The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 500: Tamara Diller—The Mother of Mach

Episode Date: August 25, 2026

What happens when your son drops out of MIT at 19, starts a defense company in his twenties, and sets out to reinvent the way America builds weapons? If you're Tamara Diller, you get a job. In this episode, Mike sits down with the Head of Marketing and Communications at Mach Industries, Tamara Diller, who also happens to be the mother of the founder and CEO, Ethan Thornton. Ethan's decision to leave MIT and pursue his vision for Mach has led to a company now valued at $1.8 billion. But the story gets more interesting when you hear it from his mother—and learn what Ethan was like long before he became a CEO. It's a revealing and often surprising conversation about family, ambition, risk, failure, manufacturing, and the remarkable journey from a kid who liked to blow stuff up to the leader of one of America's fastest-growing defense companies. At the center of it all is a fascinating question: What happens when the son you raised becomes your boss? Shout out to our great sponsors PureTalk.com/ROWE—Switch your phone service today and enjoy your first three months of talk, text, and data for just $15 a month regardless of which plan you choose. BuildFreedom.us—The best place to find a six-figure, AI-proof job. Build your future. Rebuild America.

Hey guys, a couple weeks ago, I had a guest on here, a guy named Ethan Thornton, who dropped out of MIT when he was like 18 or 19 years old to build a better missile. He was upset at what was happening in Ukraine, and he was concerned about what was happening in our country as well and just felt like he could contribute in some way, use his enormous brain to build a better mousetrap, basically. Well, the response to Ethan's appearance was enormous. I've gotten thousands of comments since from people who would like to know more about how a college dropout could go on to build a company in just a couple of years. It's worth nearly $2 billion. And what he's doing down there in Huntington Beach and out there in the desert with these extraordinary weapons that he and his team of some 500 people are building as we speak, people wanted to know more. And so did I. I'm actually working on a project now with the Pentagon where we highlight companies like this

who are focused on making the Department of War more efficient at what it does, right? So I called Ethan and I said, look, I know a lot of what you do is classified, but what do you think? Can I show up with some cameras, maybe have a look around the factory, maybe test some of these weapons? He said, sure. So I go to see Ethan Thornton and we spend the day filming and it's incredible. We go out into the desert to test some of the platforms they're working on. I get a tour. I meet all these engineers who worked for extraordinary companies that are now all focused

on mock industries and it was great. But then I met his director of communications and marketing. It was amazing woman. named Tamara Diller. And as I talked to Tamara, I realized a couple of things about her job that were especially interesting, one of which was she's Ethan's mother.

So I just, I know a lot of people who watch this podcast have kids in college. I know a lot of mothers watch this podcast. And aside from all the other things that I went there to learn from Ethan, I was also really interested in hearing from his mother about what it must have been like to have a front row seat to see your genius kid walk away from a full ride scholarship to one of the most prestigious engineering schools in the

world to build missiles and I'm so glad I did it I thought it was just going to be a quick chat but it kept going on for like 45 minutes and what I learned from her about Ethan and what I learned from Ethan about her might be useful to some of you who are trying to figure out what to do with your kids and how to deal with your kids and how to think about college and their future and maybe even the future of our country. It's just a really interesting, unexpected, great conversation that I feel really privileged to have had. They haven't talked publicly about this before. And I'm so glad they did here. This is an amazing company. Ethan's an amazing guy. In fact, you should check out the episode with him if you haven't seen it already.

But his mom, his mom steals the show, in my opinion, which is why our 500th episode is called Tamara Diller, the mother of mock, because she is. Enjoy. This episode of I Hate to Say I Told You So is sponsored by Pure Talk. Why? Because I've been bragging about Pure Talk for nearly two years. years. I switched a while ago because I wanted to be in business with an American wireless company. I wanted unlimited data for the lowest price I could get and I wanted great coverage. So I switched

and that's what I got and I've been bragging on them. Well, guess what? A giant survey was conducted a few months ago. The results are out. 120,000 people were asked to rate their wireless company in four categories, coverage, support, value, and data. Guess which company was the only company to get five stars in every single category. Give up. I'll give you a hint. It was pure talk. So yes, I told you so. It's a great company. Everything they promised they delivered. I'm glad I switched. I hope you'll consider doing it too because this is a great time to do that very thing. Why? Because they're offering three months of their top tier plan. This is unlimited data for $15 a month. It's just a great way to test drive the service.

After that, it's unlimited data for as low as $3499 a month with no contract and no commitment. It's that simple. It's an American wireless company. They stand for good things. They offer great value. I switched. I'm glad I did. You should too.

This is the time to do it. PureTalk.com slash row switch today. And I told you so. Pure Talk. Head of Marketing and Communications at Mock Industries, also known as Tamara, also known as Ethan's mom. What in the world, how many defense companies right now are being run by a boy and his mom? We need whiskey or something for this conversation. You mind if I just start with some obvious questions?

Sure. I feel obligated to ask. I'm assuming you're very proud of your son. Of course. Super proud. You have other children as well? Yes, super proud of them. We have, yep, three other kids.

Awesome. So where does he fall in in the hierarchy? He's the oldest. He's the oldest. He's the oldest. All right. So your oldest boy is playing football. If I remember, right, MIT, he's there for a year.

And at some point, he has some epiphany. And I'm just imagining there's a moment where he comes to his mom and says, hey, I'm thinking maybe this way instead of this way. Yeah. I would just love to hear because I know that other parents are watching and probably wondering that. How does that land? Yeah.

How does that land? Yeah. How do you digest all that? I think you back up and it was one semester. He was at MIT for one semester. So my husband moves him in to start football and then I go a couple of weeks later. So we're still in like late August, early September. and we're in the Uber to go eat dinner.

I haven't seen him in a month and how's football, how is MIT, how are all the things. And he's in the Uber and he's like, oh my gosh, this guy, this guy from Lincoln Lab emailed me back. I can't believe it. And I'm there for three days and all I hear about is Lincoln Labs. And just so people understand, Lincoln Labs is associated with MIT. It's kind of like their defense lab. Yeah. But like off campus?

Yeah. We've got kicked way off campus. Way off campus. He had been in touch with a professor who then put him in touch with Lincoln Labs and just, you know, the obsession, he thinks a little bit obsessive about things. Is he?

He is. He is. Yes. You go back to high school. He's blowing things up in the garage. He comes to us and he's like, hey, can you help me file a patent his junior year? And I'm like, that's weird.

Yeah, sure. Sorry, quick sidebar. Yeah. What kind of things is he blown up in the garage? I don't even. He had like a patent. an electrolyzer? Salt rocket motors.

Lots of those. Well, they can't, what did you call them? Yeah, the shoulder cannon thing, hydrogen electrolyzer making compressed. Bazooka, basically. Yeah. Football bearings.

There's a lot going on in high school. We're experimenting a lot. He gets into MIT, and I will just say, Gabe and I were like, oh, my God, this is amazing. And I really and truly, we're like, he needs to be in a lab with somebody that knows what to do with him. And so he's going to go to MIT

and he's going to have a professor and they are going to geek out and do deep science things and he's going to be safe because right now he's just, I mean, there's a lot going on. Before you had shut it down, rightfully so.

You remember that? Yeah, I do. It's like junior year. Yeah. I blew up a bunch of solid rocket motor in the garage. That's true. So I had an angle grinder

and I was working on a knife. I was being stupid. And I had just poured like 20 pounds of solid rocket motors. I just see streaks of metal flying past me, and then the whole room turned white. It turns out like 20 pounds of Sawed Rocket Motor had lit off behind me.

And so after that, rightfully so, she was like, no more. I mean, dude, you can't really burn the house now. Shut it down. It was bad. How old were you? It was 17, I think. That was your junior year.

Sal Rocket Motor was junior? Yeah. So I'm like, smoking. I mean, are you worried about your son at this point? Or are you just like, you know, okay, so maybe we got a genius, but you need some parameters? Yes, it's more of that. I mean, like, all of our kids, like they each, we have obsessive kids. Like, all four of them have, like, the thing that they're interested in.

And we're big on growing that, like, great, to a point which you're going to blow the house up. And then you're like, let's not do that anymore. So, but, I mean, the fundamental decision you have to make is do you encourage or do you encourage, or do you discourage? You probably don't want to enable, but you have to make a parental decision. Like you walk it with them. I think, like, as a parent, like,

know your kid. Walk through the phases that they're going through, like his MIT application. You know, how's it going? What are you doing? What are you working on? What are you submitting?

And so then he gets an MIT. Super celebratory. That's amazing. And I'll never forget. I think it's like February 22nd. Russia invade Ukraine. And you watch your kid, like, break a little bit.

and looks around and he's like, who's doing something? Like, what's the plan? And, you know, you're in your 40s and you're like, I have no idea. Like, I have no idea what the plan is. Were you surprised that he cared as deeply as he did about something so far away and so geopolitical? No.

No. Ethan was, I mean, the kids were all, like, raised on CNN in Fox News. my husband are super into geopolitics. We find it interesting. It's important to be informed. And so that was like kind of the sunup to send down background noise of our house. We like to know what's going on in the world. And, you know, my brothers are both in the military.

So, of course, we track it with that. You look at people that you care about and you look at like what's the outcome. Like, are we going to get involved? What's the end game for Russia? What does this look like? And it's not great feeling to have those questions coming from your kid. And you're like, I don't know. You're not sure.

I don't know how this is going to go. I just wonder how many other 18, 19 year old, it was 18 at the time? He was 18. Right. Yeah. How many other 18 year kids are like tossing and turn in really wondering about the fate of Ukraine? I mean, it's a short list. I think a lot do.

Most of them are in the service. They've got skin in the game. Or folks worry a lot about it and are realistic and say, hey, what can I actually do about Well, and to be fair, he was about to go to MIT on an Air Force ROTC scholarship. So he wasn't entirely, like, disconnected from, you know, how is this going to land on our doorstep. So you're playing football. You're in Rotsie.

You're at MIT. Like, you've got a lot going on. There's a lot going on. And this thing happens over in Europe. Yeah, he was still at home when that happened. It was high school. Yeah. It was February that Russia invaded, and then he goes to MIT in August, goes up for football,

and then, you know, fast forward where we started the conversation, I show up, and I'm like, super excited, show me your dorm room, all the things, and he's like, I don't care about any of that. You know, we go to dinner with a cute mom and her football son, who ultimately he interned here, and we're talking about, like, the first game, and he's oblivious, like, totally oblivious. like totally oblivious. And Drew's like, yeah, dude, the game's on Saturday. And he goes like, I can't go to the game. And I'm like, Ethan.

I ended up going to the game. He did. He went to the game. Under duress. I mean, I was like, you're not missing this game. So by the time December rolled around, there had been numerous indications that maybe this wasn't, like, what was going to happen. Despite, I mean, really, when he got in, Gabe and I were like,

high-fiving, you know, frankly, we're not, like, big check-the-box people. Like, great, then he went to MIT. That's awesome. But mostly, like, he found a spot where he can grow, and if he blows things up, he'll be in a lab. I think it's important to add color on that time, too. You always emphasize super hard. It doesn't matter what you do. Do it really well.

That's her advice to you growing up. Absolutely. Doesn't matter what you do. Like, do it well. Yes. Whatever the job is, all the jobs have to get done. I just care that you were excellent at the thing you choose to spend your life on. And I think for you is probably very exciting because I had been flying all over the place.

And this was supposed to be. And largely was this very lining function. Yeah, it's always super exciting when your oldest son drops out of a prestigious engineering school. Maybe the biggest one in the world. It's entirely paid for. And you're a patriotic family. And you're like, oh my gosh, you're going to serve your country. It must be very exciting for you.

Yeah, we were, it was like a great, it was a great four months. I'm telling you, we were like. high-fiving ourselves every day. What do you mean? How would you have responded? How do you think you respond? Because we've never had this conversation. We've really never talked about it. This is a phone call, too. We weren't even in person. Yeah, well, you remember, though, like the weekend in August, we're kind of having a moment

where we're not agreeing on what things look like. It's about this football game. Is he going to go or is you going to follow this Lincoln Lab things? We're a little spicy. Ethan and I are both like pretty hard. We can get into it. We can mix. You're candid. We can mix. She also, you went to state and debate.

Yeah. I like to argue. A debater. But so Gabe, Ethan's dad is like the nicest human on the planet, and he's like super diplomatic. And so we're sitting at this like countertop deli in Cambridge. And I'm like, okay, like we're not going to agree on what's going to happen. And so we have an air pod in this ear. And then Ethan has the airport in his ear.

And Gabe's like, what's happening? What are you doing? And so we kind of started calibrating a little bit, you know, imagining like maybe a year or two years. And you fast forward to December and Ethan calls and he's like, I'm not doing it. And like, you know your kids and like the tone when they're like, this is what's happening. How long were you certain that you weren't going to do it before you told her? Here's the conversation we've never had. Oh, great.

Yeah. This is so fun. I'm here to make things as awkward. You're like a therapist. This is super fun. I love it. Largely before I went. I mean, in like February of that year, after Ukraine.

I wasn't living a facade, but I wasn't sure, and I was nervous to tell you. He was giving you the slow note. It was probably within like two or three weeks of being there, specifically, astronaut hanging out. I knew like 95% at that point. And I think it was probably October that I called you. I remember sitting on the basketball court. That was November.

Maybe November, yeah. And I think you responded super well. I think you're just sad. You're scared for me, which is a good reaction. Actually, like a good reaction for me to hear. Yeah, it was definitely not disappointment. It was definitely not, like, frustration. It's just you are walking into, you know, I know enough to be dangerous about how cutthroat, competitive, bureaucratic, anything in defense procurement is.

Sure. You are choosing the most difficult sector. at potentially the most difficult time, you're 19, we do not have connections. Like, you are on your own. Like, good luck. There's no good old boy plan.

He's not a Yale grad. No. He's not going to start making calls. No. If he wanted to play, you know, Aggie football, Gabe's parents, great. Like, we could, you know, like,

pick a thing, but that's not what he's doing. Let me frame it. And it's just like, you're just, you know it's going to be so hard. I'm listening to this, and I'm thinking about all the kids who dropped what they were doing in 1941 after Pearl Harbor, right?

I'm thinking about all the young people who dropped what they were doing after 9-11 to join. You look at Ukraine and Russia, drop what you're doing to start a defense company. That's different. Yeah, because I felt like I was kind of yelling into the void, and I still do a bit, right? I think you see what's happening in Ukraine, and you can draw a very clear line to where things are headed. And you can wait for Pearl Harbor to happen, or you can very clearly say,

this is the direction the world is headed in. Let me start as soon as I possibly can to try and get ahead of it. I was doing ROTC for a reason. I tried really hard to do Lincoln Labs for reason. It wasn't like, let me go and start a company. Yeah, I think you explored every avenue. I was trying so hard to work within it, to get it done, it just, it wasn't going to happen because we were massively sleepwalking then.

We're still sleepwalking today. And at some point, you have to step back and be like, this is the only path. It's almost certainly not going to happen, but at least I can say that the second I knew that this was the path things were headed on, I went and did something about it. Do do do do do do do do dumb 15 years ago I went to Washington, D.C. to testify before Congress. I wanted to see if they would join me in a national effort to reinvigorate the skilled trades. After a few hundred dirty jobs, I'd seen the reality of a widening skills gap, and I thought it'd be important to make a more persuasive case for a long list of essential jobs

that didn't require a four-year degree. Anyway, it took a while. but the government has gotten back to me. And today, I'm super excited to tell you about build freedom.us. This is the best place to find an AI-proof six-figure trade job today. What kind of job? The kind that lets you build something awesome. We're talking about opportunities in the defense industrial base.

This is the next generation of workers who will build the next generation of fighter jets and ships and drones and choppers and tanks and weapons systems and satellites and autonomous submarines. Build Freedom has also awarded my foundation, MicroWorks, $10 million in scholarship funds, which we have set aside to pay for the training that you will need to get started in one of these jobs. The money's waiting, along with thousands of AI-proof, six-figure jobs. Go get one at buildfreatom. And you've said that forever. You're like, I can at least always rest in knowing that I tried my hardest. And then I didn't just not do anything.

But how do you wind up? So it's like stage one, okay, I accept it. This is what he's going to do. Stage two. You know what? I'm going to be in the company. Like how does that? So that was a weird...

Can I tell my side of that? Because I don't think I've talked through my side. Sure. No, not. I'm sorry. I just don't know if I've ever told you my side. No, I'd love to hear. Because I called her first to make it happen. Yeah. Which is important to say. So you like you offer to hire your mom?

I had no idea what I was doing. So there are times when the company has a slope and you have a slope. And ideally your slope is higher and you're above the company. But sometimes those things cross. And suddenly the company has a higher slope of what you're capable of doing. And those are extremely painful times. So we're in Boston. I dropped out. We're in Boston. A few of my buddies. I knew what I was doing. I could do that. I had this incredible investor step up. We had raised like $6 million.

His name is Jeff Lewis. He steps up. Where's he come from? What's his deal? He was in Austin. He's a major investor. He's been at a few big firms. He got tired of the VC version of sort of that system.

He's with Bedrock. Okay. And started his own fund. But anyway, he and I meet, and he's, like, obsessive about, like, I think this is going to lead to something. And at a time when it was basically impossible to backmark, He steps in in the craziest way, which is kind of a diversion, but becomes important for this story. He says, I want to write you, it's like a hundred million dollar check at $750 million. It was like five of us.

I'm like, Jeff, this like objectively doesn't make sense. This isn't a rational evaluation. What's going on? And he said, basically, if you're going to succeed in this industry, you need capital to go and win. He tries to invest at 750. I was like, man, that's going to kill the company because we're going to have several down rounds. Let's do 335, whatever. Russ, that happens.

No, wait a minute. I'm sorry, but why do you know what you're talking about with regard to venture finance startups? That will never make sense. What does that, like, why does he know this? Like, there are some things that I'm like, maybe this is from that. But his business acumen, I'm like, I mean, Gabe was in banking for a while, and so he would have like deep dive finance conversations. But the venture capital dynamic and just being able to navigate that ecosystem.

It's all people. It's crazy. Like everything is physics and people, and if you can think about how people think about stuff. Anyway, he steps up and he says to me, literally as I'm signing the term sheet, I ended up, like, this all happened in the course of like one meeting. As I'm signing the term sheet, he says to me, there's a massive chance that this kills the company. Because it sounds great to give this much capital, and it was great.

Like there are like several like company making moments and one I will always owe to this dude is the fact that he stepped up and did this. But also VC comes with the expectation because they only have such a company- a fund return life cycle. And if you don't go and make it happen, very, very, very quickly, you're dead. Like with that, you've got many years to go and figure this out. Certainly if I had started with money, but with VC, there's pressure. And so he realized that very, very quickly, I would have to go from, like, my buddies and I, like, mess around with 3D printers to, like, building a real defense company in, like, 12 months if we're going to survive. The thing he said to me

is this is almost certainly going to kill the company, because the company's slope is going to be a lot higher than yours. But I think you're capable. of getting it done. And then he dove in and gave me like a few pieces of advice. The hardest piece of advice he gave, I don't know if I've ever told you this. It's an exclusive.

This is very exciting. The one piece of advice he gave is one, you're going to be horrible at managing your schedule. You need an assistant who can help you just be a normal human being. And then two, you should hire your mom because she'll keep you anchor.

Like the gravity of what this is going to lead to and the ability to not lose yourself, money, I'm not drawn to money, that's a gravity. But being in the system, like being in the politics of the system and saying just how insanely evil a lot of what goes on in industry and in our government is, your odds are you lose yourself, so anchor yourself as quickly as possible, bring your mom in to walk you through that process and frankly hold you accountable and yell at you a lot when you're drifting. And that has certainly happened. But I don't think I ever told you That's the start of the whole thing.

No, that's fascinating. That's amazing. Yeah, that's really cool. Two quick follow-ups to you. He's not attracted to money. You must have known that. Yeah. Did you know that money was attracted to him?

No. What does it feel like as a mom to see an investor like Jeff? Jeff. Throw that kind of dough at a teenager who, I don't know. Our mutual friend Alex, Quick sidebar, Alex Epstein. When I talked to him about you initially, he was like, Mike, you're going to like him for all these reasons, but you're going to love him because he has clarity of purpose. There are people today, smart people, who look at the whole Ukraine thing from every side, and they've kicked the tires in every way.

And they still can't really come to a definitive feeling. They still can't form a consensus. you, like, the thing that's buried in everything we're talking about is that you saw a headline and you immediately knew you had to do something which turned out to be everything. You had to do everything. And then you had to help him.

It feels like a great American... Can I answer this one? You answer this one. I think we'll have different answers. You answer first. I always say this to him. Sometimes when we get sideways, I'm like, I have known you longer than you have known you.

So I get to decide how you. You feel about this? The clarity of purpose comes down to you, and this is why it's important, this is a defense company, because you have to fundamentally understand what you are defending. And the thing that has always been consistent is the value of a human, the value of an individual, the value of a life. And he, you know, and say, hopefully, I mean, all of my kids, understand. understand like that each person, regardless of pick a thing, your disability, your income level,

your job, your pedigree, it doesn't matter, people matter. And you extrapolate that from, you know, I mean, I got this insane, super kind email on eighth grade of Ethan being nice. I mean, I could give you a laundry list of people that are like, Ethan did da-da-da-da. That was so nice. He stood up for this person. He did this. But at the end of the day, like, you see what happens in your.

Ukraine, and people can litigate that 10 ways to Sunday, should we be there, were they corrupt, pick a thing. At the end of the day, people's individual freedoms were being attacked. And so... Trampled. Trampled. And where are other places in the world that that's potentially going to happen? And are we able to defend people?

Are we able to love people? Are we able to make sure that they are safe and protected? And that's the clarity. Like, that's why. That's my case. How important was it to you to know that you had your mom's, not just approval, but, I mean, backing. Like, she, it's. I think it is of the absolute utmost important, maybe more important than almost anything in my life,

to know that she trusts and agrees with the reason I'm making decisions. I actually think on specific decisions made through that framework, we disagree quite often. But her knowing that I'm making them for the right reason is, I think, the important thing. Yep. And I think it's okay to disagree. Like we, well, but I think also, like, I... You should argue about this right now. I don't have a vested interest in any outcome.

Really, like, I want the company to succeed. I love my coworkers. I really do. I work with the best people. I want this to be a massively successful company. And I want to ship weapons that are... enormously helpful to America and our allies. But at the end of the day, I'm going to, one, hold him accountable and two, watch out for him in a way that, like, nobody else is going to do that.

I'm going to try to look around. I'm going to miss things. I'm going to fail, and that happens often. But I don't think you're going to get, like, a more authentic, like, why are you doing this? Like, I'm not here for the money. For sure. Well, apparently, you guys are deeply opposed to filthy. lucre. But aside from the mom thing, is this fun? That's amazing. Like, as a job, like forget he's your son. If you would just decide it, ah, I, you know. I don't know that I ever say this to him, but Sarah can vouch for this. Oscar, I say this probably once a week. Like, this would be my dream job if it wasn't my son's

company. Kind of like a tag line. This would be my dream job if it wasn't my son's company. And now it's just, it's an okay job. It's something. No, it's fine. I just like every thing that is stressful in a job, like jobs are stressful, even when they're great, even when they're hyper-fulfilling, like they're still stressful. But everything that I do, I have to look at at the lens, I mean, specifically like in in comms and marketing, like what's the story we're telling? What are we doing? It also, I have to look at it through the lens of how it's going to like personally impact my kid. And I don't care if you are 90 years old, your instinct is going to be to,

protect your kid. Mama bears. Yeah. I mean, yeah, you're going to try, but there are times when I have to suspend that, like, intentionally suspend that and, you know, know that things are going to play out the way that they need to play out. And it is like, I mean, painful sounds dramatic, but it's a little complicated. Yeah.

Yeah. Gabe hears it all the time every day. So he's, yeah, super supportive about it, and that's great. I think I've learned two things today about you. And tell me if I'm wrong, because I don't think you'd say this out loud, but I think you find it annoying that you're constantly described as the 22-year-old guy who's running a very consequential company. I think you probably find it annoying that the $2 billion valuation that Mock is currently enjoying also worms its way into the headlines. And I don't want to annoy you. But what I'm trying to get at is everybody watching this is fascinated by all the stuff that normally gets built into that headline.

But to me, it's way more interesting. This is the most interesting dynamic I've ever seen in my life. Cheers. Ever. We're total weird. You are very weird, man. That is. Thank you.

If nothing else, if nothing else, America needs to understand that a truly consequential defense company that is absolutely dedicated to everything our country ought to feel good about exists because the parents of this guy had the good sense to step back and let him change the road he was on and then maybe the even better sense to jump in and stay as close as they could. I don't know. I mean, is file it under patriotism, file it under... I think file it under family and support, which is part of building an amazing country. And that's super kind. It's complicated. We cannot, will not, do not take credit for...

Like, this guy grinds it out 24-7. He slept two hours last night. He slept two hours last night. And so, yeah. And sometimes it's far worse. No, Tamara, understand. I mean, you were there. Yeah.

We're out in the desert. I just learned that we got to get up at 4.30 in the morning to go to a launch that probably won't happen. Right. Now, it's 11 o'clock. We've just eaten some questionable food. I'm very tired. And your son has questions about AI. He's got questions about how are we going to manage a whole list of issues that haven't even happened yet. I think we nominated you for president. We did do that. You're trying to suck me in a politics too. Like, all this is going to be a right one.

I don't know if I can say that super loud, but I heard that you're running. That's a filthy lie, woman. It's a filthy lie. I am not now, nor have I ever been running. In fact, there's my ride. I got to go. Look, the point I was trying to make. We're going to start interviewing you now.

Look, we sleep two hours. We wake up, we go to the desert, and he tells me, he's up to wood. You're up two in the morning. Yeah. Thinking. Thinking about a tangential conversation. we had prior to this. So this was a very long day.

You slept two hours. He seems to do this a lot. It's pretty daily. Yeah, unfortunately. You said like three times you never talked about this. Not to each other, but on camera. So you're very protective of him. You're very protective of the company.

You're managing marketing and communications. Why did you let us come out here with cameras? Oh, man. Well, okay, to your point that you were making earlier and to the point of why my job is comprehensive, complicated. If he's not my son, then a normal marketing person is going to index on he's 22 and it's a $2 billion company. Correct. That's what you're going to sell. Correct. It's so marketable. Correct. And the fact that it pains him so much. And I should explain why. Nah, it's all right. Your mom's talking. Never interrupt your mother. I'm sorry. You're good. No, it does. Like, it is, there's so much more to the story. Like, it is such a good story. And it's,

It's certainly Ethan's story, but it's 450 co-workers who are literally showing up, grinding it out, doing impossible things. The impossible things I have seen people do at this company is wild. Like, people wouldn't even believe it. I'm stunned. So you have an opportunity like, let's go talk to the people in the company that, you know, I think he's great. Obviously, I think he's very talented. but he is surrounded by a lot of people who make the entirety of the story. I don't know you well enough to say this, but I'll say anyway, it's back to the clarity of purpose.

Those people I talk to today all admire you, and I don't know that it's because of what you built. I think it's because you have certainty on something that is consequential. and I think most people don't and we're flailing around you know we don't we just don't have that clarity of purpose and it's weird it's the kind of quality you'd want to have in a boss I think

appreciate it yeah you're welcome now you've been dying to say something go ahead no I want to it's not that important but I want to say why I hate it I don't know if I've ever said it's it distracts like it distracts from the mission of the company. And then my main reason I've been so excited to have you out

is, unfortunately, I'm the one that gets their time. I'm the one that gets to go on the podcasts. And I do one 450th of the work here. And so the awesome thing is, one, how do you not make it about some stupid fleeting valuation or some stupid fleeting age, neither of which really matter that much in the mission you're doing?

And then, two, the fact that we got to walk you around and you got to meet folks at the company and talk to people, people like Spencer, people like Josh, who are, like, actually the ones that make things happen. Like, my job is sort of to, like, get them capital, set a direction and, like, clear the way for them to do the actual work. And that's awesome to be able to highlight that. I was reading the comments after you came on my podcast, both on YouTube and all the socials. They're very complimentary. And people who don't know you, who have never heard of you, never heard of mock, are so heartened. They're just heartened. And look, man, it's not your fault that you're 22, and it's not your fault that you attract money.

But the way you've handled it makes people feel really good about the country, and it gives them hope. and I think the way you sort of dealt with all of this too. You know, I mean, my little foundation, there's not a day goes by I don't hear from parents who were like, you know what, thank you for making it okay for my kid to do this because we didn't know how to do it. And I think a lot of parents kind of struggle

and wrestle with that. And you, I just think you know something. Well, I think you have an entire society. Like one, You guys have talked about it, but my parents didn't go to college, and they are both incredibly brilliant people. My mom, to this day, like, her mental math is, like, unparalleled. My dad didn't go to college and has built multiple airplanes. Like, I've seen really highly intelligent people who don't have a check-the-box degree. I went into it, you know, a little bit seeing that,

and Gabe agrees. But I think, you know, you start sending kids to school and, second grade wear your favorite university t-shirt and you start down a pathway that tells them that's that success i read a book ethan's freshman year that if i could recommend to anybody it's called um oh my gosh it's really been an impression did it oh my goodness it's called um change your life it's not imperfect sheep i just bought it for cooney um perfect sheep now it's called excellent sheep that's the name Excellent sheep. Excellent sheep. Yes.

But it's talking about like you're a bunch of sheep and you're just going to keep going and you're going to qualify to get to the next thing and you're going to think that's the end. And then suddenly they, we, whomever, are 40 years old and just recognize they've never one day done a thing that they were meant to do, that they were passionate about. And so back to how did we feel when Ethan calls and he's like, I'm dropping out of MIT, super scared. Like, that's terrifying. Like, what's your path? What's the plan? What's the trajectory?

You know, he said on a podcast, I cried. That is true. Because I knew people were going to be mean to him. I read the comments. I will say, your viewers are lovely. They're like, we're praying for you. I was, like, literally choked up. And I want them to know, like, that meant the world to me.

I erase all the bad ones. Yeah. Well, there are, you know, you read this stuff. And I'm like, gosh, he's like, what are we doing? Like, why are you so mean? And it's been closer even than that. People are going to sell you out. Unfortunately, people are not always super kind.

But the counter to that is not doing the thing that you're passionate about. And if you're a parent and you would rather have your kid get a degree in philosophy, when you know they want to hold, create, touch and make something tangible, and you decide to saddle yourself with debt to send them to college, or you saddle worse your kid because I don't want to be ugly to parents, but I am one. And so to some degree, you saddle your ego to your child and what they've achieved, and somehow that becomes your achievement. And unless you break that and step away and say like, this is your life, this is what you're

meant to do, I would rather have the kid that is a plumber and super happy owning his own house at 30 years old with three cute kids than a philosophy degree and they can't afford to buy a house because they're still saddled with debt with a degree that they can't get a job earning more than $40,000. Like we have choices and it doesn't quite make sense. When you were talking about your granddad, was that her dad? Yeah, that's my dad. Yeah, he put me in the back of the ultra light. I can't believe we told that story. What was the biggest thing you learned from your dad? that you think you've been able to pass on. Oh, man.

I mean, I would say both of my parents, really. They're just zero ego people. Like, do hard work, and don't look to that as your true north. Like, be super convicted about why you're doing something. And Shelley deserves as much, if not, more credit than Ralph. My mom, I have to tell you, like, my parents still farm. My mom's about to be 70, 70 and 74, and they still farm are farm. The two of them.

I mean, they're like the toughest humans. You know, on the one hand, Gabe's parents both worked at Texas A&M. And so, you know, getting to see that entire ecosystem and be a part of that and then having kind of the agrarian background and, you know, pull yourself up by the bootstraps. It made for like a really, I think, like unique perspective about where you kind of choose a trajectory. Like abundant respect on all of it. But there are a lot of right ways to get to, or a lot of different ways to get to the right path. Yeah, not one path. There's not one path.

And, you know, like, growth mindset is such a cliche, but when it comes to, you have an entire life. And so, you know, these kids and these parents that are afraid to pivot or afraid to, like, take a chance. And you know what? Go, go take two years and see how it goes. Go save up money. So you're not saddled with that. go find out what you're passionate about and then decide. Like, you don't have to, at 18, say, like, this is my thing.

He would have just graduated from MIT with a degree in Arizona. The funniest thing, he said, I don't know, not to SpaceX. But in that same conversation, do you remember you said, I don't want to work at SpaceX and work on one bolt the rest of my life? SpaceX has gotten a lot of hate during this conversation. Not this conversation. The whole thing, I need to say for SpaceX. I also think mock wouldn't exist.

I said this to you earlier off camera, without watching Elon land the two Falcon Heavy boosters at the same time. Absolutely. So I think there's balance in that. But in terms of what you want to do with your life and like creative impetus behind it and go cut your own path. Well, and for Elon to pave a path that hopefully mock inspires some 10 or 12 year old kid right now and they see viper flying and they see all these 22-year-old engineers and

tech and they're building awesome things that are defending our kind of like hopefully it'll be a lot cooler than one more building and hopefully a lot better and that's how it goes though yeah exactly that's all you can ask for yeah all we can do is point our cameras at the at the stories we think are interesting and the people we think are unusual and impactful with respect you have to understand that part of the thing that that makes people so hopeful in the in the in the comments you're talking about, it's the very things that you're hesitant to embrace. They see something in themselves. They see something in their own kids.

You know, you're inconvenient for a lot of 22-year-olds who don't have the clarity of purpose, who don't have these things. But you know what? None of that's your problem. None of that. That's just noise. And I think we can all be excellent, right? Like all I can hope for is, and I hope it's a different path.

I hope no one tries to replicate it or do anything other than wake up and realize. I think we're sold this story today that you have to sell out at some point. Or that if you don't, you get crushed by the machine. And it's funny in your comments. The only negative comments are saying that you all bankrolled the company. Right. Oh, they're my favorites. They're like, daddy's money.

I'm like, I'm like. So funny. Which is kind of my biggest reason for doing this. Not because I care. Someone can think that, like, y, all funded the company. Someone can think X, Y, or Z. But it's important to me that everyone realizes,

and it doesn't matter what it is. But you can wake up and choose to have agency. Whatever you're doing in life, like, go do it incredibly well. We live in a capitalist, like, constitutional republic. And in that framework, if enough people wake up and just choose to do that, choose to work on the right missions, choose to vote deeply, don't go and watch two YouTube shorts and vote on that. Like, go read the policy, invest in the right companies. Like, if you go and do those three things, alone it's hard.

Alone, it's hard. I mean, I've gotten incredibly lucky. 99 out of 100 times doing what I did wouldn't be here today. and I'm still hour one, and who knows how the story ends, but it doesn't matter how big the impact is if everyone steps up and chooses to do that thing, then a lot of the things we consider pressures today that make it impossible or perceived to be impossible

to do that thing. Like if enough people step up, you do fix that over time. And so that's my biggest reason for doing this is to show that, like, one, I haven't sold out and I'll never fucking sell out. Two, sorry. In front of your mother, dude, really? Two.

This is the kind of relationship we're really talking about? You learned it for me. I have a really bad cousin. You terrible body mouth, you two? Or? Yeah, too, it is. You fucking think you know somebody. Now this shit.

Two, is that it is possible. One, you don't have to sell out. Two, you can go and make something happen. It doesn't take luck out of it. I mean, I'm incredibly lucky to have met Jeff. And Jeff wouldn't have invested in me if I was an idiot. But that was a stroke of luck. there have been probably 10 things like that.

But it is possible. And so for me, like, the biggest thing, not for my own sake, I don't care. I'd rather not be in front of the camera, but to, like, show that that is, so that enough people hopefully wake up going to be the best electrician on Earth. Yep. Create motion. Yeah. So, I mean, look, that's it.

There are two stories. There's a story of mock. There's story of our country, all that. But there's also the story of a company and a mom trying to make sense of it. and you, that's the thing that's relatable. Everybody in their own way are trying not to be excellent sheep. Nobody wants that. Everybody wants to be excellent, but nobody really wants to be sheep.

But the thing about excellent sheep is they almost always come from other excellent sheep. We really appreciate you letting us in and sharing so much of which you know. Thank you. Thank you for facilitating a conversation. We haven't had. Here, let me give you something. In honor of grandfathers, Carl Noble was mine. He inspired Dirty Jobs and the MicroWorks Foundation.

I put his name on some whiskey just because it's ironic. I don't even think the man drank in his life, but that's excellent award-winning Hooges. Since you have a bar. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Perfect. Amen.

Honestly, really nice. Really great. Thank you. So fun. Thank you so much. This episode is over now. I hope it was worthwhile. Sorry it went on so long,

but if it may, you smile then share your satisfaction in the way that people do take some time to go online and leave us a review I hate to ask I hate to make I hate to be a nudge but in this world the advertisers really like to judge you don't need to write a bunch just liner two all you've got to do is leave a quick five star review not four all you've got to do is leave a quick five star review and not all you've got to do is leave a quick five star review definitely not too all you got to do is leave a quick five star review we need five all you got to do is leave a quick even if you hate it five star especially if you Thank you.

Thank you.