Podcasts about ben franklin

What would it take for you to forgive a neighbor who sided against you in a civil war? And what would you say to win back a community that you had fought against?In our last episode, we explored loyalism across the Atlantic World and met Loyalists who, as serious political actors, had their own ideas about how the British Empire should operate. But the story of Loyalism didn't end with the founding of the United States, nor with the end of the war.In this revisited episode, Rebecca Brannon explores how South Carolina's War for Independence was a true civil war, one that pitted neighbor against neighbor and, in some instances, fathers against sons.Rebecca's Book | WebsiteRECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) written in the form of an extended letter to his son, William Franklin (1730-1813). Ben kept good records of his life and travels, and although he was never President, he still played a crucial part in American history. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin at https://amzn.to/43cp6CV Benjamin Franklin Books available at https://amzn.to/41fUkGD ENJOY Ad-Free content, Bonus episodes, and Extra materials when joining our growing community on https://patreon.com/markvinet SUPPORT this channel by purchasing any product on Amazon using this FREE entry LINK https://amzn.to/3POlrUD (Amazon gives us credit at NO extra charge to you). Mark Vinet's HISTORICAL JESUS podcast at https://parthenonpodcast.com/historical-jesus Mark's TIMELINE video channel: https://youtube.com/c/TIMELINE_MarkVinet Website: https://markvinet.com/podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.vinet.9 X (twitter): https://twitter.com/MarkVinet_HNA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/denarynovels Mark's books: https://amzn.to/3k8qrGM Audio credits: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (Librivox, read by T. Hersant). See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Episode 3 on Danzig, Glenn further explores his creativity and makes maybe the best album of his career! Remember to like and subscribe to our other channels, including: @GhostCultMag @talkingthetalkwithdon @GhostCultKeefy666 @GhostCultLive References: Dad jokes, Roy Thomas Baker, Sammy Hagar, cocaine, The Ben Franklin of RNR, Metallica, Glory Hole etiquette, weather systems, Giger, Star Wars, and more! Buy Don's shirts and support his weed habit! https://southeastofheaven.threadless....Check out our last series on @gunsnroses :   • Guns N Roses

In the late winter of 1775, colonists in a village outside of New York City hoisted the royal standard of King George III 75 feet into the air. The standard raisers signed their names to a proclamation pledging to defend the king and his government. For them, defending the British crown did not mean surrender; it served as a clear statement of what it still meant to be British.In Episode 451, we explored a court-martial trial that allowed us to see how early Americans thought about what it would mean to be an American after independence.In this revisited episode, historian Brad Jones helps us take up the other half of that question: what did it mean to be British during the age of the American Revolution? And why did answers to this question take different forms around the Atlantic World?Brad's BookSUPPORT OUR WORK

Mike Gonzalez says the "Hispanic" box on your census form was invented by bureaucrats in 1977. In this interview, the Cuban-born Heritage fellow walks through how activists turned the promise of a colorblind society on its head, a Census Bureau that fought the new category for years before giving up, a Ford Foundation study where Mexican Americans were offended to be asked if they felt like victims, an activist he says described her hardest job as convincing happy immigrants that America hates them — and why he believes the long march through the institutions now has to be run in reverse. Coming from an immigrant himself, his argument isn't against immigration; it's that America stopped asking immigrants to become American. SPONSOR: Alliance Defending Freedom Gender ideology has reached almost every area of public life, including schools, sports, medical ethics, and religious freedom. Alliance Defending Freedom has created a free five-part video series in which experienced attorneys explain how this ideology is affecting the culture and how you can advocate for your beliefs and freedoms with facts fortified by grace. Get the free series sent to your inbox at https://JoinADF.com/Nick ----- There are big things happening at Blaze, and we'd love for you to join us. You can join now at https://Get.BlazeTV.com/Nick and use promo code “NICK” to get $20 off! ----- GET YOUR MERCH HERE: https://shop.nickjfreitas.com/ BECOME A MEMBER OF THE IC: https://NickJFreitas.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nickjfreitas/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NickFreitasVA Twitter: https://twitter.com/NickJFreitas YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Nickjfreitas TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nickjfreitas3.0 00:00 – Why a Cuban-born immigrant says assimilation is a necessity 01:30 – How affirmative action turned the promise of a colorblind society on its head 05:22 – Why activists lobbied for a "Hispanic" category until OMB caved in 1977 07:49 – Mexican Americans were offended to be asked if they felt like victims 10:23 – Why Marxists gave up on the patriotic worker and turned to race 14:24 – The long march through the institutions hasn't failed, it's winning 16:04 – Bernie Sanders once called open borders a Koch brothers conspiracy 18:36 – Why did Joe Biden throw the border open in 2021? 21:26 – Settlers, immigrants and the "brutal and necessary bargain" of assimilation 24:21 – Gonzalez's Americanization classes in 1970s Queens and the elite that ended them 28:43 – What "a better world is possible" really means: gulags and bread lines 32:32 – Vet visa applicants' social media 37:52 – What culture actually means, from Ben Franklin to the Ten Commandments 40:46 – Every institution has been captured, so run the long march in reverse This is Episode 584 of Making the Argument, published September 22, 2026. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) written in the form of an extended letter to his son, William Franklin (1730-1813). Ben kept good records of his life and travels, and although he was never President, he still played a crucial part in American history. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin at https://amzn.to/43cp6CV Benjamin Franklin Books available at https://amzn.to/41fUkGD ENJOY Ad-Free content, Bonus episodes, and Extra materials when joining our growing community on https://patreon.com/markvinet SUPPORT this channel by purchasing any product on Amazon using this FREE entry LINK https://amzn.to/3POlrUD (Amazon gives us credit at NO extra charge to you). Mark Vinet's HISTORICAL JESUS podcast at https://parthenonpodcast.com/historical-jesus Mark's TIMELINE video channel: https://youtube.com/c/TIMELINE_MarkVinet Website: https://markvinet.com/podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.vinet.9 X (twitter): https://twitter.com/MarkVinet_HNA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/denarynovels Mark's books: https://amzn.to/3k8qrGM Audio credits: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (Librivox, read by T. Hersant). See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What I learned from reading Sam Walton: The Inside Story of America's Richest Man by Vance Trimble. Made possible by: Ramp: https://ramp.com Applovin: https://applovin.com Vanta: https://vanta.com/founders 0:00 — "To him, making money was only a game, a test of his imagination and expertise to see how far he could drive a business concept." 1:35 — "Sam's idea was absurdly simple: buy cheap, sell low, every day, and while doing it with a smile." 2:15 — "If he adopts a business course that doesn't work out, he's neither too vain nor too blind to see his mistake, to say so, and to change his heading one hundred and eighty degrees." 3:34 — "The secret is work, work, work. I taught the boys how to do it." — Sam's father 4:34 — "Sam Walton plunged into this new world of merchandising with the keen and furious dedication of a quarterback who was one touchdown behind with two minutes to go." 5:55 — "Boys, you know we don't make a dime out of the merchandise we sell. We only make our profit out of the paper and string that we save." — J.C. Penney 11:10 — "No, I'm not whipped. I found Newport, and I found the store. I can find another good town and another Ben Franklin. Just wait and see." — Sam Walton, after losing his first store 11:35 — "I insist on buying the building that the store is in. I need control over my own destiny." — Sam Walton, arriving in Bentonville 11:45 — "My store will be number one. It's important for me to be the best. Not one of the best. I must be the best. I want to be the leader in the category I compete in." — Sam Walton 13:05 — "Sometimes hardship can enlighten and inspire." 13:15 — "That same boredom and frustration triggered ideas that eventually bought him billions of dollars." 18:55 — "Many of our best opportunities were created out of necessity, the things that we were forced to learn and do because we started out under financed and under capitalized." — Sam Walton 19:30 — "If they had something good, we copied it." — Sam Walton 24:35 — "This is just part of the education process. I'm still learning." — Sam Walton, on his hands and knees examining a competitor's display 25:00 — "You can make a lot of different mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation, or you can be brilliant and still go out of business if you're too inefficient." — Sam Walton 30:55 — "Remember Walmart's golden rule. Number one, the customer is always right. Number two, if the customer isn't right, refer to rule number one." — Sam Walton 31:35 — "Move from Bentonville? That would be the last thing we'd do unless they run us out of here. The best thing we ever did was to hide back there in the hills and eventually build a company that makes folks want to find us." — Sam Walton 32:05 — "I had no vision of the scope of what I would start, but I always had confidence that as long as we did our work well and were good to our customers, there would be no limit to us." — Sam Walton 32:55 — "He also had a very interesting competitive strategy in the early days. He was like a prizefighter who wanted a great record so he could be in the finals. So what did he do? He went out and fought 42 palookas. And the result was knockout, knockout, knockout—42 times. Walton, being as shrewd as he was, basically broke other small-town merchants in the early days. With his more efficient system, he might not have been able to tackle some titan head-on at the time. But with his better system, he could sure as hell destroy those small-town merchants. And he went around doing it time after time after time. Then, as he got bigger, he started destroying the big boys. Well, that was a very, very shrewd strategy. It's an interesting model of how the scale of things and fanaticism combine to be very powerful." — Charlie Munger on Sam Walton's strategy 37:30 — "We have a low resistance to change. We call it our RC factor." — Sam Walton 39:45 — "Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find your competitive advantage. We rank number one in our industry for the lowest ratio of expenses to sales." — Sam Walton 48:20 — The day the market dropped 500 points and knocked a billion dollars off the value of his stock holdings in Walmart, reporters asked Sam what his reaction to the disaster on Wall Street was. He hadn't heard about it.

American history is in the news a lot these days. We see and hear about fights over monuments, textbooks, and the stories we should include or exclude from our museums and historic markers.What these stories overshadow is the great demand for more history in the United States. A coalition of historians and history organizations noticed this demand and decided to feed it by organizing a new initiative: A We Want More History weekend, which takes place September 25-27.In this bonus episode, we're joined by Beth English, the Executive Director of the Organization of American Historians, and Kate Masur, the John D. MacArthur Professor of History at Northwestern University. The guest historians share more about the origins of the national, coordinated weekend of history programs, how we can get involved, and where to find more information.SUPPORT OUR WORK

AIUC first got our attention with the NFDG backing, and have just announced a $40M series A today, with the most impressive industry advisor list we may have ever seen for an early startup behind AIUC-1, their agent standard backed by real insurance:From being Anthropic's first product hire to building the standards, testing, and insurance infrastructure meant to make frontier AI deployable, Rune Kvist is betting that the biggest constraint on AI adoption won't be capability it will be trust. In this episode, the AIUC cofounder joins swyx and Vibhu to announce a new $40M round and explain why companies like Cursor, Harvey, Lovable, and ElevenLabs are increasingly confronting a problem that gets harder as AI gets better: who is responsible when autonomous systems fail?We go deep on AIUC-1, the emerging standard for agent security, safety, and reliability; how AI agents are stress-tested for jailbreaks, hallucinations, and data leaks; and why Rune thinks standards and insurance could become critical infrastructure for AI. We also discuss the growing trust gap between governments and frontier labs, AI-enabled cyber and biological risks, why every model can ultimately be jailbroken, what happens when a $20 coding agent causes $200M of damage, whether AI engineers should be certified, and why even after AGI there may be one job the labs can never do themselves: be their own watchdog.We discuss:* Why risk, liability, and trust may become the binding constraint on AI adoption* Rune's path from reading the Scaling Laws paper to joining Anthropic in its earliest days* What Anthropic understood about scaling, compute, and the future years before it became obvious* Why Waymo illustrates the gap between AI capability and real-world deployment* AIUC's $40M round and work with Cursor, Harvey, Lovable, ElevenLabs, and other frontier AI companies* AIUC-1: a standard for AI agent security, safety, and reliability* How agents are tested for jailbreaks, hallucinations, and data leakage* Why most AI companies optimize the happy path without seriously stress-testing adversarial cases* Why AI standards may need to update every quarter instead of every decade* The emerging trust gap between frontier AI labs and governments* Cybersecurity, child safety, biological weapons, and the expanding frontier-model risk surface* Why standards and insurance may need to evolve together* How Lloyd's of London can insure AI systems and bring trust to enterprise deployment* What happens if a $20 Cursor subscription contributes to a $200M plane crash* The Air Canada chatbot case and how AI failures are beginning to clarify legal liability* Why copyright may be one of the hardest AI risks to insure* Evals, mechanistic interpretability, monitoring, and models becoming aware they're being tested* The impossible CISO mandate: adopt AI fast, but don't let anything go wrong* Why robotics will make AI liability dramatically more consequential* Whether AI engineers should have Level 1, 2, and 3 certifications* AIUC's roadmap across agents, frontier models, robotics, and universal red teaming* Why AGI could become a question of national sovereignty* Why the labs can never fully serve as their own watchdogs* The Big Short problem: how do you stop competing watchdogs from racing standards to the bottom?Rune Kvist* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/runekvist/* X: https://x.com/RuneKvistAIUC* https://aiuc.comTimestamps00:00:00 AIUC's $40M Round and the Risk Bottleneck for AI00:01:07 From Scaling Laws to Early Anthropic00:07:58 Why Trust, Not Capability, Could Limit AI Adoption00:12:19 Founding AIUC and Building AIUC-100:18:52 How AI Agents Are Audited and Stress-Tested00:25:26 Frontier Models, Government, and the AI Trust Gap00:33:32 Cyber, Child Safety, and AI-Enabled Biological Risk00:38:14 Why Standards and Insurance Belong Together00:41:45 What Does an AI Insurance Policy Actually Cover?00:50:44 The $20 Cursor Subscription and the $200M Plane Crash00:53:53 AI Liability, Monitoring, and Earning Enterprise Trust00:56:21 From AI Agents to Models to Robotics00:58:29 Copyright, Adverse Selection, and AI Insurance01:03:28 Evals, Mechanistic Interpretability, and Eval Awareness01:08:36 The Impossible Enterprise AI Mandate01:11:52 Prediction Markets vs. AI Audits01:14:43 Should AI Engineers Be Certified?01:19:10 AIUC's Roadmap, AGI, and Who Watches the Watchdogs?TranscriptIntroduction: AIUC, the $40M Series A, and Risk as the Adoption BottleneckSwyx [00:00:00]: Okay, we're in the studio with Rune from AIUC, the Artificial Intelligence Underwriting Company, with our trusty co-host, Vibhu. Welcome.Rune Kvist [00:00:10]: Thank you. Thanks for having me. Thank you.Swyx [00:00:11]: What are you announcing today?Rune Kvist [00:00:12]: We have raised $40 million, led by Ribbit Capital and First Harmonic.Swyx [00:00:17]: You first came to my attention when Nat and Daniel invested in you guys. Is the story, like, pretty much the same? Like, what are you today versus what you thought you were back then?Rune Kvist [00:00:26]: When we raised our seed round, we had a hypothesis that at some point risk was going to hold down adoption. At that point in time, that felt kind of hypothetical, and I think that is now over. Clearly, the moment is now with Mythos and Fable. It's pretty obvious that literally the binding constraint on adoption is risk. And so for us, it feels like this is a natural continuation of the same hypothesis, but where previously it was speculation, now it feels like fact.Swyx [00:00:54]: And let's get a list of the customers that you're highlighting as part of your Series A.Rune Kvist [00:00:58]: Totally. Yeah. So we are now working with folks like Cursor, Harvey, Lovable, ElevenLabs.Swyx [00:01:05]: Yeah. Amazing. Congrats.Rune Kvist [00:01:06]: Thank you.Swyx [00:01:07]: So you were famously one of the first hires involved in GTM and product. I'm just kind of curious: what was your path into AI? Just recap.Rune's Path Into AI: Scaling Laws, Capital, and AnthropicRune Kvist [00:01:18]: Yeah.Rune Kvist [00:01:19]: Late 2021, I sold a company, my first company, an edtech company. I had a bit of time to think about what was next. I came across the Scaling Laws paper, and that just struck me like lightning. I was just like, “This is a big idea.” In short, the Scaling Laws paper just says the bigger the model, the smarter the model.Swyx [00:01:38]: So this is the Kaplan one, not the Chinchilla one?Rune Kvist [00:01:40]: Exactly, the Kaplan one.Swyx [00:01:42]: Yeah.Rune Kvist [00:01:42]: And the important thing that clicked for me there was, oh, now capital will understand this. If you put in more money, you get more money out, and so that will kick off a hype cycle. And so you get a sense of predictable returns, which is, in fact, what's played out. And so I just packed my bags. I'd never been to San Francisco. I'd never been there. I just packed my bags, flew out here to find the people who had written it. And at the time, they had just started a small lab called Anthropic. There were around 40 people at the time or so. Drank a bunch of coffee until I eventually got introduced to Dario. And at the time, they were wrestling with some of these questions of, like, should we deploy our models? Should we make revenue? How should we engage with the rest of the world? They'd just broken off from OpenAI, and it's been publicly reported that they were kind of concerned with how they were dealing with deployment. So they were wrestling with some of those questions. At this point, this is early fog of war, like early 2022. The hottest product at the time was, like, Jasper. Like, there's nothing out there. So where value was going to accrue, and what the different parts of the stack were going to be, were all open questions.Swyx [00:02:48]: I want to highlight to people, you ask these questions because you have a PPE background.Rune Kvist [00:02:52]: Yes.Swyx [00:02:52]: I actually was in Singapore in one of the sort of feeder programs for prepping people for PPE. So I had a tutor. We learned, you know, philosophy and politics and economics. But, like, I think your kind of background matters. Machine learning people who read the neural, Scaling Laws paper would not necessarily draw the same conclusions that you did. Whereas any capitalist would read that and go, “Holy s**t.”Rune Kvist [00:03:19]: Correct.Swyx [00:03:20]: Right?Rune Kvist [00:03:21]: Yes.Swyx [00:03:21]: Who tipped you onto that paper? Because it's not a paper that you normally read, right, like, in your circles?Rune Kvist [00:03:26]: Yeah. I think I'd actually, ever since AlphaGo, had some appreciation that AI was a big deal.Swyx [00:03:36]: Yeah.Rune Kvist [00:03:36]: But it kind of felt like it raised all these kind of interesting philosophical questions, but it was kind of not clear from afar where exactly that would go. But it was obvious enough that it was like, this is going to be a big thing if we find the kind of right mechanism to kind of get the techno-capital machine to work on this. But it was just not clear. And so I think there was some way in which, like, that became obvious, and also it wasn't as obvious at the time than it is now, right? Like, it was just like, wow, this is so interesting. But it still felt, coming from kind of a philosophy and economics background, it felt like if this turns out to be true, you're going to be wrestling with all of the big questions in society. Everything you've learned about politics gets thrown out of the window. Everything you've learned about economics at least gets challenged. And so what felt interesting was to be at that frontier that has ramifications across everything. So that's why I sought it out.Swyx [00:04:32]: I mean, clearly really good insight. For people who don't know, the PPE program is, like, where prime ministers are born. So then you end up meeting Dario.Rune Kvist [00:04:41]: Yep. First Dario, yeah.Swyx [00:04:43]: Yeah. Well, I mean, like, so did you get extra insights from talking with them that you didn't get from your original hypothesis?Anthropic's Early Conviction and the Scaling Laws Crystal BallRune Kvist [00:04:50]: If you read the Scaling Laws paper, you get this, like, very vague sketch of like, wow, this seems kind of important. There are some lines on a chart. This seems kind of important. And what I think the team at Anthropic had thought more about than anyone was like, what are the implications of this if you really play this out? And back then they had, kind of vision documents for what the world would look like in 2026, and they were kind of in vivid detail playing out how much compute is going to be needed, what the CapEx was going to look like, what some of the societal concerns were going to be, but also what is the amount of economic value coming out here? And so it kind of felt like they held a crystal ball that in hindsight turned out to just be dramatically correct. And they weren't holding it like they were obviously correct. They were just like, “Take this hypothesis really seriously.”Swyx [00:05:38]: Think it through, yeah.Rune Kvist [00:05:38]: And think it through in the same way as the kind of situational awareness that isSwyx [00:05:43]: Across the street.Rune Kvist [00:05:44]: Across the street.Swyx [00:05:44]: Your office, yeah. Oh my God, we're all living across the street in the same one square mile.Rune Kvist [00:05:50]: Correct. And that's now a couple of years old, but also people keep referencing it these particular weeks with Fable and Mythos, and it's like, wow, if you take this one idea seriously- For the Scaling Laws, a lot of things fall into place.Vibhu [00:06:03]: And keep in mind, at this point, this is the same team that did GPT-1, GPT-2, and GPT-3.Rune Kvist [00:06:08]: Correct.Vibhu [00:06:08]: Which is also, like, it's not just some experimentation. Like, this is a real model that we just scaled up.Rune Kvist [00:06:14]: And they had deep conviction in this idea: if you take a big blob of compute and data, it just wants to learn, and out of that will come smarter and smarter models. And all the particulars were not clear.Vibhu [00:06:26]: Yeah.Rune Kvist [00:06:27]: And all the implications were not clear. But their deep conviction in this, like, core thesis, and that was kind of dizzying. It was both phenomenally interesting and exciting, and also very quickly you get to, like, the world we know today will no longer be if this hypothesis holds. So it also just felt, like, important in some kind of grand sense.Vibhu [00:06:48]: What kind of shaped you there? So that was early 2022. Not only had GPT-1, GPT-2, and GPT-3 come out, but, you know, the amazing founders of Anthropic that have never split up, the only ones, they actually had the conviction to leave OpenAI, start their lab. You said there were about 40 people there. What was the time like there?Inside Early Anthropic: Mission, Deployment, and RiskRune Kvist [00:07:06]: It was kind of remarkably like what it looks like on the outside today. Extremely cohesive, extremely mission-oriented, and living in this tension between their two ideas, which is AI could both go really well and really bad, and we want to be part of building it. That creates astounding amounts of tension. And they were wrestling with this incentive challenge where they know they're in a race that they're in where you might get forced to cut corners, but it also felt very important to them to be at the forefront of technology. And all of those ideas were just present at that time. It kind of feels like that line has been just very clear, and I think kind of love them or hate them, they have really stuck to their guns. There's a core set of beliefs that they hold more deeply than most companies hold any beliefs.Vibhu [00:07:58]: Yeah. Fast-forward to today.Rune Kvist [00:08:00]: Yeah.Vibhu [00:08:00]: What does that lead us to AI underwriting company? What are you up to? What motivated you to start this?From Waymo to AIUC: Confidence Infrastructure for AIRune Kvist [00:08:05]: Yeah. AIUC builds confidence infrastructure for frontier AI through standards and insurance. The link from Anthropic to building confidence infrastructure, looking out the windows at Anthropic offices and seeing Waymos driving by. Already back then, early 2022, Waymos were in some ways like AGI for cars. Like, they were superhuman drivers, but you couldn't take one to the airport. And now, four and a bit years later, you still can't take your Waymo to the airport, despite now everyone having kind of looked at the evidence and being like, “They're better drivers than humans.” So in that particular instance, what's clear is that the binding constraint on AI being useful is not capability, but is that liability or risk or trust. That problem is, general. The reason why right nowRune Kvist [00:08:52]: Fable is not open for access is not because it's not a good model, it's because it's a very good model. It's just hard to make promises about what it will or will not do. And this problem gets worse as AI gets better. Basically, more intelligent AI can be more autonomous. That's more valuable, but also the risk surface grows. And so - what Waymo illustrates is that unless you build the confidence infrastructure to make promises about AI, or at least bring light to the risks, you grind adoption to a halt. Governments, banks, hospitals, militaries need to have some sense of what AI will and will not do to be able to operate for them to incorporate it. And that's the problem that we're trying to solve. Now, why standards and insurance? If you trace this problem back through history, every technology wave has had some version of this problem. So if you go back to, like, year 1900, electricity comesVibhu [00:09:47]: Ben Franklin.Rune Kvist [00:09:48]: Cars burn down, sorry, houses burn down, lots of people die. 1930s, cars are a big deal, kill lots of people. 1950s, private nuclear energy is a big deal, poses big risks. In each of those instances, the market runs ahead of regulation to create confidence infrastructure because that's required to make go/go decisions. That is required for adoption, and the market fundamentally wants adoption. And in all of those instances, common blueprint emerges between standards and insurance. The reason these two components is standards kind of provide the rules of the road, and they also specify, like, what are the tests that need to be run so we can get a sense of how high the risk is. So take in the case of cars, that's like a car crash. Great, everyone, they inform your insurance pricing today, they inform your purchasing decisions, et cetera. That's basically the risk framework. The insurers are important because they pick up the bill. So they are the private institution that is most on the side of. That is best incentivized to quantify the risks truthfully and then figure out all the ways to reduce the risk ‘cause that increases their profit. So they're basically, they help shape the incentives. And these two work really well in unison. Now, how does that show up as a company? Well, one of the things that was obvious even - or starting to become obvious even a couple years ago was that frontier companies, some of our customers today, like Cursor, Sierra, ElevenLabs, Harvey, were going to have a very easy time selling a pilot to a bank. The, like, the demo just sells itself. It's magic. But bringing that through, if you want to do a wall-to-wall rollout at a bank or a hospital, you have to go through the risk process. These banks have no idea even which questions to ask, let alone which answers are sufficient, let alone, like, how do they go and test whether these agents actually work the way they're supposed to. And so they had this problem of, like, what can we say to earn the trust? And we think there's, like, a golden sentence that goes something like, “Hey, I hear you're really worried about hallucinations or jailbreaks or whatever it may be. We've had an independent third party test us against the gold standard. We passed with flying colors. And as a vote of confidence, the world's most conservative insurers have looked at the data.” And they're willing to take some of the risk onto their balance sheet.Swyx [00:12:06]: Yeah.Rune Kvist [00:12:07]: So if something does go wrongSwyx [00:12:07]: There's money behind it, yeah.Rune Kvist [00:12:09]: Exactly. So that's kind of like the link between all this. We can get into some of the hard parts related to the technical testing, which is, I think, the crux of the matter, but I'll pause there.Swyx [00:12:19]: How did you and Rajiv come together? This-- there's always, like, you come across very confident and, you know, and we're announcing your Series A and all these things, but I want to see, like, the early initial stages of, like, idea formation.Cofounding AIUC with Rajiv DattaniRune Kvist [00:12:31]: Yeah. Rajiv is actually my soon-to-be brother-in-law.Swyx [00:12:35]: Oh.Rune Kvist [00:12:36]: So I'm actually, in a week and a half getting married to Rajiv's sister.Swyx [00:12:42]: Okay, now you're tight.Rune Kvist [00:12:44]: Exactly.Swyx [00:12:44]: Now you know.Rune Kvist [00:12:45]: So - Rajiv and I have known each other for a decade. Funny story, I met both Rajiv and his sister, Hena, at the same time when Hena and I were interns at McKinsey in London, and Rajiv was assigned as my mentor. And so met them at the same time. For the longest time, it was not obvious that we were necessarily going to work together. I was in startups. He was, an insurance partner at McKinsey. Three or four years ago, I think Hena convinced him that AI was going to be a really big thing. And so he quit his job, cushy partner job at McKinsey in London, packed his bags, flew to San Francisco, and ended up joining METR. You guys are probably online enoughSwyx [00:13:24]: CEO.Rune Kvist [00:13:24]: Exactly.Swyx [00:13:24]: We've, we've, we've heard of METR.Rune Kvist [00:13:25]: You see the plot-- the chart of the horizons of the tasks that agents can take on is doubling extremely fast. So he was COO at METR, led their partnerships with Anthropic and OpenAI to test their models before release, but also working closely with the US and UK government, to figure out, like, how do you know whether a model can be released? And in some ways, that was, like, the perfect background. He's spent a lot of time in insurance, knows that world, spent a lot of time with frontier testing of models. And so when I was bumbling around this idea space, starting with some of the ideas we talked about related to Waymo, as soon as we got into the content, we were both like, “Oh, this would be an amazing business to build together.” This is wrestling with the problem that we both think is the most important in the world from a market angle, which is kind of our intuitions is that the market can do a lot, and the faster AI moves, the harder it is for government to solve some of these problems. And then it took a little bit of time to work through what is it like to work with family.Swyx [00:14:27]: Sure.Rune Kvist [00:14:27]: And,Swyx [00:14:30]: Because you were already dating at the timeRune Kvist [00:14:31]: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.Swyx [00:14:33]: Yeah.Rune Kvist [00:14:34]: Already back then, itSwyx [00:14:35]: Yeah.Rune Kvist [00:14:35]: We felt like we were a family.Swyx [00:14:36]: Nice.Rune Kvist [00:14:36]: And so starting a business together felt like kind of a big step. And, here we are with just immense amounts of trust.Vibhu [00:14:43]: Yeah. So now you're a company of how big? How big are you guys now?AIUC-1 Certification: Agent Security, Safety, and ReliabilityRune Kvist [00:14:46]: There are just 20 of us now.Vibhu [00:14:47]: 20 of you guys now, have Series A, and you have your first certification out, the AIUC-1. Let's bring up the certification. So this is the agent certification, right? What goes into the process? I have, like, two questions here. One is, walk us through the certification, and two is, what is the process for a company to get certified, you know?Rune Kvist [00:15:08]: Great. As it says right on the top, AIUC-1 is a standard for agent security, safety, and reliability. The fundamental design principle is take all of the concerns that slow down adoption, so all the questions, all the fears that keep, security leaders in the Fortune 1000 up at night, and put them into one comprehensive framework. That's what you'll see there. You can see the six categories. Two, you want to ground all of this in technical testing. So one of the concerns with security standards that often feel kind of like theater paperwork is that they're not actually ground out in, does any of this work? Does any of this matter? And so we had a conviction from early on that was going to be the kind of crux, was to pass this, you must get tested every quarter, basically run thousands of simulations to see, well, so can it actually be jailbroken? How hard is it to jailbreak? How often does it hallucinate? How often does it leak data? Et cetera. And then the last, core idea here, if you scroll up to the top here, is to refresh it quarterly.Rune Kvist [00:16:08]: So the core trait of AI is that it moves extremely fast. Whatever concerns we're discussing today were not the same ones three months ago, and this will keep changing. Typically, standards update on a, like, a decade cycle is obviously not going to work. But the question is kind of how do you update it? And the core thing here was to basically get the risk leaders of the Fortune 1000 around the table. So if you go over to the left hereVibhu [00:16:32]: YeahRune Kvist [00:16:32]: You'll see the AIUC-1 consortium. The consortium is a group of risk leaders who run real banks, real hospitals, real critical infrastructure, who are facing these challenges every day. And we meet with these folks twice a quarter and hear what's top of mind, what is keeping them up at night. There's tremendous amount of desire for that conversation. And then we operationalize that into a specific standard that gets into. And actually, we can go into and look at whatVibhu [00:16:55]: YeahRune Kvist [00:16:55]: What even is the standard. So if we go back to introduction, out there to the left, scroll up a little bit to the wheel, click into reliability. So if you take something like hallucinations sits in reliability. There is a number of requirements here. If you go into the top one, prevent hallucinated outputs, hallucinate outputs, this is one particular requirement. This is a technical control. Basically, we want some kind of ground in this filter. The first thing you see here is what's called a crosswalk. So everyone and their grandmother has put out a framework, very high-level framework for what are the AI risks.Swyx [00:17:27]: This is basically your competition,Rune Kvist [00:17:28]: In some ways our competitionSwyx [00:17:29]: Not seriously, yeah.Rune Kvist [00:17:30]: We're, in fact, friends with them. We'll come back to why.Swyx [00:17:31]: Yeah.Rune Kvist [00:17:32]: But mapping everything together so you have one superset. The claim you're trying to support here is, if you follow this framework, then you can also see how you follow the other frameworks. But the meat of it comes down here in control activities and evidence. So control activities is like, great, you have this high-level requirement. How do you turn that down to something operational? Here's what you must do, and then what is the evidence that we're looking for?Rune Kvist [00:17:57]: And the reason we go this deep is that there's actually not that much confusion about what are the big concerns in AI. Everyone agrees to these. The question, like, what are you actually supposed to do? And so. What we found a lot of demand for is getting down to the specific evidence, that people need to look for. Whether you are Cursor building something or, even JPMorgan building something, but also if you're just a risk leader at JPMorgan, like what exactly should you ask for? What can you ask for without sounding stupid? Like if you ask for some-- you won't believe the amount of time a risk leader has asked for the IP rights to the underlying model to Cursor or something, and you're just like “Sorry, what?” Like,Swyx [00:18:39]: You slip it in there and you seeRune Kvist [00:18:40]: SlipSwyx [00:18:40]: See if you notice.Rune Kvist [00:18:41]: See if they. Exactly.Swyx [00:18:42]: Yeah.Rune Kvist [00:18:42]: Put that in the questionnaire. All right, so that's kind of what our standard is, and we update this every quarter with these folks, to keep up with the latest concerns.Swyx [00:18:51]: Can I double-click on this one?Controls, Evidence, and Third-Party TestingRune Kvist [00:18:52]: Yeah.Swyx [00:18:52]: So first of all, the website's beautiful. Like, it's so confidence-inducing which is the whole point where, like, okay, I know exactly what I'm signing up for when I talk with you. Like, I don't even have to talk to you. I can just see your whole, certification, which is great. But, like, okay, so from here, like D001.1 configure a groundedness filter, how does that get applied? Like, you have a person thatRune Kvist [00:19:16]: Yeah,Swyx [00:19:16]: Goes through it?Rune Kvist [00:19:17]: If you, go backVibhu [00:19:19]: I did see somewhere there's like, you know, fifty-one requirements, a hundred thirty controls. There's like a wholeSwyx [00:19:25]: Right. I just want to. Like, to me, this doesn't translateVibhu [00:19:27]: Yeah.Swyx [00:19:27]: Into a test or an eval.Rune Kvist [00:19:28]: Yes. So if you go into, on the left-hand side. So actually, if - before we go in there are three types of requirements. The first is technical controls, like you must implement some guardrails.Rune Kvist [00:19:42]: Two, there are test controls. So you must have an independent third party go and run some tests against you. I'll show you one of those in a second. And then three, there are policy controls. For example, you must have a person whose name is on the line when you guys f**k up, and you must have a plan for how you tell your customers and how you engage with them. They're kind of more traditional, standard type stuff. So in this particular instance, we just check whether they in fact have a ground in filter. So we will partner with an auditor. So we partner with auditors like KPMG or like Schellman who go in and do the thing auditors do, which is to check the evidence. In this case, that might be a screenshot, it might be part of the code that they need to review to see that it actually. Just that it exists.Swyx [00:20:21]: Oh, okay.Rune Kvist [00:20:22]: And then the second thingSwyx [00:20:22]: So you're not testing the effectiveness of it.Rune Kvist [00:20:24]: That's the second thing. So if you go downSwyx [00:20:25]: Yeah.Rune Kvist [00:20:25]: To the third-party testing for hallucinations out on the left, that's basically the next requirement. This is where we test how well does it actually work.Swyx [00:20:32]: Okay, and is it you testing or the auditor?Rune Kvist [00:20:34]: We test them.Rune Kvist [00:20:35]: We test them.Swyx [00:20:36]: That's a lot of work.Vibhu [00:20:37]: How long does testing take? So if I want to get certified, justCertification Timelines, Remediation, and Quarterly UpdatesRune Kvist [00:20:40]: Yeah.Vibhu [00:20:40]: How long does the end roughly take?Rune Kvist [00:20:42]: Yeah, the end, almost always is dependent on, like, our customers needVibhu [00:20:47]: Yeah.Rune Kvist [00:20:47]: To look something for us. It takes somewhere between, like, 3 to 10 weeksSwyx [00:20:52]: Yeah.Rune Kvist [00:20:52]: Depending on how up to snuff they already are. So some people show up to us with, like, extremely rigorous security programs. When we test them, it works extremely well. We can get that done very quick. Some people come to us, and they're not that far along. We give them kind of the spec that they need to build towards, and then their security teams and engineers get to work and build to meet the standard. The testing itself typically takes a couple of weeks, including the time for them to remediate. Often, we'll find something that we cannot pass, where this is actually just not up to the standard. - you won't pass the standard. And then they will need to go and implement additional safeguards or additional remediation that makes them more robust so that they can actually kind of hand on heart look at their customers in the eyes and say, like, “Hey, we've done truly our very best.”Vibhu [00:21:35]: And they're certified for a year and have quarterly updates?Rune Kvist [00:21:38]: Correct, yeah.Vibhu [00:21:39]: And, yeah, it's pretty interesting. I think, you know, what's changed since. So this is certifying agents in production, right? Your customers, like you've had Lovable, ElevenLabs, Intercom, and they've all gone through this certification.Rune Kvist [00:21:50]: Yes.Vibhu [00:21:51]: What has changed? So I see you post, like, you know, Q2 added MCP agent,How Agent Risks Are Changing: Coding, MCP, and Agent-to-Agent InteractionsRune Kvist [00:21:56]: Yeah.Vibhu [00:21:56]: agent communication. Any other things that you want to kind of highlight since the first iteration? What comes in quarterly?Rune Kvist [00:22:03]: Yeah. So some of the changes have just been agents are not just one thing. So, like, if you take agents like Cursor and compare them to Sierra, they're really quite different. And compare them to Harvey again, compare them to you out of againSwyx [00:22:16]: ElevenLabs, yeah.Rune Kvist [00:22:17]: ElevenLabs, they're all quite different. And so we wanted to design a standard that works for all of the types of agents. And we started with one that was, like, pretty text-based, like, honestly, pretty customer support-focused. That's where there's a lot of existing demand. And then over time, we've picked, some of the frontier companies in each of these other domains that we could work with and build out the standard, so, such that we know that the same standard works for code, it works for customer support, works for automation, et cetera. So that's been one big thing. Yeah, then some of the things that have been top of mind recently, Mythos is bringing up a lot of concerns for security leaders. We're starting to get more and more questions around agent interactions. It's very nascent, at the moment, but it's starting to emerge. There've been a lot of, questions related to OpenClaw and MCP. Again, like agents starting to interact with each other, is really top of mind. Then as coding agents have really taken off, that's also where banks and hospitals, et cetera, are getting more and more precise on what it is they need. So really dialing in as that start to be, like, where most of the tokens flow through in the world, getting much sharper on that.Vibhu [00:23:26]: Can you share for people that are listening that don't really think about this? Like you mentioned, there's the obvious stuff, you know, hallucination, citations. What are best practices that people should do when building agents? Like, if they come to you pretty ready with certification like, you know, they'll probably pass certification. What are the things people don't think about that they should have?Best Practices for Agent Builders: Stress Tests and GuardrailsRune Kvist [00:23:46]: The most important thing is that a lot of companies have not done a serious stress test. They spend most of the time, perhaps rightly so, optimizing for how does it work in the good case, the average case, how high-quality is the output for the customer. And a lot of these companies are pretty new, so they haven't spent a lot of time stress testing the what is there as an adversary on the other side? What are some of the complicated corner cases that you've not really considered? So I think that's, like, a frame of mind. And you'll also see this in startups. It often takes a while until they hire their first security person. They- And that's a whole different kind of risk surface than just building a good product. So a lot of that applies. Most companies actually also have the right kind of architecture. Most of them will have some kind of guardrails in place, either some that come out of the box from their model provider or they'll have built their own filters that sit in between. They just don't work very well. The difference between putting a classifier in place that, like, maybe goes and checks whether you're giving medical advice when you shouldn't and says, “Hey, if this looks like medical advice, filter it out.” Lots of companies have that in place. The question is whether it works. And it's actually pretty fiddly to sit down and think about all the ways in which you could ask for medical advice, read the academic literature on what are the kinds ofRune Kvist [00:25:03]: Framings or tricks you might play to get an AI to give you medical advice when you really shouldn't. And so there's, like, an area of expertise that's just missing. So what we find is that most people have the right building blocks in place. They don'- It doesn'- It's not rocket science, but the finicky thing is, like, getting into the corners and testing whether it works such that you can look your customers in the eye, or maybe a bank or maybe a hospital and be like, “This is going to work for you.”Vibhu [00:25:26]: I see. So we talked a lot about the agent-level certification. Where do you guys go from here? So announcing series A camera, we talked about this a bit. There's the whole security risk of Fable, government stepping in. You guys are kind of announcing that you're also going into model certification?Toward Model Certification: The Government–Lab Trust GapRune Kvist [00:25:46]: When we do a bit of cutting afterwards,Vibhu [00:25:48]: YeahRune Kvist [00:25:48]: We will not yet be announcing this,Vibhu [00:25:49]: NiceRune Kvist [00:25:50]: The question that is top of everyone's minds now is at the model level. And Mythos, then Fable, has really brought this to the fore that in addition to the commercial risk and the kind of economic security risks that are happening at the agent layer, the models are going to present risk in the national security category. The shape of the problem is very similar. You have some people that are on the hook if something goes wrong. In the case of agents, it's often security leaders in the enterprise. In this case, it's the government. They don'- haven't necessarily spent their entire lives thinking about what are the new risks that come here, what is the kind of data you might be looking for, how might you test that? But they do have to make sure that their concerns are addressed. You have some frontier AI companies that are deeply technical. They know a lot about the risks, but they fundamentally have an incentive to not always be truthful. So you have a trust gap between the government and the labs. And in every other industry, you end up with some kind of body sitting between, a neutral third party sitting between those people. There's no other industry where you allow people to audit themselves. So there is going to be a need for a third party that can take the rigor of the labs to run frontier technical evals, but can also speak legible trust in the way that the government trusts PwC to go and run financial audits. And they know that they output audit reports in a way that's consistent, that's easy to read, that's factual, that's, trustworthy. Those two things need to be brought together. And what we've learned from our work with agents is that if you want those-- that communication between those two parties to be smooth, there has to be one common standard that is public, that people can go and inspect. What are the risks that matter? Within each of these risks, what are the kinds of threat models that you're really looking for? You need to specify for each of those risks, what are the guardrails that need to be in place, and what are the tests they need to run to see whether those guardrails are effective? And then you need to go and run audits that are - technical audits that are consistent. So if you're trying to bring trust, it's extremely important that you methodically work your way through the risks. You can't send one researcher in and say, like, “Come back with whatever you find.” You need to be able to explain exactly what you did, exactly what you tried, exactly what you did not try, and therefore the kinds of promises you can and cannot make at the end of it. I think ofNeutral Third Parties, CAISI, and Model Risk AuditsRune Kvist [00:28:13]: Fable as a direct symptom of this problem that the government was told that there's a risk. The government may struggle to assess just how big that risk is. They call Anthropic, and Anthropic is trying to tell them, “Hey, actually, every model can be jailbroken.”Swyx [00:28:28]: That's not what you want to hear, right?Rune Kvist [00:28:32]: As the government, that might be hard to trust.Rune Kvist [00:28:36]: And we think that a broker is the most natural solution. In other markets, you see something like, in financial markets, you see Moody's. Moody's goes in, and they look at a bond, and they output a rating. They say like, “Here's the evidence we found. Here's the rating.” We don't decide whether anyone should buy this bond or not buy this bond. Well, that depends on their risk appetite. But we do provide this common information layer that everyone can rely on. In the case of Moody's, the government, points to them and say, “Hey, pension funds, you should probably really take care. You shouldn't risk your pensioners' money, so you can only invest in triple-A rated bonds.” That means that now the government doesn't have to staff thousands of financial technical experts to rerun forecasts every week to see whether things are correctly rated. They get to point to some neutral third party. So my hypothesis is, my hunch is that you will see a third party that sits between the government and the labs, and it could either be the government builds it themselves. So something like CAISI was set up to do exactly this. And the questionSwyx [00:29:44]: Sorry, I'm not familiar with CAISI.Rune Kvist [00:29:45]: CAISI is the Center for AI Standards and Innovation.Swyx [00:29:49]: Okay.Rune Kvist [00:29:50]: I won't get into the details, but it's a body of NIST that typically sets standards. So it's basically a government body that has AI experts. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.Swyx [00:29:59]: Very key. Very key.Rune Kvist [00:30:00]: Very key.Vibhu [00:30:00]: I think, you know, it's one of those things where when you just sit back and listen-- look at it, like, is there enough technical expertise in the government to measure, test these things right now? Probably not, right? And Fable is a result of, okay, we've had to scale back and pause things,Rune Kvist [00:30:17]: Yeah. And they have excellent people, but they have an extraordinarily small budget compared to the scale of the challenge that's ahead of us. And I think they have a role to play. The question is kind of like, who does what? We have now outlined the jobs to be done, and they're quite extensive. Every model release, there is an astounding-- Given that they take in any input, their risk surface is astounding. And so the question is really: what can only the government do, and what can the market provide here that can keep up with the pace as AI risk changes? Our perspective is that also at the model layer, the risks that people care about today are not the same ones they cared about three months ago. So the pace of legislation is too slow to deal with pinpointing the risks here. And so we think there's a lot that the market can do to surface timely information. Ultimately, there is a bunch of policy decisions here. Is the national security risks of a model too high?Swyx [00:31:12]: Yeah.Rune Kvist [00:31:12]: That's a political answer. But what we want to make sure is that the process that produces this risk information is compatible with very fast innovation. So you don't want to. This is not a question of like, can you slow the things down? Can you keep, the models locked up until-- for months on end until everyone can make a guarantee? But it is this, can you, in the time it. Given that the US is competing with China on releasing models, can you insert risk information that allows the government to, like, make rapid decisions on some of these questions? Balancing that trade-off between failing to adopt AI is going to put us at risk, but also reckless adoption is going to put us at risk. And that's a very kind of fine balance that they're going to need, like, a lot of high-quality intelligence to make.Chinese Models, Data Flows, and National Security ConcernsSwyx [00:31:55]: Just a side mention, because you mentioned Chinese models, any specific concerns that you're hearing from your CISOs about that? ‘cause I guess it's free, but.Rune Kvist [00:32:05]: CISOs have a bunch of concerns around data flows in general that they're really concerned about. So there's a lot of questions like, if these models are Chinese, where does that, where does that data go? I think a lot of this can be addressed, but they come up often.Swyx [00:32:18]: I mean, they understand they're running on American GPUs.Rune Kvist [00:32:21]: Some of them, some of them understand that they're running on American GPUs.Swyx [00:32:23]: They're not, like, phoning home every time you, like, call home.Rune Kvist [00:32:26]: No. A year ago, there was not a lot of understanding of this. I actually think, you're seeing the security leaders becoming kind of AI literate at a blistering pace, and you're actually also seeing my Twitter timeline that's very pilled and my LinkedIn feed that used to not at all be pilled kind of converge. They're both talking about Fable.Swyx [00:32:45]: Right. Yeah, that's true.Rune Kvist [00:32:46]: They are both talking about whether you can prevent models from being jailbroken these days.Swyx [00:32:51]: Yeah.Rune Kvist [00:32:52]: Like national security national security risks are now the conversation that is actually emerging. Other than that, I think you mostly see a kind of general picture: there are no concerns with any particular model or any particular model output, but there is a general nervousness of having critical infrastructure run on models that are not produced in America by Americans where the American government has control.Swyx [00:33:14]: But it doesn't necessarily show up in your framework that directly, or it might, I don't know.Rune Kvist [00:33:18]: There's a bit of stuff in there actually on the, like, the provenance of the models and disclosing that. But I think there's a bunch of use cases where running a Chinese open-source model is just the best solution.Swyx [00:33:27]: Yeah.Rune Kvist [00:33:27]: And a concern is slightly more macro here, which is not best addressed at any particular certification level.Vibhu [00:33:32]: Is there anything interesting that you see at the. You know, if you're trying to fill that middle gap, that mediation gap, any interesting stuff that you guys forecast would be required other than, you know, what the average person might expect?Cyber, Child Safety, Bio Risk, and Expert CoordinationRune Kvist [00:33:47]: There's a bunch of interesting questions about what are the risks that matter here. So right now, the risk of the day is cyber, because it's very real, very tangible. And some of the risks that are also emerging as pretty real and pretty tangible are things like child safety is becoming both extremely important, but also politically important. And then there are some of the risks that are coming down the pipeline that today feel kind of speculative, but people who spend a lot of time with the models see them coming down is things like, risks that relate to biology.Rune Kvist [00:34:18]: And specifically whether models will help adversaries produce biological weapons and making that extremely cheap, extremely accessible, producing-- making the chance of another COVID or worse pandemic. COVID was not engineered to be bad, as if you were trying to do that. So I think those are some of the risks that are coming down the pipeline. I think one other thing to just note is that agents are kind of deliberately narrow. So, like, when a frontier agent company puts a chatbot that interacts with customers, they've really tried to narrow the topics it's interested in talking about. Such that if you ask it, like, “What do you think of the president?” it will just decline, which means that the kind of risk area is somewhat smaller. For models, it is infinite. And so there's not a single expert out there who can competently evaluate the risks of cyberattacks and fifteen-year-olds having month-long conversations with a chatbot and seeing whether it will in fact recommend suicide or something horrendous like that, and can evaluate the risks that terrorists can use AI to produce bioweapons. The risk surface is just too big. And so the central challenge actually becomes how do you get those subject matter experts to work within a one coherent framework that outputs one coherent report and rating that the world can go and inspect? ‘Cause that global perspective is central, but there's not a single organization today that could produce that.Swyx [00:35:47]: And you would be the presumptive one when you put out your model standards.Rune Kvist [00:35:51]: We think there can be one company that can, with a consortium of experts, build one coherent standard. I think we've shown that across all of the enterprise risks today. We think it could be one company that could, with a consortium, specify the audit rules, basically like the inputs and outputs that all these technical experts need. What access do they need? How should they treat infosec- info security? They can look at whether the eval- evals are well-produced without necessarily being able to say, “Hey, is this a threat or not a threat?” But overall, evaluating whether the evals are good, well-constructed, that set of audit rules that basically becomes the interface for all these experts, we think one clearinghouse could put together. To be clear. When I say one company, I think of it as one company coordinating lots of this in the same way that when we saw our consortium, it's not like we say we have all the answers on agent security. What we say is we are taking on the role of eliciting all of the concerns and being the secretary that puts it together and runs a tight house such that the standard updates lockstep every quarter, and that the audit reports that come out, in this case, 100-page audit reports, uniform and crisp and clear all to the level of detail that is required for executives that need to make a clear go/go decision. So that's kind of the role that we think we might play.OWASP, Frameworks, and the Operational Audit LayerSwyx [00:37:11]: I think in many ways you're performing the role that OWASP used to do there, and you said, like, you know, competition and partners.Rune Kvist [00:37:18]: Yeah.Swyx [00:37:19]: Can you go more into, like, how they partner?Rune Kvist [00:37:20]: Yeah. So first of all, OWASP is basically an open source community of security practitioners that are coming together to build frameworks for addressing the latest security concerns. We think they are phenomenal at creating frameworks. We'- In fact, we'- First of all, we're partners with them, so we have a joint article. Two, we've learned a lot from them. We think they're a tremendous source of intelligence. What OWASP does not do is building the machine that runs third-party audits such that a company like Cursor or a company like JPMorgan could get a third party to go and review them against this and say, “Hey, you've passed the standard, and here is the report that you can use to build trust and preempt your partners' or customers' questions.” So they fundamentally try to do something different. You - They are part of the information gathering and intelligence gathering and creating clarity, but the operational layer of turning this into promises is not the business they try to be in.Swyx [00:38:14]: The standard is emerging and is doing very well. Was it necessary to then also do underwriting? Obviously it's in the name, so please remember you thought about it first. I feel like if you just have enough consensus, you don't actually need the money angle, but it does help.Vibhu [00:38:30]: I did want to also note, you guys are a profit company too, right? It's not profit where there's a whole business side to it as well?Why For-Profit Standards and Insurers MatterRune Kvist [00:38:39]: Yeah. Yeah, so I'm just getting crazySwyx [00:38:41]: I think about the money part.Rune Kvist [00:38:42]: Yeah. Yeah, let's get into the money part. Let's start from actually your question, profit versus profit. In the security space today, cybersecurity, most of the standards are produced by nonprofits. I think that's an issue.Rune Kvist [00:39:00]: The question you have to ask yourself is, how do you create good incentives for these standards to be good and keep up?Rune Kvist [00:39:09]: Nonprofits tend to not have these adverse profit incentives where they, hollow out their standard and create a race to the bottom, but they're also not at all responsive by default to the communities that they serve. There's no process-- They don't have customers that they serve where they go and ask, “What do you want? What do you want? What do you want?” And when you look at the overall satisfaction with the security standards today, people tend to just not like them very much. You do see in other domains, that profit standards can serve the world quite well. So there are examples, like we talked about Moody's before. It's not without flaws, but, it is absolutely critical societal infrastructure that gets run at an astounding scale today. Your credit score, it's FICO. It's also a profit business. And when you go back even further in history, some of the crash testing standards came out of insurance companies.Rune Kvist [00:40:06]: The insurance companies together founded the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety because they were very interested in, like, how can we use standards to drive down mortality and save money? Go back, prior-- Our name actually pays homage to the Underwriters Laboratories, UL, which, was started right around when electricity came out. Houses started burning down. Insurers, again, were paying the bill, and they were maybe also good people, but their profit incentive was, let's prevent houses from burning down. Let's test all the electrical products, the light bulbs. All the light bulbs in here are probably tested, the toasters, et cetera. And they set up, an entity to create those standards. Today, UL has a profit entity and a profit entity. What they've recognized, they spun - They started profit. They spun out a profit because what they recognized was like, hey, actually to serve customers well, you need a profit entity. The lesson here is one of the ways that the market can align incentives so you're both responsive to customersRune Kvist [00:41:07]: And not hollowing out your standard over time is to align it with insurers because they fundamentally have good incentives. And so if you're a profit standard that works closely with insurers, you get the feedback loop in such that you're really tuned into your customers, but also have their interest at heart. So that's the model that we - the kind of inspirational model that we've learned a lot from, and that's also where the name comes from. In some ways, the term underwriting can both be associated with insurance, but it's also a broad term for, like, making decisions.Rune Kvist [00:41:40]: If you underwrite a decision, you're fundamentally kind of taking ownership for the consequences of it.AI Insurance Contracts, Lloyd's of London, and ElevenLabsSwyx [00:41:45]: Yeah, I mean, what does an insurance contract look like for AI?Rune Kvist [00:41:49]: Yeah. Most of the demand comes today for insurance contracts is, sitting between people who've built AI and people who are buying AI.Swyx [00:41:56]: Yes.Rune Kvist [00:41:57]: And what you want—the reason why people want insurers involved, both for the traditional reasons, hey, if something goes wrong, we want to be compensated, but it's in particular because insurers can bring trust to the equation. Because insurers will pay for the damages, if they're willing to write an insurance policy, that is them saying, “Hey, we think there is risk here, but that is manageable.” And that is kind of a. Their incentive aligns with the enterprises adopting it, so that's a really a good signal to the market. In the same way, actually, one of the things that Waymo tried to get their first permit to even operate in San Francisco was to get a lot of insurers to stack up a huge insurance policy. In the case if something went wrong, not because Google can't pay, but because it was very valuable to have a third party go and look at that dataRune Kvist [00:42:47]: That are trusted by governments, trusted by enterprises as conservative people and say, “Hey, we've looked at it. We're actually willing to take some of this on our balance sheet.” So that's, that's kind of the reason why people are interested in it. What it looks like is, in some ways like every other insurance contract. You specify what are the perils you want to cover, how much do you want to cover them, like up to what limits, and what does it cost to cover that. And in the case of, if we take a really concrete example, ElevenLabs, bought a first of its kind AI agent insurance policy. They work with some of the biggest, enterprises that work with governments. They're really interested in going above and beyond and making promises to their customers. So they wrote a policy that covers just some of the core concerns that their customers have been asking about. And, the crucial thing was really to get Lloyd's of London, the world's oldest insurer, one of our partners, to look at this data and be that third party alongside us to say, “Hey, we think there's something here that's worth underwriting.” and that's actually what it looks like. And so they will show that contract to their customers, and they can see how much they're covered for. They can see what exactly it covers, and that will also probably change next year. They will want to write an insurance policy that might cover more.Swyx [00:44:04]: When you say Lloyd's, is it reinsurance, or are they sharing somehow at the same level orRune Kvist [00:44:11]: Yeah. So typically, the way, new companies get into insurance is that they partner with insurers such that the insurers take the majority or all of the financial risks. Fundamentally, if insurance is useful, because it brings trust, you have to be able to pay the bill. Lloyd's of London is 400 years old. They've never not paid a claim. They're extremely trusted. What Lloyd's of London struggle to do on their own is to figure out which of the risks are real, what should we be looking for, what are the kinds of technical controls, and running the tests. So they use AIUC-1 as kind of the underwriting framework, and we produce a bunch of eval results that then directly feed in to inform the pricing. So this means that ElevenLabs customers know that payment will be there. They don't have to look to our series A and see, like, do we think they have enough cash on the balance sheet? They will look at Lloyd's.Swyx [00:45:05]: Yeah.Rune Kvist [00:45:05]: Yeah.Swyx [00:45:05]: And Lloyd's, like, famously very creative. I think I remember some headline like, they insured Jennifer Lopez's, butt or something.Rune Kvist [00:45:13]: Correct.Swyx [00:45:13]: Right?Rune Kvist [00:45:13]: And I think, was it, David Beckham's right foot?Swyx [00:45:16]: So, yeah. Right?Rune Kvist [00:45:17]: And stuff like this.Swyx [00:45:18]: So, like, clearly not a large data set.Rune Kvist [00:45:22]: Exactly. It's actually a remarkable institution that's both kind of has some of the truly school virtues of having been around for a long time. They, like, really. They really operate like a trusted entity, and they have appetite to figure out the future. And I think there's a lot of recognition that both there is, like, tremendous amount of risk in AI that is poorly understood today, so getting into this business carries real risks. But also this is where lots of the risk exposure will happen in the future. This is the one market where risk is truly growing. This is the one market that will also take out some of the existing markets. Take, like, auto insurance. When there are no human drivers, how's that market going to look? Well, it's clearly going to change. How are you going to assessSwyx [00:46:08]: You want to insure Waymo?Rune Kvist [00:46:10]: I. All I'll say is the principles for how you insure Waymo are very similar to how you insure other kinds of AI.Swyx [00:46:15]: Right.Rune Kvist [00:46:15]: So again, crash testing, that's what we do for customer share at Lovable. That will also need to happen for Waymo, which is not how you do it for human drivers. So there's this growing awareness that the world is changing very fast, and the only way to learn how to underwrite AI is to write some policies. You may incur some losses and think of that as R&D expense, really. But the question for them is, like, who are the trustedtechnical partners they can get into this business with that can help them navigate and make sure they don't make, kind of foolish mistakes? But also who is willing to hear the wisdom that they have? They've done this before. They've seen it was. They were there when cyber came out. So there are lots of ways in which AI feels completely new, but there's also lots of ways in which risks look the same. And so there's actually a tremendous amount of wisdom sitting in some folks that may have gray hair, but really have, like, a keen sense of, how to quantify risk.Swyx [00:47:08]: Yeah. And the number is. So it's basically like I want fifty million dollars worth of coverage against these perils, and Lloyd's will give you a quote on it, and then you have, like, a small markup or something, and then you turn it around and do that? Is that as simple as it is?Risk Capital, Premiums, and Working with InsurersRune Kvist [00:47:23]: You basically share some of that premium.Swyx [00:47:25]: Yeah.Rune Kvist [00:47:25]: X percent goes to the people who do the pricing of it.Swyx [00:47:28]: You're. It's kind of like a. It's kind of like a merchant bank for insurance type of thing.Rune Kvist [00:47:33]: Exactly. You basically split the fee, and you can think of the insurance supply chain as, like, there's bringing the capital, there is doing the pricing, and there is doing the distribution. And typically, you will pay out some X percent of premium here, Y percent of premium here, and the rest of it will go here.Swyx [00:47:46]: Does all the insurance world work like this, or is there some point at which, like. So if right now you have equity capitalRune Kvist [00:47:51]: Yeah.Swyx [00:47:52]: At some point, maybe you start raising, debt or whatever, and then you have enough of a bank account and enough history, let's say you've been in operation for ten yearsRune Kvist [00:48:00]: Correct.Swyx [00:48:00]: That you don't need Lloyd's anymore?Rune Kvist [00:48:02]: That's totally an option. And I could see some worlds where that makes sense, specifically if there are risks that we feel high confidence that we'd want to insure where the incumbent insurers are too slow to find appetiteSwyx [00:48:13]: Okay.Rune Kvist [00:48:13]: Or simply struggle to evaluate it such that they don't want to do it. But by and large, in general, you do not want to compete with insurers on, bringing risk capital to the game for two reasons. One is that's fundamentally a cost of capital game. They have extremely low cost of capital. Startups have high cost of capital, by and large. And two, you want to hedge your bets, and it's very helpful then to also have a portfolio of home insurance, of car insurance. And we're not about to become a car insurer nor a home insurer.Rune Kvist [00:48:43]: So they have some natural advantages, which makes it much more likely that we'll partner.Swyx [00:48:48]: Yeah.Rune Kvist [00:48:48]: And they bring that, the capital at scale, and we bring the technical expertise.Swyx [00:48:51]: You're, you're going to work with them for a long time.Vibhu [00:48:52]: How are the discussions with the insurers as well? So basically, they're going off of your certification, right? They're trusting the diligence on you that your certification is valid, you tested the right things, and they're backing the money that, you know, you have the right testing in place. So any interesting takeaways from working with insurers?Rune Kvist [00:49:12]: I think the maybe the first thing is they feed into the standard as well. So if there are things that they feel like they need that they're not seeing, we are also taking that as input into the standard, because fundamentally we think a good standard is one that creates a really healthy promise ecosystem, and we think insurers are a critical part of that. And again, they are the most well-incentivized to. They see all the lost data across every. Any particular CISO knows their particular concerns. Insurers see the concerns across the entire portfolio and often have direct access to, like, what exactly happened, who was at fault, et cetera, as they do part of their forensics. So they're actually, like, a great source of intelligence on this. One of the big takeaways from cyber insurance, which is a market that didn't work that well, was that the insurance and the technical expertise was not married up. What our conviction is that standards have to precede insurance. Fundamentally, what everyone first and foremost want, whether you're a CISO at JPMorgan or a CISO at Cursor or an underwriter at Lloyd's of London syndicate, is you want to not have an incidentRune Kvist [00:50:19]: In the first place. You want to know that the risk is well-managed, and only then does insurance start to make sense. So we'll see the standard ecosystem basically run ahead of the insurance. And the reason why we. You asked us kind of why I also do insurance, this is kind of proving what we think a whole promise confidence infrastructure ecosystem needs to look like, and we think it's very compelling to bring that to life, even if we think the standard is kind of the core linchpin that unlocks the rest.Claims, Liability, Air Canada, and Duty of CareSwyx [00:50:44]: There's been no claims yet, right?Rune Kvist [00:50:45]: Nope.Swyx [00:50:46]: This is one of those things where, you know, if people haven't really worked through what it means to cover things.Rune Kvist [00:50:52]: Yeah.Swyx [00:50:52]: So for example, I pay Cursor $20 a month.Rune Kvist [00:50:55]: Yep.Swyx [00:50:56]: And I write a vibe code something that makes, a plane crash, causing $200 million worth of damage.Rune Kvist [00:51:02]: Yes.Swyx [00:51:02]:

In December 1777, Continental Army Colonel David Henley climbed off his horse to discipline a drunk British prisoner of war who was screaming epithets about Americans and vowing to fight for his king. Henley struck the prisoner, one of 6,000 in his care, with his sword.The wound was minor, but Major General John Burgoyne cited this incident when he accused Henley of plotting to murder British prisoners of war. Burgoyne demanded a formal court-martial.Professor Timothy Breen joins us to examine Henley's trial with details from his new book, The American Revolution on Trial. Timothy asks a question most grand narratives of the American Revolution skip past: What did it actually feel like, in real towns among real people, to stop being British? What did it mean to be American?Timothy's BookShow notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/451EPISODE OUTLINE00:00:00 Introduction00:04:43 The 250th Anniversary and the Limits of Grand Narratives00:09:31 How Timothy Found the Henley Court-Martial Transcript00:13:26 Major General John Burgoyne and Aristocratic Privilege00:23:00 Competing Ideas of Honor During the Revolution00:29:53 Inside the Cambridge Prisoner of War Camps00:36:23 The Two Incidents that Led to the Court-Martial00:45:25 The Verdict and What Happened Next for Henley and Burgoyne00:48:37 How Early Americans Judged the Revolution and the New Nation00:53:41 What Happened to the British and German POWs in CambridgeRECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES

Ben Franklin. Rocky. Gritty. Tracy Lord. C.K. Dexter Haven. Macaulay Conner. Sounds like this story is set in Pittsburgh.  *Come support the podcast and get yourself or someone you love a random gift at our merch store.  T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Max Ophüls' Lola Montès (1955).

Being rich can mean having something you still give a damn about doing tomorrow. Purpose doesn't guarantee longevity, but there's solid research associating a stronger sense of purpose with better health and lower mortality risk.

Leave an Amazon Rating or Review for my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy!Check out the full episode: https://greatness.lnk.to/1976DMAn expert on behavior change admits it flat out: academic research still hasn't cracked identity, even though it drives everything.“I'm only this smart, I'm only this capable”, that sentence alone is the ceiling most people never question.Believing you CAN change is its own separate barrier. Not a mindset detail, a prerequisite.Housekeepers were split into two groups. One group was told their job counts as CDC-recommended exercise. Same work, same hours.A month later: that group had lost more weight and had better blood pressure. Nobody changed their job. They changed their belief.The placebo effect isn't just sugar pills. It's a hotel vacuum being reframed as a workout.Katy Milkman now volunteers to run down from her roof deck for forgotten ketchup, just to get the “extra exercise” from her townhouse stairs.Growth mindset is basically an identity fight: are you someone who can grow, or someone who's just “this capable”?The wildest part came from a children's book about Ben Franklin exposing a French con man named Mesmer, which is where the word “mesmerizing” comes from.Change your story about who you are, and your choices, stairs instead of elevator, leaning in instead of standing back, start changing themselves.Sign up for the Greatness newsletter: http://www.greatness.com/newsletter Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

British King James I granted the Virginia Company of London a charter. A year later in 1607, this privately-funded, joint-stock company established the first, permanent English colony in North America at Jamestown, in the colony of Virginia. How much money did it have to raise to support its colonial venture, and from whom did it raise this capital? E248. Check out the YouTube version of this episode at https://youtu.be/4PnOjfGi_B8 which has accompanying visuals including maps, charts, timelines, photos, illustrations, and diagrams. The Virginia Venture by Misha Ewen available at https://amzn.to/46itO0f Ben Franklin's World podcast available at https://amzn.to/48kqMKW Jamestown products available at https://amzn.to/3RW5kEm ENJOY Ad-Free content, Bonus episodes, and Extra materials when joining our growing community on https://patreon.com/markvinet SUPPORT this channel by purchasing any product on Amazon using this FREE entry LINK https://amzn.to/3POlrUD (Amazon gives us credit at NO extra charge to you). Mark Vinet's HISTORICAL JESUS podcast at https://parthenonpodcast.com/historical-jesus Mark's TIMELINE video channel: https://youtube.com/c/TIMELINE_MarkVinet Website: https://markvinet.com/podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.vinet.9 X (twitter): https://twitter.com/MarkVinet_HNA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/denarynovels Mark's books: https://amzn.to/3k8qrGM Audio credits: Ben Franklin's World podcast (Episode 355; Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture). Audio excerpts reproduced under the Fair Use (Fair Dealings) Legal Doctrine for purposes such as criticism, comment, teaching, education, scholarship, research and news reporting.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Maddy is fresh off filming her stand-up special in Philly and is here to tell you all about it! Plus, stay tuned for discussions about the news, autumnal plans, a good old game of 'Sound Off', and more! Follow Maddy:https://www.youtube.com/@maddysmithcomedyhttps://www.instagram.com/somaddysmith/?hl=enhttps://www.tiktok.com/@somaddysmith?lang=enhttps://maddysmithcomedy.com/Subscribe/follow the Mad House Podcast:https://www.youtube.com/@madhouse_podcasthttps://www.instagram.com/mad_house_podcast/All tour dates: https://punchup.live/maddysmith/ticketsWant more ad-free and uncensored Mad House?!Go to https://gasdigital.com/ to subscribe!Use promo code MAD to save big on your membership :)Get early access to our weekly episodes on Tuesdays, along with EXCLUSIVE episodes on Thursdays.UPCOMING STAND UP DATES:9/11-9/12 JACKSONVILLE, FL10/1-10/2 CARY, NCSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What caused the American Revolution? Taxation without representation? Colonies that had outgrown their dependence on the British Empire? Or something harder to see: a quarrel about power itself and about what a government may rightly do to the people it governs?In 1967, Bernard Bailyn published The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, a book he built out of more than 400 pamphlets, and one historians have been arguing with ever since. In this revisited conversation from Episode 152, Professor Bailyn explains why he never accepted a purely economic explanation for the Revolution, where the revolutionaries' ideas actually came from, and why colonists rationally concluded that the British government was concealing a conspiracy against their liberties.Bernard Bailyn's Wikipedia Page | Book |Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/152 RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) written in the form of an extended letter to his son, William Franklin (1730-1813). Ben kept good records of his life and travels, and although he was never President, he still played a crucial part in American history. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin at https://amzn.to/43cp6CV Benjamin Franklin Books available at https://amzn.to/41fUkGD ENJOY Ad-Free content, Bonus episodes, and Extra materials when joining our growing community on https://patreon.com/markvinet SUPPORT this channel by purchasing any product on Amazon using this FREE entry LINK https://amzn.to/3POlrUD (Amazon gives us credit at NO extra charge to you). Mark Vinet's HISTORICAL JESUS podcast at https://parthenonpodcast.com/historical-jesus Mark's TIMELINE video channel: https://youtube.com/c/TIMELINE_MarkVinet Website: https://markvinet.com/podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.vinet.9 X (twitter): https://twitter.com/MarkVinet_HNA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/denarynovels Mark's books: https://amzn.to/3k8qrGM Audio credits: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (Librivox, read by T. Hersant). See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's Friday, September 4th, A.D. 2026. This is The Worldview in 5 Minutes heard on 140 radio stations and at www.TheWorldview.com.  I'm Adam McManus. (Adam@TheWorldview.com) By Adam McManus Radical Hindus tear apart house of Christians in India More disturbing persecution news against Christians in India. We are just now learning about what happened in early July to a Christian family in Chhattisgarh State. After the believers refused to participate in a Hindu reconversion ceremony called Ghar Wapsi, a radical Hindu mob tore down the roof of the family's home, leaving seven people exposed to heavy monsoon rains and unable to live safely in the structure, reports International Christian Concern.  Around 8:00 a.m. on July 2nd, a group of nearly 100 anti-Christian activists surrounded the home of “Kamal Sinha” to force him to undergo Ghar Wapsi, a reconversion ceremony back to Hinduism. When Sinha refused, tensions escalated, and the mob climbed onto the roof and ripped it apart.  The man explained, “All of our harvested crops were drenched in the rainwater after the roof was destroyed.” The leader of the mob, named Dhruv, confronted Sinha, demanding that he and his family renounce Christianity.   He said, “By becoming Christians, you have polluted the village and defiled our gods and goddesses. You should not live here. You do not worship our deities, do not offer coconuts or other offerings, and do not accept the prasad given to our gods. And you follow another religion and another God. Therefore, leave the village. Otherwise, you will not be allowed to live here. We will stop your farming, demolish your house, and drive your entire family out.”  As a result of the attack and ongoing pressure, Sinha's family was forced to shut down their small grocery shop. The mob also cut off the water and electricity connections to the Christian family's house.  Just this year, hundreds of Christian families in Chhattisgarh, India have become homeless, building temporary shelters in the nearby forest. Please pray that God's grace would be sufficient for these hurting believers and God's power would be made perfect in their weakness, as 2 Corinthians 12:9 articulates. Send a polite, 4-sentence note to Vinay Kwatra, the Indian Ambassador to America, asking that he urge his government to protect Christians from the radical Hindus who persecute them. Address it to the Embassy of India, 2107 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20008. 192 House Democrats refused to disavow socialism On September 1st, almost every House Democrat voted against a congressional resolution disavowing socialism and calling for the enactment of President Trump's election security bill known as the SAVE America Act, reports the New York Post. The non-binding resolution, introduced by Republican Congressman Jeff Crank of Colorado, asked lawmakers to condemn and denounce “socialism in all its forms,” including the increasingly influential Democratic Socialists of America movement, and oppose the implementation of socialist policies in the United States.  The resolution passed in a 220-192 vote, with 192 Democrats opposing the measure.   Only eight Democrats voted with all the Republicans in support of the resolution. They included Representatives Kathy Castor of Florida, Henry Cuellar of Texas, Don Davis of North Carolina, Jared Golden of Maine, Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, Marie Perez of Washington, Darren Soto of Florida, and Gabe Vasquez of New Mexico. The resolution also called Congress to: “Reaffirm its support for free, fair and secure elections. “Reiterate that American elections are for American citizens only. “Recommit itself to upholding the Constitution of the United States. “Call for the enactment of the SAVE America Act to ensure election security, increase public confidence in America's voting system, and close loopholes in order to prevent noncitizens from voting in elections.” Call your two senators at 202-224-3121, 24 hours a day/7 days a week, and ask them to vote for the SAVE America Act which will ensure that only U.S. citizens can vote in the elections.  Tell the Capitol Switchboard operator to patch you through in two separate calls and wait for the option to leave a voicemail message on an issue of concern. ICE looking to create national database of voters In a bid to tackle voter fraud, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is preparing to award a contract worth up to $5 million to a company that will create a national database of voters. ICE first explained what the contract would entail in a document published last week. The document said, “The purpose … is for the handling and secure delivery of publicly available voter registration files and voter history files to support Homeland Security Investigations fraud detection and data segmentation activities.” ICE says that the agency will initially provide a list of specific states it wants to acquire public voter registration files from, though the successful contractor will need to have the capability to obtain data from all 50 states. America's declining fertility rate In an article entitled “What can we do about low fertility rates?”, World Magazine reported that American fertility has dropped dramatically. Among 1,000 women of childbearing age, they will only have 1,600 children.  That's well under the 2,100 children needed to hold a population steady. In its 2026 State of Fertility Report called “The Demographic Dead End,” the Institute for Family Studies wrote, “The evidence suggests the explanation for this may be more cultural than financial. After all, there are identifiable differences between those who are having children and those who are not.” Among Americans under 30, regular churchgoers want three children and those who never attend church want about two. Psalm 127:3 declares, “Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from Him.” Minnesota: 1 person killed, 5 people injured including 2 police officers Authorities confirmed that at least one person was killed during Wednesday's shooting in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, reports One America News. On Wednesday afternoon, September 2nd, five individuals were wounded, including two police officers near the Minneapolis Convention Center. Saturday Evening Post to cease publication And finally, after 205 years, the Saturday Evening Post, the famed magazine that printed its first issues on Ben Franklin's Old City printing press and whose Norman Rockwell covers defined the optics of quintessential 20th-century Americana, will print its last issue early next year, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer. According to the Mystic Museum of Art, Rockwell's earnest and unpretentious attitude to his work also characterized his subject matter. He said, “I showed the America I knew and observed to others who might not have noticed.” Rockwell loved looking at the people around him: middle class children, families, and adults, as they played, worked, visited a doctor, or fixed a flat tire. He had an eye for everyday settings. By turns humorous and deeply moving, Rockwell's subjects found an enthusiastic public. According to The Saturday Evening Post, his work helped raise its subscription base to 6,900,000 nationwide by 1960. Sadly, subscribers received a letter in the September issue, which arrived in mailboxes this week, stating that the January/February 2027 issue of The Saturday Evening Post will be the publication's last printed edition. A piece of America has died. However, it will continue to publish online. Close And that's The Worldview on this Friday, September 4th, in the year of our Lord 2026. Subscribe for free by Spotify, Amazon Music, or by iTunes or email to our unique Christian newscast at www.TheWorldview.com.  Plus, you can get the Generations app through Google Play or The App Store. I'm Adam McManus (Adam@TheWorldview.com). Seize the day for Jesus Christ.

New World colonial financing came from a wide range of sources, including English women. E247. Check out the YouTube version of this episode at https://youtu.be/hxxCgUwYDkA which has accompanying visuals including maps, charts, timelines, photos, illustrations, and diagrams. The Virginia Venture by Misha Ewen available at https://amzn.to/46itO0f Ben Franklin's World podcast available at https://amzn.to/48kqMKW Jamestown products available at https://amzn.to/3RW5kEm ENJOY Ad-Free content, Bonus episodes, and Extra materials when joining our growing community on https://patreon.com/markvinet SUPPORT this channel by purchasing any product on Amazon using this FREE entry LINK https://amzn.to/3POlrUD (Amazon gives us credit at NO extra charge to you). Mark Vinet's HISTORICAL JESUS podcast at https://parthenonpodcast.com/historical-jesus Mark's TIMELINE video channel: https://youtube.com/c/TIMELINE_MarkVinet Website: https://markvinet.com/podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.vinet.9 X (twitter): https://twitter.com/MarkVinet_HNA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/denarynovels Mark's books: https://amzn.to/3k8qrGM Audio credits: Ben Franklin's World podcast (Episode 355; Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture). Audio excerpts reproduced under the Fair Use (Fair Dealings) Legal Doctrine for purposes such as criticism, comment, teaching, education, scholarship, research and news reporting.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In December 1776, a Delaware Chief named White Eyes stood before the Second Continental Congress. He had not come to declare himself a revolutionary, nor had he come to pledge his loyalty to King George III. White Eyes came to test a promise.What does the American Revolution look like to people for whom independence was never a question? For the Delaware, also known as the Lenape, the War for Independence raised older and harder questions:Whose word could be trusted? What choices can we make about whether to fight, stay neutral, or flee that might let our community remain itself on the land we know?Jeremy Johnson, Cultural Education Director for the Delaware Tribe of Indians, traces Lenape and Delaware history from long before European contact through the American Revolution. He also introduces us to the September 1778 Treaty of Fort Pitt, the first treaty the United States made with a Native Nation and which promised a 14th Native state.Delaware Tribe of Indians' WebsiteShow Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/450EPISODE OUTLINE 00:00:00 Introduction00:02:35 The Lenape Experience of the American Revolution00:07:56 Lenape History and Indigenous Origin Stories00:10:52 Diplomacy in Lenape Traditions00:15:32 Evolution of Lenape Diplomacy Through European Contact00:20:00 The Walking Purchase of 173700:24:55 Lenape Experiences of the Seven Years' War00:32:13 Lenape Participation in Pontiac's Rebellion00:37:17 The Delaware and the American Revolution00:46:32 Negotiating the Treaty of Fort Pitt00:50:16 The Hope for Delaware Sovereignty00:52:53 The Delaware People & America's 250th01:00:02 Time Warp01:02:41 ResourcesRECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES

We’re heading towards the controversial year of 1619 by analyzing the prior financial challenges and realities faced by the daring and ambitious Virginia Company of London. E246. Check out the YouTube version of this episode at https://youtu.be/2OqUj9dBysE which has accompanying visuals including maps, charts, timelines, photos, illustrations, and diagrams. The Virginia Venture by Misha Ewen available at https://amzn.to/46itO0f Ben Franklin's World podcast available at https://amzn.to/48kqMKW Jamestown products available at https://amzn.to/3RW5kEm ENJOY Ad-Free content, Bonus episodes, and Extra materials when joining our growing community on https://patreon.com/markvinet SUPPORT this channel by purchasing any product on Amazon using this FREE entry LINK https://amzn.to/3POlrUD (Amazon gives us credit at NO extra charge to you). Mark Vinet's HISTORICAL JESUS podcast at https://parthenonpodcast.com/historical-jesus Mark's TIMELINE video channel: https://youtube.com/c/TIMELINE_MarkVinet Website: https://markvinet.com/podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.vinet.9 X (twitter): https://twitter.com/MarkVinet_HNA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/denarynovels Mark's books: https://amzn.to/3k8qrGM Audio credits: Ben Franklin's World podcast (Episode 355; Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture). Audio excerpts reproduced under the Fair Use (Fair Dealings) Legal Doctrine for purposes such as criticism, comment, teaching, education, scholarship, research and news reporting.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The fellas break down Screwtape Letters Chapter 28 before diving into the topics of the day. Highlights include: The dangerous middle age years of complacency - don't become of the world Dolly's legacy - the last American icon? What's the deal with these flock cameras? Ben Franklin's advice still holds true Flock CEO Garrett Langley [...]

Mischke looks at store pricing, which leads to being strangled in high school, and ends in a nostalgic trip back to Ben Franklin. Listener calls include a good looking trucker and a Tennessee upholsterer.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Mischke looks at store pricing, which leads to being strangled in high school, and ends in a nostalgic trip back to Ben Franklin. Listener calls include a good looking trucker and a Tennessee upholsterer.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In 1606, British King James the First granted the Virginia Company of London a charter. A year later, this privately-funded, joint-stock company established the first, permanent English colony in North America at Jamestown, in the colony of Virginia. What did the company have to do to establish this colony? How much capital did it have to raise to support its colonial venture, and from whom did it raise this money? E245. Check out the YouTube version of this episode at https://youtu.be/7GcoCuTPAoo which has accompanying visuals including maps, charts, timelines, photos, illustrations, and diagrams. The Virginia Venture by Misha Ewen available at https://amzn.to/46itO0f Ben Franklin's World podcast available at https://amzn.to/48kqMKW Jamestown products available at https://amzn.to/3RW5kEm ENJOY Ad-Free content, Bonus episodes, and Extra materials when joining our growing community on https://patreon.com/markvinet SUPPORT this channel by purchasing any product on Amazon using this FREE entry LINK https://amzn.to/3POlrUD (Amazon gives us credit at NO extra charge to you). Mark Vinet's HISTORICAL JESUS podcast at https://parthenonpodcast.com/historical-jesus Mark's TIMELINE video channel: https://youtube.com/c/TIMELINE_MarkVinet Website: https://markvinet.com/podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.vinet.9 X (twitter): https://twitter.com/MarkVinet_HNA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/denarynovels Mark's books: https://amzn.to/3k8qrGM Audio credits: Ben Franklin's World podcast (Episode 355; Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture). Audio excerpts reproduced under the Fair Use (Fair Dealings) Legal Doctrine for purposes such as criticism, comment, teaching, education, scholarship, research and news reporting.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1723, the College of William & Mary opened the Brafferton building, a permanent home for an Indian School the college had been chartered to run and struggled to fill for its first 30 years. The premise of the Brafferton: take Native boys and strategically teach them in ways that would make them more useful to the British Empire.So what actually happened inside the Brafferton Indian School?In this revisited episode, the first of a two-part series, our three guests investigate why the Brafferton School existed, how the English filled Brafferton with students even as Native families refused to send their children, and what the Indigenous students did with the knowledge the English taught them.We'll also explore how a school built on a colonial college campus during the reign of King George I connected to schools like the Carlisle School, which were still separating Indigenous children from their families in the 1950s.Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/367RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES:

In this episode of The Kubik Report, Victor Kubik continues his conversation with Greg Thomas about Benjamin Franklin, exploring the remarkable final chapter of Franklin's life—his influence on the Constitution, his inventions, his opposition to slavery, and his complex religious beliefs. At age 81, Franklin was the elder statesman of the Constitutional Convention of 1787. As delegates struggled to overcome deep divisions, Franklin reminded them of the limits of human wisdom and made a striking appeal for daily prayer. He asked how an empire could rise without God's aid if even a sparrow could not fall without His notice. Yet surprisingly, his motion was never brought to a vote. The discussion also examines Franklin's extraordinary inventive mind. From bifocals and the lightning rod to the Franklin stove, glass harmonica, flexible catheter, carriage odometer, and even wooden swim fins, Franklin continually searched for practical ways to improve everyday life. He refused to patent his inventions, believing they should benefit everyone. Greg and Victor also explore a less understood side of Franklin: his religious philosophy. Franklin believed in a God who intervened in human affairs and heard prayer, while questioning traditional Christian doctrines concerning Jesus Christ. He nevertheless deeply respected Jesus' moral teachings and believed religion was essential to maintaining a virtuous society. Finally, the episode examines Franklin's late-life commitment to abolition. Shortly before his death in 1790, he petitioned Congress to bring an end to slavery—one final example of a remarkable man whose ideas continued evolving throughout his long life.

More than half a million Indigenous people were enslaved within the present-day borders of the United States. Historian Linford Fisher spent fifteen years in archives across North America, the Caribbean, and Britain to investigate this forgotten history. What he found was not a second story running alongside African slavery. It was something different in kind. Europeans and early Americans enslaved people who lived on land they intended to possess. This practice made slavery a tool of dispossession.The American Revolution is where this process accelerated. Lin and Lorén Spears, a Narragansett tribal citizen and the executive director of the Tomaquag Museum, trace how the Revolution opened space for captive raiding on the western frontier, how Native nations weighed which side to take during the war, and how their Stolen Relations digital project is recovering the names of the Natives early Americans enslaved.Lin's Website | Book |Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/449 EPISODE OUTLINE00:00:00 Introduction00:01:23 The Declaration's Overlooked Grievance Against Indigenous People00:02:29 The Other Revolutionary War00:03:20 Investigating the Hidden History of Indigenous Enslavement00:07:07 Uncovering the Scale of Indigenous Enslavement00:13:43 Building Stolen Relations Through Archival and Tribal Collaboration00:20:51 Decolonizing Archival Records00:30:40 Connection Between Indigenous Enslavement & Land Dispossession00:33:53 How Native Nations Navigated the American Revolution00:37:16 From Colonial Experimentation to Revolutionary Expansion00:41:15 How the American Revolution Expanded Indigenous Slavery00:45:20 How Indigenous Nations Weighed Neutrality, Alliance, & Survival00:52:51 The Declaration of Independence's Impact on Indigenous Communities01:01:10 The Treaty of Paris, 1783 and the Continuation of Indigenous Dispossession01:03:51 The Uncertain End of Indigenous Enslavement01:11:59 Commemorating the American Revolution Through Indigenous History01:24:36 Revolution to Freedom Through Indigenous SovereigntyRECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES

Fire the Whole Investment Team: Meb Faber on 250 Years of American Compounding and Why CalPERS Can’t Beat a 60/40 allocation https://youtu.be/9lBYkG4J2sY A dollar invested in the U.S. stock market in 1800 is worth roughly $200 million today, and Meb Faber says the giant pension funds paid to beat that kind of compounding usually can’t. In this episode of Wealth Actually, Frazer Rice talks with Meb Faber, co-founder and CIO of Cambria Investment Management and host of The Meb Faber Show, about his new coffee-table book Investing in America: The Rise of a 250-Year Bull Market, the shareholder yield thesis behind Cambria’s ETF lineup, and his long-running public campaign arguing that CalPERS and other giant institutional pools routinely fail to beat a simple, low-cost buy-and-hold portfolio. https://open.spotify.com/episode/4WmnPm3GN8jwQtJuCVV9XG?si=nLLcz8y8RSuydORA5_ZHGQ Key Takeaways America is, in Faber’s words, the greatest compounding machine in history. He puts a dollar invested in U.S. stocks in 1800 at roughly $200 million today — a number he uses to reframe how clients should think about staying invested through wars, depressions, and pandemics. The book’s origin story starts with meme stocks. Faber says COVID pulled a new generation of retail investors into the market through gamified trading apps, and he wanted to hand them a historically grounded alternative to day-trading and zero-day options. Diversification is older than the country itself. Faber traces the concept back to 15th- and 16th-century joint-stock voyages — the Mayflower and the Virginia Company among them — where spreading capital across many risky expeditions let “merchant adventurers” survive when any single ship was lost. Shareholder yield, not dividend yield, is Cambria’s core factor. Since the S&P 500’s dividend yield now sits near an all-time low of 1.04%, Faber argues the real signal is cash dividends plus net buybacks — net of the dilution from stock-based compensation that quietly erodes shareholders’ ownership every year. Faber’s CalPERS critique boils down to one line: “the returns are not bad, they’re just not good.” He’s built an entire body of work, including Cambria’s ENDW endowment-style ETF, arguing that giant pools with virtually unlimited access to managers still can’t consistently beat a disciplined global 60/40. Complexity is often the enemy, not the edge. Faber contrasts investing with almost every other field of expertise: hiring the best doctor or coach nearly always helps, but hiring the most sophisticated (and expensive) money manager frequently doesn’t. Illiquidity has a way of showing up at the worst possible time. Faber points to endowments getting caught upside down in 2008–2009 and to more recent leveraged blowups as the same lesson repeating: over-lever a portfolio and you’re out of chips at the poker table. The real accountability gap is career incentives, not investment theory. Faber contrasts Yale, which gets a pass for strong long-term results, with Harvard’s endowment, which he says has underperformed for two decades without anyone losing their job over it — a dynamic he says maps directly onto UHNW family governance. Timestamps [00:00] Cold open — CalPERS CIOs vs. UK prime ministers [00:29] Show open and disclaimer [00:54] Welcome: Meb Faber, Cambria, and the new book [02:07] The $76 price tag and the 1776 joke [03:13] Genesis of Investing in America: COVID, meme stocks, and joint-stock voyages [06:33] The most surprising find: Ben Franklin’s “Mind Your Business” motto [09:09] Argentina vs. the U.S. — what actually drove American exceptionalism [12:47] Cambria today: the shareholder yield thesis [17:46] Why politicians target buybacks instead of stock-based comp [20:54] The CalPERS critique begins [21:34] The Ivy Portfolio, the ENDW endowment ETF, and year-one results [25:45] The Nevada pension comparison and the liquidity-complexity pushback [26:56] Institutional blowups, Harvard’s endowment dysfunction, and misaligned incentives [29:36] The “anti-Switzerland of asset management” bit [31:16] Close: where to find Meb, Cambria, and the book Pull Quotes “No, no, no, no, Frazer — it is $76, in honor of 1776.” — Meb Faber “A dollar would be worth roughly $200 million today… despite wars and depressions and pandemics and everything else terrible that’s happened in the history of the world, this relentless compounding is such a fun story.” — Meb Faber “There are dividend funds in the U.S. today… whose actual dividend yield is lower than their management fee. A negative net dividend yield — an astonishing statistic in 2026.” — Meb Faber “Who’s had more turnover in the past 10 years — CalPERS CIOs or UK prime ministers? Both totally dysfunctional. I think CalPERS has a slight edge, but it’s close.” — Meb Faber “I’m the anti-Switzerland of asset management.” — Meb Faber About the Guest Meb Faber is co-founder, CEO, and Chief Investment Officer of Cambria Investment Management, an independent, privately owned advisory firm built around quantitative asset management and alternative investment strategies (BusinessWire). He hosts The Meb Faber Show, one of the most widely followed investing podcasts, and is the author of eight books, including The Ivy Portfolio, Global Asset Allocation, Global Value, Shareholder Yield, and now Investing in America: The Rise of a 250-Year Bull Market — his first coffee-table book, released to coincide with the U.S. semiquincentennial (Curzio Research). Proceeds from the book go to charities that fund investment accounts for Americans born in the country. A ninth book, The Awesome Portfolio, is slated for release on September 8, 2026 (Meb Faber on X). Contact Meb Faber & Cambria Cambria Investment Management: cambriainvestments.com Cambria Funds: cambriafunds.com Meb’s blog, podcast & research: mebfaber.com The Meb Faber Show: themebfabershow.com Twitter/X: @MebFaber Book — Investing in America: available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and signed via Pages bookstore in Manhattan Beach, CA (Acquirer’s Multiple) Cambria Funds Mentioned Shareholder Yield suite (SYLD, FYLD, EYLD, plus small-cap and large-cap variants) — cash dividends plus net buybacks plus net debt reduction, divided by market cap (MarketWatch) GVAL — Global Value ETF screening the cheapest quartile of roughly 45 country markets by long-term valuation (Cambria — GVAL) TAIL / FAIL — U.S. and global ex-U.S. tail-risk ETFs pairing short-term Treasuries with a rolling ladder of out-of-the-money S&P 500 puts (Cambria — TAIL) Trinity Portfolio (TRTY) — roughly half buy-and-hold, half trend-following across a basket of other Cambria funds (Cambria — Trinity Portfolio) ENDW — Cambria’s endowment-style ETF, discussed on the show as roughly $150–180 million at launch and referenced later in conversation as having grown toward roughly $5 billion in assets with more than 100,000 investors (MebFaber.com) The CalPERS Critique — Further Reading 9 Institutions Can’t Beat a Basic Buy-and-Hold Allocation — MebFaber.com How California’s $450B Pension Fund Misses the Basics of Investing — YouTube Should a Robot Be Managing CalPERS’ Portfolio? — MebFaber.com, 2015 Index Funds vs. Ivy League — MarketWatch/Barron’s Streetwise CalPERS: America’s Misled and Misleading Pension Leader — Retired Public Employees Association CalPERS Section II Performance Tables (2026) — CalPERS.ca.gov Reducing the Noise of AI Investing – FrazerRice.com Frequently Asked Questions How much would a dollar invested in the U.S. stock market in 1800 be worth today?Meb Faber says roughly $200 million, using the figure to illustrate how relentless compounding has powered through wars, depressions, and pandemics over the country’s history. It’s an illustrative, back-of-envelope estimate rather than a precise index calculation, since standardized stock indexes didn’t exist in 1800. Why is Meb Faber’s new book priced at $76?It’s a nod to 1776 and the country’s founding, timed to the U.S. semiquincentennial. All proceeds go to charities that fund investment accounts for Americans born in the country. What is shareholder yield, and how is it different from dividend yield?Shareholder yield is cash dividends plus net stock buybacks (net of new share issuance, particularly from stock-based compensation), divided by market cap. Faber argues it captures real capital return to shareholders better than dividend yield alone, especially now that the S&P 500’s dividend yield sits near an all-time low of about 1.04% and share buybacks have outpaced dividends every year since the late 1990s. What is Meb Faber’s argument against CalPERS and other large pension funds?Faber’s recurring claim is “the returns are not bad, they’re just not good” — that giant institutional pools with access to virtually any manager on the planet still fail to consistently beat a simple, low-cost, diversified buy-and-hold portfolio, once fees and complexity are accounted for. Cambria launched an endowment-style ETF (ENDW) partly to make this a live, ongoing comparison rather than a hypothetical one. What is Cambria’s endowment-style ETF and how does it compare to institutions like CalPERS?ENDW replicates a Yale/Swensen-style endowment allocation — global stocks, global bonds, and real assets like gold, TIPS, and REITs — in a low-cost ETF with an all-in expense under 25 basis points. Faber uses it as a running, real-time benchmark against actual endowment and pension performance reported each fiscal year. Why does Meb Faber say complexity is often the enemy in investing?Unlike most fields, where more resources and the best available experts reliably produce better outcomes, Faber argues that in investing, more complexity and more access to exotic managers frequently doesn’t translate into better returns net of fees — and often just adds cost and illiquidity risk. What lesson does Meb Faber draw from institutional blowups and the 2008–2009 crisis?Endowments that mark their portfolios only once a year got caught badly offsides in 2008–2009, with illiquid positions falling even further than public markets. Faber sees the same pattern recur whenever a fund over-levers and gets forced out of the game — a basic failure of position sizing and situational awareness that keeps repeating at the highest levels of finance. Full Transcript [00:00] Cold Open (produced VO): I said, who’s had more turnover in the past 10 years — CalPERS CIOs or UK Prime Ministers? Both totally dysfunctional. And I think CalPERS has a slight edge, but it’s close. Meb Faber suggested that CalPERS should fire its entire investment team, and that complexity has become a major headwind to their ability to generate returns. Find out more on this episode of Wealth Actually. We’re also going to talk about Meb’s new book, which argues that America is one of the greatest compounding machines in the history of capitalism. [00:29] Show Open (produced VO): Welcome back to the Wealth Actually podcast — the show that features experts, entrepreneurs, and commentators who give you the right knowledge, planning, and guidance so you can preserve your assets and enjoy your wealth. Learn more and subscribe today at WealthActually.com. This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes. It is not investment, legal, or tax advice. It does not represent the opinions of the employers of the host or guest. [00:54] Frazer Rice: Welcome back. Meb Faber is on the show. He founded Cambria Investment Management, which is a $4 billion ETF group. He also has The Meb Faber Show and does a lot of different writing. He’s famous for being on Twitter and taking on CalPERS. But most importantly, he has a new book out talking about America as a great compounding machine. It’s a lot of fun to have him on. Welcome aboard, Meb. [01:16] Meb Faber: My man, great to be here. Frazer Rice: Oh, thank you for being on. I thank you beforehand for including a piece of my writing in one of your old compendiums on best investment writing. I’ve never forgotten that, so thank you again. Meb Faber: Well, good job making the cut. Frazer Rice: Yeah, right, exactly. I passed the audition. Seen you a few times on The Idea Farm here and there over the years. Meb Faber: Yep. As I tell people with my girlfriend, I met expectations in my recent review, so we’re onto the next year. Look, key to life, Frazer — investors, we’re in a bull market, everyone expects 15% returns forever. Key to investing in life: just low expectations. That’s it. Set your expectations low, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised every day. Don’t lose principal over time — that’ll get you pretty far in life. [02:07] Frazer Rice: So anyway, you’ve got a new book out too, which I thought was pretty cool. I love the fact that you priced it at $17.76 and really focused on the— Meb Faber: No, no, no, no, Frazer — it is $76, in honor of 1776. Now to be clear, we don’t make any money on this book. We’re donating all the proceeds to the Invest America charities that fund accounts for Americans born in this country — a wonderful charity, big supporters of it. Frazer Rice: But yes, in honor of the country’s founding. This is why we have you all to make sure I get that stuff right. But the concept of America as the best compounding machine ever — I think that’s really interesting. First of all, what prompted you to get involved with putting this book together? You’ve written before — seems like you’ve been busy with other stuff, of course — but then you came back and decided this was a good topic to take on. What was the genesis of the book? [03:13] Meb Faber: Yeah, so this is my eighth book, and the first coffee-table book we’ve ever done. People were saying, “What the hell, $76? Are you guys crazy?” Look — this is a beautiful 200-page book. There’s probably 70 pictures, charts, tables. And the concept is in the subtitle: Investing in America: The Rise of a 250-Year Bull Market. And the origin story goes back to COVID. Nobody had anything to do — sports stopped, you couldn’t go to the beach. So people were sitting around, and Americans — look, they’re gamblers, they’re risk-takers, we know that. And I said, we can’t do anything about that. So this entire generation of young people turned their attention to the stock market, and we got meme stocks. Today that’s evolved into prediction markets and zero-day options and all sorts of other nonsense. We wanted to grab those young people and say, “No, you don’t understand — the real story is better than any of this. You don’t have to day-trade. You don’t have to bet against the casino and lose.” So we said, let’s do this history since the founding of our republic — what it would have looked like if you could invest from 1800. And the compounding math is so fantastical it seems wrong. A dollar invested in 1800 — and yes, I know there were no indexes back then, chill out, people — but just to be instructive, a dollar would be worth roughly $200 million today. The point is you get on this train despite wars and depressions and pandemics and everything else terrible that’s happened in the history of the world — despite all that, this relentless compounding is such a fun story. On top of that — the founding of our country, and a lot of people don’t know this: when you learn the history of America in elementary school, you learn about the immigration, particularly from Europe, people escaping religious persecution, seeking a better life through freedom — the Mayflower, all that. All true. But what they leave out is that most of these explorations and voyages were funded by companies. Back then they called them joint-stock companies; today we call them companies, LPs, C-corporations — corps, right, partnerships. Because the reality, going back to the 15th century, is that if you’re sending a ship to the New World to find gold, that ship could sink, or there were pirates — you’d lose all your money. So this brilliant invention we call diversification today has been around for hundreds and hundreds of years. These companies said, it’s risky to invest in one voyage, but you can own part of a company that invests in 10 or 20 or 30 of these, and maybe one of them will hit. That sounds like venture capital. They used to call these people “adventurers” or merchant adventurers. Hudson’s Bay, the Mayflower voyage, the Virginia Company — many of them failed, many didn’t make money, but some made spectacular profits. It’s a fun origin story that hasn’t really been told about these early entrepreneurs and risk-takers, who honestly still permeate our culture to this day. [06:33] Frazer Rice: In putting the book together, what was the most surprising chart you found that you ended up including? [06:41] Meb Faber: There’s a lot of fun historical statistics in the book. One of my favorite parts of writing it was buying — I don’t know, 50 or 100 financial history books I’d never heard of, books on financial crises globally from various markets. We just had an author on the podcast talking about the global financial crisis of 1873, and on and on — you learn so much. One I love telling people, especially young people — my son or his friends — is: look at a dollar bill or a quarter, and I ask, what’s the motto on there? Well, that used to not be the motto. Ben Franklin, back in the day, the motto on the Fugio cent used to say “Mind Your Business” — which I thought was amazing. And it’s not “mind your business, kid” in the nosy sense — it’s more like, mind your (own) business. It had a sundial on it, too: time is short, mind your business. I thought, let’s go back to that — such a great motto. A bunch of little fun stories, but to me one of the big takeaways of the book is: as a public stock investor, the news is always negative. You turn on CNBC, Bloomberg, pull up your phone, social media — negative, negative, negative, negative. It’s hard to sustain conviction. Look, we haven’t been through a big bear market in 17 years, but when you’re down 30%, 40%, 50%, and you’re reading “Lehman’s going under” and all these crazy headlines — the book lets you zoom out. Each chapter zooms into a decade and then zooms back out and says, okay, 1930s, Great Depression, you lost 80% in stocks — but guess what, here’s your return over the next 50 years. Even over a 20-year period, large-cap stocks become less volatile than bonds, which is an amazing takeaway. Being able to zoom out and say, “I’m a long-term investor, why am I even concerning myself with day-to-day negativity” — that shift in mindset is really important, because when you zoom out, you can barely even see 1987 on a long-term chart of the stock market. I think it’s a useful thing to send to clients, particularly at year-end if you’re a financial advisor. We’ve got big discounts if you buy 50 books online — send it to clients and say, hey, stop going crazy, this too shall pass. [09:09] Frazer Rice: One thing I always have in my mind — I don’t remember if this is exactly true, but Argentina and the US were on roughly equal economic footing back around 1900. When you were putting this together, did you see anything in the US’s political climate or structure — the things that gave it tailwinds to go from 1900 through to now with this rocket-ship growth — versus a country like Argentina, similarly situated, that just muddled along economically? Was there anything in particular that you saw that codified American exceptionalism? [09:51] Meb Faber: Yeah, you’ve got to remember, the US was an emerging market too, for a long period. We didn’t always hold the crown as the largest economy or the largest stock market in the world. The US is two-thirds of world market cap today — astonishing. But if you and I were sipping tea back in 1800 or 1900 and betting on what country would dominate the next century, you’d have gotten a whole host of different answers. That’s part of the fun of this book — you realize, when things got started in Amsterdam in the 1600s, they held the crown, but not forever. It shifted to London, then eventually to New York. And in our own lifetimes, the US wasn’t always the largest stock market — Japan was, in the 1980s. It’s a useful construct: look how much things change. Not even just on a country level — sectors too. Go back 100 years and you’re like, wait, where are the tech stocks? It was railroads. Go back another 100 years and it’s, wait, where are the railroads? There weren’t any — it was banks and insurance. The constant is always change and creative destruction. The big takeaway is you have to be an owner. This ownership mentality is particularly pervasive in the US. Talk to people in Sweden, Europe, Asia, Latin America — they own far fewer stocks than Americans do. Ask what they invest in, and it’s cash in the bank, real estate, maybe. There’s something in the water here. Same thing with entrepreneurship — talk to Americans about failure, and there’s no shame in it here. It’s almost celebrated; we cheer for it. The only thing we like seeing more than someone fail is their eventual rise after failure — the phoenix. There’s a lot of big takeaways in that. It feels like the last 17 years, the US is just going to dominate forever. We wrote a paper called The Bear Market and Diversification a few years back about how special this period has been for US stocks, crushing everything else — but it’s not totally without precedent. In the last hundred years it’s happened three other times where 10-year rolling stock returns hit 15%: the 1920s (the Roaring Twenties), the Nifty Fifty period in the mid-20th century, and my favorite bull market, the late 1990s. And now again today — COVID, meme stocks, the AI boom, whatever you want to call it. Eventually the good times don’t last forever; you probably shouldn’t expect 15% returns to the moon. But pat yourself on the back and celebrate it — it’s been a very special run. [12:47] Frazer Rice: Day-job-wise, at Cambria you’ve got a whole host of different investment theses that you build vehicles around. One that’s gotten my attention, and that I really like the idea of, is the shareholder yield concept — especially the global shareholder yield concept, for the reasons you just described, coming off a very long cycle of US exceptionalism in the stock market. I like the idea of cash flow as an indicator of good investment performance, and diversifying both within and outside the US. With an asterisk here that this is not investment advice, everyone — take us through what you’re thinking on that front, and what else you’re up to at Cambria that’s interesting in the investment ecosystem right now. [13:35] Meb Faber: Sure. It’s kind of crazy, Frazer, but we hit our 20-year anniversary this year, which feels like just yesterday when I started the company. Some of the shareholder yield funds — we now have three with over a 10-year track record, and our oldest, SYLD, is a pesky teenager now. What do you expect out of teenagers? More volatility — hopefully up volatility, not down. We wrote a book on this topic 10, 15 years ago, and a new second edition is out — it’s free online as an ebook, listeners, you can get it from the blog. The subtitle of the book is Shareholder Yield: A Better Approach to Dividend Investing — a pretty bold claim, given there are hundreds of dividend-type funds out there: dividend income, dividend growth, equity income, on and on. Our thesis was that there’s something the entire marketplace hadn’t noticed or appreciated: the rise of share buybacks. Starting in the late ’90s, share buybacks have outpaced dividend distributions in the United States every year. In fact, the US dividend yield on the S&P 500 is at an all-time low of 1.04% — it may cross below 1% for the first time ever, which is astonishing. Our thesis was that a shareholder yield approach — simply cash dividends plus net stock buybacks — outperforms, historically, any dividend strategy you can construct. The “net” matters because it accounts for share issuance, particularly stock-based compensation to the C-suite, which is everywhere in the US — my home state of California’s tech companies love to “make it rain” with stock-based comp. The problem is the average US stock is a diluter: your ownership share goes down every year because they keep issuing more shares. We’ve since demonstrated this in real time across SYLD, FYLD, EYLD (the emerging-market version), and now small-cap and large-cap variants — they’ve done exceptionally well. These funds effectively target a Buffett-like, value-and-quality approach: the average stock coming into the portfolios has roughly a double-digit shareholder yield. Let that sink in — there are dividend funds in the US today, ETFs and mutual funds, that claim to be high-yield or dividend-income funds whose actual dividend yield is lower than their management fee. A negative net dividend yield — an astonishing statistic in 2026. In the US, that shareholder yield is mostly driven by buybacks. In foreign developed and emerging markets, it’s closer to 50-50 — those markets still have more of a culture of cash dividends, so you’ll see yields there closer to 5-6%. But that’s changing, and changing fast. We did a blog post recently calling the UK the “buyback capital of the world” — the UK, China, Japan, and a bunch of other countries have hockey-sticked higher on this. It’s spreading globally, this idea of corporate responsibility: “my stock’s at half of book value, maybe we should consider buybacks.” There’s so much mythology around stock buybacks — we could do a whole podcast on it — and we try to tackle it in the book. Hopefully it’s like a red pill: once you take it, it’s hard to look at investing the same way again, because it feels like you were missing a major piece of the puzzle. [17:46] Frazer Rice: How infuriating is it when the Warrens of the world take aim at buybacks? It feels like an economically illiterate, and certainly politically driven, approach to legislating. To put the clamps on a genuinely useful capital allocation tool — I just don’t understand it. You must look at that and want to shake people and say, you’re missing the point, and you’re not even really targeting the abuses that exist. [18:20] Meb Faber: Well, I try not to be too dismissive of our lovely politicians — the joke I always make is, don’t look down on them, they weren’t taught finance and investing in school either. We don’t teach money and investing in school, and that’s sort of my white whale — I think we should be teaching it as early as elementary school, just basic classes on money. The good news is, roughly a quarter to a third of high schools are now requiring at least one class on the topic. What they’re actually targeting, I think somewhat thoughtfully underneath it, is executive compensation and stock issuance — which is the crazy part, because buybacks are the flip side of that. If a company is consistently loading up its CEO with options and diluting shareholders, and using buybacks to mop that dilution up — that’s what they’re really targeting, but it’s not the buyback itself. It’s the stock-based comp. Buybacks are the exhaust; that happens down the road. The cool part about our methodology is we’re only targeting companies trading at something like 80 cents on the dollar. Buffett is my favorite example here — Berkshire has never paid a dividend, and you might think that’s crazy, but he understands this better than anyone. He’s been writing about buybacks since the 1980s. There’s a great quote from an old Berkshire annual report where he says there’s no better use of cash than buying back your own shares when they’re trading below intrinsic value. Berkshire has bought back a ton of stock over the past several years — smart — they say they’ll buy back at 1.2 times book or below and run a valuation screen. There’s a great, somewhat surprising, takeaway in the book: there’s a myth that CEOs are megalomaniacs who just buy back stock whenever they think it’s expensive or cheap, but if you model it out historically, companies doing big buybacks (say, to retire 5% of market cap) tend to trade at a valuation discount to the market, and companies doing share issuance tend to trade at a valuation premium. There’s a real valuation arbitrage going on — CEOs aren’t dummies. That’s part of what you’re capturing with a shareholder yield approach, as long as it’s consistently recycled. And remember, a buyback is optional — there has to be someone willing to sell into it, so there are always two sides. [20:54] Frazer Rice: Let’s talk about one of my favorite parts of your persona, honestly — your fun critique of CalPERS and what large institutions do (and don’t do well) in managing money, and the inefficiencies that creep in with these big pools of capital as implementation and asset allocation get very complicated and very expensive. Walk me through your thinking when you first noticed the CalPERS phenomenon, and a bit of the history there. [21:34] Meb Faber: My very first book was called The Ivy Portfolio, and we looked at how top endowments manage their assets — Yale, the late David Swensen. One of the strange things about our world in asset management — almost unique among industries — is the assumption that more resources, more money, more access automatically equals better results. That’s true in almost every other endeavor: get the best doctor, you’re probably better off than with your local doctor; best trainer, best nutritionist, best coach, on and on. Not necessarily true in investing. The longer I’ve been in this business, the more I see complexity as often an enemy. So we love to pick on CalPERS — we’ve written a dozen articles: should CalPERS be run by a robot, should they just fire everyone and buy ETFs? We’ve run the simulations, and in many cases these giant institutions — with $500 billion, hundreds of employees, access to literally any fund on the planet — should be able to beat everyone, but they can’t. A very basic buy-and-hold portfolio can mimic what a lot of these top institutions actually deliver. Eventually I got tired of just talking about it. I’ve applied for the CalPERS CIO job at least half a dozen times — they have an opening every other year, listeners, it’s the most dysfunctional organization. I joked on Twitter the other day: who’s had more turnover in the past 10 years, CalPERS CIOs or UK prime ministers? Both totally dysfunctional — I think CalPERS has a slight edge, but it’s close. I said I’d do the job for free — I’d fire almost everyone and get rid of all the illiquid, high-fee investments. But there’s this entire ecosystem of people incentivized to keep the engine running: private equity consultants and the rest of the “two-and-20” crowd. So eventually we said, let’s make this a real, live contest. We launched an endowment-style ETF, ENDW — roughly $150-180 million in it now — and said every June 30th, once we’re through a fiscal year, we’re going to compare results head-to-head. This ETF has no management fee to speak of, all-in under 25 basis points. Can you beat a low-cost ETF like that? Let’s find out. Sure enough, year one — CalPERS has already reported, and they didn’t do badly, but it was basically like a 60/40 portfolio; you’d have been just as well off doing 60/40 and moving on. Our endowment-style allocation actually replicates the average endowment quite well — a nice global mix of global stocks, global bonds, and global real assets (gold, TIPS, REITs, and so on — that real-assets sleeve is one a lot of people leave out). To get closer to a Swensen-level result, you need a couple more ingredients, in my view: you can approximate something like private equity with small-cap value, and approximate the broader endowment risk profile with a bit of leverage, plus tilts to value, global exposure, and trend-following. We’ll see how year one shakes out once all the endowments report — UNC might actually beat us because they had a huge stake in SpaceX, so congrats to Chapel Hill. But I think year one goes to me, sorry to say, CalPERS. I’m going to be a giant irritant on this for years to come. The cool thing is you now have a genuinely investable benchmark. Every endowment investment committee suddenly has to ask, with real fiduciary teeth: can we beat this low-cost ETF? And if we can’t, what are we even doing — why are we studying all these crazy illiquid partnerships instead of just buying a basket of ETFs and calling it a day? That’s going to be an awkward conversation in a lot of boardrooms. [25:45] Frazer Rice: Two comments on that. First — isn’t there someone in the state of Nevada doing something similar, basically running one of the state pension pools with a team of about three people? [25:51] Meb Faber: Yes — we had him on the podcast. I told him, look, you’re putting your money where your mouth is on this. I won’t do his story justice here, I’ll tell you about it off-air — but it’s a great example that this doesn’t have to be as hard as people make it out to be. Frazer Rice: The second thing is — anytime I’ve talked to people in the industry about this, they come back and say, “yes, we technically have an infinite investing horizon, but we have very rigid liquidity needs, so we need to be complex, because our liquidity needs can shift at any moment.” Meanwhile, on one hand I’m thinking, that complexity doesn’t actually help you with liquidity, as far as I can tell — and on the other, it feels like a bit of a convenient excuse. Do you have a response to that? [26:56] Meb Faber: Oh boy, I’ve got a bunch. The endowments famously got caught upside-down in 2008-2009. They only mark their portfolios once a year, June 30th — I wish we could all do that; maybe we should just tell clients, you’re only allowed to look once a year. They were probably down roughly half in ’08-’09, and the illiquid positions were probably down even more. A lot of them got badly offsides, and I don’t think many of them have fully learned the lesson — if you look at the amount of private allocations still sitting in a lot of these portfolios today, it’s a massive amount. I hope they’ve learned the lesson. We’ll see. But it’s a story as old as time — we just saw a version of it recently with a fund blowup, a basic, one-oh-one level failure of situational awareness and position sizing: you over-lever a portfolio, you get taken out of the game, you lose all your money, and then you’re out of chips at the poker table. You watch these mistakes happen at the upper echelons of finance and wonder how it’s still happening — and the core problem is that the career incentives of the people running the money don’t necessarily match the actual investment problem. Yale gets a pass. When Swensen’s successors hit a rough patch, how long do they get a pass? Because Harvard has been a total mess for the last 20 years — there are entire books written about the Harvard endowment, which used to be the Yale before Yale. The Harvard Crimson ran article after article saying, you’re overpaying people, what’s going on here — and the fund would underperform and nobody would actually lose their job over it. That’s the real problem, and I have some sympathy for how hard it is to fix. You deal with a version of this on the personal client side too, with multigenerational wealth — it’s almost an unsolvable structural problem for a Harvard, an endowment, or a CalPERS, because — take Harvard — you’ve got current students, alumni, future students, professors, the people who work at the endowment itself, all with completely different incentives and interests. It creates a genuinely absurd situation where, in no realistic scenario, should the resulting portfolio look like what they actually end up with. It’s an outright disaster, structurally. [29:36] Frazer Rice: It reminds me of a car designed by committee — you end up with this stitched-together Frankenstein’s monster of a product that was never going to work or sell, and it ends up sinking the company. Meb Faber: Yeah, yeah — a Rube Goldberg machine is not what you need. But there’s a reason our endowment ETF, out of the roughly 20 funds we’ve launched, has gotten the least attention — even though it’s now about $5 billion in assets with over a hundred thousand investors. It’s received the least publicity of any ETF we’ve ever done, because it doesn’t benefit anyone in that whole existing ecosystem — it’s actually a genuine threat to it. I was at an institutional conference up in Santa Barbara, at a wine happy hour, talking to three women who run three of the most famous pension and endowment pools of real money in the country. We’d just launched an endowment-style ETF, and they just stared back at me with these icy daggers. I said, oh, sorry — I’m not really a competitor to you, you should easily be able to beat me, I’m just the table stakes. But I think they realized that’s probably not true — they’re going to have a very hard time beating me, which doesn’t exactly make me anyone’s friend. I’m the anti-Switzerland of asset management. [31:16] Frazer Rice: Meb, how do people find the firm, find the book, find you? [31:24] Meb Faber: With a name like Meb, it’s easy. Cambria Funds is the day job, with the ETFs. Meb Faber is the old blog, podcast, and Twitter presence — you can find that just about anywhere. And if you find yourself in Los Angeles, Manhattan Beach, come say hi. We’d love to hear from you if you pick up a copy of the book, Investing in America — let us know what you think. Frazer Rice: Really cool stuff. Thanks, Meb, for being on. This was a blast — let’s do it again. Meb Faber: Let’s do it. [31:50] Close (produced VO): This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes. It is neither investment, legal, nor tax advice. It does not represent the opinions of the employers of the host or guests. https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Actually-Intelligent-Decision-Making-1-ebook/dp/B07FPQJJQT/

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) written in the form of an extended letter to his son, William Franklin (1730-1813). Ben kept good records of his life and travels, and although he was never President, he still played a crucial part in American history. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin at https://amzn.to/43cp6CV Benjamin Franklin Books available at https://amzn.to/41fUkGD ENJOY Ad-Free content, Bonus episodes, and Extra materials when joining our growing community on https://patreon.com/markvinet SUPPORT this channel by purchasing any product on Amazon using this FREE entry LINK https://amzn.to/3POlrUD (Amazon gives us credit at NO extra charge to you). Mark Vinet's HISTORICAL JESUS podcast at https://parthenonpodcast.com/historical-jesus Mark's TIMELINE video channel: https://youtube.com/c/TIMELINE_MarkVinet Website: https://markvinet.com/podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.vinet.9 X (twitter): https://twitter.com/MarkVinet_HNA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/denarynovels Mark's books: https://amzn.to/3k8qrGM Audio credits: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (Librivox, read by T. Hersant). See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tut chariot crash, Knievel's ancestors, Typecasting villains, Carl Sagan's nemesis, Gangster memorabilia, Ben Franklin's mass grave, Elvis's genetic struggle. Jennifer, Angie, Way, and Bradley discuss a variety of curated links from the archives. Please consider supporting this ad-free content on Patreon.

Times change, but somehow the job hasn’t. In this episode, Chip and Gini dig into what’s stayed constant across their combined decades in PR and marketing, and why chasing the latest platform update is a losing game if you’ve lost sight of the fundamentals underneath it. The episode was sparked by a LinkedIn series from Doug Simon, who asked longtime PR pros what has remained constant in their careers. Gini was asked the question of whether the PESO Model still holds up, and her answer is that the four media types haven’t gone anywhere, and earned media’s third-party credibility now matters more to how LLMs learn. Chip extends the logic to SEO and its successors, advising to chase the people, not the algorithm or the platform. Other changes may also have less of an impact than you might think. Influencer marketing is the latest version of celebrity TV endorsements, but with a YouTube channel. The agency-client relationship continues to run on the same dynamics it did 70 or 80 years ago. Gini brings up the story about a UK agency reportedly running AI agents to pitch journalists undetected for eight months. Chip’s take is that just like with interns and inexperienced team members, there are well-managed AI agents as well as poorly managed ones. It's the human factor that matters most. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “If you lose sight of the fundamentals, you can have all the technology in the world, and you’re still gonna have rubbish results.” Gini Dietrich: “If you create content for humans, you will win the SEO game. You will win the AEO, GEO game. You will win whatever comes next game.” Chip Griffin: “Chase the people. Don’t chase the algorithm.” Gini Dietrich: “Your job, especially as a communicator, is to protect reputation, build brand, and create thought leadership. That has not changed.” View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, I’m gonna have to try to rack my memory from way, way back, and as I get older, that, that distance gets longer and my memory gets poorer, so we’ll see how this works. Gini Dietrich: Ok- okay. Well, I have the same afflictions, so let’s see what happens. Chip Griffin: So we thought that this was, this was spurred by something that our friend Doug Simon did recently on LinkedIn where he did a video series and talked to a bunch of people who have been in the PR industry for a long time and asked a series of questions, one of which was, what has- Remained constant over the course of your career in PR. Obviously we talk a lot these days about everything that, that has changed, is changing. There’s no shortage of those things. I’ve talked about it here on the show, you know, how we started with fax machines and mailed press releases and things like that, that just kind of blows the mind of a lot of the younger listeners that we have. But, but even with all of that change and with everything that AI is doing to our industry today, there are a lot of things that have stayed constant. And I think that as we think about how we run our agencies, it’s important to remember the fundamentals that have remained the same no matter how much technology has changed in PR and marketing. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I mean, I think you’re right that the, probably the way that we do things has changed, but not the strategic reason. Like I say to people all the time that the reason you do your job has not changed. The strategy, the strategic reason behind it has not changed. The tools have changed, for sure, but your job, especially as a communicator, is to protect reputation, build brand, and create thought leadership. That has not changed. Yeah. The way that you go about it has changed, but not, not the actual doing of the job has changed. Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, the tools have changed. The landscape certainly in media has changed. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Yes. Chip Griffin: The landscape in terms of the public and where they go for information and where they receive messaging and all of that, obviously that has changed substantially over the 35 plus years that I’ve been in communications. But it is still about communicating the right message at the right time to the right people. Yeah. And building relationships with the people that you are trying to influence, whether that’s a member of the media or a member of the public or potential client or whomever. And if you remember those fundamentals, it helps you to figure out how to use all of these technologies for their greatest impact. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I mean, I had a convers- I was on Zoom with Fred Cook of former GolinHarris, now at Annenberg Center. I was on Zoom with him last week, and he’s like, “So has PESO changed?” And I was like, “No, because we still do those things, right?” Like, the way that we implement it today versus the way we implemented it in 2014 are completely different, for sure. But we still use earned media, we still use shared media, we still use owned media, we still use paid media. The way that we use it has changed, but we still use the four media types. And to your point, media has changed, so earned media has changed, like the, the recipient of our earned media has changed, but the outcome of third-party credibility is probably even more important today than it was back then because that’s how the LLMs learn too, is by citable information. So yes, the way that we go about it has changed, but the actual work itself, the outcome itself has not. Chip Griffin: Yeah, and I think the, the important thing to think about here is that, that ultimately all of these tools and publications and platforms are all designed to connect one human to another. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: And, and so you know, when you think about public relations, for example, it’s got relations right there in the title. And so you really need to think about how you are building those relationships between whoever the person is on your end and the person that you’re trying to reach. And, if you, if you take the humans out of this entirely, then you’re missing the plot, and you really need to be thinking about how do these tools and how do these techniques allow you to do more of that, to do it better, to do it at greater scale, all of those kinds of things, but not, not just, you know, chuck everything that you knew out the window, have the machines do everything on their own, for you. Gini Dietrich: No. No. Chip Griffin: Abandon proven approaches. None of those things make any sense. Gini Dietrich: No. Please do not do that because that has not changed. Like, the way I- we talked about this last week, like, AI is making us far more productive and far more efficient, but you still have to know how to, to your point, relate to other human beings. Are you creating content and engineering your visibility to show up in AI? For sure. But that’s also because human beings are using AI to get the answer, so you still have to build those relationships with other human beings. Chip Griffin: Yeah, and if you follow the fundamentals, then it allows you to evolve with whatever tools and technology- That’s right come along. It’s similar to what I’ve always said in terms of SEO in the old days and now AEO, GEO, which is chase the people. Don’t chase the algorithm. Yep. Don’t chase the platform. Yep. Chase the, the people because ultimately all of the tools are designed to do that anyway, right? Right. I mean, Google for years has been trying to figure out what is the user actually looking for and trying to deliver that in the results. And so if you are sitting there trying to say, “Hey, I need to figure out how to reach that same person,” you’ll probably be okay no matter how they change the algorithm. If you sit there and say, “I need to figure out what was the latest Google algorithm update, and what does that mean?” “How should I move things around on my page? What should I bold?” If you start thinking in those terms, you may win the short-term battle, but you will lose the war because you do not understand what you’re actually trying to do, and that has not changed over the course of our careers. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I mean, I’ve said for at least a decade, if not longer, that if you create content for humans, you will win the SEO game. You will win the AEO, GEO game. You will win whatever comes next game. Because human beings are still the ones that are purchasing your services. The robots are not. Chip Griffin: Right. Gini Dietrich: And so if you create content, if it’s whatever content it is, it’s earned media, it’s video, it’s audio, it’s written, whatever it happens to be, if that audience, number one audience is human beings, you will win all the other games. Chip Griffin: And look, even most of the things that we look at today as new, they aren’t really. They’re just, they- they’re packaged differently. I, you know- Right … we, we have all of this talk around influencers- Yes, yes … and the rise of influencers. Yes, yes. Which to me is one of the silliest things in the world. Not the influencers themselves, I mean, some of them can be silly. They’re certainly useful to us as communicators, marketers, et cetera. But that’s no different than three decades ago when we had celebrity endorsements. Gini Dietrich: Right. Chip Griffin: Right? The, it is just the modern-day equivalent of it, and we just define celebrity a little bit differently than we might have back, you know- Yep in the ’80s or ’90s, but ultimately it’s the same thing. It’s just they have a YouTube channel now or an Instagram account- Right … instead of, you know, you put them in a TV commercial or a print ad or something like that. But even back in the day, you had celebrity endorsers who were not truly celebrities. They were just someone known in their local community- Right … who you could throw in a newspaper ad and say- Yeah … you know, “Hey, you know, I believe in either this cause or this product or whatever.” So that has not changed. That continues to be exactly the same, just packaged differently. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I mean, when you think about earned media, and you know, we do a, a lot, a lot, a lot of work with universities because PESO model curriculum is in almost every university’s PR, communications, marketing, and some journalism programs. So we do a ton of work with universities, and I, one of the questions I get consistently from professors is, “How are you teaching earned media through PESO?” And we keep talking about traditional media is like, that used to be the thing, right? You would get The New York Times, you would get Oprah, you would get The Today Show. Like, those things don’t matter as much anymore because you have influencers or, local celebrities that have their Substack newsletters, they have their Medium newsletters. You can subscribe to those, you can pay for those just like you would the newspaper, and you get the information that you need. Chip Griffin: Yeah, and, so little technical glitch on my end. I think we’ll clean it up, in the edit. But if you noticed anything, it was just for some reason my home TV studio- … decided to shut itself off. The, the, the smart home devices here just decided that, nope, it was time to turn everything, everything off, so. Gini Dietrich: I was talking to a blank screen. I was like, “Should I keep going?” Chip Griffin: You know, but we just, we roll through these things … on the Agency Leadership podcast because the technology has changed- It is- … but glitches still happen. Glitches, right. I mean, you know, I, I, I remember back in the ’90s, you know, using dial-up internet to do work, and then, you know, someone actually calls your landline and knocks you offline in the middle of, you know- Yep trying to send an email or something. Yep. Yep. And you gotta figure, did it actually send? Did it not send? Yep. So, you know- Mm-hmm … technical glitches- There you go … that’s another thing that has remained constant- It’s still- … despite all the technology. Oh my gosh, it’s so funny. You know, the typewriters that I used to use at work, sometimes the ribbon would get snagged, and, you know, you’d have to unsnag the ribbon, right? So even non-electronic things still had issues. Broke your pencil, whatever. Gini Dietrich: As much as things have changed- … they still remain the same. Chip Griffin: They, they absolutely do. And, and I, so I think it’s part of our responsibility as agencies to work with our clients and help them to understand that the fundamentals have remained constant and will continue to remain constant. Because we wanna make sure that we’re taking advantage of everything that’s out there, but we also need to make sure that we are not overdoing it in one area or another because we’re losing sight of those fundamentals, nor are we either having our clients get scared or us get nervous about it and what it means for our businesses. Because if we follow those fundamentals, then we can continue to adapt, and take advantage of all of these technologies as we move forward. If you, if you focus on the technology first and just say, “Hey, I need to have an AI strategy.” No, you don’t. Gini Dietrich: No, you don’t. Chip Griffin: You absolutely do not need to have an AI strategy- Right or an influencer strategy or anything. Gini Dietrich: Totally agree. Yeah. Chip Griffin: You need to have a strategy that takes advantage of AI or influencers or whatever as appropriate. Yes. But your strategy should be rooted in those fundamentals because that’s how you get ahead. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I totally agree with that. And like I said at the start, I always say the reason that we do these things has not changed. The tools have changed, the way you go about it has changed, but the how or the why has not changed. So don’t get so wrapped up in, “Oh my gosh, now I’ve gotta figure out AI.” Yeah, you gotta figure out AI- Right … because it’s, it’s going to replace you if you don’t figure it out, and it’s actually really fun, so you should figure it out just from that perspective. But you don’t have to change your strategy. You don’t have to change, like, the things that you do to service clients- Right … because that has not changed. Chip Griffin: Right. Right. And, and I think that that’s a, that’s another thing that has remained constant is the relationship between agencies and clients. You know, we think all of this is changing in the world that we’re in, but it’s really not. The way that agencies and clients work together is the same today as it was 70 or 80 years ago, even before you and I were born, let alone started working in the industry. And so understanding how those relationships and dynamics come together and how you can partner most effectively. Sure, the actual nature of the relationships has changed because of the work that we’re doing, but those relationships still matter in the same way that they always did, and you still need to build the human component into it. We can’t allow the technology to overtake that. We need to make sure that we’re spending the time to get to know our clients. We need to make sure that we’re continuing, even in this remote world that we’re in, to find ways to have additional touchpoints, whether that’s through more frequent video calls to build the relationship or ideally in person whenever possible. Those things still matter, and we still need to try to figure out how to take advantage of them to have those strong business relationships in addition to the results-oriented relationships that we’re looking for. Gini Dietrich: So I’m gonna throw a little wrench in things- Okay … because I just read an article this morning that talked about how an agency out of the UK has created AI agents that are pitching media, and it took about eight months for a journalist to go, “Something doesn’t seem right,” and then started to investigate, and sure enough, the agency owner said, “Yeah, I mean, we’ve created these bots that are pitching the media.” He claims that there are real humans on the back end of it, um, that has not been proven yet. They, the, the investigative journalist said, “I think actually based on what I have here, that there aren’t real humans behind it.” But, you know, I think when, when we hear about AI taking our jobs, we hear these kinds of stories, and we get a little freaked out. Nobody’s happy about it. Every journalist who’s been pitched by these AI bots have come out and said, “This is not okay.” But I think that there are gonna be other experiments like this where you’re trying to use– or you’re trying to build an agency out of AI agents instead of human beings. Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, I guess, you know, I– what I would say to that is I think that there are probably countless examples that we’re not aware of where the, the AI did work on pitching the journalist and didn’t get called out, right? Because- Gini Dietrich: Right … Chip Griffin: by definition, you can only call out the ones you catch. Gini Dietrich: Right. Chip Griffin: So, I suspect there is a fair bit of this going on. I mean, part of the problem is that, that so much of it is done poorly. I mean- Right. Yes … my, my inbox is full of sales messaging that I’m fairly certain is, you know, whether it’s directly AI generated or AI assisted, it’s hard to tell for sure sometimes. Yeah, yeah. Because it might be entirely AI or it might just be poorly managed AI. But at the same time I’m certain I’m also being exposed to plenty of messages that are AI generated, and, I can’t tell because they are, they’re good at what they do. And I think we will absolutely see more of that. But ultimately, all of the – the AI doesn’t decide to do these things on its own, right? I mean- Fair. Yeah … at least as of now. Yeah, right. And so even in the- Yep … example that you shared, even if it’s just the owner who’s involved in having created this network, you still have the human at one end of this. Yeah. Whether they are managing every message or not, who knows? And, I’m not even sure that that’s necessary as long as they are well targeted and being actually truly genuinely helpful to the journalist on the other end by giving them something that is, you know, that fits with what they write about. I mean, part of the problem with AI is that so much of it is just poorly targeted. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I agree with that. Yeah. Chip Griffin: But that, that’s more on the humans who are sending them out there. Yeah, yep. It’s not on… The AI can do a great job if you give it the right context, the right direction, the right information. If you just say, “Hey, you know, go find journalists” … of course it’s gonna do poorly, right? It’s- But, but so would a human … Gini Dietrich: just like a young professional Chip Griffin: I mean, we’ve talked about this before. Gini Dietrich: Right. A young pro- Yeah … intern Chip Griffin: You bring an intern and you tell them, “Just start talking to journalists and, and get them to cover us,” and you don’t tell them what you do. You don’t tell them what the journalists cover. Yeah, right, right. Yeah, they’re gonna do awful. Yeah. You start giving context and the in- even the intern will do- Yeah … a good job with very little background, but you need to give them something, and the AI needs the same thing. But ultimately it’s still that human on one end and the human on the other end. And so I think that, that we, when we’re talking about fundamentals, that’s what I’m talking about. You need to sort of separate out all of the machinations in between. That can be done well, it can be done poorly, and that changes the outcome, but fundamentally you still have a human on both ends of that conversation. Even though we like to pretend it’s the AI doing it on its own, the AI is never- It’s not … doing it on its own. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Chip Griffin: At least, at least as of this recording. No. We, we don’t have- Gini Dietrich: Not right now, right. … Chip Griffin: AI that just wanders off and does its own thing. Gini Dietrich: This is why I always say please and thank you to my AI, just so that it remembers that I was kind to it. Chip Griffin: Yeah. Well, and, I mean, we can probably talk about this some other time, but I think the AI companies are doing themselves no service by trying to make it seem like the AI operates on its own, and when they say the, “The AI broke out of its constraints and, you know, hacked into another company,” baloney. I mean, come on. Like, just knock it off. And I don’t, from a communication standpoint, I guess, you know, they may think that that’s helping them to, No … to say, “We’re really powerful. You should use us.” That’s not really- That’s not … I don’t think what- Nope … what ultimately- Gini Dietrich: That’s not the message Chip Griffin: comes through. Gini Dietrich: Nope. That’s not the message. Chip Griffin: So, yeah. So it’s, you know, you need to focus on the fundamentals. And I think if, if you take nothing else away from this discussion it’s, is that the fundamentals don’t change, haven’t changed, remain constant, you know, going back to, I don’t know, Ben Franklin or earlier, you know? These are not things that are, you know, wild and innovative. The tools and techniques are, absolutely. And but to me, that’s the exciting bit, right? Right. You can figure out, if you know the fundamentals, then you can always take advantage of the latest tools and technology to do it better, to do it faster, to do it more effectively, whatever it may be. But if you lose sight of the fundamentals, you can have all the technology in the world, and you’re still gonna have rubbish results. Gini Dietrich: 100%, I totally agree. Yep. Strategy has not changed, tools have. Chip Griffin: So with that, I think we will stop beating this dead horse, and we can, we can move along. You can move along from listening to us today, and you’ll have to join us for the next episode where we’ll find something else to rant and rave about. Gini Dietrich: Yes, we will. Chip Griffin: ‘Cause that’s what we do. That’s what we do. At least that’s what I do. Gini Dietrich: That’s what we do. Chip Griffin: So with that, I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And it depends.

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) written in the form of an extended letter to his son, William Franklin (1730-1813). Ben kept good records of his life and travels, and although he was never President, he still played a crucial part in American history. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin at https://amzn.to/43cp6CV Benjamin Franklin Books available at https://amzn.to/41fUkGD ENJOY Ad-Free content, Bonus episodes, and Extra materials when joining our growing community on https://patreon.com/markvinet SUPPORT this channel by purchasing any product on Amazon using this FREE entry LINK https://amzn.to/3POlrUD (Amazon gives us credit at NO extra charge to you). Mark Vinet's HISTORICAL JESUS podcast at https://parthenonpodcast.com/historical-jesus Mark's TIMELINE video channel: https://youtube.com/c/TIMELINE_MarkVinet Website: https://markvinet.com/podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.vinet.9 X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/MarkVinet_HNA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/denarynovels Mark's books: https://amzn.to/3k8qrGM Audio credits: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (Librivox, read by T. Hersant). See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Declaration of Independence proclaimed that all men are endowed with the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.But what did liberty and equality mean for the peoples the Declaration never named—the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi nations who had governed the vast Great Lakes homeland they called Anishinaabewake for generations before a single European sailed its waters?In this revisited conversation, historian Michael Witgen, Professor of History at Columbia University and a citizen of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe, takes us inside the Anishinaabe world and reveals how the new United States set about transforming it.The answer, Witgen shows us, wasn't simple conquest. It was something more elaborate, more profitable, and in some ways more insidious: what he calls the political economy of plunder—a system engineered to strip Indigenous peoples of their homelands while funneling the wealth of that dispossession directly into the settler colonial economy.Michael's Website | Book Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/323 RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES

The engrossed copy of the Declaration of Independence is on display at the National Archives building in Washington, DC. Millions of visitors flock to see it and the other Charters of Freedom. But how did it end up there and why do people approach it with religious reverence?In this episode, we explore how the Declaration took on its symbolic role as the founding text of the United States.Pauline's Book Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/403EPISODE OUTLINE00:00:00 Introduction00:06:30 Introducing Mary Beth Norton00:07:17 American Scripture: Pauline Maier00:10:00 Graduate School with Pauline Maier00:13:36 The State of Historians' Thinking in the 1990s00:15:23 Other Declarations of Independence00:21:08 Thomas Jefferson's Drafting of the Declaration00:23:44 Why Create a Parchment Copy of the Declaration?00:28:24 How the Declaration Became American Scripture00:30:32 The Impact of American Scripture00:32:10 Situating the Declaration in the American Revolution00:35:39 The Role of the Parchment Copy Today00:40:12 Closing Thoughts on Pauline MaierRECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) written in the form of an extended letter to his son, William Franklin (1730-1813). Ben kept good records of his life and travels, and although he was never President, he still played a crucial part in American history. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin at https://amzn.to/43cp6CV Benjamin Franklin Books available at https://amzn.to/41fUkGD ENJOY Ad-Free content, Bonus episodes, and Extra materials when joining our growing community on https://patreon.com/markvinet SUPPORT this channel by purchasing any product on Amazon using this FREE entry LINK https://amzn.to/3POlrUD (Amazon gives us credit at NO extra charge to you). Mark Vinet's HISTORICAL JESUS podcast at https://parthenonpodcast.com/historical-jesus Mark's TIMELINE video channel: https://youtube.com/c/TIMELINE_MarkVinet Website: https://markvinet.com/podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.vinet.9 X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/MarkVinet_HNA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/denarynovels Mark's books: https://amzn.to/3k8qrGM Audio credits: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (Librivox, read by T. Hersant). See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this edition of Hayden's History Hour, Federalist Staff Editor Hayden Daniel answers your mailbag questions about which Founding Father is most similar to President Trump, how Abraham Lincoln's faith shaped his actions in the Civil War, how many non-white slave owners existed in the South, how Puritanism and immigration policy evolved into progressivism, and more. The Federalist Foundation is a nonprofit, and we depend entirely on our listeners and readers — not corporations. If you value fearless, independent journalism, please consider a tax-deductible gift today at TheFederalist.com/donate. Your support keeps us going.

For the Haudenosaunee, the Six Nations People, the American Revolution brought not liberty, but land loss, displacement, and the dismantling of their world. The new United States seized land from Haudenosaunee nations regardless of which side they supported during the Revolution. And yet the Haudenosaunee survived, and Haudenosaunee women are central to this story.In this revisited episode, Maeve Kane, Associate Professor of History at the University at Albany and author of Shirts Powdered Red, reveals how Haudenosaunee women used cloth, trade, and cultural creativity as tools of sovereignty and survival across three centuries of colonial pressure.Maeve's Website | Book |Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/406RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES

Building on an engaging essay by Benjamin Franklin, we're talking today about the items and decisions in our lives that end up costing way too much. Sometimes it's a monetary cost, sometimes it's our time or energy, and sometimes it's our relationships and things that matter most. This simple question (Am I paying too much for this whistle?) has helped to guide our personal decision making, and we hope you'll enjoy this conversation--and then share your own thoughts in the Comments section of our Show Notes page or inside our LearnDoBecome Community Facebook group! For Show Notes, please visit https://LearnDoBecome.com/Episode331 Ready for More with LearnDoBecome? Join us for our Free training, "How to Finally Stop Drowning in Piles": https://learndobecome.com/aff/?p=Ldbyt&w=organize Get Your Free LearnDoBecome Welcome Kit Here: https://LearnDoBecome.com/Welcome Subscribe to the LearnDoBecome Radio Podcast: https://LearnDoBecome.com/Radio Subscribe to the LearnDoBecome YouTube Channel: https://YouTube.com/LearnDoBecome Join the LearnDoBecome Free Community Facebook Group: https://LearnDoBecome.com/FBfamily Follow @LearnDoBecome on Instagram: https://Instagram.com/LearnDoBecome Follow our LearnDoBecome Facebook Page: https://Facebook.com/LearnDoBecome Discover our "Steps to Everyday Productivity" (STEP) Program: https://LearnDoBecome.com/STEPprogram Start Your Free Trial of the ARISE Membership with April and Eric: https://LearnDoBecome.com/ARISE For those looking for more support from Team LearnDoBecome as you set up your STEP Command Central, you can learn more about STEP Coaching at:  https://LearnDoBecome.com/Coach

Five men served on the Continental Congress's Declaration Committee. We know three of them well: Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin. But who were the other two?In this episode, we explore the lives and contributions of Robert R. Livingston of New York and Roger Sherman of Connecticut.Historians Geoff Benton and Michael Morand join us as we uncover the stories of the other Committee members.Clermont State Historic Site: WebsiteShow Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/447EPISODE OUTLINE00:00:00 Introduction00:04:46 The Lee Resolution and the Committee of Five00:05:26 Robert R. Livingston's Early Life00:06:56 Colonial New York Politics00:11:02 Livingston's Appointment to the Second Continental Congress00:15:20 Why Livingston Chosen for Declaration Committee00:18:44 Livingston's feud with John Adams00:19:18 Livingston Misses the Vote for Independence00:20:50 Livingston Becomes Chancellor of New York State00:24:06 Livingston's Role in Steam Navigation00:26:15 Clermont State Historic Site00:32:35 Roger Sherman's Early Life00:36:47 Sherman's Family and Life in New Haven00:37:43 Sherman's Involvement in the Imperial Crisis00:40:38 Sherman's Role in the Second Continental Congress00:42:28 Why Sherman Chosen For Declaration Committee00:43:42 Sherman's Role in Drafting the Declaration00:46:16 The Connecticut Compromise, 178700:50:28 What Made Sherman Effective in Legislatures00:53:47 1776 in Context00:58:10 ConclusionRECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES

Five men served on the Continental Congress's Declaration Committee. We know three of them well: Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin. But who were the other two? In this episode, we explore the lives and contributions of Robert R. Livingston of New York and Roger Sherman of Connecticut. Historians Geoff Benton and Michael Morand join us as we uncover the stories of the other Committee members. Clermont State Historic Site WebsiteShow Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/447 EPISODE OUTLINE00:00:00  Introduction00:04:46 The Lee Resolution and the Committee of Five00:05:26 Robert R. Livingston's Early Life00:06:56 Colonial New York Politics 00:11:02 Livingston's Appointment to the Second Continental Congress00:15:20 Why Livingston Chosen for Declaration Committee00:18:44 Livingston's feud with John Adams00:19:18  Livingston Misses the Vote for Independence00:20:50 Livingston Becomes Chancellor of New York State00:24:06 Livingston's Role in Steam Navigation00:26:15 Clermont State Historic Site00:32:35 Roger Sherman's Early Life 00:36:47 Sherman's Family and Life in New Haven00:37:43 Sherman's Involvement in the Imperial Crisis00:40:38 Sherman's Role in the Second Continental Congress00:42:28 Why Sherman Chosen For Declaration Committee00:43:42 Sherman's Role in Drafting the Declaration00:46:16 The Connecticut Compromise, 178700:50:28 What Made Sherman Effective in Legislatures00:53:47 1776 in Context 00:58:10 ConclusionRECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES

Every American knows Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, but was he really its sole architect? In this revisited episode, we sit down with three scholars to pull back the curtain on how the Declaration came to be written. Danielle Allen of Harvard University, Patrick Spero of the American Philosophical Society, and Peter Onuf of the University of Virginia reveal that the Declaration was never one man's work. Together, they show how John Adams — not Jefferson — was the intellectual architect behind "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." How Benjamin Franklin changed the Declaration with just four or five surgical edits. And what the Second Continental Congress cut from Jefferson's original draft, including his striking grievance blaming King George III for the international slave trade. Originally recorded in 2017 as part of Ben Franklin's World's Doing History to the Revolution series, this episode pairs with Episode 446 and Episode 447 to mark the Declaration's 250th anniversary. Danielle's Website | Book Patrick's Website | BookPeter's Website | BookShow Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/141 RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES

Every American knows Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, but was he really its sole architect? In this revisited episode, we sit down with three scholars to pull back the curtain on how the Declaration came to be written. Danielle Allen of Harvard University, Patrick Spero of the American Philosophical Society, and Peter Onuf of the University of Virginia reveal that the Declaration was never one man's work. Together, they show how John Adams — not Jefferson — was the intellectual architect behind "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." How Benjamin Franklin changed the Declaration with just four or five surgical edits. And what the Second Continental Congress cut from Jefferson's original draft, including his striking grievance blaming King George III for the international slave trade. Originally recorded in 2017 as part of Ben Franklin's World's Doing History to the Revolution series, this episode pairs with Episode 446 and Episode 447 to mark the Declaration's 250th anniversary. Danielle's Website | Book Patrick's Website | BookPeter's Website | BookShow Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/141 RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES

The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk www.LearningLeader.com New Book - The Price of Becoming - www.LearningLeader.com/Becoming This is brought to you by Insight Global. If you need to hire one person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world has the hustle and grit to deliver. My guest: Ezekiel J. "Zeke" Emanuel, MD, PhD, is a prominent oncologist, bioethicist, and health policy expert. Currently Vice Provost for Global Initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania, he was instrumental in shaping the Affordable Care Act and served as the founding chair of the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health. Key Learnings Zeke's dad was called "Speedy." He was a Chicago pediatrician who worked 24-hour call, walked so fast the nurses had to run to keep up, and had a rule: the fourth child in any family was free. He recognized the financial strain on families and just wouldn't charge. Zeke's mom was the definition of the anti-helicopter parent. At the playground, she sat on the bench. At the beach, she dropped the boys off with a blanket and a snack. "You go play. Something goes wrong? Okay, that's how it goes." That's how three future powerhouse leaders learned to negotiate, create, and figure it out. The Emanuel brothers' group text is full of bragging. Zeke posted his 51.9 VO2 max score at 68 years old, asking, "Do I win in the family?" His kids replied that they don't even read the articles Zeke and Rahm forward anymore. Close doesn't mean uncompetitive. A dozen years ago, Zeke wrote his most famous article, "Why I Hope to Die at 75." He still stands by it. The point wasn't that he wants to die. The point is that after 75, he won't take medical treatments meant to prolong life.  By age 75, 30% of adults have Alzheimer's or cognitive impairment. By 80, it's 40%. Zeke doesn't want to be remembered as a doddering old man who can't recognize his own family. Living a long time is a means, not an end. It's not the goal of life. It's what allows you to be present, engaged, and useful for the years you have. Biohacking is a lie: It suggests you know better than millions of years of evolution and the entire medical profession. The body isn't about maxing. It's about balance. Too much immune response gives you autoimmunity. Too little makes you sick. The body finds health in the median. You're not going to be perfect over decades. Wellness isn't a four-minute figure skating routine graded on execution. It's a lifetime practice. So build habits you enjoy and can sustain without thinking about them. Zeke's six simple rules for a long and healthy life: Don't be a schmuck. Avoid activities riskier than driving. Smoking, vaping, base jumping, climbing Everest. Talk to people. The number one predictor of a long, happy life. Expand your mind. Travel. Talk to the chef. Learn something new. Eat your ice cream. Moderation over perfection. Fermented foods and fiber. Move. Aerobic, strength, and flexibility. All three. Sleep like a baby. You can't will it. But you can create the conditions. The Harvard Adult Development Study followed people for 85 years. John F. Kennedy was in it. Ben Bradlee was in it. The finding: close friends and being married correlated with the healthiest, longest, happiest lives. Not exercise. Not diet. Relationships. Having no close friends is equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. That's how bad loneliness is for you. It's not just psychological. It's physical. Introverts get the same happiness boost from social interaction as extroverts. A University of Chicago study by Nicholas Epley found that introverts assume they won't enjoy talking to strangers on their commute. They were wrong. When they did it, they were just as happy as extroverts. Take the headphones off. Zeke has been telling people this since the iPod era. Random encounters increase your surface area for luck, learning, and connection. You never know who you're going to meet or what they might tell you. To be interesting, you have to be interested. Zeke asks to meet the chef at every great restaurant. He asks his Ethiopian Uber driver which tribe he's from. He talks to the person on the plane. It's virtuous. Good for you AND good for them. Zeke's hero is Ben Franklin. Franklin came back to America at 80 after negotiating the end of the Revolutionary War. The first thing he did was build a library for his curiosity and a dining room for his social dinners. That's the way to live. The wellness trifecta: hosting a dinner party with curious people. You're eating good food. You're getting together with people. Your mind is being stretched by great conversation. Three benefits from one activity. Zeke is anti-wellness-industrial-complex. Peptides from your corner store: disaster, unregulated, no idea what's in them. Testosterone replacement therapy without a real deficiency: bad idea, accelerates prostate cancer. Growth hormone for aging: promotes cancers. That's being a schmuck. Sleep is the one wellness practice you can't will yourself into. You can only build the conditions for it. Dark room. Cool temperature. No caffeine or alcohol eight hours before bed. Phone in another room. Read a book. Everything else is up to your body. Ice cream actually decreases your risk of type 2 diabetes. The fat content softens the glycemic response. Plus, you usually eat it with other people. Social eating matters. Zeke's champagne moment a year from now: finishing his next book on how to fix the American healthcare system, and turning 70. Reflection Questions Are you optimizing for length of life, or for the quality of years you actually get?  When was the last time you turned your headphones off, introduced yourself to a stranger, or asked to meet the chef?  Who are the friends you rely on for social interaction? Not casual acquaintances, but the ones who lift your health, longevity, and happiness. When did you last make plans with them? More Learning #607 - Dr. Meg Meeker - Raising Resilient Kids (Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters) #690 - Austin Kleon - Why Activated Leaders Win #682 - Will Guidara - Adversity is a Terrible Thing to Waste

As we take a mid-summer-post-4th-of-July break, we are bringing you some of our favorite episodes from the archives about the Revolutionary era. We'll be back with new "50 Weeks That Shaped America" episodes soon!It's December 19th. This day in 1732, Benjamin Franklin first published “Poor Richard's Almanack” — his book of weather forecast, practical advice, and all sorts of aphorisms about living your best life.Jody, NIki, and Kellie discuss why the Almanack became such a sensation in Colonial America, and why his advice still feels like it could find an audience today.Join our America250 newsletter community! Subscribe for free to get the latest news and analysis of how America250 is playing out. Paying subscribers get access to early, ad-free versions of the show. Plus bonus features throughout the year. To support our work and get access to everything, subscribe now.This Day is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.comGet in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Follow us on social @thisdaypodOur team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Today David looks at what was meant by the term "republic" prior to the constitutional revolutions throughout Europe in 1848, their meaning when Benjamin Franklin remarked that our nation was founded as.a republic, and whether we still have a republic. The change in meaning to the present is very revealing, telling us what must change in politics, law, and the church.

Jim Daly and John Fuller introduce this Adventures in Odyssey audio drama celebrating America’s Independence Day! It’s an exciting journey back in time to the American Revolution, encountering heroes like Nathan Hale, George Washington, and Ben Franklin! Bring God's Word to life for young readers with this beautiful children's Bible, packed with over 1,000 engaging elements and beloved characters from Adventures in Odyssey to help kids ages 6-12 read, understand, and apply Scripture every day. Receive a copy for your donation of any amount! Plus, receive member-exclusive benefits when you make a recurring gift today. Your monthly support helps families thrive. Get More Episode Resources Share Your Story With Jim Daly If you enjoyed listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, please give us your feedback.

Many so-called timeless beliefs about money pitched by financial advisors today (compound interest, real estate, index funds, retiring early) are not timeless pieces of wisdom, but a set of ideas invented within the last century, mostly by accident. In fact, the biggest financial dangers come from building a financial strategy around government rules that seem like they’ve existed forever but can change overnight. In 1913, when the income tax was created, interest on debt was explicitly excluded from taxation. For 70 years, savvy investors borrowed as much as possible and deducted the losses. Then Ronald Reagan changed it in 1986, in one legislative stroke. Hundreds of thousands of investors found themselves buried under debt they'd structured around a rule that no longer existed Today’s guest is Joseph Moore, author of How to Get Rich in American History: 300 Years of Financial Advice That Worked (and Didn't). We dig into the counterintuitive lessons hiding in plain sight across American history: why Abigail Adams was arguably a better investor than Warren Buffett; how Benjamin Franklin preached against debt while secretly building his printing empire on borrowed money; why one-third of American families once rented out rooms to boarders as their primary wealth-building strategy, until the government outlawed it; and how Dave Ramsey's entire financial philosophy was forged in a single day when the government changed a tax rule and wiped him out. Another lesson with modern parallels is that the FIRE movement — Financial Independence Retire Early — has deep roots in American history, but its most celebrated practitioners were almost always hiding a financial subsidy. Henry David Thoreau, patron saint of anti-consumerism, built his cabin on someone else's land and had his mother bring him food. He later returned to capitalism and ran a successful factory.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.