Air Traffic Control Is Running on Windows 95 | Dan Rickert | Ep. 469

Okay, I got the red smoke. Come on. Turn around. Go into the smoke. Where's the smoke? Where's the smoke? Okay, copy. Where's the smoke? I'm looking at danger close, now. I don't want it, man. It came into me. I made it. It came hot. Can't be clear hot. He's hung over today. My son's birthday was, 21st birthday was last night, so he was out getting shit-faced all 2 a.m. And you're okay? I went to bed because I'm old. Yeah, we sent the next generation off into the wilderness. And they came back. They were going to come back at midnight, right? Yeah. That was the original, Uber. That was the original plan. And we heard them coming in at about 2 a.m. Michael slept on our couch with Tyler. We all dressed up in suits for dinner. We did that. I found Tyler. Real suits are like- Real suits. No, we went to the thrift store and got full suits. Leisure suits. Yeah, I think my suit was $27. That was where included. And Tyler was passed out with his jacket on, Ty's still on, and just to blanket over his face on the couch, so. That's it. I mean, that sounds like a success. Lessons can only be learned one way. My 21st birthday was at West Point, and it was like me and my roommate went to a tailgate and I had like two beers and then we went back to the barracks. Yeah, because you were at West Point. I was like, this is cool. Yeah. Eat that sucker about a fist away from me. Just move it around with you. What do you want to begin? What you do now is, as we were discussing on the way over here, I was going to say it's simple, but not easy, but it's not simple. Yeah. The problem that you are going to be tackling and upgrading is anything but simple actually, I think it's incredibly complex, maybe defined by its complexity. Sure. But we'll get to that. Military for a bit, defense contractor, in the defense space for a while. Obviously just a warmonger, right? Just suckling off the war teeth of the US. Oh, yes, yes, yes. That's what most people think. There's such a misunderstanding. Let's start there. Where do you think people get that wrong? Let's be fair, though. There is a massive ecosystem around the war machine of the United States of America. For sure. For sure. And I think there always has been for clarity. I think the threats to our country are very real on a variety of fronts. I mean, you and I are GWAP babies, right? So we grew up in that world. And I think the reality is when the GWAP ended. Yeah, didn't end. As you say, I have yet to get that memo, right? Maybe they have the wrong email address. But it's like, okay, we pulled out of Iraq. We pulled out of Afghanistan. The reality is, I think the threats are still there on the sort of asymmetrical side. But now they're also there on the nation-state side, more than ever, right? So I think the threats are very real. I understand, I think skepticism is healthy for what it's worth. Yeah, I was talking to a guy last night at the Irish pub out here and he's like, you know, I just don't believe anyone who tells me anything with like total conviction. Right? Whether it's politician or, and I was like, that's an interesting, that's an interesting take. That's a stance. Right? I was like, okay. I get it, though. And the point he was trying to make was like, how do we hold multiple sort of truths out there, right? I think the world right now, everything's so divisive. There's like one side right, one side wrong, all the time. Well, people also argue over what truth means. Yeah, fair enough. Which is gnarly. Yeah. Because I don't know what the world looks like if we can't agree upon a truth. Yeah. Or what the word truth actually means. Yeah. What do you think the biggest threat is right now to the US? I think the biggest threat is our. I mean, look, we have the edge in a lot of ways. I think it's ours to lose. That's what scares me the most. Whether that's with a nation state or whether that's with terrorist organizations. I worry about us losing sight of what's important as a country and evolving into tribalism, you know. Which it seems like we are every day. But I also like, look, I don't want to make too much of a pessimistic view of that. Because I also have a lot of hope. And I mean, you and I live in the mountain west. I think this is like intrinsic to living out here. Like I haven't talked to you last night. Completely different side of the aisle. We had a great conversation. We agreed on some stuff. We disagreed on some stuff. I bought him a drink. He bought me a drink. It was a great night. Like it was like, holy shit. What a concept, right? Yeah. So I do think most. I mean, this is just my personal opinion. Most Americans cared deeply about our country. I think that, you know, what I'm seeing in defense tech is people are putting skin in the game too, right? These are. We hire these folks who traditionally would go work at large tech companies making, you know, what. The next widget here, they're right out in the valley. And, you know, it's Silicon Valley is an interesting place. And I lived out there for a little while. We called it. When I was at Palantir, we called it the Shire, right? If you. Palantir. Another teatsuckler, obviously, an enemy of the United States. Some people would say. Yeah, another. Another, I think, deep misunderstanding of. Yeah, I mean. I got nothing bad to say. It was a very. I love being at Palantir. It was a very formative time in my life. And look, I came there right out of the military. And I. I'm sure, like, most my transition was like. The fuck am I doing with my life? You know? Let me know if you ever get an hard answer to that one, because I'm also still searching. Look, that's. But that's the point, right? Like, dude, this drives me nuts about getting out. Like, guys look at it. Like, it's. I mean, shit, we call it terminal leaf. Like, it's a freaking cancer diagnosis, right? And everybody. Never thought about it like that, actually. You know what I'm saying? And it's an odd word. It's like. And you're like. It's like, I gotta get this right. And I've had friends who have struggled deeply. And I mean, I struggled myself. It probably took me two or three years to really get my feet, right? Like, we were talking about earlier. It's like, man, every day I'm still learning new stuff. But that's how it goes. That's life, right? It's the same when you're in the military. You just don't realize it. Then, because you have so much structure around you, I think. At least I did. But, you know. What do you think people get wrong about the military industrial complex? Well, I think that. The people that work in the space care deeply, for the most part, right? About the end users. Whether they're in look, there's plenty of people out there in the startup world who will talk crap about big primes. And, you know, oh, then the primes will talk crap about the startups. It's like, look, man. You mean vendors when you say primes? Yeah, yeah. Like the big dogs, right? Like the traditional sort of stuff. Right. The reality is, it's like, we should all compete. We should. Because that's gonna make a better product for the end user. And I don't think people necessarily think that. The other thing I think sometimes folks get wrong is like, you know, when we talk about kinetic effects on things, I mean, you know this, right? There is a human in the loop that is making a decision. There's somebody with release authority. There's a drag that's like, yeah. And I think that that. I think that that'll stay. I think that's important, right? You have to have that sort of who's the responsible person for those decisions, you know? No, that doesn't mean that you can't have tools that help them make decisions faster. Yeah. Present them courses of action, right? That allow them to say, okay, I can, you know. Dude, I was thinking about this the other day. I mean, I was in Iraq in 2008, right? And that was. I mean, we were tracking IDs with like. Do you remember the time wheels? Did you guys ever do the time wheels? I don't know. Describe it. It was like a circle that you shaded in when IDs blew up. Like at one o'clock there was an ID. No, we definitely did. I mean, it was like innovative at the time. It was literally a freaking pencil on paper, right? And like, you think about that and you're like. Now, you're like, holy shit, I can't believe that's how we actually did this. Yeah. So I think like technology can do a lot. It's certainly not a panacea. And the people that use technology I still think are the most important folks. I think that's what you're seeing now with a lot of defense companies is like. Getting proximity to those users and understanding what they need working closely with them. I mean, we got guys out of Fort Irwin last week. They're on the ground often with our customers. Whether they're DOW folks or airline customers or energy customers. Understanding what they need and actually building that. And not just shipping a new release every six to 12 months. Do you think it's the dollar figures that trip people up and think that there is this. Nepotistic or incestuous system? Today's episode is brought to you by Black Rifle Coffee. If you head over to BlackWraffleCoffee.com right now, they have the most amazing. I guess I would call it a moving graphic. It's from their exclusive coffee club subscription. Their current roast, which is the founder roast, the Royal Elk in the rut. And I don't know how people do this stuff. I know how to do this technology wise, but it's pretty amazing. The ECS, or as I call it, Evans Coffee subscription, one bag per month. And it is very curated. It comes in a really cool box. It comes with an instruction manual. Not a manual really, but it's like a three by five index card. Depending on how you're going to make it, it has the tasting notes, the water, the temp, all of those things. I just got mine for, I think, the month of October maybe. I might be a little head. And it was Gothic Serpent, which is based off the operation. Captured in the movie, Black Hawk Down. I couldn't recommend more if you are a high level coffee fan slash snob. In addition to that, Black Rival just dropped their fall 2026 selection. What can you expect there? Some camo patterns, of course, because it's back into hunting. hunting season. The fall-flavored coffee bundle looks like we're getting some pecan bourbon and pumpkin spice, some coffee mugs. They have four different types of subscriptions. They have the ECS. They have the build your own box, which is whatever coffee you want, delivered where you want, on the interval you want. They have a shirt club, get a shirt every month, and they have a sticker club as well. They also have SMS and email list that you can sign up if you would like to. Bottom line, if coffee is your thing and supporting amazing brands founded by amazing people, still out there having an incredible impact on the veteran community, then BlackWreffel Coffee should be your go-to. BlackWreffelcoffee.com and check out everything they have to offer back to the show. It could be, but I mean, I also think like the DAW in particular, and I think in our experience with the FAA, has leaned in very heavily to competition, right? And like bring your product, show you where it like, you know, it's not going to cut it to just bring a PowerPoint slide and present. It's like show your shit, right? I think the department particularly has, has leaned in pretty heavily to like exercise demonstrations too, right? Come out and do this in an exercise. Let's see how it goes, right? So I think the dollar amounts, yes, they're large. It's also like, to be clear, it's quite hard, right, to do that. It's, I would say, you know, there's been a lot of push to innovate, particularly in the Department of War, and there's a lot of opportunity to get small dollar amounts, but taking that into large programmatic dollars is tough, right? And it's also a hard business. I mean, 10 years ago, it was like a dirty word to say you were going to do defense tech, right? Investors didn't want to support that. It's great to see it now. I also think in some ways like being a veteran in the space was kind of a dirty word too, right? Yeah, I do. I think it was like, you know, there was this sort of concept of insiders and outsiders, right? Where it's like, oh, you're, you know, you're coming from that industry at this industry, you're just going to like think like them. And to be clear, like, it's not totally wrong, right? You bring some of that bias in with you when you come to an organization, but I think what's cool now, and I think you're seeing this with a lot of companies where there are vets leading, right? You know, guys like Dino, it's Veronica, Brandon and Shield, right? They're building companies and they have extreme subject matter expertise in the area that they're in. And then they're able to build a team of insiders and outsiders, right? Who have subject matter expertise? But then also, like, I mean, I have software engineers. It's like, why would they like, they wouldn't go work at DOW, right? Like, they couldn't, they've got a career they want to build, right? But they have an ability to actually come in and have an impact. And I think that's like one of the cool things that I've experienced for my career is you see these generally younger engineers who want to work on the hardest problem. And it's like, the reality is, it's really hard to do work in the defense space, you know, or in government in general. Yeah. It's, it's the hardest stuff. And so you have this corpus of people that are really jazzed about it and really excited about it and bring sort of an outsider perspective, but then you're able to build the team together. So you have that sort of yin and yang, you know? How hard is it for a smaller company? I think competition and meritocracies. Yeah. Fantastic. But you have let's, we'll use, and I'm just going to use this because I think a lot of people recognize the term, a Raytheon or a Boeing, fill in the blank huge, existing, massive ability to innovate because they have funding to be able to do so. How does a small company with an idea get past the PowerPoint phase to be able to actually even do a field exercise against one of those companies of that size? Yeah. I mean, for us in particular, I think we had a bit of an edge because our software has already deployed with commercial airlines. We had a business, right? We weren't at least when I joined the company, we were not in like an idea phase. Yeah. Right? The power of phase, if you will. Totally. Right? Yeah. We were able to say like, Hey, this, this works. Like we have customers using it. Like why wouldn't you use it? Obviously, there's some nuances to that as you deploy in other environments and things like that. But for the most part, I think that's what's made us successful is like at the end of the day, the product works, right? And it's a good product and people use it. It's built for what they need. You know, but I think like the defense tech scene is interesting at the moment. It's frothy. Certainly, there's a lot going on. And I think, is there I have a notice? I think that's a good thing. There's a lot going on or that it's frothy. I think it's okay. Like I think that's going to, I think that lets like, it lets winners evolve, right? Like at the end of the day, it's like, you have an administration that's very focused on results. That is very focused on, how do we get the best thing? How do we get things that are used in commercial industry? Right? And how do we bring that? I mean, it's crazy. Some of these critical industries are operating on, you know, Windows 95, era software or static dashboards. And it's like, you're, when you need to make a decision, you know, off of dashboards, like the time has passed, right? Now you're reacting. And you're sort of, you're sort of negotiating failure at that point, versus being able to take more of a forward looking approach to that. So is it possible for the small startups to compete with the Ray Theolins and the Bellings? And again, I'm just using those as examples because people will probably recognize those terms. Yeah, I think it is. I think there's a lot of companies out there that are doing great work. I mean, you just, there was a micro-nuclear company that just raised the big ground and had a big deal with Department of Energy. I mean, there's companies, again, I bring up SHIELD. I think they're fantastic. I think there's companies out there doing great. SHIELD is a UAV, correct? Correct. Yeah, man, did you ever think, I ask everybody this, who served during our era? When we used the term drones, I meant predator, reaper. Did you ever think of a command wire DJI drone coming for your face? And dude, there was like a video that came out. And it was like a, one of those like black mirror ask sort of like future things. It had to be 15 years ago where a guy was like given a demonstration and there was a drone that came and like, autonomously like delivered a payload. And I remember being like, oh, no, that would have changed things significantly, right? Because like, I mean, you know, like a lot of guys, depending on where you were, a lot of bases, like once you were in the wire, you're like, okay, we'll occasionally get rockets and mortars and they're not well-aimed. Thankfully, because they're just propping them up on sticks or rocks or like holding them. Yeah. I mean, shooters choice. You're right. Pun intended, I suppose. So yeah, no, it's, it's wild, man. It's, it's crazy to me to think through that. I mean, I've watched some of the more modern era recruiting videos. Yeah. And you know, we've crossed the Rubicon when instead of they're flipping down night vision goggles, it's an FPV goggle. Yeah, like, wow. Yeah. The earth, the screens have like entire, you know, an entire core of FPV, you know, guys 3D printing stuff. And like, I was watching a video the other day, they were, I believe the command wire, the fiber optic. Yeah. They had a bunch of huge cylindrical looking tubes. And of course, it just looks like fishing wire for people who haven't seen this. And it had to have been light because we are talking about basically almost a cots or a commercial off the shelf item. 10.5 kilometers was what? I mean, I just six miles of cable. And a guy's just sitting in front of a laptop, just looking for people. I just remember like, I mean, before I was an SF guy, I was a cavalry officer and I was in Bradley's. I remember the toe missiles. You shoot a toe and have that big wire. Yeah. Right. And I, what's the range on a toe? Oh, shit, man. Now you're going to make me look bad. But Michael, what's the range on a toe missile, T o w? It's certainly not. It's going to be measured in a few kilometers. Yeah. I don't. It's the light wires reach up to 3 700 meters. 37. Okay. Yeah. 3.7 kilometers. But I remember like, you shoot one toe out of gunnery or something. And guys are like, be careful, man. You're going to throw a track like one wire. You know, and now it's like, you see these pictures from Ukraine. And it's like Spider-Man came through, you know? Yeah, it's, it's wild. I mean, things are, things are evolving significantly over there. What baffles me and I think about this often is there on the leading edge of what I'll call technology warfare and also fighting in trenches. I know, right? I mean, what's it going to be today? 20 30 tech or 1942 tech? I know. I know. I mean, I've seen videos of them literally advancing in trenches, hucking grenades around. Oh, shit. All you're missing is a ladder and a whistle. Like, hey, here we're going to go over the wall, different than driving an M-Rap and trying not to get a EFP blow. Man, which one of those is psychologically more damaging though? I think the EFP sitting in a vehicle, having no control and you're just in the back waiting to just suck it up. Yeah. That was a, yeah, those were, that was a mind-fuck for sure. Yeah, I've talked to quite a few psychologists and psychiatrists about it. And I can't speak for all of them, but there seems to be a level of agreeance that that they call it the locus of control, the person in the back who has no control whatsoever. And it is all about unknown. Yeah. It is harder in the geometry of the brain and how that works to deal with that. Then when you went from that world into the special forces world and then you are more often than not initiating violence on your terms or at least you're looking for it, very different in the ability to long-term process those things because the locus of control shifts away from not having any, to you largely most of the time are in control of that violence. I mean, look, I think there's a corollary to that for people getting out of the military too. Your locus of control shifts significantly. Yeah. My son had some health stuff early on. I remember sitting in the ICU at the children's hospital and I'm like, I can't control it. I was like, freaking out. I was like, dude, I would rather be deployed right now than deal with this shit, and I think that, I mean, that's something I had to learn when I was getting out is like, hey, like, you can't control everything, right? You gotta build a team that's able to work to their strengths, right? - How long we in for? - I was in for nine years. - Through the R&B service academy, right? - Yep, I went to West Point. - How'd you select that one? - Out of the other mainstream schedule. - You know, ironically, I wanted, oh God, I'm gonna catch a lot of shit for this. I want to go to the Naval Academy and be a Marine, okay, which is hilarious in hindsight 'cause I'm about the least Marine person. - I feel like they could have forged you into what they're looking for. - I'm sure they could have. - I believe that the Marine Corps is actually quite known for that. It was, we're at an event in Denver and it was a really cool event where they bring all the guys and gals that are enlisting and they do basically like a hundred of them or so and they do like graduation ceremony and call their names and walk cross stage by like services. Super cool. And the community like applause them and everything and all the recruiters are there and I was giving a speech and during it I stood up and I told my son and daughter, just take a look. I'm like, hey, this is what service looks like. And I was like, well, my son, I'm like, sit down. The Marines are over there. I don't always stand in too long, you know? But no, look, my grandpa was in World War II in Korea. He was in the Navy and I told him I wanted to do that and he's like, yeah, not gonna be a Marine. He was in South Pacific. He was a combat cameraman to ask the Marines and was like, what? - No. - Primary weapon system was like camera? - No. - Jesus. - So yeah, my senior year of high school is 9/11. So I knew I wanted to go to the military. I had this like, I had an amazing childhood. Like I came from a family, my mom has seven brothers. She's the only girl. And then she has three sons. Like you don't fuck with my mom, right? But my uncles were these men that were like larger than life to me. A lot of them were cops and firemen, right? So I grew up around this. - 'Cause Irish, you think? - Look at it, look at it. There's gonna guess very deeply Irish with a shade of Catholic. - Yeah. No, I mean, super Catholic family, right? And my uncles were half of them were Eagle Scouts. None of them were in the military, but they were just like in another area they would have been frontiers men, right? My uncle Dan still wears a bear tooth around his neck. But he killed in Alaska. - Okay. - And I'm just like, dude, you're a different breed man. So that's what I grew up around, right? And a really formative event that happened to me when I was maybe in like fifth grade. Three of my uncles were at my family's all from Cleveland. They were at this place called the Flats, which is like the bar area down by the river and a boat exploded. And they were at brunch, it was Mother's Day. They were at brunch with my grandma and my grandpa. And my three uncles jumped into this like fiery boat, rescued a baby off this boat. And I mean, these guys were like heroes, right? Like truly, like got the baby out, dove into the burning river, holding a bit. I mean, it's just crazy shit, right? And then of course, and then I watched them, I was funny, my brothers and I were looking at it a couple of weeks ago. I watched them being interviewed and just like, total like quiet professional. They're like-- - Let me guess. If you were to ask them why they did that, they would look at you and say, that's what you do. - Totally. - Like, what do you mean why did I do that? - No, I'm obligated to do so because I can. - Yeah, but it's like, that's what I grew up around. - Yeah, right. Like men in the truce and my dad, right, was, you know, working his ass off, right? Like one of, my family, my grandpa was an asbestos worker. Like, it's not like they came from much, right? My mom ended up going to, you know, she got her master's degree at a time when people were like women don't go to college, right? So again, this is, I grew up around these like larger than life people. I knew I wanted to do something service-related. And so as I, and then of course 9/11 happened, so I was like, well shit. And at the time I was, you can't tell this from my marbled figure, but I was actually a college cross country runner, yeah. And I was getting recruited by a couple of schools and I went and visited one of the schools and the coach was a former colonel in the army. And he's like, what other schools are you looking at? And I said, well, West Point, this is like my other choice, but I would do ROTC if I came here or whatever. And he just looks to me, he's like, what the fuck are you here? Like just go to West Point, man. Like, that was like salty, a little kernel. Worse for recruiting like effort ever. Or best. No, but it was much cut all the bullshit. And the reality is if I would have went to a real college, I would, it's like, I would have just, yeah. I was high school, I was so focused on sports. Yeah. Are you trying to say West Point isn't defined by its dorm parties? You know, there's not a big Greek life. Yeah, they're interesting. Yeah. It's an interesting place. It's more like Phi Beta shut the fuck up and get up at 0-5. [LAUGHTER] Look, man, I am eternally grateful to be from West Point. I hated being at West Point when I was there. I think that's the point of it. 100%. I don't know a lot of people who say-- I mean, again, so for people who don't know, Marine Corps and Naval Officers, they go to the Naval Academy. Air Force has an Academy, I think, in Colorado Springs, who really brings you. Yeah, I think that's everybody here. And maybe, of course, I don't know anybody who just says, oh, man, it was so pleasurable. Conchheats, Egyptian conchheats. You know, I mean, it's really slept in on the weekends. So it's so bad, maybe. I don't know. But it had so much free time for activities. Yeah. I mean, it's like vivid memory as a plebe of like, you know, that you'd make your bed. Perfectly. Just bouncing corners and angles off. And literally, in our drawers, you would keep clothes that were consistently folded. Like, you'd keep socks underwear t-shirts that you never touched. Yeah, they're just in there for inspection, right? And you're like, don't touch that shit, right? And I just, I remember, like, one night, we had a very conditioning. And it's in West Point, like, New York in the summer is hot, like, in muggy, right? And I remember one night, like, a couple of the upper classmen are just like banging on our door. Do-do-do-do, you know? And you're like, oh, fuck. They come in, they're like, get under your sheets right now. Get under your sheets. Like, break your sheets. You're gonna make your bed in the morning. Get under it. And you got, like, your sheets. And they're like, we'll blanket's too. 'Cause we got these, like, big-ass gray, we'll blanket set them up. So it's like 90 degrees out. And I'm just, like, under a we'll blanket. And I'm like, that fucking colonel who told me. (laughing) Like, what? - People aren't gonna understand what you're describing. And I totally get it. Because even in enlisted neighborhoods, we can't say them. And, like, yeah. - Yeah, you were sleeping on top of it because it's less work to re-correct it again in the morning as opposed to having to fully make your bed. - Yeah, 100%. - Yeah, 100%. I still don't make my bed. - God, what is the lesson to be learned from that again? - I'm not sure. Yeah, I'm not either. - Not making your bed later in life. - I feel like-- - Don't tell bills. - Some things in the military have great applicability and there's really good lessons there. And others are generational trauma that is just continuously passed down. Because that happened to the person who was an upper class man. So the important must happen to you as well. - Yeah. - The best leaders that I've seen across my time in the military did not have that attitude. Agreed, right? They were guys and gals who truly cared about their people. Right? And I always bristle at the sort of like, well, that's how it's always been done, man. - Yeah. - You know, I mean, yeah, okay. Well, they used to not let women go here. Now they do. - I think that's the formula for relevance. - But you see, I mean, I had female classmates. You would see old grads come and, you know, talk shit to the female classmates. And you're just like, come on, dude. Really? Are we really there? I think that's changed quite a bit now. - I would hope so. - Yeah. - I can't, as long as it's a meritocracy and standards are standard. - Are you sure? - On a percent. - On a percent. And I'll tell you, it's interesting. I, I mean, I remember going through searschool and I was the senior guy in searschool. - She was a blast. - Let me tell you. - For those of you listening out there, he was joking when he said that. - Yeah, that's definitely it. - Sipsark has him layered on top of that. - But, you know, so I'm like this senior officer. So you've got a certain set of, you know, things that you're supposed to do. And when you're getting, you know, abuse will say, you're supposed to stick up for each other, right? It's a big part of it. - Hey. - Don't do that. - Don't do that to him, right? And I remember this very vivid memory of this, very young E4 female from the 82nd, 'cause it was a bunch of SF guys going through at the time we were in the cue course, not it. And then the 82nd would get a couple of slots, right? And they'd send people, this is young, probably 90 pound E4 female. She's like the only one who would be like, "Hey, stop hitting him." And I'm looking around and I'm like, I'm like, "Hey, assholes." Like, you guys are all like big ass, tough green berets, like somebody else. So, I'm, you know, I think your porn has sound. It's like, look, meritocracy is critical. And I think you see that in industry now too, right? So, yeah, oh, what's, was it a happy day when you left? You know, it's some, mixed emotions. I'm sure like a lot of us. I think I have more mixed emotions looking back on it now. Towards the tail end, like your senior year is it much more focused on when I left West Point, or when I left the military? West Point. I was thrilled. But at the end, I mean, I know I never went to the academy, but I've heard some interesting things about plea beer to the way you have to eat and squaring off and all that stuff. And I get that because that's civilian world to military world transition. By the end of it on your senior year, is it more like a balance of college courses? Okay, it's a little more normal, but you have more responsibility, right? Like you're they put you in roles where you're like a company commander or something like that. So while some things are dialed back, like you can take pass on the weekends every weekend, right? We can plead good luck. But you have more responsibility. And I think you also, you know, the first two years at West Point, you can leave. As in, I'm done here. I don't want to be like, Hey, I don't want to do this anymore. And you can go elsewhere. But like once you start that third year, you're in. It's either like you're going in as a lieutenant or specialist one way or the other, right? Really? Oh, yeah. Do you sign an enlistment contract at that point? No, but like that's the known thing. You're like, you are now committed, right? So it's like, if you get bounced out in your last two years, hello specialist. Hello, 80 seconds, right? So I think in, you know, I mean, I had a high school physics teacher who I mean, I was kind of a goofball in high school. And he told me he's like, you're never going to make it at West Point. And I was like, I think that's the thing that kept me not quitting. Yeah. That and I had a really positive experience like the summer before because I was really thinking about leaving. I got in a lot of trouble early on. I was just disciplined or academic discipline, but academic too. Like I wasn't a great student. But I also was like, you know, more interested in going out and drinking and having a good time trying to like, I mean, you talk about it in your book, right? Like you're like, I'm going to live my own college experience, right? Yeah. And it's pretty dumb, right? But I had this experience I got when I was going the summer before my junior year. One of my buddies said to me, because I was, I used a year older than me. I was talking to him. I was like, I don't know man. Maybe I'll just go to normal college like this kind of sucks. He's like, yeah, it does. But you need to go experience the actual army. Like try that. And I was like, okay, what do you suggest? He's like, well, because when you're doing your summer training stuff at the time, it's probably different now. But you could go to like airborne school or air school or you could try out to go to special forces selection or sapper school, combat engineer school. While in the in your summers, I think the Navy calls that they're midship and crews. Yeah. Something along that sounds way cooler. Like ice cream. And I don't know. Depends on what you're doing for your crews. Yeah. I don't think they mean that type of princess cruise. But Disney, more of a river cruise. Oh, man, I think it's, I think it's exactly what you would tell you. They're going out to the fleet. Same, same thing, right? But from ironically, I was like, I don't want to go to special force selection. That sounds, that sounds lame. I don't, that seems really hard. I don't want to be a green beret, right? They wear a painter's hat. How manly can you be with a painter's hat? Jokes on me. But I went to sapper school and I worked with this E5. He was my battle buddy. And this dude was like the like stallion of stallion NCOs. And there was no like, you know, when you're cadet, you know, you people in the army, it was so funny when we trained the summer, you'd have some of the cadrabi. Like, oh, the Candidates are here, you know. I mean, they look at you like less than a second lieutenant, right? Which you are totally, right? You know nothing. And this dude could have been a total dick to me. And he literally put an armor on me. It was like battle buddies. Like, let's do this. And I learned so much from ironically, he was, he became a war officer and was a pilot on a full mission profile. I did like 10 years later. That's awesome. Yeah, it was like wild. We bumped into each other like, man, what's up, dude? Like holy shit. But I've had like, when I had that experience, I was like, this is what I came here for. Like, the army is actually, this is like what I wanted to do, right? Like go out, being the woods, like, do all these things, work with great soldiers. And I, you know, I wasn't disappointed, man. My career was like one good NCO after another. I can't, you know, you hear horror stories of people talking about shitty leaders, you know, which they're true, but they don't speak for the entire community. I had exceptional leaders, yeah, that I worked with. I mean, I had a battalion commander who never yelled once, right? This dude was like, he was like, it was the first experience I had outside of family, whereas like, you didn't want to let somebody down, right? And I saw, I think the best leaders instill that sort of mindset where it's like, they give you a lot of trust, right? And so I had, I mean, even up into my SF days, like my team sergeants, my groups are major, just guys who cared deeply. And so I wasn't disappointed. When I joined the army, it was, it was pretty cool. And I enjoyed it. Dobtempo was a little tough. And I ultimately, that's why I got out, right? My wife was pregnant and went in the process to meet your wife right before selection. So you had already done your time? What's it, what's it called? The cavalry? Yeah, yeah, I was, do you have spurs? I do. Fuck, and many of Stetson. Actually, I only have one Stetson, but I do have a lot of cowboy hats. Do they issue that to you? Well, you do a spurt ride, right? Like they, oh, dude, you know what spurt ride? I don't know if you know this, but my, come on, service time came in the Navy. Where, if you're wearing spurs, you're probably wearing leather assless chaps in an environment that I don't want to talk about. No judgment, man. No, if you deployed, you got gold spurs. If you got, uh, when do you wear them though? You work at like battalion balls. I mean, you wear them. You wear Stetson. Actually, hilariously, when I came back, so I was at Fort Carson as a, as a cab guy. And then when I came back to 10th group, I was at Fort Carson again. Okay. And my old boss was, was doing a change of command at the cab squadron. And so I like, I was like, hell, yeah, I'm going to go to this and wear my Stetson, even though I have this cool green beret now. You can wear one over the other. Yeah, why not? Whatever. So I took off the cab sabers, because you have like sabers on your bank. I put crossed arrows on it, put the SF. I was like, yeah, cool, right? I show up to change grand. Not a single person's wearing a Stetson. I don't appreciate the idea though. I like, I give a shit. This is awesome, right? And now I have a lot of cowboy hats. So that was my first dabble on that spurs. What a holdover. I just, when people walk and you hear those, the ching, ching, yeah, it's like it. I mean, that's a real cultural thing. It was cool. Being in the calf community was, was fun. Um, but was it like deploying on that medium? Well, Bradley's, right? Yeah. I mean, we basically, when we were in Iraq, um, it was right after, uh, sort of awakening, right? Was it the Sunni awakening or Shiawaka? I forget which one it was. I think it was the Sunni. Yeah. Yeah. But so it was, you know, they had the sons of Iraq. Came out and, you know, it was, it was, it was this weird moment where actually things were relatively peaceful, but a lot was brewing underneath. Like they weren't, we can get a ton of firefight stuff like that. You know, rocket attacks, mortars, ton of EFPs. Yeah. Right? Um, but we, during that time, we basically just went to emirats or humvees, right? Emirats for folks that don't know the old, they're not old. I mean, there was a truck that basically could withstand like ID blasts. Yeah. Um, actually a great example of like the department quickly fielding. Yeah. A thing to like safe. So the whole versus flat hole. Right. Which, and then again, then you come into this game of chess where that works if the explosive is directly underneath you totally. And then they'd start bearing them into the ground at a perpendicular angle to the V. And so we're just moving to flatten it again. Yeah. Never any game of chess. But we deployed with all that stuff and then we didn't use it. We basically put them up as like static, um, probably gun positions, gun positions on bases and stuff like that. So most of it was humvees emirats, stuff like that. So were you a vehicle commander? Yeah. Did you have like aviator goggles and a scarf when you were up there with like a cigar as you're cruising through like Iraq? Just go with me on this one. This is what I did. Yes. I did. This is what I wanted to be like. Yeah. No. Uh, I definitely, um, yeah. I mean, that was my, you definitely want your helmet and all your. My goal of a picture of a World War II tank commander. This is what I imagine. And this is like grab it with the, uh, probably leather frappad. I do get a bit quite a bit. So I, you know, he's a handsome man. Yeah. I've been told by myself. Yeah. Yes. I mean, come on. Well, I will. I mean, I already forgot about the binos and have those green suits. Six shooter. Of course, cross draw on it. We had green jump suits, like when we were in our officer basic training. Look at that. He isn't have a six shooter. They were like, they were like aviator suits. They're pretty great. Michael's just pulling up action figures. Yeah. Oh my god. There I am. Yeah. The, uh, the green brief photos. I think speaking of Brad Pitt, there he is on the far left. There you go. Yep. Hey, baby. Man. Yeah. We'll go. Noticeable jawline totally. Yeah. Just like me. That's why I grew up. Yeah. You know, hide the chest. You have to hide. You don't want to get stopped. The paparazzi is out there and it's real. Yeah. Okay. So you go from that to special forces. How was that journey for you? I mean, I had a really good experience in Iraq that was sort of formative to that. We were in a town, a lot of bad guys, and we had a, we had a split ODA basically in the same town. And I, one night these dudes roll in in like an orange quarterpanel, Dotson, Dostosha, as all, you know. Yeah. Arm to the teeth. And they're like, hey, can you stand up, QRF? I'm like, who are you? What? Maybe. Are you American? Like, I don't know. But it was the, it was the split ODA. They're like, hey, we're going into the, into the old city to meet with the mom at the mosque. I was like, we're not allowed in the old city. And he's like, you guys aren't allowed in the old city. I was like, whoa, I don't, no, like explain, like I wasn't like trying to be like, you know. I was just like, explain this to me because like everything I've heard is like, we can't go in there. Like, a lot of bad guys will kick up a hornet's nest. He's like, look, the mom, we built a relationship with them. He trusts us, we work with them closely. And I was like, and nobody messed with these guys. And to me, it was like this light bulb went off of like, this is, there is a better way. It is. Original warfare, man. 100 percent, man. And so at that point, I was like, I'm doing this and it was funny because I, one of my best buddies, who was a, he's an Air Force Academy grad, who came over into the army. We were both in fourth infantry division together and we were both in the same base. And we both were like, we're going. So we got back from Iraq and went to selection. Is it a harder path being an O, what were you at that time, an O2, O3? I think I was, when I went to selection, I think I was a promotable first lieutenant. So like, O2. So it starts, you guys go backwards. Second lieutenant is first. Then first lieutenant. Yeah. Okay. But I mean, to be a team leader, you have to be a captain. That's like a unique difference, I think, between seals and GBs, right, is you can't go be a green beret right out of the academy, right? You got to go and it was, and I love that, right? Like it was great to be able to have a little bit of experience before because now you're working with guys where it's like, yeah, these dudes know their shit. Well, as an off, you can go to Buds as an Ensign, yeah. If you get to a team, you're, I mean, on paper, on the leadership rank, on the task organization, sure, you're in a leadership role over the enlisted personnel, but you're like a third officer, Billet. And the directions for a third officer, you know, me, my opinion on this, not saying this is Navy doctrine is, shut the fuck up. Listen. Use your eyes and ears in the ratio that you have to your mouth and learn as much as you possibly can. You'll probably do two to three years there at that, and then maybe be the two I see for your next rotate. So it's probably similarly, right, in the army, you're doing that as a platoon leader. Yeah. I mean, as the third, you're probably carrying an automatic weapon, you know what I mean? And just learning the mechanics of how the sauce is just made. And you have to. Yeah. Because especially, I think when you get to a special forces team, again, I mean, the amount of training that these guys go through, I mean, my team sergeants had 10, 12, 13 deployments for these guys knew their shit and knew how to manage and run the team, right? And I still remember sitting down on my, my first team sergeant, Gary and he's like, dude, I'm down and in. You're up and out. Like, just make sure we got our lanes clear. Oh my God. I got it, dude. And it was, it was a, it was a really formative time for me. Selection was a mindfuck. How many officers in the class versus enlisted? Oh, man. That's a great question. I'm assuming there's less officers. Oh, yeah, yeah. Just because of the makers of an ODA. Yeah. Yeah. But I don't know. And for buds, I would say, well, you don't know it. You don't know. Like, did you guys wear ranks at buds? Yes. On the helmets. Well, let me see. So again, I can always speak to my time there. If you had your helmet on, and this is more of a tool for the instructor, it's the color of the helmet is the phaser in the class numbers on the back or on the side name is on the back and the rank would be there. But it's just, if you're an officer, it's just a single bar. Okay. Whether you're O1 through O3, I don't think O4 is allowed to go to buds. And I think, yeah, they have, we went away from the car devices and went to the center of the chest. I'm pretty sure it's on. Yeah. That's it ranks. At selection, we just had engineer tape on our uniforms with a number. Okay. Okay. So even more blend. Interesting. So, I mean, you could, you could kind of tell sometimes the cadre knew, I'm sure. Oh, the cadre definitely knew, I'm sure. But that was the point. It was like, hey, like, it doesn't matter. Yeah. Like, this is selection, meritocracy, like, put up or shut up. Everybody's, everybody's given way together on this. And it was, I was always fascinating to me. I mean, I had a kid in my selection class that went to Juilliard, right, and then went into the X-ray program. Like, we have this ability to attract. That's a classic pathway, really. Totally. Yeah. But, I mean, I think the seals do this well too. It's like, you attract these people who want to do the hard thing, right? And they're not, you know, yeah, you're going to get some folks. I think that's another misconception is like, okay, these are all just crazy. Like warmongeried dudes. And it was like the total, I mean, I, I know more green berets that are deeply philosophically minded, like brilliant, high IQ. You're like, high IQ, high EQ. 100%. Yeah. You have to be if you're doing UW. And I think we have a good process. I think selection works, right? Because you saw that then flow through on the teams too. So. Yeah. It's the opposite of what there are. Don't get me wrong, some sociopathic tendencies for some of the people. Sure. There probably are some legit psychopaths that just want to go into that world, just the military in general, just because they have a desire to kill people. Okay. That's probably real. But also special operations in all of the branches has the highest proponent of college graduates in the enlisted regs, then the rest of the military. And I think there's a reason for that. Like, I had some of the deepest philosophical, religious, world life, everything are placed in the universe. What in the actual fuck are we doing here? Type conversations with E5s. Totally. Yeah. No, 100%. And I've also seen, I've seen some of those folks go on to be amazing leaders outside in the military too. Build real. You know, one of my favorite examples of buddy went to, he was enlisted green beret, went to Harvard Law School, went, was a lawyer quit, was like being a lawyer sucks. It's a very common area. I came to volunteer and I worked with him at Palantir, right? And, you know, and now he's the CEO of a company, he's run his own company and it's, they're just a special breed, man. And I think it's the same in the SEALs, I'm sure it's the same in Marsock. They vary by degree, not kind of person. But I was blown away by it because it's like, there are truly, because the reality is the military is a cross section of society, right? There's some great folks, there's some not-so-great folks. But like I just, I always felt like a bit like, how the hell am I here? You know? As I'm like, standing around some guy, some like, he's due to the real deal. And now I'm part of this, like it felt almost like an imposter at times. But. And then what do you get, if you make it through that, you become an 11 alpha? Is that the 18 alpha? 18 alpha. That's right. That's a little 11 where that can't be true. Okay. Yeah. How long would how did you spend in special forces? So I graduated a Q course in 2012, I think, and then I got out in 2015. So I did my team time, you know, I was, again, I met my wife during this time and my wife had no clue, I mean, she's from Connecticut, she had no clue with the military, any of that. Although she does like, tell me she got recruited to swim at West Point and turned it down, had a real college experience, so okay. But you know, we, we were married for three years, I was gone for two, she was pregnant and I was like, it's tough. Yeah, I just had them, I had the, I remember my, my old group sergeant major said, look, man, when you know, you know, like it's time to go. And that was the other cool thing is like, I didn't, you know, I got a little bit like my team sergeant was like, I fucking quitter, you know, ingest, but also like, hey man, like you should consider staying, like, we, you know, you should stay, like, why not, right? So it was, it was a tough decision, but it was also like, I knew I wanted to go on to other things. I knew I want to be a dad that was important to me, and I just, I didn't think it was fair to keep that life going and trying to balance that. And I have a ton of respect for the guys and gals that do because it's hard, man. And oftentimes, I mean, the statistics net this out, it oftentimes doesn't end well for at least the, you know, marital relationship, you know, going and watching 9/11 as a senior in high school, joining and then getting out, five, six years later, what are your thoughts on that service time looking back now? Was it what you thought it was going to be? Do you think you, or felt like you had at least the ability to have the impact as somebody who watched it before joining? I was, I had been in since '96. Yeah. Um, God, I remember watching the, I turned the TV on about probably 10 seconds before the second plane went in live, they were, they were just finishing up the sentence, what a horrendous aviation accident. I think he was still thinking was obsessed. I was like, I, that was totally whatever I thought, shortly after that, it was relatively clear that it was not a SESTA and things were ditched the entire tone of the broadcasting changed after that. But I was already in. And I thought that the world is going to switch on a dime, and like, here we go. I'm sure the bat phone from the president's office will call me directly here at any moment right to move I did the speed of a snail which the military does. But I mean, you saw that before you came in. - Yeah. - Looking back, do you feel fulfilled and did you accomplish what you wanted to as that young man watching that happen? - I mean, that's a complicated question. - Yeah, for sure. - I think in some ways, yes, in some ways no, right? You know, I took my son down to the, and my kids know they don't know me in the military, right? They were both born after I got out. But it's like a very important, I mean, my son is a diehard army football fan, which I love. Don't shit to anybody wearing a Navy shirt. - Yeah. - How'd that work out this year though? - What was the final score again? - Yeah, it's, we don't need you to look it up like we both understood it. - It's fine. - This is our year. (laughing) But no, like, look, I think with 20 years of, you know, my 20-year reunion this year, which is crazy to me, it's time has flown. I think with 20 years of hindsight, there's a lot. I'm very proud of that service. When I took my son on 9/11 museum, you know, which you have not been to that. - You need to pack a lunch for that. - Oh my gosh. - And I wouldn't, I wouldn't advocate for having anything heavy later on in the day. - It is, it's a lot. But again, like, it's important for me, my kids need to see this. They need to understand like, why did you do, like, why did you decide this path, right? And I had mixed emotions when we were there 'cause we're going through that. There's a whole section like, why do they hate us, right, with al-Qaeda? And my son looks to me, he's like, is this why you went to the war? And I went to Iraq. Like, I didn't go to Afghanistan, right? And I'm kinda like, I'm like, (laughing) - Well, we're gonna get to a dick-chained section up here in a little bit. I'm like, we'll talk about that when you're older, right? (laughing) I do think back to, you know, obviously friends lost. And I'm sad with that, for sure. I try to honor their legacy by being a good man, by being a good dad, by being a good husband, by being a good leader. I think about it often, frankly, and that certainly, you know, when you think back, you're like, I mean, it seems, some of these deaths seem so trivial. In hindsight, we're like, what the fuck, man? So, yeah, mixed emotions, certainly. And to your point, I think as we were talking earlier, it's like, yeah, still, you know, you're always gonna have that in some way. You're always gonna be kind of working through that. But I'm incredibly grateful to have had that opportunity and to have that chapter. I try to live in a way, and I think this is what I really respect about you when you, in your book, was like, I try to live a way where it's like not the defining thing, right? I'm like, really, really grateful for the chapter, but I wanna keep writing great chapters. Yeah. And that's really important to me. And I think that's actually the best way to honor, to honor guys that have gone before us, right? So, I agree. You think a war on terror is even winnable? Yeah, what's a win, right? I think we definitely screwed up the messaging by titling it that, you know. Also, it's weird that we haven't declared war since World War II, but we're calling it the global war on terror. I think that's one of the issues that makes people very hesitant in this modern era, as well, is that we, I don't think anybody understands or knows where we are in the cycle of this. So, are we in the beginning, are we in the mid stage, are we in the end game here, what's going on? Well, I mean, particularly in the special operations community, it's just this perpetual cycle. Yeah. There is no beginning, middle or anything. You're just always going somewhere, right? And yeah, I think, you know, I was in countries in Africa where we, I felt like we were making an impact and then, you know, four years later, the coup or something, and you're like, yeah, but, and I said to see stuff like that, 'cause you're like, man, I thought we were doing some good there. So, which, you probably were. We were, I know we were, to be clear. That's what, one of the main points in the modern era, veteran community that I know veterans of Afghanistan struggle with was the optic of the departure. Yeah. Which I totally get that. I think it's completely natural. And I think it was an absolute catastrophe. And just a failure in leadership. Like, if the plan isn't working, let's change the plan. Oh, we said we were going to do it by this date. Well, that's not working. Yep. So, but we promised, I understand what you're saying. Let's do this appropriately. But if you tie your service to something that happened years after you got out, or years after you served there, I think that's a mistake. Because even though the country may have cood years later, like you're talking about, that doesn't mean that the work that you were doing there at that time, the best, all you, all we can impact is the world that we can literally interact with and see and tangibly interact with. If you take it farther than that, you are losing some of that agency and control of how you are going to feel about your service because you're letting other people judge it. And you had no control or metric of that. Well, this is, I mean, the interesting thing about being in the military is like, it so defines you the totality of you, right? It becomes your entire identity. At least it was for me, right? I was like, I was a West corner. I was a green beret. I was like, this is what I am. Yeah, fully. What's the hell of the pedigree? Don't forget the spurs. That's what you left that out. Spurs are sweet, man. Like, and then you realize, I think when you leave, like that, it's very good at being your entire identity. And I think this is where guys in Gal's struggle is they're like, well, what is my identity now? Yeah. And it's like, dude, it can be a lot of different things. Like, my identity now is a dad, is a husband, is a businessman, is a citizen, right? Like, I'm great with that. And there's, you know, I think there's also this mentality of like, I need to get the same feeling of service and commitment that I got in the military. And it's like, my wife once said to me, she's like, dude, team room's gone, man. Yeah. Like, you're not going to find it again. I have people ask all the time, they're getting out and they say, how do I replicate that feeling that we get on target? And the honest response is, you're going to have to put that down because you cannot or your life is going to be measured on an egg timer if you only pursue activities that gets you up to that brink of whatever it is that you're searching for. Well, and I think that's like, you hit the thing on the head, it's like, what are you searching for? Yeah, right. And this is the hardest question. There's a couple of great groups out there that I've worked with that I think do a good job of like helping talk through some of this stuff with people. It's like, what are you going to take forward and what are you going to leave behind? Well, this group to commit foundation doesn't have an awesome exercise that, right? Where they talk through some of this. And it's like, yeah, there are great things to bring forward. There are some things you should definitely be behind, right? And I think, I think it's harder for guys that or gals that are kind of forced out to, like whether that's medically retired or, you know. Well, again, that goes back to the locus of control. A hundred percent, it's just applying it to a different aspect. But you're like, if that's the thing you've all, you know, I had a guy telling me, all I wanted to be was a helicopter pilot. And now I'm hurt and I can't do it anymore. And I was like, we better talk to somebody about that. Yeah. Or are you not able to do it in the military? I mean, you know, if that's truly your thing, I bet you could, if you just, if it's love of aviation, I bet you can pass a medical or do whatever you need to do to go teach people to fly a helicopter. And you might be doing it civilian-wide. You can wear your military helmet if you want to. You can go straight on full metal jacket helmet if you want to, right? But again, it's like, what's important to you, right? I mean, and I think that's changed for me over the years. You know, right now, like, I do a lot with my kids. I do a lot with their education. My kids are in a Catholic school. The Catholic school system is really important to me. And like, I feel a similar sense of commitment to those things that I felt when I was in the military. You know, I think what you're describing is something that is even more difficult, but it's tied to identity and that's purpose. Because you lose both. - Yeah, that's fair. - The identity one I think is harder, or I'm sorry, the identity one I think is easier, because you will get another job. - Sure. - And maybe your identity will become attached to it, maybe not. The purpose one is tough. And I think that's what a lot of people are saying when they ask, how do I find this feeling again? 'Cause I don't, personally, I don't associate that with an identity or what you see in the mirror, that how do I find this feeling again is what is my purpose again? Because that's what you were driving towards, run into the sound of the guns. - Totally. - Good luck finding that out of the military. - But you can find your purpose in a variety of other things. - But you have to, at some point, acknowledge that this particular avenue, although it was amazing and take all those lessons learned and go forward with it, you're gonna have to close the door on that one, which doesn't mean you close all the doors, you're just looking down a different hallway at this point. - Well, and it doesn't mean you're closing the door with shame or regret or any, you know. - Maybe you open it up from time to time. - Yeah, take a peek. - I mean, it's fun to do that at times, right? I think especially as I've gotten further away and my kids have gotten a little bit older, you know, talking to them about my time in the military has been fun, you know. Taking them down to, I took my son down and my buddies changed a command on a 10th group, right? And it's like seeing that was cool, right? He's looking at me like, you did this? I'm like, can't, man. - He's been, he's been, he's been cool. It's anything like my kids, they'd look at that. - One of my spurs. - Yeah, anything like my kids, they'd look back at you and be like, huh, never would've guessed you could have done that, like what happened to you, dad, bitch. Oh, how was it for you when you transitioned out? Did you go right into the, - The defense sector? - I did, I went right to Palantir. - I did to the tea. - It was, let's just call it what it is. - Well, it was, it was funny, man, 'cause I, you know, my father-in-law actually, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I knew I didn't want to be in the army anymore, and I see this often, right guys like, "Look, I'm kind of done with this, I have no clue." Like, I don't know what's out there, I don't know what. - Spoiler alert to everybody, I'll turn 49 this year. - Still figuring out, I don't know what I want to do either. - Look, and like, that's life, right? - I've come to enjoy it. Because if you can relax just a little bit and realize you have the tools to solve problems that come your way, when you find opportunities and things you never would have considered, you can look at 'em and go, "Hmm, that seems interesting." - I think I'll try that. - Yes, yeah. - And you know, if you find yourself in a cul-de-sac, maybe do the U-turn instead of blasting through the little park that's in the middle, but at least you, I don't think, everything I do now, when I was getting out of the military, I would have not told you. I would have bet against everything that I do now, and that's what I spend my time doing. I think I couldn't even consider. - I think I would have said the same thing. - Yeah. - You have to be open to it though. - You also, there's like no right answer. That's the other thing. Everybody has their own sort of like math equation on what they're balancing and what they're optimizing for, right? And you know, you talk to guys and gals and it's like, I want to live here and I want to do this. It's like, okay, you've got to like a lot of conditions. Everybody's equations different, right? So for me, getting out, like I was like, I'm, you know, you're like, it's like typical, like follow the other guy's playbook, right? I'm like, I'm gonna go to grad school, get an MBA. And then I'm gonna be a venture capitalist. - Today's episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. This is a brand that I'm very proud to work with. If you're a fan of the show or you listen to it, you know that I talk very openly about mental health, about not feeling like you are alone, that everybody is struggling in some way, shape or form through something at every time. And reaching out for help when you need it is one of the biggest signs of strength that I personally believe a human being can express. Ask yourself this question. If you could wake up tomorrow and be better at one thing, what would that be? Would it be put your phone down and being more present with your kids or just putting your phone down more in general and being more present in the world, shopping online less, handling stress in healthier ways, having better communication, better interpersonal skills, better relationships. You get to fill in the blanks for every endeavor in my life, the few times in my life that I have been successful. It has come through finding somebody who is an expert in the field and working with them, placing my trust in them, learning, drafting off of them, taking their experiences and in the end, it has shaped my life. Now my opening question was if you could wake up tomorrow and be better at one thing, we have to talk about what better is. Better is obviously it's a feeling. It's defined by you and for better help, it's a better help therapist who really gets you. It's a focus on global emotional well-being with thousands of therapists and millions of members in over 100 countries. It's progress, but it is a journey. It takes time, it takes effort, and it takes commitment, but it's very possible. If that sounds like something that could benefit your life, you can sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com/clearedhot. That's better H-E-L-P hotel echo, lemapoppa.com/clearedhot back to the show. - Having no clue, right? I went and did a transition thing. We went to a, they held it at a big bank in New York City. I spent like a day at this bank, very well known, and I was like, I don't want to do this. This is not the thing, right? Which is great. Knowing what you don't want to do is also equally as important. I had like, networked my way up to a CEO of a major healthcare company, right? They made IV bags that were like world's biggest IV, and I was like, hey, if anyone ever told you how to blow up a door with IV bags, he was like, what? And I had this, you know, it was like, hey, like you can interview with all my verticals and like pick where you want to go. And then my father-in-law was like, hey, have you heard a pound here? And I was like, yeah, yeah, I know a pound here, 'cause I was a 10th group. We were one of the sort of early adopters. And I was like, I don't want to do defense stuff. He's like, no, it's more than that, right? So, you know, I had sort of these two great, and I remember having this conversation with my uncle, with my godfather, and just like stressing so much about like, dude, what am I gonna do? And he's like, you have great options, man. Like, we're, take a breath. Like, your problem is you're gonna have to pick between good options. And I think like, that's a lesson for a lot of people. It's like, you get so like, what am I gonna do? Like, where does this go, right? It's like, you figure it out. - And making decisions in that headspace where you are driving yourself into an existential crisis. Internally, as opposed to externally the world doing that, is the worst time to actually make a decision. - To make a life decision on a long term trajectory for your life. - No, 100% of it, right? So yeah, I joined Palantir there. I worked, you guys start off as a project manager. I was working in some of our international business. I worked across, I had some stuff with my son where I couldn't travel as much. So then I built out like a lot of our learning and develop team, our onboarding, all those sort of processes. That's how I kind of got into more of the operational stuff. And then I was a chief staff. I was actually thinking about leaving and Doug Philpone, who ran the defense business of Palantir. He's like, can I just come work with me for a little bit? We had done some stuff. We made a commercial for the Army Navy game together. And he's like, so my last couple of years, I worked with him on the defense side. So like my first few years, I was not doing defense stuff. But it was fun to come back to that and I've stayed in and around that world since. - What does a chief of staff do? - Oh man, that's like a million things to a million people. It really depends. There's a really good, 'cause I get this a lot from guys and gals getting out of the military where they're like, sorry, I keep it in the stamp thing. - I don't care. - Tastes really good. - It's never been washed. Oh good. (laughing) Do you know how you wash a microphone cover? - I don't. - With a garbage can. - It's a spike it. - Why did that take me a second? I was like, how do you wash that in a garbage can? - Oh, you turned away. - Yeah, or a flamethrower. I don't have one of those though. - You don't? - No. I need to get one of the. - Who would go well on the wall? - Elon Musk one that says clearly not a flamethrower on the side of it, which is not, I think it's just a propane torch, but pretty dope. Yeah. I mean, you can make it if you want to. I'm gonna tell you how to live. - I'm gonna. - All right. - You manage the distance that you think is appropriate to the microphone. - Fist of waste. - Yeah. I didn't say any closer than a fist. I said keep it about a fist. - Yeah, my bad. - That's all right. - So chief of staff. - Oh yeah. I think it really depends. I get a lot of folks from the military say like, I want to be a chief of staff. - I wonder how they come to that conclusion. - I think it's like a, you know, generally it, it can be like an operational catch all, right? And I think the reality is when you're leaving the military, you don't really know what you want to do. You try to pattern match, right? And you're like, okay, well, I could do that. I could do that. I guess I could do that, right? We've all gone through a version of that. So I think a lot of guys and gals will see like, oh, this chief of staff role can mean a lot of different things. So I think it's really important for folks when they're going out and they're looking at that. It's like, figure out what that means. 'Cause that could mean like a high-power EA where that could mean like a partner to the principal, right? - And what you just said is two very different things. - Very different things, very different pay, very different-- - Yeah. - Very different everything. - Sphere of control, right? So yeah, it was fun. I mean, I worked really closely with Doug. He was a great guy, a mentor to me still. And just learned a lot in that space, so. - What is Palantir described themselves as? If you were to ask the head of Palantir, what is Palantir, what did they do? How did they answer that? - I mean, I think Dr. Carp's been pretty vocal about that. I don't want to speak for them 'cause I haven't been there in a while, but I think they build software, right? And I can tell you what there's a, I feel like there's a lot of misconceptions about like data management. - That's one of the main reasons people probably recognize that name recently is, and I haven't read one of these articles in a while and full disclosure. I didn't read it very deeply when I did, but essentially they're somehow interfacing with the government to build a database, which of course people, and I think rightly so, have a concern about their privacy. Because I mean, our privacy is in fact being eroded at a rapid rate. Most of that is though, through voluntary usage of things that we choose to use or not forced to, but they are convenient in life. So I think that's fair, but I think that's probably where most people recognize the name. Recently from Palantir. - Yeah, there aren't any of that is like, we always talked about sort of the false trade-off between security and privacy. Like I think a lot of people think like to have security, you must give up privacy. And that was sort of, you know, that was what really attracted me to the company. It was like, hey, the sort of thesis for the company and their leadership has said this for a long, long time is like, that's not a trade-off. You can still have privacy and security and not, you know, have to trade between the two. - I think that depends on who's wielding the tool. I think it's possible to create a framework where they, and again, just for clarity, I'm not a tech guy. So everything I'm about to say, and anybody listening to this knows this, it's my understanding of how these systems work or these databases is skin deep. And by that, I mean, see through skin deep, not like whale skin deep, but the amount of information that I know is being gathered, that you can find just on open source. If there are guardrails and infrastructure put in place, I would agree with you that those two things could exist at the same time. I think it depends, though, with who is wielding that tool and how malleable those guardrails are. - I think you look at, I mean, the government has, like, access controlling and data classifications and stuff like that, it's not, like, it's just a wide open, right, like, so I think there are processes in place on the government side that guard that. - Sometimes, and then you look at the FBI who just goes out and purchases third party software, or the FBI did, what was it, 270,000 illegal queries over what's the intelligence? Well, the flock cameras are a different thing. I'm trying to remember it was the intelligence, Goddamn it, Michael, which is the, it's the one they just voted on. It was getting ready to expire. And it had to do with gathering information on Americans. It was supposed to be externally facing Americans that were overseas, but in the end, they end up hoovering up FISA, yeah, the 270,000 illegal queries from the FBI in a single year. I mean, that's a problem. So, yeah, hundreds of thousands of warrantless queries on American using foreign intelligence databases. So, those things are in place, but there are also ways that you can go around them. And I think that's, it's fair to be concerned about that, and again, I'm not an expert in this, but as somebody who values both privacy and security, I worry about that. I think that's fair. Yeah. I don't have a solution to it either. I think it's also like, I think the reality is like, you have to build technology that that equips users in the government, right? Like, the reality is like, we need our government to be performant to be able to do the right things, to be able to make good decisions. And I think you can do a lot of that with good technology. You still need those people to make decisions, but how do you actually automate more of that so that they can make decisions faster? Because the reality is, I mean, we talked about threats earlier, like our adversaries are doing this. Like, this is happening in very real time. I think you see this, you know, particularly now. So, I think that you've got to, I think it's important to be engaged in the space, but I also think it's important to not be blind and to have serious questions. I mean, when we were at, when I was up out here, we had a whole privacy and civil liberties team. It wasn't just like a, I mean, these guys would have conversations all the time. They would invite hard questions, right? And discourse around this sort of stuff. But I think that's really important. Why two sides? - Well, it's like any tool. I mean, you can use a hammer to build an amazing structure. You could cave somebody's head in, you know, is that the tools fault or is it the person who's wielding it? And I think that's the concern, especially in the modern political area where, certainly seems to be a team sport, as opposed to Team America, not to steal the movie, you know, title, which I don't think that one, any Oscars, but it probably should be reconsidered for such. - It's a piece, there is this answer, it's just an amazing. - It's a pretty good one, it's pretty good. - How many times did you quote that movie in the military? Many? - Oh, I mean, like we're talking per day or per year. - Yeah, exactly. - Yeah, it was, it was quite a bit. Soundtrack would be playing it sometimes. In that team sport, you know, every talking about the law fair, the weaponization of information, I get the concerns because it's this back and forth. And if you have this robust tool and, you know, today we're saying that this particular word or group of people is our enemy, but let's, when the team switches to the other Jersey color, what happens when you become the enemy of the, you know what I mean, that's true. - I think that's the escalating Jacobs a lot of the people are worried about, which I don't have a solution to, again, because I don't only have a deep understanding of these systems, but it's pretty gnarly, it's pretty scary. - Yeah, I mean, I think you, I think you hit on an interesting, like just the polarization of these two sides is, I don't think reflective of how most Americans feel. - I agree. In my day to day life, even people who would, the metaphorical street, they're on the other side of the street, and maybe they are on other side of political parties, 80 to 90% overlap of things they probably can find common ground on. - Yeah, I mean, that's America, man. - Yeah, you know. - But not online. That's not America for me. - I know, but online's not real. - I know, but that's, well, if you look at where people are experiencing more and more of their life, though, they do think it's real. And if you don't, if you don't put that down, I mean, I think one of the most valuable things of my military service was traveling. It's seeing-- - Oh, 100%. - Seeing with my own eyes, the stark differences between what could be presented about somewhere versus lived experiences in that environment. 'Cause at least it gives you a little bit more of a refined bullshit detector. - I think that totally shaped my perspective in the world. Did you leave the country before you were in the military? - I went to the Cayman Islands one time. - I don't think that counts. - I mean, you said that I leave the country. I mean, technically that does, I went on a cruise to Alaska, which I vaguely remember. My grandfather was so pissed at me. 'Cause I believe the tab I had for Shirley Tumbles was $460 to like $500, guys. - In my defense, I'm pretty sure he said, order whatever you want. I wasn't even getting out of the pool anymore. I would just be-- - I thought he got the everything. - Auction. - From the cruise. - Listen, I think I was nine at the time. So you're gonna, let's, you know what I mean, maybe be a little bit more clear with your guidance. Also, you didn't see me crushing all these Shirley Tumbles and wondering, yeah, I didn't have any money. - Yeah. (laughing) I mean, I went to Mexico. My, hilariously, my grandparents would, they would leave Cleveland in the winter and they would go down to Texas. Like, there was called the Tipa Texas RV Resort. It was a trailer park. Down in Brownsville, Texas. - True Americana. - Which like now, Brownsville is like, you know, a little dicey down there. - Yeah. - But we would, my first experience was going over to Mexico and just seeing like, poverty. - Yeah. - Like my grandma always used to say like, and she was an incredible woman. Like just, I mean, there was a time in her life where like the Navy during the Korean War forgot to like pay my grandpa, right? For like six months. And she's like-- - Fortunate. - She's like, you don't understand like, when we didn't have money, like we didn't have month, there was nothing. Like we went to church to get food, right? Just like incredible, but one of the most positive people I've ever met, right? And I remember going down there with them and just like getting that sort of perspective. But to your point, traveling in the military, going in the Middle East, going to Africa, going to Asia, all that, you realize how damn lucky we are. And I think like that's the thing that frustrates me sometimes in the current discourse is like, I think people realize that. I think people realize like there's, it's so easy to just sit behind a keyboard and hurt all shit at people. - Yeah. And I don't think people realize like how good of a thing we got going. - I would agree and I don't know how to change their mind. I don't even attempt to because I feel like online and these platforms are, they're almost designed to be more megaphone's and I think intentionally than to be for actual meaningful discourse. Conversations are hard to follow. It doesn't, you know, like it just parsed out. - Yep. - Yeah, I don't, I don't know how to show people that other than to talk about my own experiences, which people can discount or disregard if they want to, but I think it, I mean, I think there's a huge parenting aspect to this. Like I don't know, did you like your kids, when did you like your kids on social media? - Oh, social media. - Or just get a cell phone. My son asked me when you get a cell phone, he's 10. I'm like, dude, I was like 23. So. - Yes, because cell phones don't exist until you were 23. - Well, we didn't. - Hey, man. (laughing) - It wasn't even an option. - The old man, River, do you remember calling your parents to collect the cell phone and being like, please leave a message for it, and you'd be like, mom, come pick me up and ask for my practice click. - I remember the first cell phone I got was a flip phone that had the one you had to bite with your little antenna. - Yeah, I think I had. - The black one with the battery on top? - Probably. - Yeah, I remember. - I think I had my first cell phone plan might have been 60 minutes per month, or maybe a hundred, but free weekends. So you had to really think. - You had to really think, or text messaging. I remember I blew the bill out of the water one more. It was like $79 million a text, something like that. - My dad came and he's like, dude, you spent $400 on text messages. What are you doing? And I was like, I didn't know that they were. - Yeah, so that's when I got my own cell phone plan. - Yeah, so I'll pay for that myself, sorry. - My children don't remember the world where it wasn't the digital age. I remember specifically the first time, it was my senior year in high school. I went to a computer classes. I think the first time I ever got online and then I remember playing God, the flight simulators. But it was tough at the house because I needed the phone line. - Yeah, oh my God. - My children, first off, don't understand the crucible and forging, arguing with a family of more. - Hold it off the phone. - As you're mindless. - I need to have 1996 dial up internet speed of just scroll wheel of death, 1%, and you're like, fuck yeah, 2%, God. My children have no understanding of that. - I think the cell phones for them, for us it was around when they started being out much more with their social circles. - Sure. - Probably right around the teenage years. Social media, probably in the high school, era I would say. - That worries me as a dad, right? Because you've said this before, it's like that is not real. - It's not real and for everybody who thinks that a cell phone or a smartphone is giving your child access to the world, I would caution you because it's giving the world access to your kid. - 100%. - And it's gnarly. And there are even here locally, there are examples. examples of young men and women who sextortion type stuff. Yeah. And I get it. Ah, God, I can't even fathom living life as myself, looking back at myself. Could I have gotten talked into sending some pictures I regretted if I'm being honest more than likely. It would have depended on the potential reward on the other end of that. But then the threat of embarrassing you to your, and everybody that you may know and it lives online forever. Yeah. But I can't even fathom that. I know. I was talking with, was I talking with you, Michael? It was the younger generations now, they're dancing less. Which may seem like an irrelevant metric, but they're afraid to do so because everything is recorded. And they know if they are vulnerable, like they go out there and, you know, maybe their moves are a little bit off. Yeah. It's going to live forever. They're going to get make fun of. They approach the opposite sex because if they, if they, they fumble, which by the way, you need to fumble at me a total jackass approaching the opposite sex. Without those reps. Did they even approach, like, oh, it's all, it's less likely and I'm not saying all of it is based on the ability for things to be filmed and live forever, but I think that is corollary to that. Yeah. And that is a gnarly shift in human behavior. Yeah. I think it's interesting, though, that people are, I think people are much more aware of this. I think parents are much more aware of this now. I mean, I feel like not a week goes by where you don't hear about some crazy, you know, online game that's a predator, haven or something like that. But it's that, I don't know, man, it's, um, it's something that worries me as a dad. It's something I think it should, I think the best that you can do, how old are your children? 11 and six, 11 and six, sorry, William, my bad. Just turned 11. I'll be exacting all this. It's okay. I remember the things I worried about with my children at that age, yeah, were far less complex than the things I worry about now. Yeah. You still have drug sex alcohol in the pipeline. Oh, my God. I know. I know. I know, dude. Just be helpful and maybe it won't all happen in the same day, you know, in the same event. Yeah. Then there's driving. The thing I'm, my son literally like last week was like, hey, dad, I'm getting hair on my legs. I was like, all right, bud, great. Good. Thank you for the update. Yes. Yeah. Jack, can I use your deodorant? I'm like, I'd prefer not. Like I bought you two things of it, like I don't totally don't smell, man, you're fine. So they're a lot. I mean, I remember living through that phase of my life, it's hard enough. I can't fathom the interconnectedness and the one thing that I saw in all three of my kids, maybe more so in my daughter when she was younger is, you know, when we came home pre-internet, even if you had your arch enemy at school, you got a reprieve, you got to come home. Sure, I guess they could come to your house, but then your dad's going to go out there and do dad shit. Yeah. You know, they can call your house and your mom's going to pick up and do the t-shirt. Yeah. That's doing dad shit. But your mom would be like, fuck you, Johnny. You know, I'm going to talk to your mom next time I see you like hang up, right? Yeah. You'd have to go deal with it the next day, but I tell you what, you have that interconnectedness in 24 hour alerts on your phone, which disturbs rest, which disturbs thought process, and it can seem like things are existential totally not. I mean, this is where I think anxiety rates are so high with children now, where you're like, because they're thinking about this stuff all the time, they're processing this all time. I also look, I talked about this a little bit, but I'm a huge fan. I think the thing we lack in society right now is that sort of tribal parent, right? I mean, this is like what we, I was what I came up with. My uncles were like dads to me. Yeah. You had extended family eyes everywhere. Totally. Part of it for you to get away with shit. Yeah. And I mean, to be clear, we moved away from Ohio, but I still like, I remember my uncle calling me, my uncle Tim calling me one time, be like, you listen to me right now. And I was like, okay. Yeah. Right. Well, they can take a tone intact that the direct parents probably shouldn't. Yeah. And I mean, I didn't know all that stuff was going back to my mom, but found that out later. Yeah. So we, I've found a bit more of this, particularly we're very fortunate to be in a great Catholic school system. And I found a little bit was small. Yeah. And the parents are, you know, we don't agree on everything, but we're directionally aligned. Right? We have a common sort of shared values set in principles that I think is really important to us. And we all know each other. I mean, I coach these kids in basketball. I know every single boy in that class, you know. And to me, like, that's, I think it's really important. I think like you and, you know, I got buddies where it's like, uh, yeah, my son's being a goof ball. It'll be like William knocking it off. Yeah. And I'm like, yeah, do it. Right? They're going to listen to you before they're going to listen to you or call their football. I mean, I still remember it last year I called the my son's football coach and I was like, hand you to give a little tough love here because we're struggling in school. And he's like, I got it, man. Right. So I hope I have like a positive outlook on the generation that's coming up. I did too. I'm seeing, you know, I see this in our, in our business where folks want to work on important things. I see this where kids are, you know, have a healthy skepticism in, in, I think, a fairway. Yeah. And I see this where parents are, you know, plugging in more, right? And they're available more to be clear, um, hopefully, right? It does seem like the world has become a place where, you know, parents are around their kids more. You don't necessarily, I mean, you can, you know, obviously now there's like a bigger push to come back and office and stuff. But for a while, COVID sort of blew that, which by the way, kindergarten gym class during COVID via Zoom. Wait a minute. What? Oh, bro. How do you even, hold on. How do you, how does gym class, wouldn't you have to leave the visible camera angle to go do anything? What a, what a crazy time of life with a newborn at home and then gym class. Yeah. They did about a year and a half of, uh, Zoom school up here and my children are not better for that, you know, it, the system wasn't prepared for that. I really bad for, I mean, man, a neighbor who graduated high school during that time, right? I remember seeing them taking a photo out on his front porch, he's like throwing his hat. I've seen it where they did, you know, you would drive up individual cars, you would get your, uh, diploma, what a time. It was so bizarre. I, that was my grandma really started to take a downturn during that time, which is a bummer. Yes. She was sharp as a tack for so long, um, and just that isolation was, do you think we learned anything as a country from that time? I mean, I hope so. Um, I think we, I hope we learn the importance of family and human contact and how dangerous isolation is totally, right? I hope we learn that, right? The, the thing I worry about is, uh, you know, if something like that happens again, then what, like, cause they're, you know, I think, cause there are real, certainly real threats out there. There are real threats out there. And I think the level of distrust in the government, whether right or wrong, justified or unjustified, accelerated rapidly during that time period, yeah, I think so. And the government was doing its best job to step over its dick, which doesn't help. Yeah. I mean, and also, I think, I think that's a, I think that's a broad, certainly broad generalization. Like there are people who, you know, which I, I think most of the people that I've, I've interfaced with in government are trying to do the right thing. 100% right? They're in the, you know, they're in that role or doing that job because they care about the mission. They care about what they're doing. Um, yes, like I tell everybody, I still do like initial counseling when people, when I hire people, and I'm like, assume good intent. Like most people, 99.9% of the people wake up in the morning are not like, man, I really want to fuck up my job today. Right? Like, they're interesting, you know, trying to work my way up the corporate ladder head space to start your day with for a long term trajectory, I'm going to fuck up my job today. And what can I do today to perform? Yeah. I mean, but, you know, you see that sometimes people are like, oh, you're like, let's give the benefit of the doubt here. Biggest mistake that I think the government and government officials made is they were trying to speak from a position of authority. And instead of just saying, this is the best that we know right now today, or we don't know, they would be very directive and this is what we need to do. And then that would, as soon as that started shifting back and forth, the metronome started swinging, they would have just been better off to be honest. Yeah. I think being straightforward, and I mean, you know, that's a great life lesson, too. Yeah. And it's like, hey man, I don't know. Yeah. We're working on it. It's a rapidly evolving situation. I mean, look, I have, I have a lot of empathy for the folks that were doing Operation Warp Speed and running all these things. Oh, for sure. Can you imagine the pressure associated with that? No, I can't. Having said that, though, if you don't have the answer, just tell me you don't have the answer yet. We're working on it. Yeah. Now, this is, okay. This is what it is. Okay. This is what it is. And that deviation and gap, that's what throws people for a lot. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, like, I mean, to your point, I don't know, what do you think? What do you think we've learned from that time? I mean, I think the biggest thing is how dangerous isolation can be. Yeah. And I think another thing is how powerful information and narratives can become very, very quickly. Very quickly. And decisions can be made off of those narratives. And, you know, I don't think we took it to a place where we couldn't course correct, but I can see a future where that could happen and maybe a decision. I don't know whether it's a chem bio-nuclear response, whatever it may be. Some of those things, you let that off the chain, that's not coming back. go on. Yeah. So I would say probably those two things stick out to me the most. And I will say, and I don't mean this negatively towards anybody, but I think people were far less resilient than they probably thought they were prepared for the unknown. There was a lot of people out there acting in pure fear. And I think they got hopefully a good snapshot of the mindset and who they are when pressed into that unknown, which was our job often going into the unknown. You learn how to deal with it, right? You can maintain your critical objective thinking, but toilet papers are a good example. There was always enough toilet paper. I know. Unless you go to fucking Costco and buy 10 people's worth of toilet paper, but why do you do that? Because you're scared. And it's fear of the unknown. And so you are taking actions and making decisions in that space where they probably had never been before. So now there are people trying to still sell COVID-19 toilet paper on eBay. No, you know, I still have a, I was up in our, we had a shelf up in our garage and I found like a 10 things of Chlorox wipes. God. And I was like, oh, is that guy for a little bit? Save it though. You know, I, like, we had my in-laws came and lived with us for a little bit because they were on the East Coast. Yeah. In New York was like blown up, right? And you're like, okay, get out, come with us, right? And I, a kid with some health thing. So I was like, my wife called me hunter gather, right? Because I was like, I'll go to the store. Yep. I will get the supplies. Yeah. What do you think about that? I mean, you're like, man, it makes you rethink. Yeah. I mean, I, similarly, I think where we live in here too, right? I think about this often with like the wild fire danger too. We were on pre-evacuation, like three years ago, there's big fire up near Boulder. And I mean, you learn a lot about what you value. Yeah. In your home. When somebody's like, hey, you have three minutes. Like, let's go. And you, to your point, it's like, holy shit, am I prepared for these things? Yeah. You have three minutes of your kids, right? Let me get my gaming computer. Holy riously, my wife's gonna kill me for saying this, but she like, we're like throwing stuff in the car. And then after we didn't actually evacuate, which was nice. Yeah. My mother-in-laws helping us unpack. Isn't that a fascinating exercise though? If you were going to take it with you to evacuate and all the rest of it was bullshit. Like, why do we have this? Just spend time with those thoughts people. Yep. But my mother-in-laws helping us unpack. And she's like, "Cathern, you didn't pack any clothes for the kids." My wife's like, we can buy those. We'll be fine. Like, I was in those zone. I was like, damn. Respect. Credit cards do solve a lot of real-world problems. She's like, we can go to, we can go to Target. We can get pajamas. We'll be fine. Yeah. But yeah. Interesting. Interesting times, man. Does it feel like it was four or five years ago? No. There's a weird time warp. There is a weird time. I think there's like actual evidence of this. People measure time differently. I felt like there was a study that came out that actually talked to me. We could make one up and just talk like experts about it. We could pretend. Because we know what we're talking about. Sometimes. Take our word for it. Yeah. No. I mean, yeah, it felt like I had to think about that the other day. It feels like it was so long ago too. But you're also like, oh my gosh, a lot has changed, you know? Hopefully for the better. Yeah. It was a really good, I think, look in the mirror for people. Yeah. And I hope the objective, and I'm not, and again, not throwing shade at anybody. But that's a great chance to do an AAR. How did we do? How did we do individually? How did we think about things differently as a family? Those evacuation drills, like, wow. Yeah. We left almost everything behind. Yeah. Would life be better without most of those everythings? Not for me to say, but I tell you what, I love throwing things away. My wife isn't home. She admitted to me, I think Michael was in the room. She goes into the garbage when I'm not home and takes stuff back out. Oh, really? Son of a bitch. I thought I was going to have this moment. I'm like, I just want to tell you, sweetheart, that when you're gone, she's like, I know. What you don't know is I put it back in the house. Like, fuck, checkmate. Which is good. She's like, but I leave you a large pile of Amazon boxes. Breakdown. Totally. How do you know it's time to leave Palantir? How do you make those decisions in the business world? Great question. I think, you know, I'd been at Palantir for as long as I was in military. And for me, it just, again, I had that moment. There was no like, like, great moment of like, oh, man, this is not, I mean, I have, again, I, it was a great time at that company. I learned so much, but I wanted to try something new. And I wanted to get into the startup space. I thought that was my ability to maybe take on more ownership, really, really drive that. So I did. Do you mean ownership by equity or just control? No, just, just like ownership of, of problems, the building of business. Like a flash to bang. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which I think is so critical in the startup space. Like, you got to have folks who have high integrity, high ownership, right? Like, because you're wearing a bunch of different hats, you also have to have a massively low ego. There's this great article. One of the venture firms put out, I think it was first round capital, put it out. It's called giving away your legos. Right? How to scale in an organization. And I reference this a lot with our team, right? It's like, you're always trying, you know, and one of my mentors once says to me, he's like, everything I built, I've given away, right? Everything that mattered, right? And when you're in a rapidly growing organization, you have to do that, right? The opposite of that is the people who kingdom build or turf grab, right? And it's just like, that just doesn't work. Yeah. You always have to be like, okay, is this, is this actually a job that somebody needs to own full, full time? Right? Is this something that I'm not good at? One of the biggest things I think I learned at Palantir was like, we often talked about leaning into strengths, right? Hey, what do you exceptional at? Do that. Yeah, right? Maybe let me remove some of this other stuff that's not in your core competency. Find somebody else who that, what you're not good at, they're great at. Well, it's like, you are, you're going to spend more time trying to shore up a weakness. Just like find someone who's good at that and have them do it, right? And so I've taken that forward with me. I mean, you know, I give this example to folks all the time. We have our, our CFO, our company is amazing. I'm not a CFO, right? It's be fun to drive for a few days. It's like, it's a thing. You're not there. In QuickBooks, like, what if I just drive, how do I make a pivot table? What, we, I need to recategorize this multi-million dollar expense. John, we call them the master coin. Shout out to the master coin. No, but it's like, you know, there's a world where like, we could compete. But it's like, we are, we are tight because I know what I'm good at. He knows what he's good at. You know, it's like my conversation with my team, Sergeant Man. It's like, hey, here's the lanes. Like, let's go out and execute. And the reality is like me trying to be as good as him at that thing is actually not worth the investment. Like, I should just go do the things I'm good at and let him do the things he's good at. So, I don't know, I went, I segwayed there. No, I was just asking, it makes sense. I think I would feel the same way too. I've never done any ventures into the business world like you're talking about, like a major established company. One of the things I've determined is, I don't ever want to work for anybody else again, really. I describe working for yourself as being the warden of your own prison. If you don't like the view, you can move the walls around. Yeah. But you have to go into the bathroom and look in the mirror to find the guy when things aren't going well. Yeah. Turn that light in like, oh, there you are. Your partnership's scary. It is incredibly scary. But I'd rather spend sleepless, anxious nights about that stuff than work for somebody else. Not that I don't think I could be a good employee for somebody else. I just really enjoyed the freedom that it allows me. And no right answer. Yeah, right? Yeah, I mean, again, what works for me may not work for you or for anybody else, which is why I always say I'm not here to tell anybody how to live their life. I can answer questions based off my own experience and that's about it. Yeah. But also, the things that I have done in the path I have taken, probably not a great fit for a lot of people. And there are probably people who could really say, well, that was a weird curve you made. I'll just go straight. And you should do that, by the way. It works for you totally. But I don't know, man, some of the most interesting people that I've ever known have career paths to make no sense. Oh, I'm thankful for the ridiculous turns, twists and turns, the stuff that I've done that I'll never do again. Because you get something from all of that. 100%. Yeah. Yeah. And it makes you better in the long term. Yep. You know, so what is your company up to these days? So I'm at ASI, Airspace Intelligence. We're doing some cool stuff, software company. We're building software engines for critical industry. What does that mean? Right. We started off in the commercial airlines, working with the department of war, working in the energy sector. What were you doing with the commercial airlines? How did you guys start off there? Yeah. I mean, I think the reality is we got close to the problem, right? Try to understand, okay, how are commercial airlines optimizing their flights? How are they managing their nodes? All that sort of stuff. Were you working with the carriers at that time or the FAA? The carriers. Okay. And do they just have major just command centers where they're managing the stuff like Delta nodes based network operations centers? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. For sure. So I mean, the main sort of thing for us is like, how do we, first of all, how do we modernize with the technology exists right now? And I think you've seen you know, compute an AI evolve in the last couple of years significantly. You know, to help write better code, to help do legal review, stuff like that, to do trading, right? It's like, how do you actually apply that in the in critical industries? How do you bring some of that together? Because these are these are places where people need to make decisions that really matter. An example I was telling somebody about, I mean, we, you know, thinking about just the grid, the management of the power grid, right? Yeah, I live in Colorado wildfire season. Yeah. Earlier this year, our power just gets shut off for like four days. I was like, what? Yeah, you know, okay, interesting. Like, who made that call, right? And then I go a quarter mile another direction and powers on. It's like, wait, what? Oh, is an intentional decision. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Was it to mitigate fire risk? Correct. Correct. Our grid, you want to spend some time getting anxious. Yeah. Take a look at the strength of our grid. But stuff like that, right? Where it's like, hey, how do you make it like, I mean, thank God, you know, nobody in the houses on dialysis or oxygen or, you know, but we know, I mean, my biggest concern was saving a freezer or meat. Yeah. It was like, as it should be, of course, especially if it was hunted while game. Good meat. Yeah. We did have, we had some milk in there. Yeah, pre-taste. Do you have a generator? I don't. What? I don't. What? I know. I'm sorry. Did you say that you used to be a green bearer? Trust me. My wife was like, dude, you have just failed your operational readiness exercise. You better hook up a fucking spin bike. Yeah. And unconventional warfare, your ass away to power that fridge. And you need to have no, but I mean, we were like, it was, it was actually hilarious. One of my neighbors had a generac. And this was, gosh, one was it must have been like January February, because he's still at his Christmas lights up. So in Denver, you don't take your Christmas lights down until the stock shows over. We have the, the stock show, which is like the big rodeo. Okay, comes to town. That's like the, the rule. What month does that occur? That happens in January. Okay. So he's still at Christmas lights up, put in the, in the winter. I mean, we get massive winds and where I live, it could be a hundred mile an hour, winds, and super dry. So he, he's got the generac going. He's in like the whole neighborhood's dark. And this guy's got Christmas lights, just like, yeah, buddy. And I text him. I'm like, really dude. He's like, he's probably a generator. It's like, listen, would I do have our guns and a lot of bullets? So maybe turn to the flashing lights before your generator becomes my generator. Well, in fairness, I did buy so many of them from him. But yeah, I mean, my wife was like, dude, can we maybe want to get a generator? I was like, yeah, fair enough. So, but that's stuff. I mean, that's, that's super scary, right? I remember, I mean, crazy shit, like going down to the end of the street and like the, all the street lights are out too. And then the power companies coming out and like chain and generators to the street lights. And you're just like, what? Right? And like, we're, you know, the world devalves quickly. Yeah. At that point, right? So that's the, totally right? That's the stuff that, that worries me. And I think that's the stuff where technology is able to, to solve some of those problems, right, to make better decisions. Hey, why are we, you know, from a data processing perspective, you mean, it helps, I think modeling huge things and modeling the domain, right? So what we do really well is we work across geospatial domains, right? Whether, again, it's with airlines at FA, right? But you, you model a set of networks and hubs. And then you have assets that move across that network, right? To those hubs. So you understand the health of the hubs, you understand the network, you understand the asset, right? And you can make decisions to optimize those assets based on environmental variables that are out there, right? Whether wind, I mean, this is what we see in the aviation side, like a lot of times major decisions are made due to weather. Well, they have to be for sure. But I mean, a great example. This is like weather at ground level. It's very different than weather at 30,000 feet, right? So you can, you know, you can just snap a big polygon on a mat and be like, don't go there. Or you can say, hey, there's a way to actually optimize through some of this much better, right? So that's the, that's the kind of work that we're doing right now. And it's, it's cool. We built a, we built an awesome team, too. I think, you know, being able to talk about like, how do you get that feeling back? And I agree, you don't. But you get parts of it. And I think being around, I felt this, you know, in the, when I was at Palantir, I feel it at ASI now, when you have good people and you're working on hard problems, you get some of that back. You really do. And I think that goes to your point on purpose. Yeah, right? There's like, if I'm going to, if I'm going to be in the trenches, solvent hard problems, but I'm with good people doing it, like, that's a pretty rewarding thing. You know, I think that's what most people miss. The, the combination, you know, camaraderie is a combination of suffering and laughter with a group of people you care about. I've never heard it said like that. It's really, I mean, think about it. That's kind of what it is. Yeah. All the training cruisables we go through, yeah, suck intentionally. But also in the middle of the suck, somebody else says something utterly hilarious, which deflates the balloon of stress and makes all of a sudden the unbearable becomes bearable for a short period of time. Dude, I remember you, you sure, can I tell one war story? It's not that war story, but it's hilarious. I remember we were on a mission in Iraq in my, it was like an all day, we called them clips, combat logistics patrol. We were bringing supplies back from one base to another. It was probably like eight hour mission. And we're like maybe three miles from base. And you know, I'm like, leave vehicle. I'm like, all right, this is when bad shit happens like end of the day, like stark out, like we're tired. I can see the barn. Like let's get there, you know, and my gunner just starts like gagging. He's like, and I'm like, I thought he got shot. Like I was like, what the, I'm like, dude, what, what? And he keys the battalion net because you know, we've got these headsets on and you've got, you've got the battalion net that is a command that you've got your internal comms and you've got your local net with with your trucks and all that. Always good to know which net you're on. Oh, buddy, he keys the battalion net goes, I drank my piss. And I swear to God, man, I have not, I was crying. I was laughing so hard. And to your point, it was like, it was one of the funniest moments of my life was this dude was like, I thought, because I went from this like, oh my God, what happened? Why, like did he, did he get shot to like, oh my God, a jackass drink is piss. And we were crying. And it's like, you know, we talk about, you know, missing the, missing the clowns and not the circus sometimes. It's like, yeah, I look back on that stuff pretty fondly. So it's amazing how a little bit of humor interjected into those horrendous environments can just change everything. But I think, I think, you know, that's one thing I wish more vets would bring forward is that humor, right? I think a lot of guys in Gals transition out. And look, it's, it's serious. Obviously, they're like, how do I, how do I provide for my family? How would, you know, you're thinking about hard things? But it's like, you know, don't, don't forget that part of it too. Because that's also what makes it fun. And I, I mean, I see this in companies now too. It's like, if you can laugh with each other to your point, like, you can get through a lot together, you know? So what is ASI building for the FAA now? Because I know you guys just got what I'm going to describe as a massive multi-year contract to rebuild some, some systems that I think most people don't even realize are working behind the scenes right now. Yeah. So we're building a brand new air traffic control system essentially. And the goal is again, you know, I think you have a corpus of people, air traffic controllers, right, that have, have grown up with an iPhone. And our goal is to bring technology, the technology that they have into the, into the future. I mean, bluntly, right? There are a lot of these organizations that are working on, you know, Windows 95 area. I mean, some of it, you know, are you joking when you say that? I'm not joking. I'm not joking. There's some like, there's some very old systems like it is time for modernization. I think this administration has been super forward-leaning. We, I think we've seen over the last 10 years, defense has gone through some of this where like, hey, we need to modernize, we need to keep up with the pacing threats. And now I think you're seeing that in other parts of the government too, which I think is great. And so we were, you know, the FAA ran a process to basically solicit companies to come and demonstrate what they had. I think we're fortunate, you know, we had a system that we were using with the commercial airlines, right? It was deployed at work. So bringing that together to allow air traffic controllers, again, to model that domain, right? Understand the variables that are impacting the network and the nodes. And then being able to look forward in time and say, like, okay, how do we actually de-conflict some of this, right? Whether that's, you know, multiple aircraft in a zone that they shouldn't be in, whether that's mitigating, again, whether, right, delays, flight risk, all that sort of stuff. So it's great. We're super excited about it. It's an honor to be given the opportunity and the company's really pumped. When are you supposed to implement? Yeah, so we'll start to go live in the fall. And then there will be, it's going to be like two-year rollout. Do you go major hubs first or how do you guys plan to roll this thing out? And are we talking? So God, how do we describe the airspace system for people who are unfamiliar with it? Let's just say, okay, so most people have probably traveled on an airplane. Sure. So we can start at a commercial glacial national, international airport, which I think - I think it's the international cousin. - I think we do. flight to Canada once a month. It's not a big deal, we don't have to celebrate it. I mean, I'm not the one who named it that. I'm assuming there's an international flight for somewhere. We are 60 miles from the Canadian, I don't know, maybe as they come in, they arc over the Canadian border, it's hard to say. So, okay, that's a tower control airport. People get on an airplane up front in the cockpit. They're dealing in, I fly Delta, so they're talking to the Delta people probably at Atlanta, right? They have their hub. To back the plane out, they're talking to ground control. So now they're interfacing with the FAA system. They've done a larger airport. Airport, there's probably clearance delivery, which they're interfacing with that. A lot of that now is digital over iPads, they're just going back and forth, but it would be clearance ground. Then you're gonna go to tower, and as you depart up into the airspace, you're probably gonna go to departure control, and then center, and you work your way up to this umbrella of the national aerospace system. And then when you come back down, and this is broad, and I'm just trying to give people an understanding of who you're talking to, you work your way back down from center to approach to the tower, it's a ground, and you wouldn't need to talk to clearance delivery again because you're coming up to the terminal. But that whole way, you're interfacing with the FAA system. So you're gonna start at major hubs with your type, like call it Denver International, which is an assuming where you flew from. - I did. - Yeah, I did. I spent a lot of time at Denver. - Yeah. - That's my favorite airport, by the way. - It's kind of a little better than under construction for 20 years, but-- - And frequently I pass through there because I mostly fly Delta, but I don't really enjoy it when I do pass through. - Yeah, no, we'll roll it out. Look, we're gonna be closely partnered with the FAA on where they, they're gonna dictate where they wanna start with that, right? And I think like, to your point, like this is a massively complex system. You've got incredible air traffic controllers that have a really hard job. - Yeah. - So for us, it's like, hey, how do we actually give them the best technology to do their job, right? That I think has been the core thesis for our work with the FAA. And I think it's gonna be a game changer. I'm excited about it. - What at the end of the day, let's say, even from like a tower controller's perspective, what would your program and software enable them to do? Or would it do more in there? Or is it helping them identify conflicts, which unfortunately you can see things like what just happened at Boston, where Fire Truck came across. That was actually a combination of, I think one controller, and again, I don't wanna speak out of school, but I think one controller, and this does happen, depending on the time of day, and this happens at Glacier International, you might be like, that's odd. I was just talking to ground control, and your voice is very similar on tower. It's the same person. - It's the same person. - Well, it's the same person you may not have enough people. I believe that person was controlling at that time in Boston, ground and tower for that runway. And the Fire Truck came across in the Canadian airplane, and factored it in things that weighed multiple tons. - Well, and there's been, I mean, look, there's been a huge shortage of air traffic controllers as well, right? I mean, I think the administration's in pretty heavily and trying to get more, but it's a hard job. And it's also not a job where you can just start your first day, right? Like the tower at Glacier is a class delta airport, and then there's Charlie, and then there's Bravo, and then there's not an Alpha, that's just airspace that's 18,000 feet above. You have to work your way into all those positions. So it's not like you start at the FAA, and all of a sudden you're a controller, let alone all the other approach and center controllers and all those things, so it takes time. - Yeah, no, for sure. So I mean, we're working with the FAA, we're working with the airlines to be able to again, map out their entire network, the entire national airspace, and then be able to optimize their flights, how they're deconflicting air, right? All that sort of stuff, to ultimately, I think, you know, what does that mean for people? Ultimately, it means less delays, we hope, right? It means, you know, getting to where you want to go on time. And sometimes the interesting thing is sometimes the, the sort of manual answer, like when you're looking at a route and you're saying like, okay, maybe we should go around here. It's like, look, what compute is really good at is actually looking at all those variables and saying like, here are options, right? And sometimes the obvious option isn't the best one, the non-obvious one is maybe, you know, you should go up to 30,000 feet and fly through that. So maybe you should totally go around it and you'll be there quicker, right? So I think what our system's able to do is provide those options to the operators to them make the decisions. Well, that be a whole new interface for the controllers. It's a software platform that they'll use. Damn, yeah. Do you have controllers and FAA people helping you with the design aspect of that of what's best for them to look at, what they want to see, the most valuable information? I mean, that was part of the acquisition process. Like, we had to demonstrate all this stuff to a wide variety of stakeholders there to see, and I think ultimately that's what made us successful. Where's the first place you're gonna roll out? Ah, it's a great question. I have to check. I'm not totally sure at the moment. Okay, fair enough. What advice do you have for people who are interested in the business world, but don't really know much about it? Or specifically, people getting ready to exit the military, and they hear business. I'm going to business school, gonna get that MBA, and then all problems will be solved. What advice do you have? I mean, I have an MBA, and nobody really knows. It was a personal goal. And to be clear, that's because of the industry, I mean, like, if I wanted to go be a banker, it would be a must. My advice is, ask a lot of questions, right? But also, like, don't be transactional, right? There are plenty of people that reach out on LinkedIn. Hey, we'd love to pick your brain, you know? It's like, I generally will try to make time for that as much as I can. The people that I think are the most successful, you know, they'll keep you in the loop. Hey, man, like, I just want to let you know, like, here's where I'm at, like, thanks, that was helpful, you know, that matters. But I think the reality is like, you gotta talk to people. You gotta understand, and not in a, not in a cosplaying way, right? Yeah, like, you gotta be honest with yourself too, and get out of that, like, why could do that? I could do that. Yeah, you could, do you want to? Yeah. Are you going to? Do you want to? Like, think about it. You now have, we talk about, your, Spana control, or what do you call it? Circle of influence, circle of concern. It's like, dude, you have, you can make all the choices now. So what do you want? Right? And again, everybody's got different things they're waiting for. I know guys are like, I gotta, I gotta be in this city because that's where my wife's job is, and now it's her turn. Okay. Well, that's gonna, that's gonna shrink. You know, you've, you've put constraints on yourself, and that's okay to be clear, but like, be realistic now about what's available, right? Or, hey, I want to go into this field. Okay, well, I want to be a banker at Goldman. Well, you better go to like, Wharton and go get an MBA to go do that, 'cause that's part of that side. So I think just understanding and asking questions, and trying to understand, you know, the other thing is like, how do you create value? I think it's really important, right? Like, I see plenty of people, like, oh, I could, I could like open doors here, open doors there, and it's like, most people don't need doors open. They need people who can actually own an outcome, right? So it's like, how do you actually own an outcome? How do you actually create value in an organization? And you might not know when you're in, obviously, 'cause you're like, I don't know, I've never been in this. I think that the DOW has done a great job with like the skill bridge program. I mean, that didn't exist when I actually came after my time. Somebody was talking about it very recently, it sounded amazing. It basically seemed like an internship. It is, that's exactly what it is. And there's a lot of great organizations out there, like if, you know, that will support it, hiring our heroes is one, right? Or they'll do that. I mean, there's a lot of companies that are actual registered skill bridge partners, like we are, but that's a great opportunity. Just like go learn, go absorb, go see, right? And then again, it's like, you might be like, holy shit, this is exactly what I was looking for. You might also be like, holy shit, this is not at all what I was looking for. And it's like, both of those things are useful, you know? But I think like, take advantage of those things. I don't think, I mean, I think about this a lot with like West Point, I didn't take advantage of like, so much of the opportunity that was there, right? To go do things, experience things. I think when you're, you know, when you're getting out, it's similar where you're like, you're making this transition. And there's so many people poised and ready to help you. Frankly, I think it can be overwhelming now, 'cause there's so many options. Like there weren't a lot when you and I were leaving. It was like, I don't know, dude, good luck. Well, there was more than I, it took the time to explore. 100%. And you know, the stuff at West Point you're looking back on now, I wonder if the vast majority of those things you could have participated in, you even knew they existed. No, I mean, so I was trying not to like, fail physics, you know. I wrote a recipe for nachos on my physics final one year. So I did well. My recipe for physics was never attempting it. Yeah, so well, I, well, look, I'm gonna go on one caveat and talk about some of these athletes at the service academies. Obviously, I'm partial to West Point. But I look at, especially in an NIL world, right? You got these guys who are, and girls who are playing D1 sports, taking 23 credit hours, majoring in nuclear engineering, and then going and playing D1 football. I mean, I'm like, I'm in awe of some of these folks that go and do the, I mean, I couldn't, I didn't run the entire time I was there. I just, I had to quit the cross-country team 'cause I was like, I can't do this. Like I'm going to fail out of school. Of course, love you. just so heavy. Oh, it's just, it's hard, man. Like, it's really friggin hard, you know? But I'm always amazed by the people who are able to balance that and do that. So, I don't know, it's my tangent, my plug on Army football. Love those guys. What are you going to do after your time is up at your current venture? You think we'll move on to something else, or is this a longer term play for you? Oh, no. I mean, we're building something special. This is, this is where I'm at. This is where I want to be. Um, you know, at some point in the future, I'll coach basketball and I love coaching basketball. It's a lot of fun. Maybe, maybe be a gym teacher. I don't want you to get into it. It doesn't sound like you played basketball. I played in high school. Okay. Yeah, you couldn't tell. I was six foot two, uh, very average looking. But you said you ran cross country. I'll be honest. I don't know a lot of cross country players that oftentimes, yeah, the fast twitches double to the basketball court. Yeah. Well, I was six, two and eighth grade. So I was awkward. And yeah, I was like the big guy that played in center. And then I never grew more. Yeah. And everybody else did. But, um, no, I, I mean, I played in high school and I love basketball. My dad was a big basketball player too. We still play. I'm lucky enough that my dad is in good health that he can, uh, he can still play one on one with me. How old is he? He's gonna be 70 next year. My turn's 80 in January. Yeah. My dad was a national champion football player though. The dude is like, I mean, again, the man I grew up around this guy was like, I remember walking down the basement. And he had Boston, the band on the record player with like six foot speakers. And he's just like, you know, we had like a Nordic track. And then like one of those, you know, all white weight machines. And he's just like jack and steel, you know? Yeah. That music is actually coming back. I'm a little strong. My son that just turned 20. I mean, you probably know Boston. Don't you Michael? I love Boston. Good. Our generation though, I think is less likely to know Boston than the ones. You think? Yes. Their generation is way more into the music of that era than our generation. It's like our parents. Some people got deep into it. Yeah. And then, you know, my middle sense got records of creed and stuff like, yeah, who are you? So I got a record player in my office. Yeah. In my intent for the record player is I have like a chair in my office. And it's like that I told my son like, look, this is chair. You sit in and you tell me anything. No judgment. Right. We'll put on record. We won't chill. What I like about the record player is like, you can't skip songs. He's like, Dad, can we go to where's the? Can we play Eminence Front? That's the fourth song I was like, you got to play through, buddy. Patience, Iago. Patience, right? So we, uh, but my son, we go to a lot of concerts. I take them. We saw ACDC, which of my first concert with my dad was ACDC. Then I took my son to go see. There's just rage when you went there as a kid. I mean, those guys are old, but they still put on a pretty damn good show. How about when you went with your dad, though, were they still old? Oh, no. I mean, this was, that was in the 90s. So they were, they were, they were old-ish. They were like 50s. Yeah. But they were rocking. I mean, Angus came out on like a flaming dragon, you know, as he does. But no, I love, I mean, we were, so we're at a record store in Denver. And I'm like going through records and I just hear my son. He's like, oh, what's wrong? And he was like, they don't have any who here. I'm just just like, like a little tear. I was like, I'm so, I'm so proud of you. You know, I thought that we were going to be screwed by the next generation, but now I got a lot of hope, man. I actually do too. I got a lot of hope for everything that is going on out there and how we can be bombarded by negativity. I did it as my mission in life to provide positivity. I don't know if I'm somebody who can provide hope for other people, but I am not going to stop trying to provide some positivity. I think we're going to be just fine. Yeah. That's not to say it might not get a little sloppy and messy long the way, but I think we're going to be okay. I think so. Oh, so. I have a lot of faith in not necessarily Michael, but in his generation, you know. Faith is a good thing. Yeah, he understands why I made that comment. And I feel like you would agree in many ways. Yeah, I have agreed in the past. He's actually listening to Boston right now. I have any attention. Hold up your notebook. See, he just draws pictures. Nice. I've said this many times, but oftentimes, he draws hands, and so I fill in the rest of the artwork for him, things that fit into the hands. Oh, boy. Yes, indeed. Like your Ramataes. Indeed. Well, they're not as linear as that. It's a little bit more. Yeah, they're a little bit more bulbous. I think we can get you to your flight. It's only for 33 right now. If you want to give it a try, we could totally do it. We're not for a couple hours. What do you want to leave people with? When do you want to close it out with? I mean, your company already has a ridiculous contract, so it's not like anybody else needs to find you for business. No, I mean, look, business is closed to building a great company. And I think, you know, for folks that are interested in working hard on hard problems, as you say, do you need people? Absolutely. There you go. Who doesn't? Who doesn't need good people? Who are high ownership, high integrity people that want to come solve hard problems? I don't know. It seems like a lot of downside to people like that. No, but look, man, I think let's leave people with like a lot of hope. I think it's the right place then. It's the only thing because I that's not bullshit, too. Like I agree. I hope people like that's not some inauthentic trope. It's something I actually believe. And I feel like we're coming around. And I see it, whether it's, you know, what are, you know, my kids being skeptical of social media, listening to good old rock tunes might are both doing the same thing. They're very wary. They should be. Yeah, they should be. It's there's America. You're supposed to be a little bit skeptical every once in a while. I agree. You know, so we are going to be okay. We're going to figure out our way through it. But that doesn't mean you don't have to do your part, everybody. No, 100 percent, man. Yeah. Get in there. Yeah. Get in the arena. Yeah. I agree with that, for sure. Cool. Well, thanks, man. Yeah, I think we can get you to your flight. I think you're going to be good to go. Thanks, dude. Hell yeah. Appreciate it.