School of War - The Start-Up Spirit Behind America's Founding, with Arthur Herman

Episode Date: June 12, 2026

Arthur Herman, senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas at Austin and author of Founder’s Fire: From 1776 to the Age of Trump, joins School of War to discuss how America’s Founding Fathers helped create a culture of innovation in technology, industry, and warfare. Who are the most important founders of the past and present? What lessons can they teach us about today’s revolution in warfare? And what makes American ingenuity so unique? 02:45 - Defining founders 10:56 - Technology at America's founding  13:49  - Alex Karp and the founder mindset 14:45 - The creation of Springfield Arsenal 15:40 - Thomas Jefferson and American weapons 19:10 - Today's revolution in warfare 20:53 - AI on the battlefield 21:49 - Why a strong economy matters 24:40 - China's defense industry 26:32  - American industrial policy 29:11 - Lessons from Ukraine 31:29 - Declining competition in weapons manufacturing 33:38 - The burden of weapons regulations 37:50 - Elon Musk's founder mentality 41:52 - The future of American ingenuity Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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and good faith. If you're a paid subscriber, join us in the forum. If you're not, become one today at www.v.vfp.com slash forum. Today on School of War, we're going to talk to Arthur Herman, who you may remember as the author of Freedom's Forge about the American Defense Industrial Base in the Second World War. He's got a new book out about founders and founding and how founder energy, if you will, is central to the American project. It's a hopeful conversation here on the 250th anniversary of our nation's independence.

Let's get into it. It is for safety for war. This is a lot of the invasion of away. December 7, 1941, a date which will live in history. A bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a state. We continue to face the situation. The grand.

People are not be doing. You'll bite down the media. We shall fight on the landing ground. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall never surrender. If you read the headlines about Israel, you're only getting a tiny slice of a long, complicated story without depth, context, or sometimes even the basic facts. I'm Norm Weissman, the host of Unpacking Israeli History, the podcast that dives into the fascinating and sometimes controversial events and figures that have shaped Israel's past and present each week on Unpacking. unpacking Israeli history. I explore the layers of Israeli history, debates around the Palestinian

and Israeli conflict, the cultural forces at play, drawing from a variety of sources and perspectives. So if you're looking for a nuance, thought-provoking take on Israel one that avoids the oversimplifications and political spin, I think you'll really appreciate the show. Find unpacking Israeli history wherever you listen to your podcast or on YouTube. Hi, I'm Aaron McLean. Thanks for joining School of War. I am delighted to welcome to the show today, Arthur Herman. He is a senior fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas, Austin. He's the author of many books. Listeners here at School of War probably know his freedoms forge, how American business produced victory in World War II, which has had a lot of attention over recent years as America looks to reorient its defense industrial base for contemporary challenges. But his most recent book is called Founders Fire from, 1776 to the age of Trump. Arthur, thank you so much for joining School of War. Hey, happy to be here. So I want to go right to the heart of this new project, well-timed, for America's 250th. Happy 250th to you, Arthur. Thank you. Likewise. To you and your audience.

Indeed. Indeed. Is your sort of exploration of the word founder and you're linking together of what are sometimes two distinct uses of the word. One, the use of the word, the use of the word, word in the phrase founding fathers, the political founders of the United States from the revolutionaries of 76 through the federalist papers and the new constitution and the founding of the republic as we have it today. And then on the other hand, the, if anything, maybe even slightly more common use of the term today, which is in the business context, the founders of companies, especially in 2026, tech entrepreneurs and their ethic and mindset as distinct from normal corporate America, the normal way things are done. For you, these two uses of the term

have more overlap than they get credit for and go to the heart of the American project. And so I want to ask you, what do you mean by founder and how do all these things go together? Yeah, I think that's a very good summary, actually, of the main thrust of the book, which is that when we talk about founding fathers in an historical sense, especially in the context of the 250th. And then when we talk about founding fathers, you know, founders in the business context of entrepreneurs who have this kind of vision and drive and determination to sort of chart their own way with the businesses and enterprises that they create. What I'm suggesting is exactly that these two overlap. They overlap in a cultural sense

as well as in, I guess you could say, a mindset sense. And that when you look at the founding fathers and the earlier chapters of the book talk about both the writing of the Declaration of Independence, but also the creation of the U.S. Constitution, that what you see is many of those same characteristics that people who are working in the business realm or business schools identify as being typical of founders or builders, a term that sometimes used synonymously with founders. One of those characters, first of all, is a sense of vision of an idea about that the enterprise that you're engaged in will have some important contribution to improving the lives,

improving the direction of the country or of your clients and customers in ways that really spur on your efforts and really drive you. It's more than just making more. money or getting rich. It's about a vision of how your product, your service, your declaration, or mission statement, has this, can have this kind of impact. A second aspect to that, Aaron, is that with that sense of vision, is this kind of uncompromising drive of wanting to see that vision succeed and wanting to bring that into fruition and therefore a dedication, sometimes at the cost of sleep, sometimes at the cost of normal life, to try and push ahead and to make that vision

come true. Then the third characteristic, which is a desire at the same time and a bias towards action. That you're not just going to sit around and wait for circumstances in the world to move in your direction or even providence to provide that moment opportunity in which what your vision and what your sense of commitment to the mission are involved. No, you're going to be stepping out there, going out into the world, making things happen. Just as the founding fathers in 1776 were willing to take action, not just to talk about breaking away from Great Britain and create an independent nation, but really taking concrete and even irrevocable steps towards that independence through a written declaration, which we published all across the 13 colonies

and then across the Atlantic. And then a fourth one, and I think this is one of the most important, whether you're talking about people, again, founders in the business realm, today, Silicon Valley founders, or whether you're talking about the founding fathers. And that is, should we say, a high tolerance of risk, that in seeing in risk, not danger signals, but opportunities, opportunities for tackling action, opportunities for fulfilling that vision and taking the steps and moving it forward in key ways,

even to the point of risking at all. And as I think we now know and really have come to appreciate, the degree to which those founding fathers in 1776 were in their own minds risking everything for this cause. Whether Franklin say, either we'll hang together or hang separately, the operative word being hanged, that there was a degree of risk involved that propelled them forward and carried them forward. And so you have this kind of overlap, as you were saying, this overlap between the founding, mentality is 1776, and the one that we see throughout American history, and particularly the American business, and the figures that I talk about in the book, men like Thomas Edison

and Henry Ford and John D. Rockefeller and Steve Jobs and Elon Musk all exhibit that kind of founder quality, that founder mindset. I guess for me, and one of the reasons I wrote the book, Aaron, is that I saw the connection running even deeper, that that mindset, that founder mindset, reflected in 1776, reflected in the story of Silicon Valley and founders today, is something that's characteristically American, that it's built into our history going back even before the founding fathers, but that is carried forward, in many ways, thanks to them, thanks to them today all the way down to today. So we'll come back to that in a second because I want to understand your case that this is somehow inherent in what it means to be American is to have this capacity or this recurring phenomenon of founders and the dynamism that they bring.

But one more question just to clarify the analogy between sort of the tech business contemporary founder and the political founder of the 18th century. And maybe this pushes the analogy too far. And if so, just say so. and we'll leave it. But I take a defining trait of the sort of successful paradigmatic founders of the present is that they detect or in some cases create or both, some evolution in technology. So to take, let's take a sort of mature case, so the Google founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brent. The digital revolution is just changing how information is organized and what can be done with information and they realize that to create an efficient means of organizing that information,

which is to say a way of indexing it and making it searchable, is going to be dominant in the future. And on that hypothesis, they build this enormous, dominant, remarkable company, which is, you know, just a global force today. What is, the question is what, in the 18th century, is, and does this take it too far, but is what is the underlying revolution, as it were, that the American political founders sort of recognize and harness? Or is the analogy kind of fall apart? No, I don't, I think it's, I think it's a subtle, but an important one. And what I would say is, is that the founding fathers, when they contemplated their situation in dealing, in confronting

the greatest empire on earth, there, I don't think it was. in their minds to use a particular technology or to fashion a new technology in any clear sense, or when you could argue that George Washington's method of conducting that war, which was a series of strategic retreats, taking advantage of the strategic depth that the colonies afforded him and the Continental Army

in dealing with a much larger, much more mobile military force in the hands of the Royal Navy and the British Army, you could say that that was certainly innovative in certain regards. But set that aside. But at the same time, the Founding Fathers were very much aware of technology, and in particular how innovative technologies were going to be part of this new nation that they were creating. And I point to this in two ways, Aaron. The first is, and they're reflected in the U.S. Constitution first and foremost.

And that is, is that the creation within the U.S. Constitution of a patent office. And it's very interesting that the guarantee of the right of owning one's own discoveries and inventions is built into it. included in the very first article of the U.S. Constitution, it's in Section 8, paragraph 8, that right that everyone has to their intellectual property, to their ability to take their inventions and discoveries, and use them as they see fit, and to use them and to bring them into market or into use at a time and choosing of their own, not the government's choice of time, not some large corporation, or state-owned enterprise. But you have that right as an inventor, as a discoverer, as a writer, that this intellectual

property as a right of citizens. And it's the only place, by the way, in the Constitution, apart from the bill of rights, that mentions the word right, that this right is embedded in the political structure of the American nation and that they did this deliberately aware that the result would be to open up what later on in 40 years, Abraham Lincoln, who was a patent older himself, would call the fire of genius of releasing the fire of genius in the American people and in their intellectual and scientific and mechanical inventions and creations, that this would be an edge that America would always have and would always retain. So, their

awareness of how technology, new technologies, would, could spring up and develop within a new nation here. No other country on Earth that has this sort of right built into its political structure is, I think, proof not just of how prescient they were about where America's future lay, but also of a reflection of how they themselves thought about technology, thought about invention and discussion. discovery and saw it as something that would be fundamental to the way this new, this new America would, would proceed in the world. Your answer very much puts me in mind of Alex Karp and the technological republic. This, of course, is the Belmeteer. Yeah, that's right. You must have spoken with him or had some, some contact with this line of thinking there that, the line of thinking

is over overlaps with yours, that technology is central to the American story. And if we've gone Australia, it's that our current tech elite seems increasingly divorced from its civic responsibilities. Right. Right. Alex, I think, who have gotten to know, I've gotten to know his company very well and working with them, with Palantir and so on, he's definitely seeing it from that particular end, which is the degree to which the discoverers, the technologists, scientists have this

civic responsibility that's, again, built into. their place in American society. And the way in, one of the most important ways in which that is built in is, I think, the other major gift that the founding fathers provided as well. And that was the creation of the Springfield Arsenal, which dates back to the revolution, but which really became a official or took on a particular new special status as the place that would be much more than just simply an arsenal or a place stockpile of weaponry, but would be a laboratory at which new ways of fashioning and creating what we would call weapons systems, weapons, would be, would take place. would be organized and would then contribute to America's defense and to its military edge in the same way.

And here I got to say the founding father who plays the key role in all this is Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson, while in France, had gone to see an inventor there who was making muskets out of interchangeable parts. And in fact, he even showed Jefferson how to do it. and Jefferson had the experience of putting together the Flint lock and the stock and the trigger mechanism and all they're at from a range of interchangeable parts. So after his experience there, he writes a letter to the Secretary of War, Henry Knox, and says, we've got to do something like this. We need to set up a place where we can go and work and expand what this French inventor has done and really turn it into something that's systematic and will be an important. part, an important part of how America arms itself and arms its armed services. And that's what happened. First at Springfield and then with the arsenal created at Harbors Ferry, not very

far from where we are right now, that these were laboratories where engineers and inventors would come in and work to develop these techniques and technologies to advance the military military edge. And the development and expansion of that, precisely that technology, of using interchangeable parts to create the machine and then create weapons, starting with muskets,

becomes so identified, as I explain in the book, it becomes so identified with the way in which American inventors, but also American industrial base proceeds that it becomes known to European observers as the American system. That's their come for in the 1850s. And they're amazed at the way in which Americans are able to build muskets at this fabulous rate. And using not gunsmiths or craftsmen working on these projects, but machinists, men whose job is

simply to manage the lathes and to manage the overall output. And so the American system that develops at Springfield, and the Springfield arsenal, expands out. And it goes outside the government arsenal. It goes to when Henry Colt starts, Samuel Colt starts manufacturing his revolvers. He begins using the same interchangeable parts system. It goes then to sewing machines and then to bicycles. and then finally, of course, to automobile industry. So by the time Henry Ford picks it up,

the American system is already established, already established as characteristic of how Americans make manufactured items. And it all roots back to that letter from Thomas Jefferson to Henry Knox saying, you won't believe what I just saw. And what I was able to do myself, and we ought to be doing something like that for our own,

for our own troops. Well, I want to keep pulling the thread right there. I mean, you, of course, are the great chronicler of the next part of the story, which is to say the reorientation in the lead up to, and then obviously during World War II of the American manufacturing economy and other elements of the economy for the successful making of war in the middle of the century. Now, of course, we are amidst other revolutions, new revolutions in warfare. We have an acute problem with the production.

of physical things in our defense industrial base, ships, whatever, drones. So from the big capital things all down to the little cheap things, I don't think there are too many people who would say we've were exactly where we need to be in order to keep the country and its interests safe. But then parallel to that, much of the revolution really is happening purely in the digital space. Warfighting is simply digital now in a way, even more dramatically than, say, the Gulf War when the sensor strike complex and the ability to tighten the targeting cycle was noticeably speeding up. I mean, in 2026, your ability to manage the incoming data from sensors,

use tools like AI to make targeting decisions and then strike at scale is a largely digital process. And America is the home of the digital revolution. America is the source of all the technology being used here. But it doesn't feel as though we are years and years, decades ahead of our competitors. It feels as though they're quite. close and in fact, depending on the tactical or operational situation, they can even catch the United States military napping. I'm curious your thoughts on how to, as it were, extend

the spirit of energy that you've been speaking about into the present with the challenges we're facing right now in the modern battlefield. Well, I think a lot of it is being able to harness precisely those advanced technologies and to use them and expand their use, not just in terms of the analysis of digital data, which is a lot of what's happening now, as you just mentioned, with regard to targeting, for example, the enormous gain that comes of being able to use AI to sort out targets and to assign priorities from that point of view. But then also to expand it in terms of its role, first of all, in battlefield operations, which I know the Pentagon is very keen on doing now, and its expanded budget for AI includes large sums and billions to go to develop

battlefield applications for AI as well as, as well as its use in in terms of sort of the meta, meta discourse and command and control, but also into the manufacturing side of things. And one of the things that I've been very heartened about in the last. couple of years. And this is expanding on my, not just what I'm talking about in Founders Fire, but also my previous book on Freedom's Forge is the huge importance of a strong economy as the basis of which military power and military dominance can proceed. But also a strong economy is also about a strong industrial economy.

in a manufacturing economy. And what I'm seeing, Aaron, is this rising tide of interest on the part of young people in their 20s, in their 30s, in looking for how to make things again and how to use advanced technologies like AI, like robotics, like additive manufacturing, as a means by which to accelerate and expand the production. cycle in ways that also will incorporate more and more innovation as it goes forward. And I have to say one of the things that I've really enjoyed is speaking to groups involved in the re-industrialized movement.

Last year in Detroit, I was speaking, keynoting at the re-industrialized summit there and signing copies of books there. because I think one of the things we've come to understand about World War II and the industrial miracle that took place there, which I chronicled in Freedom's Forge, that one of the most important aspects of it isn't just the way in which we were able to then gain military dominance and supply not only ourselves, but also our allies with the weapons and equipment that they needed. but that it also is, that book is also celebrates and highlights the importance of manufacturing, and in manufacturing economy and of the need for the U.S. to get back to the basics that go with a strong manufacturing and industrial economy. To boil it down simply, that when you have an economy that makes things, particularly big things, then you'll also have an economy that can make things.

that will make America safe and secure. And that's the lesson we learned. We learned it in a civil war when the Industrial North turned its resources loose on defeating the South and marshaling all of those resources and expertise that the industrialized North was able to bring to bear in that conflict. It's one that we saw demonstrated in World War II and in the Cold War. and I think it's one that we're going to see help to close that gap, the one he were just talking about, the gap that now exists between United States' own military edge and our defense industrial base today versus the one which our leading antagonist, China, has been engaged in and has been pursuing for, well, more than a decade, maybe two decades. or so.

I think it's possible to say now that China has been working its defense industries on a wartime footing probably over the last decade. We certainly have not. Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. BetMDM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly, 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly.

If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor. Free of charge. BetMGEM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Let me draw you out then further on this theme, and this is as much a Freedom's Forge question as it is a founder's fire question, but you are nicely weaving them together them mathematically. you know, what exactly is it that needs to be done to put ourselves in a position where we are manufacturing what we need for, for example, just to pick a standard, you know, successful deterrence of China.

We might define the standard in different ways, but let's just pick that one. Because to make the obvious point, which, you know, you've spoken about plenty, you know, the revolution. in manufacturing of the late 30s, early 40s had political will. Okay, check, you could argue that political will is increasing. But it also had an existing vast manufacturing base directed towards civilian ends. And while we have a manufacturing base, it's not on the comparative scale that it was back then when looking at our competitors. And there are no sort of obvious market forces that are naturally going to have us build, for example, the number of ships that we need to build again. So, Arthur, is it industrial policy? Is it technological solutions like, you know,

3D printing and that kind of stuff? Like what are the, what are the ways out of the box here? Well, big question and an important one. And I think that sent aside the issue about industrial policy, which is a term, I think people can disagree about what is industrial. policy, is industrial policy simply creating enough incentives so that you can expand your manufacturing base so you can encourage more capital investment in that, is that industrial policy or does industrial policy really mean targeting certain industries or even certain companies as saying you have enormous strategic value for us in terms of our military dominance and our competition with China?

and therefore we're going to devote more resources and commit more government policy in order to encourage and expand your role in our economy as opposed to those which are more marginal to where our national security is concerned. I would tend to see the first version incentivizing manufacturing, particularly in critical and strategic areas as being in most important. But you know what? We've had a series of administrations attempting to do that and of talking about passion legislation and involved with it in a lot of ways. And the amount of traction that it gains is, I would say, largely minimal compared to the way in which we simply, I think, unleash the power of that private sector. and particularly of that founder mentality, founder mindset. I come back to that again, that theme of the new book,

as a means in which to tackle and to resolve some of those problems that we face in terms of that overall manufacturing gap. I would say, and I take an interest in this for a couple of reasons, a professional interest for a couple of reasons. One is my book, Freedom's Forge, which has become, I'm pleased to say, very influential in thinking about what an defense industrial base should look like based on historical experience as opposed to where it is now and the degree to which, and you and I know this, Aaron, the degree to which the war in Ukraine

really highlighted the shortfall that America's defense industrial base has, even with very simple conventional munitions like 155 millimeter artillery shells. I mean, imagine any of the World War II combatants running short. Actually, they did. The Germans did. By 1943, 1944, you know, a German gun, a typical German, 105 millimeter gun is basically reduced to maybe 10 to 20 rounds a day, as opposed to the hundreds that. Americans could bring to bear. So we know what that cost can be like. But it's extraordinary that the world's dominant military would find itself in a situation where we go to the cupboard and the cupboards bear because we ship them to Ukraine. Really highlighted the problems

and the contrast with where we need to be as opposed to where we are in these things. But also, the other thing I have to point out is that I spent almost two years working with the Congressional Commission that was set up in 2022 to look at ways to reform the Pentagon budget. The, as it's known, the planning, programming, budgeting, and execution system, which we owe its origins to former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in the early 1960s, and which I think people have become to realize as becoming increasingly, obsolete and antiquated in terms of dealing with new technologies and moving at the speed of

innovation in terms of where the Pentagon spends his money and what it gets for the for the dollars it spends. I was not a commissioner myself, but I spent a long amount of help them write their interim and final reports and got to listen to the witnesses and got to hear a lot of the discussion that went around the table. And it occurred to me that there were two, there were numbers of issues and problems that we do face and challenges that we do face, but I'll mention two in particular. One is that as the defense industrial bases, Pentagon's reliance on acquisition for the weapon systems its needs grew from World War II through the Cold War and beyond, that what we see is a dwindling role for competition. And I think you and I would agree that

probably the tipping point in that evolution came in 19 in 1993 with the so-called Last Supper when the Secretary of Defense called together the major defense contractors and said, look, the Pentagon, but the Cold War is over. We've won, but our budget is going to shrink dramatically. And so we're just not going to have the money to spend to all the whole range of defense contractors who exist to, day, you guys are just going to have to consolidate and merge and acquire to boil it down to the number of companies that we'll be able to compete for the remaining shrinking contracts and money that we've got. Now, I think that was a mistake. I think what should have happened,

instead of shrinking the pool of competition, is that the shrinking of the Pentagon budget was the opportunity to expand the range of competition. competitors, to bring in as many new companies and new technologies and new approaches to building the weapons systems in the post-Cold War era as possible, instead of boiling it down to a handful of mega-companies and mega corporations handling all of the Pentagon's primary and frontline weapons needs, from shipbuilding to advanced aircraft, to stealth technology and beyond. So one of the things is you want to restore that sense of competition, competition that builds and hones the best and the most productive in the commercial sphere. You want to encourage that in the defense acquisition sphere as well.

The second one is too much regulation, that the growth of government regulation are the ways in which the Pentagon acquisition system, insists that every company for every contract, for every system, has to jump through one set of hoops, one set of hurdles after another, after another. The sheer growth of that range of regulation is widely recognized as a major obstacle to the way in which we can restore and rebuild our defense industrial base. The time that we spent at the Congressional Commission talking about the need to reduce regulation, to loosen up the way in which program managers could move funds from one program to the next, was all understood that this was a huge problem that had to be addressed and taken on. And if not, root and branch that certainly was some major, major pruning and

cutting back, both of those steps, Aaron, in my mind, by expanding the range of competition, including outsiders coming in competing for government contracts, and reducing the regulation, regulatory burden involved, which will encourage people to say, let's get in, let's try and get a contract with the Department of War and see what we can do, because I think we've got a product they really need. That will, both of those will serve to incentivize that founder mentality,

that sort of vision and drive and willingness to, to take risks here that right now has been really kind of systematically driven out of and pushed out of how the Pentagon acquisition system functions and works. Bring that in. To put it in terms as you put it in your book, the managers have been winning. The managers have been winning. And that's one of the other themes of my book is this constant struggle that takes place between that kind of founder mentality with that push, that drive towards action, and the manager who says, not so fast.

You know, let's take it, let's not push to the limits here. We need to step back and wait and see what happens. We need to make sure the numbers all come out right before we jump into a new, go in a new direction or adopt a new technology and development here. You know a book very well that is a very good book. and it's a Bible for me called The Innovators Dilemma by a Harvard Business School professor talking about and explaining and looking at why it is

that so many of America's most successful companies in the 1960s, companies like Xerox and Motorola and others, how they completely missed out in the digital revolution in the computer revolution. and likewise updated even more how even leading technology companies in our own day, like Apple and IBM, missed out on the AI revolution. How could this happen? What happened?

Well, what happens is with very large corporations and with very large governments and large enterprises like, let's say, the Department of War, is that more and more of the power and thrust that founders bring to the original vision and the original project gets dissipated and passed out to managers who are more concerned and more function on keeping the enterprise going as opposed to growing it or reaching out to new horizons and new directions. So my book, the new book, is about not just, the founder's mindset, including the founding fathers themselves, of course, but also about the ways

in which they inevitably generate opposition, inevitably generate a pushback from those who, you know, find change a little too disruptive and who find the ways in which these founders are thinking about it as being slightly crazy. And are you out of your mind, Elon Musk, you want to give up, set aside your work, your wonderful work on electric vehicles to go into space, and you're telling me you're going to build your own rockets in order to go into space instead of buying them from the Russians? This is crazy. This is insane. That that mentality is one that founders always have to fight against. They fought against it in Philadelphia in the summer of 1776 with those delegates who there who said,

I think independence is going a little too far. Let's not do that. Let's try and negotiate. Let's try and find a compromise solution in dealing with London and dealing with the British government here. rather than take the big risks that are involved in declaring independence and in fighting a war that we're almost certainly going to lose against the greatest empire on earth. The manager mentality, the manager approach likes incremental change, not disruptive change. It sees risk as danger to be avoided as opposed to the opportunity to be seized. And it sees the vision thing as one that can get us into as much trouble as it is can move us and advance us to the next horizon and what goes on there.

So, Arthur, let's finish up with us by giving us some hope here. You assert that something about the founding ethic, the founder's energy is inherent in the American project. and that as a consequence, we might expect even now the founders to triumph over the managers. Or maybe I'm struck by the parallel between your thinking and that of Andrew Gordon in his great book about naval combat in World War I, the Rules of the Game, where he has his rat catchers or the founders and the regulators are the managers. The managers, that's right. Why is it that the founders or the rat catchers or whatever we want to call them have the edge in America? What is it about America that sort of demands that?

Well, I think it's two things. One is, I think it predates our own, finally. It's from the very moment that the Pilgrims and Puritans landed, entered in Massachusetts, which is that they had come to a land which was completely unknown to them. It's so completely different from the world they left behind in 17th century England. and that with them came a God-given mission. They were given by God, this mission, to expand His Word and to expand his community into this new world,

but that it was also a mission which was going to demand enormous hard work and is going to demand enormous risks, venturing into the unknown. And just as we've all come to understand and have understood since Frederick Jackson-Turner, how important the frontier, the dynamics of the frontier is, to the shaping of American culture and American character. So also that the ability, the resources, intellectual, spiritual, physical resources that that are engaged in that venture into the unknown and have then throughout our history, even before the revolution, that those are precisely those, those qualities that make for a, founder of a company, of an enterprise, of an institution, of a government, and of a refounding of government in the same way. And if you ask me if I'm going to be optimistic about the future and all these things, including about where we are with the defense industrial base,

yes, I'm very enthusiastic. One reason I mentioned, the reindustrialize movement and the way in which you see these incredibly energetic and smart young people who are. taking on the jobs of buying lathe machines and building this whole new sort of manufacturing base using new technologies for it. But there's also another hopeful sign, Aaron, that I see. And I talk about it at the end of the book. And that is every time I watch an episode of Shark Tank. You know, Shark Tank is the place where you see that founder mentality on display every episode, every single one. These people who come up, some of them have failed at jobs or businesses before.

That's another typical thing about founders. You know, every time a business fails, they just try something else. Give it another shot at it. Try something else, too. Henry Ford, who failed so many times to create a company to build his model engines that he should have given up long before, long before he finally succeeded, who of all ages, of every race and background, who come there in order to,

and you listen to their pitches, that's not just, hey, I want to make a lot of money and get rich. It's always about a vision, a vision about how their product will help others, how it will help people like themselves. And the other thing, which is always fascinating to me, is two things. One is every shark that they're interviewed with

always asked them, what patents have you got? Because patents are the foundation for a successful founders enterprise. And the founding fathers in the Constitution built that in, baked that in to our government and our system as well through the creation of that patent office. The second thing you notice is what happens when people don't get a deal. When they're turned away, they've come, they've made their best pitch. They've talked with their hearts out about how important this job in this position is for them.

And every single one of the, every shark says, I'm out. And they go out, walk out the door. And almost without exception, they're always like, I don't care. I'm going to keep going. They're going to regret the day that they turn me down and turn my business down and didn't see the vision that I have or see the qualities that I bring to what I'm doing. and on experiencing here too. That is something that to me conveys a sense about where America's future is headed in a really bright and really bright and encouraging way where and that drive, that drive to create your own business, to found your own enterprise, to chart your own way,

follow your own star is, I think so fundamental to the way in which our American experience, has been shaped going back to 70, 76, and even before, that I see that as being an essential quality, and one that if we lost that, if we lost that, I think our sense of what we owe, what we owe to those founders, the 250th anniversary of the country's birth, I think would be lost, and I think it would be a tragedy, not just for us, but if you look at the impact that that Founders mentality has had on America in helping to shape the world and to protect freedom and liberty around the world, I think it would be a major loss, not just for us, but a major loss for the world as well. Arthur Herman, the book is called Founders Fire from 1776 to the age

of Trump. Thanks for the optimism. Happy 250th anniversary of our nation's independence, Arthur. And many happy returns. One of those media strategy people clicking through slides, scrolling spreadsheets. Yes? Good. This is for you. Because on Spotify, there's an audience that's different. Locked in. Loyal, invested. They're called fans. Fans don't just listen to music.

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