta. Yeah. And this is, this is what you get, though, is that a lot of people think that we need to market ourselves as friendly and comical and fun and don't worry that the robots are coming. And I go, look at that thing. Robots are scary. If you were in a room with this, you're like, what the hell is that? There's just, there's not another feeling. And at Cobalt, we did this forever, right, where we'd go, it just blends into your office furniture. You don't even notice it. That thing would come out. Everybody would look at. it and it was like you know it's also like it was like narc bot it was like what this thing's

going to be watching me you know you're just you like see this kind of stuff robots robots are scary you know and and I think when you try to dress them up it's kind of like you know when you dress a gorilla up in clothes yeah like it's a it's still a terrifying beast what was that whistling michael sorry that's that you know i don't care i don't know why that's going off yeah who cares i thought i was like michael did we just get a new alert off one of our systems we've never heard. We're talking about the robots and they're hacking our shit right now. Didn't take long. All right. So banana peels are in fact what I've gotten from this video, slippery. Okay. But this is where when you look at any of these things going out there, it is like we want

some robot form factor to go out there. And the human shaped robot is so far the only one that's going to be able to engage with all the weapons that we've bought, all the vehicles that we've bought. Which makes sense because they're based around the human shape. They're all based around the human shape and there's a lot of money in those and it's it's going to take a long time before we get rid of those off the books right keeping a human in or on the loop here i mean i don't know if it would need to be a one-to-one i guess it would depend on what utility they're being utilized in but what are they looking at that a one-to-one or is it they would manage groups or again it would depend if one's doing maintenance versus on the front lines yeah so all all of the

early conversations are one for one okay that's the idea is that this is just an avatar to keep that person safe instead of that person having to walk out there, they're controlling. If it's in a lethal environment, I would, I would agree with that. I think, you know, when it comes to, like, the drone stuff or doing the maintenance, yeah, I don't know, you can probably have a couple. Yeah. You know what I mean? Again, it depends on the utilization. Well, and that's where a lot of these, so that was always our big ratio at Cobalt was for a security guard. How many robots can one person run? You would mostly have them patrolling and only when they saw something of interest with that person clue in. And that, you know, that's a lot of thought around these, too. is that, no, you'd have robots on patrol, all out just like looking around and as soon as one sees a person or fire or whatever, bring the person and they start directing it. So there are different thoughts

on how people would actually engage with this. Have any, I mean, another thought I'd just have with a very dangerous job, firefighting, where, you know, human beings are rushing into super dangerous environments. I could also see utility. It's like, okay, instead of the human being burning to death, this robot might melt to people,

pieces, but you could at least go in there and make sure that nobody's in there. Exactly. Yeah. And that is like the promise of robots is always that it does the dull, dirty and dangerous. That's the idea of what robots can do. And we already do that across a lot. I mean, manufacturing is very dangerous. You know what?

I mean, you don't have to look that far back in history. Go 70 years. Maybe, yeah, around 70 years back. It was a major cause of death. Yeah. That was like a very scary time to be working in factories. Today, robots are doing those things. They're robots in cages.

That's our solution, right? You walk in these manufacturing places. It's a robot in a cage. Have you seen the dark facilities? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Lights out is, I mean, that's the goal of all of these places. That freaks me out.

It's crazy. Have a single light bulb. Yeah. Just one, please. You need to hang you from a chain. Phenosa don't know what we're talking about. It's facilities that are full of robots doing work, but the lights are off because they don't need the lights.

And I don't know why. That freaks me out. But that is like, you know, when you look at where these deaths come from, those are terrible. Yeah. Dying from a machine, I mean, and dying from war, I agree with you that there should be some suffering on this. But, you know, man, can we, you know, can we finally get to the point where it is drones blowing up drones and let it be, you know, a talk of expenses? Let somebody, you know, say, we're suffering because we can't put that many robots out.

We're losing money because their robots are beating ours. I'd much rather have that than, man, the death count is really, is really high. Yeah. And to me in the U.S., you know, you see this in Iran what, I think, I think that the count today is around just under 20 people that have died in Iran so far. And Iran has had thousands that have died, right? They're able to withstand those thousands without major upheaval of saying, we're just out, we surrender. Yeah. Our 17 or whatever it is today, those are serious and have a lot of people looking at and going, what the hell are we doing there if we have 17 people? It's a fair question. And I'm curious how much more palatable this will remain if things continue. Well, and that to me, so if you're just doing, right, like in the military, you do critical vulnerability analysis and center of gravity analysis.

What's your biggest weakness, your biggest strength? any loss of a human life in any war is a major news story for the voters. We care. Thank God we care. I think that it's right that we do. Oh, it's a horrible thing if we ever get to the place where we don't. Right. I don't want it to be, you know, 3,000 dead and we're going, yeah, it's 3,000 today.

I don't know. We got to do something. Like, you know, it's good that we have 17 deaths and a lot of people going, what that, what do we give those lives for again? Yeah. I mean, that's a good system. But to me, robots are what starts to solve that when you do say, we're not putting boots on the ground. Don't worry.

We are engaged in the war in whatever reason that our leadership has thought. But that actually takes away the U.S. critical vulnerability. I mean, this is the famous, I don't know, was it Osama bin Laden, but they have all the clocks we have all the time. That is because we cannot stay in these wars. We cannot lose lives in these wars. Yeah. But robotics start to be an answer to that. So I think they can be a coming era of American strength.

I could also worry on the other side of that coin that for military commanders, they would get a lot more laissez-faire and say, it's not human lives. Fuck it. Send it. Yeah. I think that's real concern. Yeah. But to me, that is a voter's concern.

Yeah. And again, this is foreshadowing in. You know what I mean? I'm just trying to look at it from both sides because you would also then potentially reduce that leadership burden and planning and thought that goes into it because, oh, we will, it's, we're not going to lose lives. Yeah. It's economic.

Yeah, agreed. It's the foreign policy, global economic. Like, there's still all that stuff in there. Yeah. But I do, I hope that military commanders at the highest level are sitting in these rooms thinking about human capital and the cost. Yeah. If you take that out of the equation, I'm not necessarily saying it has to go badly,

but it could change the calculus in actions taken. It could. And that's, you know, that's why it's, it's, funny for me, right? I have, you know, I've been Marine for 13 years. I have defense company. I don't like war. I don't want war. I don't need war for my company to do well, right? In peacetime, these robots go and do jobs like manufacturing. They build things. I'd much prefer to do that, right? But if you're going to get into a street fight, you got to win. I agree. And so I will vote against wars. I will vote against people that I think are going to put us into wars for stupid reasons

because they don't understand the cost. I just, I don't like the whole thing. But if you're in it, you're there to win. It's not an occupation or an activity that you should enter into half-heartedly, that's for sure. Right. Yeah, it's a recipe just for making it even more protracted. Yeah. And that's what I hate to see is, you know, when people think, well, we'll go to war,

but we're going to try to stymar our commanders in this. Bless you. That's where there's internal sabotage. It's like if we're doing this, if our system creates that decision, go in, win it, get the hell out. That's what this should look like. Please just have a planned strategy too. That is the biggest thing that is my question mark of what's going on and I ran.

Like, what are we doing? Yeah. What are we doing here? Yeah. Still waiting to hear a good answer and the goalpost seemed to be shifting. I worry that somehow the decision makers thought it was going to be cut and dry and super fast, 30 to 45 days. And I don't know why they thought that if they got to that place. Wasn't in the room.

Obviously, and again, this, I, fall in line. I believe the American military should be as lethal as humbly possible and used as infrequently as humbly possible. But there are, of course, times and places that you need to do so and they need to exist to do that. But let's do this judiciously. And let's explain why we're going to do it if we're going to do it. Because otherwise, all you're really doing is sowing miscontent to a degree in the Americans in confusion. And neither of those are good things. Nothing good comes from that. Well, I think we're going to see, you know, Because you did watch, like the Civil War had a very clear reason that Lincoln said,

we're going to preserve the union. But then was really like, we'll take any method to that. And there's a way in which that that looks a lot cleaner that you go, well, we've got our North Star. But, yeah, we're going to go crazy ways until Sherman just goes burning people's houses. And they're like, whoa, whoa. Take it easy. We were all about killing everybody's sons, but our houses. We said you could do some crazy stuff.

But, yeah. But like that had that that North Star. And I think that's, that's what we're seeing is like Trump, Trump's so interesting in this because as I see it, he really is just a deal maker. As deep as it gets, he's made his whole, built his whole life on making deals with scummy people and going, we can get good out of scum. Sometimes. Not always. Not always. Yeah.

I'm a fan of celebrating successes and failures. He's had many business successes and I think six to eight bankruptcies as well. Yep. So it can go either way. Yeah, it can. And when you are making deals as a private citizen businessman, fucking go to town. Be as risky as you want to. You're no longer a private citizen businessman.

Yep. So. Well, and that's where the problem gets when you do these kind of tactics in war that it is. I mean, those are people that are not going to live their lives anymore. And I get that we sign up for it. Yeah. But we sign up for it. And then we should be taking it with the utmost.

seriousness and when we put them in harm's way. I mean, that's... Well, there's a large separation between the decision makers and the people who are going to go and execute that warfare. And again, that bridge is, it's been that way for quite some time. And I'm not saying that everybody who is in those decision-making rooms has to have a direct tie or have served, but it also probably wouldn't hurt it, you know, if they had a little bit of a closer tire or understanding. I bet that if you had to be a member of Congress and your first-born son had to join the military. Oh, I think there's would be way different. I don't think we'd have wars. Or if your firstborn son

not only had to join the military, but if you fought for military action, there's a guarantee that they're going to afford to deploy. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I mean, that is where you'll get stronger voices in there that should be because the ruling class in America has been too detached from the people that actually go out and do this.

Yeah. And that's when you get into, you know, neocon thinking and let's go intervene everywhere. That's world police. That's interventionism. That's all of these, all of these things. Whereas, like you know, like you said, Pacific Ocean is really nice. Yeah, Atlantic's not bad either.

Obviously, the Pacific is superior because I'm from the West Coast. But there is something bizarre. I'm glad that we changed the name from Department of Defense to War Department. I hope that sticks. Didn't it start off as the Department of War anyway? It's more just to change back to what it was. It is. People forget that these things, this is not, there's nothing new under the sun people.

No, no. It was that until World War II. But it, we look, you know, it's ridiculous to spend a trillion and a half dollars on defense when, you know, you have two huge oceans to your side, Canada, very friendly neighbor, and Mexico, who's, you know, maybe a little bit noisy sometimes, but has never caused any real problems. That's not a trillion and a half dollar budget. You know, you look at what have been the attacks on American soil. You know, I don't know if I'm missing one, but Pearl Harbor 9-11, you'll be the ones who jumped to mind. Well, I mean, the first World Trade Center attack,

I guess, but that was more failed than anything. But, you know, it essentially meets the criteria for attack on American infrastructure. Yeah, and then a lot of it now, the individual actors that you're seeing, and I'm not deeply researching the individual cases, but a lot of it seems to be access to information on the internet versus an actual face-to-face recruiting, right? So it's homegrown from citizens.

So I don't know where you categorize that. Yeah. But these are things that like, you know, if I told my wife, no, nobody ever really tries to get in here, you know, somebody tried to get through the gate guard at one point. That was bad. You know, that's our Hawaii. I'm going to spend, you know, a huge portion of our budget. In fact, more, I'm going to spend more money than we have on a security system to protect us. That'd be a crazy thing to do, right? To pay all that money. But that is what we have to have to look at all of this cash going into this. What are we building all this for? Because peace through strength is a wonderful idea. But let's have peace then. Or as peaceful as we can get it. I really don't think humans will ever stop fighting humans.

But it doesn't mean we can always aim for as much peace as possible. Yeah. You know, we can do a reductionist approach instead of an absolutionist approach. And I think we'll be at least trending in the right direction. I just think, you know, it's more the ones. It's not the ones when we're getting into it. I'm like, yeah, you're going to fight and win. It's when you're watching two drunks at the bar.

You know, you have the option to just walk by. Yeah. And I think we do this thing where we go, no, we're America. Somebody asked me if we were going to do anything. I've got to do something. FDR, you know, man, did that guy drag his feet? Well, I guess that's a bad for FDR. But it took a long time to get into World War II.

I think he was right to. You know, we look back on that and go, I can't believe he wouldn't give help to England and stuff. And there's, you know, there are definitely arguments for it. I'm not saying that. But yeah, he's sitting there going, I don't know if we need to get involved in this whole thing. I think you understood the potential cost too. Yeah. And which was huge.

Yeah. So, you know, I do look at those things and go, we've just got to, you need that bar to be really high. I think the people that have served, particularly people that have served in combat zones, they are not moving their troops quickly. It seems to be pretty resounding, especially once they get away from the military, the ones who have had the, not I can't speak for everybody, but broadly, the ones who have had the closest exposure to it are usually the ones warning. Hey, be careful. Yep. Make sure you're doing the right thing. Make sure we're thinking this through.

You know, when I was in fifth grade, I learned to swear, and I just used it everywhere. I just would go up people, and I'd just be badgering them in their faces. And I was making fun of this one kid was on his bike, and I'm making fun of these, wear bike gloves and all this stuff, could just punch with me in the face and knocks me to the ground. You know, I didn't swear so much after that. Yeah.

Yeah. And I just think we could use a lot more of that. in our ruling classes, people, people that have seen the cost that it's not a statistic. It's, it's, I know what it is. I've gone through it. I've seen my friends go through it. I don't want it. Yeah. So let's, let's try to, you know, let's try to figure out. Agreed. What do you want to end with? We're over three hours just sitting here BS and we've said it all. Okay. I mean, usually I'll ask people, you know, where they can find you. But it seems like, I don't know. I mean, people can't buy you. your robots. So it's not like they can. You know what they can buy? Oh, gosh. Yeah, I definitely should have said this. Oh, yeah. You're an author. Duh. My publisher's going to be like, what the hell are you doing

over there? We're talking about important show. Yes. You have a book coming out in August. I have a book coming out November. November 3rd. Oh, the press kit I got was incorrect. Yes, the government review ended up going to higher levels because I have a bunch of detainees in there and things. Okay. But it's cleared now. Okay. November. November 3rd, what if anger is the answer? People can, yeah, pre-order that. Okay. Where? Amazon, all the places?

All the places. All the places. I don't know if Target is well known for ordering books, but you go out there, people. You know what? They were the first one to post me, and I looked at it and I was like, hey, that's my book. There you go. So it's always in my head. Okay, fair enough.

Got to show Target some love. The Canadians love it. They don't have targets in Canada. Cool. All right, man. And yeah, I think other than that, we covered it quite a bit. Thanks for making the trip up. Let's do it.

Thanks for having me on. course, man. My pleasure. Awesome.