Podcast appearances and mentions of Bill Gates

In this powerful and wide-ranging episode of Gangland Wire, host Gary Jenkins sits down with Ken Behr, author of One Step Over the Line: Confessions of a Marijuana Mercenary. Behr tells his astonishing life story—from teenage marijuana dealer in South Florida, to high-level drug runner and smuggler, to DEA cooperating source working major international cases. Along the way, he offers rare, first-hand insight into how large-scale drug operations actually worked during the height of the War on Drugs—and why that war, in his view, has largely failed. From Smuggler to Source Behr describes growing up during the explosion of the drug trade in South Florida during the 1970s and 1980s, where smuggling marijuana and cocaine became almost commonplace. He explains how he moved from street-level dealing into large-scale logistics—off-loading planes, running covert runways in the Everglades, moving thousands of pounds of marijuana, and participating in international smuggling operations involving Canada, Jamaica, Colombia, and the Bahamas. After multiple arrests—including a serious RICO case that threatened him with decades in prison—Behr made the life-altering decision to cooperate with the DEA. What followed was a tense and dangerous double life as an undercover operative, helping law enforcement dismantle major trafficking networks while living under constant pressure and fear of exposure. Inside the Mechanics of the Drug Trade This episode goes deep into the nuts and bolts of organized drug trafficking, including: How clandestine runways were built and dismantled in minutes How aircraft were guided into unlit landing zones How smuggling crews were paid and organized Why most drug operations ultimately collapse from inside The role of asset seizures in federal drug enforcement Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” Subscribe to the website for weekly notifications about updates and other Mob information. To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent ‘Brothers against Brothers’ or ‘Gangland Wire,’ the documentaries click here.  To purchase one of my books, click here. Transcript [00:00:00] well, hey, all your wire taps. It’s good to be back here in studio of Gangland Wire. I have a special guest today. He has a book called, uh, title is One Step Over the Line and, and he went several steps over the line, I think in his life. Ken Bearer, welcome Ken. Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me. Now, Ken, Ken is a, was a marijuana smuggler at one time and, and ended up working with the DEA, so he went from one side over to my side and, and I always like to talk to you guys that that helped us in law enforcement and I, there’s a lot of guys that don’t like that out there, but I like you guys you were a huge help to us in law enforcement and ended up doing the right thing after you made a lot of money. So tell us about the money. We were just starting to talk about the money. Tell us about the money, all those millions and millions of dollars that you drug smuggler makes. What happens? Well, I, you know, like I said, um, Jimmy Buffett’s song a pirate looks at 40, basically, he says, I made enough money to to buy Miami and pissed it away all so fast, never meant to last. And, and that’s what happens. I do know a few people that have [00:01:00] put away money. One of my friends that we did a lot of money together, a lot of drug dealing and a lot of moving some product, and he’s put the money away. Got in bed with some other guy that was, you know, legal, bought a bunch of warehouses, and now he lives a great life, living off the money he put away. Yeah. If the rents and stuff, he, he got into real estate. Other guys have got into real estate and they got out and they ended up doing okay. ’cause now they’re drawing all those rents. That’s a good way to money. Exactly what he did. Uh, my favorite, I was telling you a favorite story of mine was the guy that was a small time dealer used to hang out at the beach. And, uh, we en he ended up saving $80,000, which was a lot of money back then. Yeah. And then put it all, went to school to be a culinary chef and then got a job at the Marriott as a culinary chef and a chef. So he, you know, he really took the money, made a little bit of money, didn’t make a lot Yeah. But made enough to go to school and do something with his life. That’s so, um, that’s a great one. That’s a good one [00:02:00] there. That’s real. Yeah. But he wasn’t a big time guy. Yeah. You know what, what happens is you might make a big lick. You know, I, I never made million dollar moves. I have lots of friends that did. I always said I didn’t want to be a smuggler. ’cause I was making a steady living, being a drug runner. If you brought in 40, 50,000 pounds of weed, you would come to me and then I would move it across the country and sell it in different, along with other guys like me. Having said that, so I say I’m a guy that never wanted to do a smuggling trip. I’ve done 12 of them. Yeah. Even though, you know, and you know, if you’ve been in the DEA side twelve’s a lot for somebody usually. Yeah. That’s a lot. They don’t make, there’s no longevity. Two or three trips. No. You know, I did it for 20 years. Yeah. And then finally I got busted one time in Massachusetts in 1988. We had 40,000 pounds stuck up in Canada. So a friend of mine comes to me, another friend had the 40,000 pounds up there. He couldn’t sell it. He goes, Hey, you wanna help me smuggle [00:03:00] this back into America? Which, you know, is going the wrong direction. The farther north it goes, the more money it’s worth. I would’ve taken it to Greenland for Christ’s sakes. Yeah. But, we smuggled it back in. What we did this time was obviously they, they brought a freighter or a big ship to bring the 40,000 pounds into Canada. Mm-hmm. He added, stuffed in a fish a fish packing plant in a freezer somewhere up there. And so we used the sea plane and we flew from a lake in Canada to a lake in Maine where the plane would pull up, I’d unload. Then stash it. And we really did like to get 1400 pounds. We had to go through like six or seven trips. ’cause the plane would only hold 200 and something pounds. Yeah. And a sea plane can’t land at night. It has to land during the day. Yeah. You can’t land a plane in the middle of a lake in the night, I guess yourself. Yeah. I see. Uh, and so we got, I got busted moving that load to another market and that cost, uh, [00:04:00] cost me about $80,000 in two years of fighting in court to get out of that. Yeah. Uh, but I did beat the case for illegal search and seizure. So one for the good guys. It wasn’t for the good guys. Well the constitution, he pulled me over looking for fireworks and, ’cause it was 4th of July and, yeah. The name of that chapter in the book is why I never work on a holiday. So you don’t wanna spend your holiday in jail ’cause there’s no, you can’t on your birthday. So another, the second time I got busted was in 92. So just a couple years later after, basically I was in the system for two years with the loss, you know, fighting it and that, that was for Rico. I was looking at 25 years. But, uh, but like a normal smuggling trip. I’ll tell you one, we did, I brought, I actually did my first smuggling trip. I was on the run in Jamaica from a, a case that I got named in and I was like 19 living down in Jamaica to cool out. And then my buddies came down. So we ended up bringing out 600 pounds. So that was my first tr I was about 19 or [00:05:00] 20 years old when I did my first trip. I brought out 600 pounds outta Jamaica. A friend of mine had a little Navajo and we flew it out with that, but. I’ll give you an example of a smuggling trip. So a friend of mine came to me and he wanted to load 300 kilos of Coke in Columbia and bring it into America. And he wanted to know if I knew anybody that could load him 300 kilos. So I did. I introduced him to a friend of mine that Ronnie Vest. He’s the only person you’ll appreciate this. Remember how he kept wanting to extradite all the, the guys from Columbia when we got busted, indict him? Yes. And of course, Escobar’s living in his own jail with his own exit. Yeah. You know, and yeah. So the Columbian government says, well, we want somebody, why don’t you extradite somebody to America, to Columbia? So Ronnie Vest had gotten caught bringing a load of weed outta Columbia. You know, they sent ’em back to America. So that colo, the Americans go, I’ll tell you what you want. Somebody. And Ronnie Vests got the first good friend of mine, first American to be [00:06:00] extradited to Columbia to serve time. So he did a couple years in the Columbian prison. And so he’s the one that had the cocaine connection now. ’cause he spent time in Columbia. Yeah. And you know, so we brought in 300 kilos of Coke. He actually, I didn’t load it. He got another load from somebody else. But, so in the middle of the night, you set up on a road to nowhere in the Everglades, there’s so many Floridas flat, you’ve got all these desolate areas. We go out there with four or five guys. We take, I have some of ’em here somewhere. Callum glow sticks. You know the, the, the glow sticks you break, uh, yeah. And some flashing lights throw ’em out there. Yeah. And we set up a, yeah, the pilot came in and we all laid in the woods waiting for the plane to come in. And as soon as the pilot clicks. The mic four times. It’s, we all click our mics four times and then we run out. He said to his copilot, he says, look, I mean, we lit up this road from the sky. He goes, it looks like MIA [00:07:00] behind the international airport. But it happens like that within a couple, like a minute, we’ll light that whole thing up. Me and one other guy run down the runway. It’s a lot, it’s a long run, believe me. We put out the lights, we gotta put out the center lights and then the marker lights, because you gotta have the center of the runway where the plane’s gonna land and the edge is where it can’t, right? Yeah. He pulls up, bring up a couple cars, I’m driving one of them, load the kilos in. And then we have to refuel the plane because you don’t, you know, you want to have enough fuel to get back to an FBO to your landing airport or real airport. Yeah. Not the one we made in the Everglades. Yeah. And then the trick is the car’s gotta get out of there. Yeah, before the plane takes off. ’cause when that plane takes off, you know you got a twin engine plane landing is quiet, taking off at full throttle’s gonna wake up the whole neighborhood. So once we got out of there, then they went ahead and got the plane off. And then the remaining guys, they gotta clean up the mess. We want to use this again. So we [00:08:00] wanna clean up all the wires, the radios. Mm-hmm. Pick up the fuel tanks, pick up the runway lights, and their job is to clean that off and all that’s gonna take place before the police even get down the main road. Right? Mm-hmm. That’s gonna all take place in less than 10 minutes. Wow. I mean, the offload takes, the offload takes, you can offload about a thousand pounds, which I’ve done in three minutes. Wow. But, and then refueling the plane, getting everything else cleaned up. Takes longer. Yeah. Interesting. So how many guys would, would be on that operation and how do you pay that? How do you decide who gets paid what? How much? Okay. So get it up front or, I always curious about the details, how that stuff, I don’t think I got paid enough. And I’ll be honest, it was a hell of a chance. I got 20 grand looking at 15 years if you get caught. Yeah. But I did it for the excitement. 20 grand wasn’t that much. I had my own gig making more money than that Uhhuh, you know, but I was also racing cars. I was, there’s a [00:09:00] picture of one of my race cars. Oh cool. So that costs about six, 7,000 a weekend. Yeah. And remember I’m talking about 1980s dollars. Yeah. That’s 20,000 a weekend. A weekend, yes. Yeah. And that 20,000 for a night’s work in today’s world would be 60. Yeah. Three. And I’m talking about 1985 versus, that was 40 years ago. Yeah. Um. But it’s a lot of fun and, uh, and, but it, you kind of say to yourself, what was that one step over the line? That’s why I wrote the book. I remember as a kid thinking in my twenties, man, I’ve taken one step over the line. So the full name of the book is One Step Over the Line Con Confessions of a Marijuana Mercenary. That’s me actually working for the DEA. That picture was at the time when I was working for the DEA, so the second time I got busted in 1992 was actually for the smallest amount of weed that I ever got, ever really had. It was like 80, a hundred pounds. But unfortunately it was for Rico. I didn’t know at the [00:10:00] time, but when they arrested me, I thought, oh, they only caught me with a hundred pounds. But I got charged with Rico. So I was looking at 25 years. What, how, what? Did they have some other, it must have had some other offenses that they could tie to and maybe guns and stuff or something that get that gun. No, we never used guns ever. Just other, other smuggling operations. Yeah, yeah. Me, me and my high school friend, he had moved to Ohio in 77 or 78, so he had called me one time, he was working at the Ford plant and he goes, Hey, I think I could sell some weed up here. All right. I said, come on down, I’ll give you a couple pounds. So he drives down from Ohio on his weekend off, all the way from Ohio. I gave him two pounds. He drove home, calls me back. He goes, I sold it. So I go, all right. He goes, I’m gonna get some more. So at that time, I was working for one of the largest marijuana smugglers in US History. His name was Donny Steinberg. I was just a kid, you know, like my job, part of my [00:11:00] job was to, they would gimme a Learjet. About a million or two and I jump on a Learjet and fly to the Cayman Islands. I was like 19 years old. Same time, you know, kid. Yeah, just a kid. 19 or 20 and yeah. 18, I think. And so I ended up doing that a few times. That was a lot of fun. And that’s nice to be a kid in the Learjet and they give me a million or two and they gimme a thousand dollars for the day’s work. I thought I was rich, I was, but people gotta understand that’s in that 78 money, not that’s, yeah. That was more like $10,000 for day, I guess. Yeah. You know? Yeah. It was a lot of money for an 18, 19-year-old kid. Yeah. Donnie gives me a bail. So Terry comes back from Ohio, we shoved the bale into his car. Barely would fit ’cause he had no big trunk on this Firebird. He had, he had a Firebird trans Am with the thunder black with a thunder, thunder chicken on the hood. It was on the hood. Oh cool. That was, that was a catch meow back then. Yeah. Yeah. It got it with that [00:12:00] Ford plant money. And uh, by the way, that was after that 50 pounds got up. ’cause every bail’s about 50 pounds. That’s the last he quit forward the next day. I bet. And me and him had built a 12 year, we were moving. Probably 50 tons up there over the 12 year period. You know, probably, I don’t know, anywhere from 50 to a hundred thousand pounds we would have, he must have been setting up other dealers. So among his friends, he must have been running around. He had the distribution, I was setting up the distribution network and you had the supply. I see. Yeah. I was the Florida connection. It’s every time you get busted, the cops always wanna grab that Florida connection. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. You gotta go down there. I there, lemme tell you, you know, I got into this. We were living in, I was born on a farm in New Jersey, like in know Norman Rockwell, 1950s, cow pies and hay bales. And then we moved to New Orleans in 1969 and then where my dad had business and right after, not sure after that, he died when I was 13. As I say in the book, I [00:13:00] probably wouldn’t have been writing the book if my father was alive. Yeah. ’cause I probably wouldn’t have went down that road, you know? But so my mother decides in 1973 to move us to, uh, south Florida, to get away from the drugs in the CD underside of New Orleans. Yeah. I guess she didn’t read the papers. No. So I moved from New Orleans to the star, the war on where the war on drugs would start. I always say if she’d have moved me to Palo Alto, I’d be Bill Gates, but No. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was so, uh, and everybody I knew was running drugs, smuggling drugs, trying to be a drug deal. I mean, I was, I had my own operation. I was upper middle level, but there were guys like me everywhere. Mm-hmm. There were guys like me everywhere, moving a thou, I mean, moving a thousand, 2000 pounds at the time was a big thing, you know? That’s, yeah. So, so about what year was that? I started in 19. 70. Okay. Three. I was [00:14:00] 16. Started selling drugs outta my mom’s house, me and my brother. We had a very good business going. And by the time I was got busted, it was 19 92. So, so you watched, especially in South Florida, you watched like where that plane could go down and go back up that at eventually the feds will come up with radar and they have blimps and they have big Bertha stuff down there to then catch those kinds of things. Yeah. Right, right. Big Bertha was the blimp. Uhhuh, uh, they put up, yeah. In the beginning you could just fly right in. We did one trip one time. This is this, my, my buddy picked up, I don’t know, 40 or 50 kilos in The Bahamas. So you fly into Fort Lauderdale and you call in like you’re gonna do a normal landing. Mm-hmm. And the BLI there. This is all 1980s, five. You know, they already know. They’re doing this, but you just call in, like you’re coming to land in Fort Lauderdale, and what you do is right before you land, you hit the tower up and you tell ’em you wanna do a [00:15:00] go around, meaning you’re not comfortable with the landing. Mm-hmm. Well, they’ll always leave you a go around because they don’t want you to crash. Yeah. And right west of the airport was a golf course, and right next to the golf course, oh, about a mile down the road was my townhouse. So we’re in the townhouse. My buddies all put on, two of the guys, put on black, get big knives, gear, and I drive to one road on the golf course and my other friend grows Dr. We drop the guys off in the golf course as the plane’s gonna do the touchdown at the airport. He says, I gotta go around. As he’s pulling up now, he’s 200 feet below the radar, just opens up the side of the plane. Mm-hmm. The kickers, we call ’em, they’re called kickers. He kicks the baskets, the ba and the guys on, on the golf court. They’re hugging trees. Yeah. You don’t wanna be under that thing. Right. You got a 200, you got maybe a 40 pound package coming in at 120 miles an hour from 200 feet up. It’ll break the bra. It’ll yeah. The [00:16:00] branches will kill you. Yeah. So they pull up, they get out, I pull back up in the pickup truck, he runs out, jumps in the back of the truck, yells, hit it. We drive the mile through the back roads to my townhouse. Get the coke in the house. My buddy rips it open with a knife. It’s and pulls out some blow. And he looks at me, he goes, Hey, let’s get outta here. And I go, where are we going? Cops come and he goes, ah, I got two tickets. No, four tickets to the Eddie Murphy concert. So we left the blow in this trunk of his car. Oh. Oh, oh man. I know. We went to Eddie Murphy about a million dollars worth of product in the trunk. Oh. And, uh, saw a great show and came back and off they went. That’s what I’m trying to point out is that’s how fast it goes down, man. It’s to do. Yeah. Right in, in 30 minutes. We got it out. Now the thing about drug deals is we always call ’em dds delayed dope deals because the smuggling [00:17:00] trip could take six months to plan. Yeah. You know, they never go, there’s no organized crime in organized crime. Yeah. No organization did it. Yeah. And then, then of course, in 1992 when I got busted and was looking at Rico, a friend of mine came up to me. He was a yacht broker. He had gotten in trouble selling a boat, and he said, Hey, I’d you like to work for the DEA. I’d done three months in jail. I knew I was looking at time, I knew I had nothing. My lawyers told me, Kenny, you either figure something out or you’re going to jail for a mm-hmm. And I just had a newborn baby. I just got married three weeks earlier and we had a newborn baby. I said, what are you crazy? I mean, I’m waiting for my wife to hear me. You know, he’s calling me on the phone. He goes, meet me for lunch. I go meet him for lunch. And he explains to me that he’s gonna, he’s got a guy in the, uh, central district in Jacksonville, and he’s a DEA agent, and I should go talk to him. And so the DEA made a deal with the Ohio police that anything that I [00:18:00] confiscated, anything that I did, any assets I got, they would get a share in as long as they released me. Yeah. To them. And, you know, it’s all about the, I hate to say this, I’m not saying that you don’t want to take drugs off the street, but if you’re the police department and you’re an agent, it’s about asset seizures. Yeah. Yeah. That’s how you fund the dr. The war on drugs. Yeah. The war begets war. You know, I mean, oh, I know, been Florida was, I understand here’s a deal. You’re like suing shit against the tide, right? Fighting that drug thing. Okay? It just keeps coming in. It keeps getting cheaper. It keeps getting more and more. You make a little lick now and then make a little lick now and then, but then you start seeing these fancy cars and all this money out there that you can get to. If you make the right score, you, you, you hit the right people, you can get a bunch of money, maybe two or three really cool cars for your unit. So then you’ll start focusing on, go after the money. I know it’s not right, but you’re already losing your shoveling shit against the tide anyhow, so just go after the goal. [00:19:00] One time I set up this hash deal for the DEA from Amsterdam. The guy brought the hash in, and I had my agent, you know, I, I didn’t set up the deal. The guy came to me and said, we have 200 kilos of hash. Can you help us sell it? He didn’t know that I was working for the DEA, he was from Europe. And I said, sure. The, the thing was, I, so in the boat ready to close the deal, now my guy is from Central. I’m in I’m in Fort Lauderdale, which is Southern District. So he goes, Hey, can you get that man to bring that sailboat up to Jacksonville? I go, buddy, he just sailed across the Atlantic. He ain’t going to Jacksonville. So the central district has to come down, or is a northern district? I can’t remember if it’s northern or central. Has to come down to the Southern district. So, you know, they gotta make phone calls. Everybody’s gotta be in Yep. Bump heads. So I’m on the boat and he calls me, he goes, Hey, we gotta act now. Yeah. And I’m looking at the mark, I go, why? He [00:20:00] goes, customs is on the dock. We don’t want them involved. So you got the two? Yeah. So I bring him up, I go, where’s the hash? He goes, it’s in the car. So we go up to the car and he opens the trunk, and I, I pull back one of the duffle bags I see. I can tell immediately it’s product. So I go like this, and all hell breaks loose, right? Yeah. I could see the two customs agents and they’re all dressed like hillbillies. They, you know. So I said to my, my handler, the next day I called them up to debrief. You know, I have to debrief after every year, everything. I goes, so what happened when customs I go, what’d they want to do? He goes, yep. They wanted to chop the boat in threes. So they’re gonna sell the boat and the 2D EA offices are gonna trade it. Yeah. Are gonna shop the money. Yeah. I remember when I registered with the DEA in, in, in the Southern district, I had to tell ’em who I was. They go, why are you working for him? Why aren’t you working for us? I’m like, buddy, I’m not in charge here. This is, you know? Yeah. I heard that many [00:21:00] times through different cases we did, where the, the local cop would say to me, why don’t you come work for us? Oh yeah. Try to steal your informant. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So how about that? So, can you get a piece of the action if they had a big case seizure? Yeah. Did they have some deal where you’d get a piece of that action there? Yep. That’s a pretty good deal. Yeah. So I would get, I, I’d get, like, if we brought down, he would always tell everybody that he needed money to buy electronics and then he would come to me and go, here’s 2000. And to the other cis, he had three guys. I saw a friend of mine, the guy that got me into the deal. Them a million dollar house or a couple million dollar house. And I saw the DEA hand him a suitcase with a million dollars cash in it. Wow. I mean, I’m sorry, with a hundred thousand cash. A hundred thousand. Okay. I was gonna say, I was thinking a million. Well, a hundred thousand. Yeah, a hundred thousand. I’ve heard that. I just didn’t have any experience with it myself. But I heard that. I saw, saw Open it up, saw money. I saw the money. It was one of those aluminum halla, Halliburton reef cases and Yeah, yeah. A [00:22:00] hundred thousand cash. But, uh, but you know, um, it’s funny, somebody once asked me out of, as a kid I wanted to be a cowboy, a race car driver, and a secret agent. Me too. Yes. Yeah. I didn’t want, I wanted to be a, I grew up on a farm, so I kind of rode a horse. I had that watched Rowdy, you got saved background as me, man. Yeah. You know, we watched, we watched, we grew up on westerns. We watched Gun Smoke, rowdy. Oh yeah. You know, uh, bananas, uh, you know, so, um. So anyway, uh, I got to raise cars with my drug money, and I guess I’m not sure if I was more of a secret agent working as a drug dealer or as the DEA, but it’s a lot of I, you know, I make jokes about it now, but it’s a lot of stress working undercover. Oh, yeah. Oh, I can’t even imagine that. I never worked undercover. I, that was not my thing. I like surveillance and putting pieces together and running sources, but man, that actual working undercover that’s gotta be nerve wracking. It’s, you know, and, and my handler was good at it, but [00:23:00] he would step out and let, here’s, I’ll tell you this. One day he calls me up and he goes, Hey, I’m down here in Fort Lauderdale. You need to come down here right now. And I’m having dinner at my house about 15 minutes away. Now he lives in Jacksonville. I go, what’s he doing in Fort Lauderdale? So I drive down to the hotel and he’s got a legal pad and a pen. He goes, my, uh, my, my seniors want to, uh, want you to proffer. You need to tell me everything you ever did. And they want me to do a proffer. And I go, I looked at him. I go, John, I can’t do that. He start, we start writing. I start telling him stuff. I stop. I go, I grew up in this town. Everybody I know I did a drug deal with from high school, I go, I would be giving you every single kid, every family, man, I grew up here. My, I’m gonna be in jail, and my wife and my one and a half year old daughter are gonna be the only people left in this town, and they’re not gonna have any support. And I just can’t do this to all my friends. Yeah. So he says, all right, puts the pen down. I knew [00:24:00] he hated paperwork, so I had a good shot. He wasn’t gonna, he goes, yeah, you hungry? I go, yeah. He goes, let’s go get a steak. And right across the street was a place called Chuck Steakhouse, which great little steak restaurant. All right. So we go over there, he goes, and he is a big guy. He goes, sit right here. I go, all right. So I sit down. I, I’m getting a free steak. I’m gonna sit about through the steak dinner, it goes. Look over my shoulder. So I do this. He goes, see the guy at the bar in the black leather jacket. I go, yeah. He goes, when I get up and walk outta here, when I clear the door, I want you to go up to him and find a talk drug deal. See what you can get out of him. I go, you want me to walk up to a complete stranger and say, he goes, I’m gonna walk out the door. When I get out the door. You’re gonna go up and say, cap Captain Bobby. That was his, he was a ca a boat captain and his nickname, his handle was Captain Bobby. And he was theoretically the next Vietnam vet that now is a smuggler, you know?[00:25:00] Yeah. And so he walks out the door and I walked out and sat with the guy at the bar and we started, I said, hi, captain Bobby sent me, I’m his right hand man, you know, to talk about. And we talked and I looked around the bar trying to see if anybody was with him. And I’m figuring, now I’m looking at the guy going, why is he so open with me? And I’m thinking, you know what? He’s wearing a leather jacket. He’s in Florida. I bet you he’s got a wire on and he’s working for customs and I’m working for the DEA, so nothing ever came of it. But you know, that was, you know, you’re sitting there eating dinner and all of a sudden, you know, look over my shoulder. Yeah. And, you know, and I’m trying to balance all that with having a newborn that’s about a year old and my wife and Yeah. Looking at 25 years. So a little bit of pressure. But, you know, hey and I understand these federal agencies, everybody’s got, everybody is, uh, uh, aggressive. Everybody is ambitious. And you just are this guy in the middle and right. And they’ll throw you to the [00:26:00] wolves in a second. Second, what have you done for a second? Right? It’s what have you done for me lately? He’s calling me up and said, Hey, I don’t got any product from you in a minute. I go, well, I’m working on it. He goes, well, you know, they’ll kick you outta the program. Yeah. But one of the things he did he was one of, he was the GS 13. So he had some, you know, he had level, you know, level 15 or whatever, you know, he was, yeah. Almost at the head of near retirement too. And he said, look, he had me, he had another guy that was a superstar, another guy. And we would work as a team and he would feed us all the leads. In other words, if David had a case, I’d be on that case. So when I went to go to go to trial or go to my final, he had 14 or 15 different things that he had penciled me in to be involved with. The biggest deal we did at the end of my two years with the DEA was we brought down the Canadian mob. They got him for 10,000 kilos of cocaine, import 10,000 kilos. It was the Hell’s Angels, the Rock something, motorcycle [00:27:00] gang, the Italian Mafia and the, and the Irish mob. Mm-hmm. And the guy, I mean, this is some badass guys. I was just a player, but. The state of Ohio, they got to fly up there and you know, I mean, no words, the dog and pony show was always on to give everybody, you know. Yes. A bite at the apple. Oh yeah. But I’ll tell you this, it’s been 33 years and the two people that I’m close to is my arresting officer in Ohio and my DEA handler in Jacksonville. The arresting officer, when he retired, he called to gimme his new cell phone. And every year or so I call him up around Christmas and say, Dennis, thank you for the opportunity to turn my life around, because I’ve got four great kids. I’ve started businesses, you know, he knows what I’ve done with my life. And the DEA handler, that’s, he’s a friend of mine. I mean, you know, we talk all the time and check on each other. And, you know, I mean, he’s, [00:28:00] they’re my friends. A lot of, not too many of the guys are left from those days that will talk to me. Yeah, probably not. And most of them are dead or in jail anyhow. For, well, a lot of ’em are, maybe not even because of you, I mean, because that’s their life. No, but a lot of them, a number of ’em turned their lives around, went into legal businesses and have done well. Yeah. So, you know, there really have, so not all of ’em, but a good share of ’em have turned, because we weren’t middle class kids. We were, my one friend was, dad was the lieutenant of the police department. The other one was the post guy. We weren’t inner city kids. Yeah. We weren’t meeting we, the drug war landed on us and we just, we were recruited into it. As young as I talk about in my book. But I mean, let’s talk about what’s going on now. Now. Yeah. And listen, I’m gonna put some statistics out there. Last year, 250,000 people were charged with cannabis. 92% for simple possession. There’s [00:29:00] people still in jail for marijuana doing life sentences. I’ve had friends do 27 years only for marijuana. No nonviolent crimes, first time offender. 22 years, 10 years. And the government is, I’ve been involved with things where the government was smuggling the drugs. I mean, go with the Iran Contra scandal that happened. We were trading guns for cocaine with the Nicaraguans in the Sandon Easterns. Yeah. Those same pilots. Gene Hassen Fus flew for Air America and Vietnam moving drugs and gun and, and guns out of Cambodia. Same guy. Air America. Yeah. The American government gave their soldiers opium in Civil War to keep ’em marching. You know, I mean, we did a deal with Lucky Luciano, where we let ’em out of prison for doing heroin exchange for Intel from, from Europe on during World War II and his, and the mob watching the docks for the, uh, cargo ships. So the government’s been intertwined in the war on drugs on two [00:30:00] sides of it. Yeah. You know, and not that it makes it right. Look, I’ve lost several friends to fentanyl that thought they were doing coke and did fentanyl or didn’t even know there was any. They just accidentally did fentanyl and it’s a horrible drug. But those boats coming out of Venezuela don’t have fentanyl on ’em. No. Get cocaine maybe. If that, and they might be, they’re probably going to Europe. Europe and they’re going to Europe. Yeah, they’re going, yeah. They’re doubt they’re going to Europe. Yeah. Yeah. And so let’s put it this way. I got busted for running a 12 year ongoing criminal enterprise. We moved probably 50 tons of marijuana. You know what? Cut me down? One guy got busted with one pound and he turned in one other guy that went all the way up to us. So if you blew up those boats, you know, you’re, you need the leads. You, you can’t kill your clients. Yeah. You know, how are you gonna get, not gonna get any leads outta that. Well, that’s, uh, well, I’m just saying [00:31:00] you right. The, if they followed the boat to the mothership Yeah. They’d have the whole crew and all the cargo. Yeah. You know, it’s, those boats maybe have 200 kilos on ’em. A piece. Yeah. The mothership has six tons. Yeah. That’s it. It’s all about the, uh, the, um, uh, optics. Optics, yeah. That’s the word. It’s all about the optics and, and the politic, you know, in, in some way it may deter some people, but I don’t, I I, I’ve never seen anything, any consequence. In that drug business, there’s too much money. There is no consequence that is really ever gonna deter people from smuggling drugs. Let me put it this way, except for a few people like yourself, there’s a few like yourself that get to a certain age and the consequence of going to prison for a long time may, you know, may bring you around or the, all the risk you’re taking just, you know, you can’t take it anymore, but you gotta do something. But no, well, I got busted twice. Consequence just don’t matter. There is no consequence that’s gonna do anything. Here’s why. And you’re right. [00:32:00] One is how do you get in a race car and not think you’re gonna die? Because you always think it’s gonna happen to somebody else. Exactly. And the drug business is the same. It’s, I’m not, it’s not gonna happen to me tonight. And those guys in Venezuela, they have no electricity. They have no water. Yeah. They got nothing. They have a chance to go out and make a couple thousand dollars and change their family’s lives. Yeah. Or they’re being, they’re got family members in the gar, in the gangs that are forcing them to do it. Yeah. It’s the war on drugs has kind of been a political war and an optics war from the seventies. I mean, it’s nobody, listen, I always say, I say in my book, nobody loved it more than the cops, the lawyers and the politicians. No shit. In Fort Lauderdale, they had nothing, and all of a sudden the drug wars brought night scopes and cigarette boats and fancy cars and new offices. Yes. And new courthouses, and new jails and Yep. I don’t have an answer. Yeah. The problem is, [00:33:00] you know what I’m gonna say, America, Mexico doesn’t have a drug problem. Columbia doesn’t have a drug problem. No. America has a drug problem. Those are just way stations to get the product in. In the cover of my book, it says, you don’t sell drugs, you supply them like ammunition in a war. It’s a, people, we, how do we fix this? How do we get the American people? Oh, by the way, here’s a perfect example. Marijuana is legal in a majority of states. You don’t see anybody smuggling marijuana in, I actually heard two stories of people that are smuggling marijuana out of the country. I’ve heard that. I’ve heard that. Yeah. They’re growing so much marijuana in America that it’s worth shipping to other places, either legally or illegally. Yeah. And, and, and you know, the biggest problem is like, what they’ll do is they’ll set up dispensaries, with the green marijuana leaf on it, like it’s some health [00:34:00] dispensary. But they, they just won’t it’ll be off the books. It just won’t have the licensing and all that. And, you know, you run that for a while and then maybe you get caught, maybe you don’t. And so it’s, you know, it’s, well, the other thing is with that dispensary license. It’s highly regulated, but you can get a lot of stuff in the gray. So there’s three markets now. There’s the white market, which is the legal Yeah. Business that, you know, you can buy stocks in the companies and whatnot. Yeah. There’s the black market, which is the guy on the street that Kenny Bear used to be. And then there’s the gray market where people are taking black market product and funneling it through the white markets without intact, you know, the taxes and the licensing and the, the, uh, testing for, you know, you have to test marijuana for pesticides. Metals, yeah. And, and the oils and the derivatives. You know, there’s oil and there’s all these derivatives. They have to be tested. Well, you could slide it through the gray market into the white market. So I know it’s a addiction, you know, whether it’s gambling or sex or Right. Or [00:35:00] there’s always gonna be people who are gonna take advantage and make money off of addiction. The mafia, you know, they refined it during the prohibition. All these people that drink, you know, and a lot, admittedly, a lot of ’em are social drinkers, but awful lot of ’em work. They had to have it. And so, you know, then gambling addiction. And that’s, uh, well here’s what I say. If it wasn’t for Prohibition Vegas, the mob never would’ve had the power and the money to build Vegas. No, they wouldn’t have anything. So when you outlaw something that people want, you’re creating a, a business. If, if somebody, somebody said the other day, if you made all the drugs legal in America, would that put out, put the drug cartels in Mexico and Columbia and out of business? Yeah, maybe. How about this statistic? About 20 to 30,000 people a year die from cocaine overdose. Most have a medical condition. Unknown unbe, besides, they’re not ODing on cocaine. Yeah. Alright. 300,000 people a year die from obesity. Yeah. And [00:36:00] another, almost four, I think 700, I don’t know, I might be about to say a half a million die from alcohol and tobacco. Mm-hmm. I could be low on that figure. So you’re, you probably are low. Yeah. I could be way more than that. But on my point is we’re regulating alcohol, tobacco, and certainly don’t care how much food you eat, and why don’t we have a medical system that takes care of these people. I don’t know that the answer if I did, but I’m just saying it, making this stuff more valuable and making bigger crime syndicates doesn’t make sense. Yeah. See a addiction is such a psychological, spiritual. Physical maldy that people can’t really separate the three and they don’t, people that, that aren’t involved and then getting some kind of recovery, they can’t understand why somebody would go back and do it again after they maybe were clean for a while. You know, that’s a big common problem with putting money into the treatment center [00:37:00] business. Yep. Because people do go to treatment two and three times and, and maybe they never get, some people never, they’ll chase it to death. No, and I can’t explain it. And you know, I, I’ll tell you what, I have my own little podcast. It’s called One Step Over the Line. Mm-hmm. And I released a show last night about a friend of mine, his name is Ron Black. You can watch it or any of your listeners can watch it, and Ron was, went down to the depths of addiction, but he did it a long time ago when they really spent a lot of time and energy to get, you know, they really put him through his system. 18 months, Ron got out clean and he came from a good family. He was raised right. He didn’t, you know, he had some trauma in his life. He had some severe trauma as a child, but he built one of the largest addiction. He has a company that he’s, he ran drug counseling services. He’s been in the space 20 or 30 years, giving back. He has a company that trains counselors to be addiction specialists. He has classes for addiction counseling. He become certified [00:38:00] members. He’s run drug rehabs. He donates to the, you know, you gotta wa if you get a chance to go to my podcast, one step over the line and, and watch this episode we did last night. Probably not the most exciting, you know, like my stories. Yeah. But Ronnie really did go through the entire addiction process from losing everything. Yeah. And pulling himself out. But he was also had a lot of family. You know, he had the right steps. A lot of these kids I was in jail with. Black and brown, inter or inner city youth, whatever, you know, their national, you know, race or nationality, they don’t have a chance. Yeah. They’re in jail with their fathers, their cousins, their brothers. Mm-hmm. The law, the war on drugs, and the laws on drugs specifically affect them. And are they, I remember thinking, is this kid safer in this jail with a cement roof over his head? A, a hot three hot meals and a bed than being back on the [00:39:00] streets? Yeah. He was, I mean. Need to, I used to do a program working with, uh, relatives of addicts. And so this mother was really worried about her son gonna go to jail next time he went to court. And he, she had told me enough about him by then. I said, you know, ma’am, I just wanna tell you something he’s safer doing about a year or so in jail than he is doing a year or so on the streets. Yeah. And she said, she just looked at me and she said, you know, you’re right. You’re right. So she quit worried about and trying to get money and trying to help him out because she was just, she was killing him, getting him out and putting him back on the streets. This kid was gonna die one way or the other, either shot or overdosed or whatever. But I’ll tell you another story. My best friend growing up in New Orleans was Frankie Monteleone. They owned the Monte Hotel. They own the family was worth, the ho half a billion dollars at the time, maybe. And Frankie was a, a diabetic. And he was a, a junk. He was a a because of the diabetic needles. [00:40:00] He kind of became a cocaine junkie, you know, shooting up coke. You know, I guess the needle that kept him alive was, you know, I, you know, again the addict mentality. Right, right. You can’t explain it. So he got, so he got busted trying to sell a couple grams. They made it into a bigger case by mentioning more product conspiracy. His father said, got a, the, the father made a deal to give him a year and a half in club Fed. Yeah. He could, you know, get a tan, practice his tennis, learn chess come out and be the heir to one of the richest families in the world, all right. He got a year and a half. Frankie did 10 years in prison. ’cause every time he got out, he got violated. Oh yeah. I remember going to his federal probation officer to get my bicycle. He was riding when he got violated. Mm-hmm. And I said, I said, sir, he was in a big building in Fort Lauderdale or you know, courthouse office building above the courthouse. I go, there’s so many cops, lawyers, [00:41:00] judges, that are doing blow on a Saturday night that are smoking pot, that are drinking more than they should all around us. You’ve got a kid that comes from one of the wealthiest families in America that’s never gonna hurt another citizen. He’s just, he’s an addict, not a criminal. He needs a doctor, not a jail. And you know what the guy said to me? He goes but those people aren’t on probation. I, I know. He did. 10 years in and out of prison. Finally got out, finally got off of paper, didn’t stop doing drugs. Ended up dying in a dentist chair of an overdose. Yeah. So you, you never fixed them, you just imprisoned somebody that would’ve never heard another American. Yeah, but we spent, it cost us a lot of money. You know, I, I, I dunno what the answer is. The war on drugs is, we spent over, we spent 80, let’s say since 1973. The, the DEA got started in 73, let’s say. Since that time we’ve, what’s that? 70 something years? Yeah. We’ve done [00:42:00] no, uh, 50, 60. Yeah. 50 something. Yeah. Been 50. We spent a trillion dollars. We spent a trillion dollars. The longest and most expensive war in American history is against its own people. Yeah. Trying to save ’em. I know it’s cra it’s crazy. Yeah, I know. And it, over the years, it just took on this life of its own. Yeah. And believe me, there was a, there’s a whole lot of young guys like you only, didn’t go down the drug path, but you like that action and you like getting those cool cars and doing that cool stuff and, and there’s TV shows about it as part of the culture. And so you’re like, you got this part of this big action thing that’s going on that I, you know, it ain’t right. I, I bigger than all of us. I don’t know. I know. All I like to say I had long hair and some New Orleans old man said to me when I was a kid, he goes, you know why you got that long hair boy? And this is 1969. Yeah, 70. I go, why is that [00:43:00] sir? He goes, ’cause the girls like it. The girls didn’t like it. You wouldn’t have it. I thought about it. I’m trying to be a hippie. I was all this, you know, rebel. I thought about it. I go, boy, he’s probably right. Comes down to sex. Especially a young boy. Well, I mean, I’m 15 years old. I may not even how you look. Yeah. I’m not, listen, at 15, I probably was only getting a second base on a whim, you know? Yeah. But, but they paid attention to you. Yeah. Back in those days you, you know, second base was a lot. Yeah. Really. I remember. Sure. Not as, not as advanced as they are today. I don’t think so. But anyway, that’s my story. Um, all right, Ken b this has been fun. It’s been great. I I really had a lot of fun talking to you. And the book is 1, 1, 1 took over the line. No one, no, no. That’s a Friday slip. One step over that. But that was what I came up with the name. I, I believe you, I heard that song. Yeah. I go, I know, I’m, I’ve just taken one step over the line. So that’s where the book actually one step over the line confessions of a marijuana mercenary. [00:44:00] And I’ll tell you, if your listeners go to my website, one step over the line.com, go to the tile that says MP three or the tile that says digital on that website. Put in the code one, the number one step, and then the number 100. So one step 100, they can get a free, they can download a free copy. Yeah, I got you. Okay. Okay. I appreciate it. That’d be good. Yeah, they’ll enjoy it. Yeah. And on the website there’s pictures of the boats, the planes. Yeah. The runways the weed the, all the pictures are there, family pictures, whatever. Well, you had a, uh, a magical, quite a life, the kinda life that they, people make movies about and everybody watches them and says, oh, wow, that’s really cool. But they didn’t have to do it. They didn’t have to pay that price. No. Most of the people think, the funny thing is a lot of people think I’m, I’m, I’m lying or I’m exaggerating. Yeah. I’m 68 years old. Yeah. There’s no reason for me to lie. And you know, the DEA is, I’m telling that. I’m just telling it the way it [00:45:00] happened. I have no reason to tell Phish stories at this point in my life. No, I believe it. No, no, no. It’s all true. All I’ve been, I’ve been around to a little bit. I, I could just talk to you and know that you’re telling the truth here I am. So, it’s, it’s a great story and Ken, I really appreciate you coming on the show. Thank you for having me. It’s been a very much a, it is been a real pleasure. It’s, it’s nice to talk to someone that knows both sides of the coin. Okay. Take care. Uh, thanks again. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

On Thursday's Mark Levin Show, President Trump will do what he said on Iran – the red lines have been crossed.  Certain of our military and related assets have to be re-positioned -- both in and out of the region -- to ensure whatever is done is done in a way that is effective and results in the best outcome and the least exposure to our forces and surrounding countries. This is no small task. The way you stop this regime is to take out Ali Khamenei. Also, the war on ICE is a war on American citizens, driven by illegal aliens who claim rights to residency, welfare benefits, tax subsidies, and jobs while refusing to leave. There are highly organized, radical, violent Marxists and ethnic front groups who are obstructing their removal, which undermines borders and leads to children of illegals becoming citizens who vote Democrat. There are also avenues for civil action against individual perpetrators. Later, an article from Canada Free Press  warns that America is under threat from a tireless minority of paid activists, funded by anti-American oligarchs like George Soros, Bill Gates, and Klaus Schwab, who exploit uninformed "useful idiots" driven by emotions rather than reason to sow chaos and lawlessness, aiming to dismantle the government and impose a New World Order that could reduce global population by 80%. It highlights how the U.S. Constitution, while granting individual liberties, becomes vulnerable to abuse by evildoers, potentially turning it into a national suicide pact amid rising corruption and street violence. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Anders Wijkman, tidigare EU-parlamentariker (KD) samt ordförande för ”Viable Cities” och Anders Bolling, journalist och författare intervjuas av Jörgen Huitfeldt. Allt fler tecken tyder på att klimatfrågan har tappat fart: USA styrs av en öppen skeptiker, det senaste COP-mötet beskrivs som en flopp och tunga opinionsbildare som Bill Gates har bytt fot. Är detta ett tecken på en tillnyktring efter decennier av alarmism och överdrifter? Eller snarare ett uttryck för människans tendens att förtränga och skjuta upp jobbiga frågor där lösningarna inte är självklara?

Agradece a este podcast tantas horas de entretenimiento y disfruta de episodios exclusivos como éste. ¡Apóyale en iVoox! En este extra, Juan continua con su saga de CEOs tecnológicos. Repasamos la vida del creador de Windows, del Office, y del puto Clip aquel que tenía el Word que era muy pesado. Programación en garajes, ganchitos de queso, pajas, ordenadores y más cosas en. la vida de Bill Gates. Escucha el episodio completo en la app de iVoox, o descubre todo el catálogo de iVoox Originals

Greenland, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia – USA is the world’s Cop again? More .. Housing, Credit cards, Fannie and Freddie – all in week’s work.. Retail investors in control – don’t care about the noise. PLUS we are now on Spotify and Amazon Music/Podcasts! Click HERE for Show Notes and Links DHUnplugged is now streaming live - with listener chat. Click on link on the right sidebar. Love the Show? Then how about a Donation? Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter Follow Andrew Horowitz on Twitter   Warm-Up - Greenland, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia - USA is the world's Cop again? - More .. Housing, Credit cards, Fannie and Freddie - all in week's work.. - Retail investors in control - don't care about the noise Markets - DJIA plowing ahead - NASDAQ on fire - what can stop this? - Nuclear stocks back in play - Defense names on the move - Interesting economic news. FIRST - President Donald Trump said drug “cartels are running Mexico,” and suggested the U.S. military could start land strikes against them there. - The comments come on the heels of suggestions that Trump could take military action in Cuba and Colombia, and to annex Greenland. - The Trump administration has reportedly carried out 35 known strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, killing 115 individuals. - I will be going to Mexico later this week for a couple of days..... Retail Ruling - Retail traders have extended a buying spree into the new year, following a record-setting performance in 2025, with purchases in the first four trading days of January hitting the second-highest level in almost eight months. - Individual investors have bought about $10.1 billion of US equities since the start of the year, mainly via exchange-traded funds, far exceeding the 12-month weekly average. - Retail investors' confidence has helped stabilize markets during recent pullbacks, and if they keep snapping up equities, gains in the US stock market are likely to persist, according to analysts. Employment Report - 4.4% Unemployment Rate - Nonfarm Payroll Employment: U.S. employers added +50,000 jobs in December 2025. This came in below economists' expectations (consensus around 60,000–73,000) and was a slowdown from the downwardly revised +56,000 in November. - Unemployment Rate: Edged down slightly to 4.4% (from a revised 4.5% in November), contrary to forecasts of 4.5%. The number of unemployed people remained around 7.5 million, showing little change. - Full-Year 2025 Performance: Total payroll growth for the year was just +584,000 jobs (average monthly gain of +49,000), marking one of the weakest years for hiring since 2020 (impacted by the pandemic). This is a sharp drop from +2.0 million added in 2024 (average +168,000 monthly). -Revisions to Prior Months: -- October 2025: Revised down to -173,000 (from -105,000, reflecting federal government buyouts and shutdown effects). -- November 2025: Revised down by 8,000 to +56,000. -- Combined October–November: 76,000 fewer jobs than previously reported. GDP - HOT - Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari (voting FOMC member) on CNBC says it is very surprising how strong GDP growth is; says labor market is clearly cooling; says inflation still too high; has confidence housing inflation will trend down - Q3 at +3.8% and Atlanta GDP NOW is predicting that Q4 will come in at +5.1% More Eco - Productivity (Prelim Q3): 4.9% vs. 2.5% consensus - Productivity measures output per hour worked. A jump to 4.9% (almost double the consensus) suggests businesses are producing much more per labor hour than expected. Prior was revised up to 4.1% from 3.3%, so the trend is strengthening. WOW! Unit Labor Costs (Prelim Q3): -1.9% vs. +0.8% consensus - Unit labor costs measure labor cost per unit of output. A negative number means costs per unit are falling. Prior revised to -2.9% from +1.0%, so costs have been dropping sharply. -Could be due to technology adoption, automation, or efficiency improvements. Post-pandemic restructuring and leaner operations may have boosted output without adding labor. OOOOOOOPS - White House official says Truth Social disclosure of December jobs report was an "inadvertent release"; says White House will review protocols - CNBC  What next? - President Donald Trump called for a one-year cap on credit card interest rates at 10%, effective Jan. 20, without specifying details. - Trump wrote on social media that the American Public will no longer be "ripped off" by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%, and even more. - Maybe because of this: Hours before his message on Friday, Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, said on X: “Trump promised to cap credit card interest rates at 10% and stop Wall Street from getting away with murder. Instead, he deregulated big banks charging up to 30% interest on credit cards.” - BUT! Credit card companies will not be forced to issue credit - right? It will hurt people that need credit for business, personal or other needs. Then there was this: - Mortgage rates fell sharply on Friday, a day after President Donald Trump said on social media that he is instructing mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy $200 billion in mortgage bonds. - “This will drive Mortgage Rates DOWN, monthly payments DOWN, and make the cost of owning a home more affordable,” he said in the Truth Social post. - Still not clear where the money will come from and hot this actually works with the current structure of Fannie and Freddie - Talk of Fannie/Freddie IPO? --- Both are still still in conservatorship and book value per share still negative - SO WHERE DOES MONEY COME FROM? OHHHHH - How about this - 4PM browbeating for the Defense companies - RTX was in the hotseat (as were others) taking the wrath of Pres Trump saying that they were basically fat and happy and ripping off the taxpayer - No more dividends and no more buybacks was the call - Stocks dropped 5% into the close and then more after - 30 minutes later - conversation changed and the idea of a move from $1T in spending for the defense budget should move to $1.5T in 2027. ----- Where does that money come from? - Stocks JUMPED! Can't Ignore this - Trump suggesting that Corporations and institutional investors cannot buy single family homes - “People live in homes, not corporations,” he said. - The argument is that corporate ownership has helped push housing further out of reach for everyday Americans. - It is for that reason, and much more, that I am immediately taking steps to ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes, and I will be calling on Congress to codify it. - Invitation Homes, which is the largest renter of single-family homes in the country, tumbled 6%. Shares of Blackstone, an investing firm that owns and rents single-family homes, dropped more than 5%. Private equity firm Apollo Global Management also declined over 5%. Then there is this... - DOJ putting he screws to Powell - The Trump administration has ramped up its pressure campaign on the U.S. central bank, threatening to indict Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell over comments he made to Congress about a building renovation project, prompting the Fed chief to call the move a "pretext" to gain more influence over the ?setting of interest rates. - The latest development in a long-running effort by U.S. President Donald Trump to push the Fed to dramatically lower rates had immediate fallout in Washington and on global markets. - Powell came out with a video over the weekend. - Initially futures were down

California feels like a shoreline at dusk. Beautiful on the surface. Unsettled underneath. The tide keeps pulling back, exposing questions most people are told not to ask.In Episode 120 of ALLSMITH, Bryce sits down with Phil Mauriello Jr., attorney and host of California Underground, for a wide ranging conversation exploring power, policy, conspiracies, and the patterns shaping modern life.This is not a conversation about left versus right.It is a conversation about awareness versus autopilot.Together, Bryce and Phil explore California as a microcosm for the world. A state that often feels less governed and more tested. Policies roll out like experiments. Narratives change faster than outcomes. Citizens are left trying to reconcile intention with impact.Like standing inside a maze where every wall is painted with good intentions, this episode asks a simple but unsettling question.Are we being led, or are we being studied?From California politics to global power structures, this conversation moves through some of the most controversial topics of our time, not to provoke fear, but to sharpen discernment.⸻Topics Explored• The lingering unanswered questions surrounding 9/11.• The cultural flashpoint moments and assassination narratives surrounding Charlie Kirk.• The relationship between the United States and Israel, and how foreign policy shapes domestic life.• Antarctica, and why powerful nations are deeply interested in what lies beneath the ice.• Venezuela as a case study in government control, collapse, and currency manipulation.• The JFK files and what delayed truth reveals about institutions.• The COVID pandemic and how emergency powers reshape society long after the crisis fades.• Cloud seeding, weather modification, and where science ends and speculation begins.• George Soros and Bill Gates as symbols of influence, philanthropy, and fear.• The Epstein files and the erosion of public trust in accountability.• The Diddy trials and the intersection of celebrity, power, silence, and leverage.⸻Episode Time Stamps• 00:00 Opening reflections and why this conversation matters now.• 06:12 California as a political testing ground.• 14:45 Power, incentives, and narrative control.• 24:30 9/11, JFK files, and delayed truth.• 35:10 COVID, emergency powers, and long term consequences.• 46:20 Global influence, Israel, Venezuela, and Antarctica.• 58:40 Epstein, celebrity power, and institutional silence.• 01:10:15 Mindset, discernment, and personal responsibility.• 01:22:00 Final reflections on truth seeking and sovereignty.⸻Join the ALLSMITH CommunityIf this episode resonates, you are already part of the conversation.ALLSMITH is not about certainty.It is about pursuit.Pursuit of clarity. Strength. Agency. And peak expression.Ways to connect with ALLSMITH.• Lifestyle design coaching.• In person and remote training.• Apparel built for those forged through experience.• A community rooted in truth, movement, and meaning.Follow Phil Mauriello Jr. and California Underground on Instagram.https://www.instagram.com/californiaundergroundThank you for Listening! Learn more below.ALLSMITH IG ALLSMITH YouTubeBryce Smith IG

We love underdog stories, but every world-changing life includes someone who invested and walked closely with them. In this episode, we explore Jesus’ call of His first disciples in Matthew 4 and uncover the not-so-secret way God changes the world: relational, life-on-life discipleship. Discover how following Jesus means opening your life, showing up over time, and being remade for purposes bigger than yourself. Renaissance Church - Richmond, Texas ren-church.org #walkgrowlive #alloflifealltheearth #discipleship

To leverage the law of attraction, you have to get beyond the book and the movie. If you’re feeling stuck in your business, ask yourself this. “Am I really clear on exactly what it is that I’m building here? And to the extent that it’s not coming together, how’s your vision? Are you very clear on what that means? David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the truth about the Law of Attraction. Now, this applies to business, it applies to life. If you’re familiar with the movie and book The Secret, there’s been a lot of talk about this concept. The Law of Attraction. It basically says that we attract into our lives the people and circumstances we need, based on essentially the vibes that we’re putting out. Jay: Well, and I was just sitting here thinking, I must not be putting out very good vibes. David: I’m sure it’s not that. But… I think sometimes when people get into this mindset, they can get frustrated. Because if you think that all you have to do is really want it and it’s going to come to you, it’s not quite the whole story. And I think the movie and the book called The Secret probably caused some people some problems with this. Part of it is because a lot of that movie was based on a book called The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace Wattles. If you read that book, you recognize that there’s a lot more to it than just trying to attract with your mind. I mean, you actually have to follow up. You have to do some things afterwards if you want to get the results you’re actually looking for. So I feel like what they did in the book and the movie was kind of a disservice to the law of attraction, which I think can be valid, if you follow up with it. Jay: Yeah, I’ve always kind of felt, talking about this, that it’s more about a change in mentality than it is that you’ll speak into the universe and the universe will grant you this wonderful thing out of the kindness of its heart. That because you’ve said these things, it’s just like setting a goal. Right? And so, when you hear things spoken, when your mind hears them, when you speak them with your mouth, it’s different than just thinking about them. And so, over time, I think it changes your behavior. That leads you to the thing that you, quote, spoke into the universe. David: Yeah, I believe that entirely as well. I think that when you are focused on a goal, when you’re focused on trying to using the law of attraction to accomplish something in your life… When your mind is going in that direction, it is a lot more likely to get you enthused about it, get you thinking about it more and get you taking action on it, which ultimately is what is going to lead to the success. Now one aspect of it that I think is really important, on the front end of that, is that you have enough belief in what it is that you want to accomplish, that you continue to look for the ways to make it happen. Because if you don’t believe you can do it, obviously you’re not going to do it. I think that’s pretty much a given. If you don’t think you can do something, if you don’t think you can accomplish something, then you will very likely not take the actions necessary to make it happen. That’s not about law of attraction, it’s about human nature and inevitability. So in those circumstances, it’s kind of a given that you won’t succeed. But if you’ve got the consummate belief in what it is that you want to do and what you’re pursuing, then in a lot of cases, it will allow you to start to see the things that will make it possible. So when people talk about attracting people and circumstances into your life, I believe there is truth to that. But I also think a lot of that might’ve been there to begin with. When you’re aware of it, you’re going to be more likely to see it. If you’re looking for something, you’re going to be more likely to find it. Then you’ll take action on it. And that’s when the law of attraction actually starts to pay off. Jay: Yeah, I really like that you’re building awareness. Because you’ve spoken these things and you’ve kind of made these mental goals. Whereas before, if you hadn’t taken the time to even assess what you want and talk to yourself about what you want, kind of make these mental goals, then when that person enters your life or that opportunity arises, you’re not going to see it for what it is. Because you haven’t planned ahead, you haven’t made a mental note that that’s specifically something that you wanted or needed. David: Right, you’re not tuned into it. And, you know, the mind has this particular activating system that many people are aware of. It’s the part of your brain that notices the things that you’re interested in. A common example is if you just got a certain kind of car, or if you’re looking at a certain type of car and thinking about buying it, chances are you see it all over the road now, because it’s now in your mind, so you see it and recognize it. So, there’s a little bit of that with law of attraction. But the primary thing that I think is important for anyone to consider as they’re trying to accomplish things in their lives and in their businesses is that the idea, the goal is a great beginning. We’ll be talking about this in future podcasts, but then ultimately, it’s what comes from that. The ideas that we get. The things that we take action on. That’s ultimately going to help us to get there. Jay: Yeah, and I’ve always felt like this is the core of the law of attraction. That it’s very important to not just think about something. That you attach benchmarks to it, you attach follow up to it. Maybe you work backwards from that thing, that you don’t just put it to chance. If you work towards that thing then first of all the odds of it happening are going to be much greater and you’ve gone out, and you’ve taken it for yourself anyway David: Yeah, and I know we don’t normally get too woo woo in these podcasts. And I’m not looking to do that today. But I think there’s been so much talk about the law of attraction over the years that it’s at least worth having a discussion about. People may think they’re doing everything they can to accomplish their goals. But they don’t realize that there may be some steps that are missing. There’s a quote from St. Augustine that says, Pray as though everything depended on God, work as though everything depended on you. And I think that’s sort of a different take on it, but it covers kind of the same thing. If you take responsibility for what you’re looking for, and I really love what you mentioned, about the idea of those benchmarks, because if you’ve got something that you want to accomplish and you’re keeping track of each benchmark along the way, then you will be more likely to see the people and circumstances that are already there that will allow you to get to the next benchmark. I think that makes the idea of the law of attraction seem more real. When you just have your eye on the goal and you’re not really thinking in terms of all the interim steps in between, you can really miss out on a lot because you’re looking for this and right now you’re only ready for this. Jay: Yeah, you know, I’ve spent a lot of time studying highly successful people, Elon Musk, Bill Gates you know, very, very successful people, and none of them sat around and waited for anything, right? Mark Cuban, and even after they have found incredible success they didn’t say, okay, got what I wanted. They continue to work aggressively every single day. And I think about what would I do if I had that kind of money? Would I continue to work? Or would you find me on a beach somewhere? You know, this is a mentality, it’s part of them. It’s their love. It’s their passion. I think it has very little to do with money or even the law of attraction. David: I agree. that’s the result of sort of doing the things that you’re good at and the things that you love exceptionally well. When you do that and you’re able to impact enough other people, and I think that’s a key component that’s often missing, is that they’re great at what they did and they pursued it with passion. But what they were pursuing was able to impact enough other people, that they were able to generate the result. They were able to generate the revenue, which is essentially the reward for being able to serve or service enough people so that it comes back to you like that. Jay: Yeah. So I think it’s about, you know, kind of thinking about those things that you want to achieve, creating a plan to get there and working as hard as you can, to achieve that success. David: Yeah. I know personally, the times in my life where I was really focused on a particular goal, especially business, we’re talking business here. I have an idea for something. You have an idea for a business or you have an idea for a product. You have an idea for something. And when you believe in it enough, and when you’re passionate enough about it, It just seems to almost take on a life of its own. You sort of know what to do next. You see the opportunities and you take them because you know how it fits in. And pretty much every major success that I’ve had in business has rolled that way. A lot of times when you’re just sort of trying to slug something out and you’re trying to figure it out and things aren’t coming together. I think some of it has to do with the vision. Either the vision isn’t clear enough of exactly what it is that you want this thing to be, because you have to have that first. Just like building a house, you have to know what it’s going to look like. You want the blueprint before you start nailing boards together. So you need to have a clear idea of it first, because when you’ve got that clear idea, then it becomes a whole lot easier to build. Jay: Yeah, it’s so true. I mean, I’ve been caught kind of in no man’s land where I kinda believe in what I’m doing, but I’ve got these other things and I just am kind of scattered waiting to see which one is going to take root. And that’s always been an issue of mine is can I really find that thing and just stake my claim and say, this is it. And I’m going to push forward no matter what. That’s hard for some people to do. David: Yeah, saying “I’m all in on this.” Oh, there’s a great book. Is it Essentialism? It’s got an illustration and the illustration is basically a circle with a bunch of lines coming out of it, going in all different directions. It’s a bunch of short lines, arrows pointed out from the center. And it’s like when your attention is divided, you’re doing a lot of little things. You’re not really accomplishing anything. And the way you want to do it is you want to have the circle, and then one line coming out in one direction. This is the thing I’m doing because then you’ll get traction on it. When you’re doing a lot of different things, you’re not really completing anything. When you’re doing one, you’re able to complete it. So I think for people who are watching and listening, if you’re feeling frustrated in your business, ask yourself, you know, am I really clear on exactly what it is that I’m building here or the thing that I want to build here? And to the extent that it’s not coming together, how’s your vision? Are you very clear on what that means? How many people is it going to take? How many hours a day are you going to need to work? Who else needs to be involved? What sort of technology do you need? All these different things. Because as you start to examine the different components of it, then you’ll start to get the ideas, particularly in the areas that might be holding you back. Because if one of these elements that is necessary to the success of the project is missing, then you’re not going to get there. So at that point it becomes about finding bottlenecks, which is the subject of a whole other podcast. Jay: Yeah, I think that’s such great advice. How do people find out more? How can you help them with this process? David: Well, if you go to TopSecrets.com/call, you can schedule a call with myself or my team. And we’ll be happy to just talk you through sort of where you are with your business, where you’re looking to be in terms of visibility, sales, and profits. Because when you get those three things lined up, everything comes together a whole lot better. And once again, we’re not really talking about just, you know, the “I can do it, I think I can, I think I can” aspect of this. We’re talking about sort of the down and dirty, step by step, here’s what we need to do to help get you from here to there. So if that makes sense for you, TopSecrets.com/call. Jay: All right, David, as always, it’s a pleasure. Thank you so much. David: Thank you, Jay. Are You Ready to Leverage the Law of Attraction? If so, check out the five primary ways we help promotional product distributors grow: Just Getting Started? If you (or someone on your team) is just getting started in promotional products sales, learn how we can help. Need Clients Now? If you're already grounded in the essentials of promotional product sales and just need to get clients now, click here. Want EQP/Preferential Pricing? Are you an established industry veteran doing a significant volume of sales? If so, click here to get End Quantity Pricing from many of the top supplier lines in the promo industry. Time to Hire Salespeople? If you want to hire others to grow your promo sales, click here. Ready to Dominate Your Market? If you're serious about creating top-of-mind-awareness with the very best prospects in your market, schedule a one-on-one Strategy Session here.

Zohran Mamdani is about to propose significant spending on new public restrooms in NYC. Mark questions whether Mamdani will deliver real change or is just making promises. Did Nick Reiner's son's mental health medications contribute to the murder of his parents, actor Rob Reiner and his wife? Mark takes your calls! Mark interviews Fox Business Analyst Charlie Gasparino. Charlie suggests that protests about Rene Good's murder could increase frustration among Democrats and left-leaning individuals with the state of the country. He also discusses how the media's handling of the story and related issues could impact the GOP. Additionally, Gasparino provides an update on the Warner Bros. business deal, including news involving Paramount, Skydance, Netflix, and more.

Zohran Mamdani is about to propose significant spending on new public restrooms in NYC. Mark questions whether Mamdani will deliver real change or is just making promises. Did Nick Reiner's son's mental health medications contribute to the murder of his parents, actor Rob Reiner and his wife? Mark takes your calls! Mark interviews Fox Business Analyst Charlie Gasparino. Charlie suggests that protests about Rene Good's murder could increase frustration among Democrats and left-leaning individuals with the state of the country. He also discusses how the media's handling of the story and related issues could impact the GOP. Additionally, Gasparino provides an update on the Warner Bros. business deal, including news involving Paramount, Skydance, Netflix, and more. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

PR is NOT a luxury. It's survival.In this episode, global PR strategist Ebony Porter Eay reveals the truth about being seen, being trusted, and being remembered in an overcrowded digital world.If you've ever wondered why your business isn't growing… why your following doesn't convert… or why your story isn't landing the way it should — this conversation gives you the blueprint.Ebony breaks down the difference between being visible and being strategically visible, how to build trust in the media, how to protect your reputation, and how to rebuild after a public setback.She also shares the mindset shifts behind crisis management, authorship, credibility, and longevity in business.This is a masterclass in perception, brand leadership, and protecting your peace while pursuing your purpose.Timestamps00:00 — “It's Okay Not to Have a Million Followers”00:07 — PR vs Publicity: What Being “Strategically Seen” Really Means00:14 — Why PR Is NOT Optional Anymore00:20 — Bill Gates' PR Philosophy00:32 — The Diddy Question00:49 — Authenticity vs What's Best for Your Business00:56 — Stop Comparing Yourself to Social Media02:02 — Welcome to Inside the Vault02:15 — Visibility: The Currency Money Can't Buy02:43 — Meet Ebony Porter Ike03:31 — Why Most Entrepreneurs Misunderstand PR04:10 — What PR Really Does for a Business04:49 — Every Major Company Has a PR Partner — Here's Why05:05 — Who Is Ebony Porter Ike?06:00 — PR Isn't Optional: The Real Reason07:01 — Why People Think PR Is a Luxury08:00 — Why Ebony Rejects Clients Who Aren't Ready08:48 — Strategy vs Vanity PR09:35 — The Problem With Wanting “Looks” but Having No Offer10:23 — How to Stay Ready for Major Media Opportunities11:02 — The #1 Mistake in Visibility12:00 — Authenticity vs Professionalism in the Spotlight13:08 — How Public Figures Must Move Differently14:02 — Why Public Figures Need Counsel Before Speaking14:46 — Coinology: Money, Media & Mindset15:25 — Your Pain Is Where Your Millions Hide16:14 — The “Talented Tenth” of Today17:02 — Studying the DNA of Success18:10 — Failing in Public vs Failing in Private19:08 — Crisis Management 101 20:15 — Why Every Successful Person Needs a Crisis Manager21:05 — Turning Visibility Into Financial Success21:45 — The Biggest Interview Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make22:58 — Relatability > Perfection24:07 — How Beyoncé's Transparency Shifted Her Brand25:22 — Can the “It Factor” Be Bought?26:04 — Mastery Over Popularity27:06 — Credibility After the Pandemic28:02 — Why Books Are Still the Ultimate Credibility Tool29:17 — How to Launch a Book the Right Way30:08 — Why Authors Fail (and How to Fix It)31:01 — The Real Purpose of a Book in Business32:00 — How to Relaunch a Book That Flopped33:17 — Ebony's Biggest Brand Deals34:12 — The DNA of Closing Multi-Million Dollar Deals35:41 — The Real “It Factor” Explained37:10 — When Founders Aren't the Face: How to Pivot38:36 — Ebony's Personal Story: Leaving Corporate40:01 — When Your Dream Doesn't Match Your Life41:04 — Surviving Betrayals and Staying the Course42:05 — Faith, Purpose & Calling43:21 — Legacy, Family & Global Expansion45:00 — What Wealth Really Looks Like46:18 — Peace > Money47:11 — How to Break Into PR the Right Way48:36 — Create What People Need — Not What You Want to Sell49:43 — Ebony's Biggest Money Mistake50:30 — The Danger of Scaling Too Fast52:02 — The #1 Hire Every Business Needs53:06 — The Best Money Ebony Ever Spent54:12 — Faith as the Foundation of Entrepreneurship56:02 — How to Know If You're Ready for PR57:33 — Why Ebony Loves Working With Underdogs58:42 — The Diddy Question (Part Two)1:02:05 — Can We Restore People Instead of Cancelling Them?1:05:08 — Advice to 18-Year-Old Ebony1:07:08 — Final Wisdom: Go at Your Own Pace1:08:03 — Where to Find Ebony Porter Ike1:09:24 — Closing the VaultAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Dr. Judith Curry, a climatologist known for her criticism of alarmist, doomsday rhetoric about climate change, returns to STEM-Talk for her second appearance. Judy most recently was one of five researchers commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy to draft a Climate Assessment Report summarizing the current state of climate science with a focus on how it relates to the United States. In this interview, Judy summarizes the climate report's key points, including the finding that that carbon-dioxide induced warming of the planet appears to be less damaging economically than has been commonly believed. The report, which was released this past summer, also argues that aggressive mitigation strategies for carbon dioxide emissions could be more harmful than helpful. Our interview comes on the heels of the prestigious journal Nature retracting a study that predicted climate change and carbon emissions would cause catastrophic economic damage by the end of the century.  Our conversation with Judy also followed an about-face from Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, who wrote last fall that it's time to tamp down the alarmist rhetoric that climate change will lead to humanity's demise. Curry is president of the Climate Forecast Application Network and host of the blog, Climate Etc, which you can find at JudyCurry.com.  Her blog provides  a forum for climate researchers, academics and technical experts from other fields as well as citizen scientists to discuss topics related to climate science and science policy. Her research interests include hurricanes, remote sensing, atmospheric modeling, polar climates, air-sea interactions, climate models, and the use of unmanned aerial vehicles for atmospheric research. She has published more than 100 scientific papers and is the author of “Climate Change and Uncertainty: Rethinking Our Response,” a book that provides a framework for understanding and rethinking the climate-change debate.  Show notes: [00:03:59] Ken opens the interview explaining that Judy was one of the five authors of a climate assessment report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy. Before diving into the key findings of the report and the response it has received, Ken asks Judy to explain how she became one of the five authors. [00:06:21] Ken mentions that critics of the climate working group have accused the authors of being hand-picked skeptics of the effects of climate change. Judy argues that she and her co-authors are scientists determined to get the science right. Ken asks Judy to talk about her co-authors and the working relationship of the group. [00:09:18] Ken asks Judy to talk about how she and her co-authors came to their key finding that the economic impacts of climate change are less severe than typically thought. [00:13:08] Ken asks Judy to provide examples that demonstrate how climate mitigation strategies can be more harmful than helpful. [00:16:08] Ken follows up by asking about the report's proposal to shift climate science from alarmism to focus more on a better understanding of natural climate variability. [00:18:14] Ken asks Judy what her thoughts are on the next steps that should be taken for a better understanding climate variability. [00:20:06] Ken asks Judy to elaborate on the findings of chapter six of the report regarding global warming and extreme weather events. In particular, Ken asks about the problems with associating specific extreme weather events like hurricanes to climate change, and the issues created by the short historical records we have at our disposal. [00:24:20] Ken asks Judy to talk about chapter nine of the report, which is about the need to focus on reducing vulnerabilities in our infrastructure instead of mitigating carbon emissions. [00:28:43] Ken asks Judy to comment on the accusations that she is a “climate change denier.” [00:31:18] Ken asks Judy to talk about a paper she co-authored with her colleague Dr. Harry DeAngelo titled “A critique of apocalyptic climate narrative.” [00:36:27] Ken brings up Bill Gates' recent about-face on climate change and the need to pivot away from doomsday views of cataclysmic climate disasters. Ken asks Judy to elaborate on what she has dubbed “climate alarmism fatigue.” [00:39:32] Ken asks Judy to give her thoughts on the issue of sea level rise, particularly in light of the pushback that the DOE report faced on this topic. He also asks her to discuss the recent paper that was released after the DOE report titled “A global perspective on local sea level changes” which proports that there is no statistically significant acceleration of the rate of sea level rise for 98% of the suitable global locations. [00:50:47] Ken points listeners to Judy's blog, Judycurry.com, where she discusses many of these same issues. Ken goes on to explain that his perspective as well as Judy's perspective is that climate change has become a scapegoat for many issues. He asks Judy to talk about this phenomenon. [00:55:24] Ken asks Judy what she would like to see in terms of follow-up research to the DOE climate report. [01:00:23] Ken asks Judy about her book “Climate Uncertainty and Risk.” Links: Judith Curry bio Learn more about IHMC STEM-Talk homepage Ken Ford bio Ken Ford Wikipedia page    

Plus: Meta delays roll out of smartglasses to countries outside the U.S. amid high American demand. And a Bill Gates-backed nuclear fusion company has teamed up with Nvidia and Siemens. Julie Chang hosts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tim Bucher, CEO and cofounder of Agtonomy, joins Amir to break down what physical AI looks like when it leaves the lab and shows up on the farm. Tim shares how his sixth generation farming roots and a lucky intro computer science class led to a career that included Microsoft, Apple, and Dell, then back into agriculture with a mission that hits the real world fast.This conversation is about building tech that earns its keep, delivers clear ROI, and improves quality of life for the people who keep the food supply moving.Key takeaways• Deep domain experience is a real advantage, especially in ag tech, you cannot fake the last mile of operations• The win is ROI first, but quality of life is right behind it, less stress, more time, and fewer dangerous moments on the job• Agtonomy focuses on autonomy software inside existing equipment ecosystems, not building tractors from scratch, because service networks and financing matter• One operator can run multiple vehicles, shifting the role from tractor driver to tech enabled fleet operator• Hiring can change when the work changes, some farms started attracting younger candidates by posting roles like ag tech operatorTimestamped highlights00:42 What Agtonomy does, physical AI for off road equipment like tractors01:45 Tim's origin story, sixth generation farming roots and the class that changed his path03:59 Lessons from Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Michael Dell, and how Tim filtered the mantras into his own leadership05:53 The moment everything shifted, labor pressure, regulations, and the prototype built to save his own farm09:17 The blunt advice for ag tech founders, if you do not have a farmer on the team, fix that11:54 ROI in plain terms, one person operating a fleet from a phone or tablet14:29 Why Agtonomy partners with equipment manufacturers instead of building new vehicles, dealers, parts, service, and financing are the backbone17:39 The overlooked benefit, quality of life, reduced stress, and a more resilient food supply chain20:18 How farms started hiring differently, “ag tech operator” roles and even “video game experience” as a signalA line that stuck with me“This is not just for Trattori farms. This is for the whole world. Let's go save the world.”Pro tips you can actually use• If you are building in a physical industry, hire a real operator early, not just advisors, get someone who lives the workflow• Write job posts that match the modern workflow, if the work is screen based, label it that way and recruit for it• Design onboarding around familiar tools, if your UI feels like a phone app, training time can collapseCall to actionIf you got value from this one, follow the show and share it with a builder who cares about real world impact. For more conversations like this, subscribe and connect with Amir on LinkedIn.

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Leadership coach, author, engineer, and executive Sabina Nawaz shares how managers and employees can build stronger working relationships in this episode of Diverse. Recorded live at WE25 in New Orleans, Sabina draws on her 14-year career at Microsoft — including advising Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer — to break down what causes leaders to struggle and how to avoid becoming “that boss.” Hear how leaders can unlock better ideas from their teams, tips to demystify your manager's working style, and what it means to “never go to work hungry.” — The Society of Women Engineers is a powerful, global force uniting 50,000 members of all genders spanning 85 countries. We are the world's largest advocate and catalyst for change for women in engineering and technology. To join and access all the exclusive benefits to elevate your professional journey, visit membership.swe.org.

Andrew For America presents the third installment of his new miniseries where he plays clips from prominent people telling you the truth about reality and/or telling you exactly what the "big club's" plan for the world is. In this episode, Andrew talks about Tim Walz's recent withdrawal from the governor race in the state of Minnesota, and plays clips from Jacinda Ardern, Ted Turner, Bill Gates, John Brennen, Kier Starmer, Alexander Soros, and others talking about alleged climate change, the need to reduce carbon, and the need to reduce the population of the world! Andrew also talks about partisan hypocrisy and how the American people act no differently than the citizens of Germany acted under Hitler.The song selections are the songs, "Paradigm" and "No Kings" by the band Templeton Pek.Visit allegedlyrecords.com and check out all of the amazing punk rock artists!Visit soundcloud.com/andrewforamerica1984 to check out Andrew's music!Like and Follow The Politics & Punk Rock Podcast PLAYLIST on Spotify!!!Check it out here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1Y4rumioeqvHfaUgRnRxsy...politicsandpunkrockpodcast.comFollow Future Is Now Coalition on Instagram @FutureIsOrgwww.futureis.org

Allen covers the Trump administration’s suspension of five East Coast offshore wind leases on national security grounds, and the wave of lawsuits from developers like Equinor and Ørsted calling the reasoning pretextual. Plus Bill Gates-backed startup Airloom showcases its low-profile turbine design at CES 2026, and Brazil opens consultation on curtailment compensation for renewables. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes’ YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Five major offshore wind projects sit idle today. Billions of dollars in equipment. Thousands of workers. All waiting. President Trump has made no secret of his feelings about wind power. He has called offshore wind a scam. He has said these projects cost too much. He has compared them unfavorably to natural gas. Big ugly windmills, he calls them. His administration has moved aggressively to stop them. First came executive orders suspending federal approvals. Then stop-work orders on projects already under construction. In December, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management took the boldest step yet. It suspended the federal leases for five East Coast projects. The reason given: national security risks identified by the Department of War in recently classified reports. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum explained that wind turbine blade movement can interfere with radar systems. He pointed to vulnerabilities created by large-scale projects near population centers. The companies building these projects see it differently. Empire Wind called the reasoning hollow and pretextual. In court filings, the company pointed to statements from the Secretary of Interior and the White House. The real motivation, they argued, relates to the administration’s opposition to offshore wind energy. Not national security. Politics. These are not small projects. Empire Wind is sixty percent complete. Four billion dollars invested. Nearly four thousand workers employed during construction. When finished, it would power half a million New York homes. Its parent company, Norwegian energy giant Equinor, says it has coordinated closely with federal officials on national security reviews since twenty-seventeen. It has complied with every requirement. Revolution Wind is eighty-seven percent finished. A five billion dollar venture between Danish company Ørsted and Global Infrastructure Partners. The project went through more than nine years of federal review before approval in twenty-twenty-three. National security considerations were comprehensively addressed, the company says. Workers sat waiting on the water when construction was halted in August. A federal judge allowed them to resume in September. Now they’re stopped again. Both companies warn that the ninety-day suspension will likely result in cancellation. Offshore wind construction depends on highly choreographed specialized vessels. Complex sequencing. Narrow weather windows. You cannot simply pause and restart. Dominion Energy has also filed suit over its Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project. The company calls the suspension arbitrary and capricious. The legal battles are piling up. In December, a federal judge in Massachusetts declared an earlier stop-work order illegal. Seventeen states had sued. New York Attorney General Letitia James led the coalition. As New Yorkers face rising energy costs, she said, we need more energy sources, not fewer. Wind energy is good for our environment, our economy, and our communities. She called the administration’s actions a reckless and unlawful crusade against clean energy. Four East Coast governors issued a joint statement. New York’s Kathy Hochul. Massachusetts’ Maura Healey. Connecticut’s Ned Lamont. Rhode Island’s Daniel McKee. Coastal states are working hard to build more energy, they said. These projects have created thousands of jobs. They have injected billions in economic activity into our communities. The National Ocean Industries Association is calling for an end to the pause. Offshore wind improves national security, says president Erik Milito. It shifts economic, infrastructure, and geopolitical advantages to the United States. The Interior Department has declined to comment on the lawsuits. Meanwhile, at CES twenty-twenty-six in Las Vegas, a different kind of wind power is making news. A startup called Airloom is showcasing a radical new turbine design. Backed by Bill Gates. No towering blades reaching for the sky. Instead, a low-profile system about sixty-six to ninety-eight feet high. Picture a loop of adjustable wings traveling along a track. More roller coaster than windmill. The company claims forty percent less material. Forty-seven percent lower cost. Eighty-five percent faster deployment. They say projects can be built in under a year instead of five. And unlike traditional turbines, these can go places conventional wind farms cannot. Remote islands. Mountainous terrain. Near airports. Even military bases. Places where spinning blades would be impractical. The company broke ground on a pilot site last June. Commercial demonstrations are planned for twenty-twenty-seven. Down in Brazil, the government is tackling a different wind energy challenge. What happens when you generate more power than the grid can handle? Brazil’s Ministry of Mines and Energy has opened a public consultation. The question: how should wind and solar generators be compensated when their output gets curtailed? The government wants to balance legal certainty for investors against excessive costs for electricity consumers. Stakeholders have until January sixteenth to weigh in. So there you have it. The near future of US offshore wind will be decided in court rooms over the next few weeks. The curtailment of Brazilian renewables will be bandied about in January. And a Bill Gates supported wind company is going to try it’s hand at power remote locations. I hope you had new year’s celebration. 2026 is going to be an interesting ride. And that’s the wind energy news for the 5th of January, 2026. Join us tomorrow for the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast

Summary In this episode, Andy talks with Joel Hilchey, speaker, facilitator, and author of The 6½ Habits of Highly Defective Bosses. Joel brings humor, honesty, and a refreshing amount of grace to a topic many leaders quietly struggle with: becoming a boss without training, preparation, or a clear roadmap. Andy and Joel explore what it really means to be an "accidental boss" and why most bad bosses are not bad people. They unpack the four quadrants every leader must balance: tasks vs. people and short-term vs. long-term, and why focusing only on tasks can quietly erode trust and engagement. You'll hear practical ideas for avoiding mediocrity mongering, removing everyday hassles that drain teams, and providing clarity instead of whiplash leadership. The conversation also touches on why aiming to be "less terrible" is a surprisingly powerful leadership goal, how recognition can become a force multiplier, and why lessons from leadership often show up at home as well. If you're leading projects or people and want practical, human-centered ways to become a better boss one step at a time, this episode is for you! Sound Bites "Most bad bosses are actually good people with bad ideas." "If you focus only on tasks, people will hate working for you." "People don't expect perfection from their boss, but they do expect effort." "Recognition is one of the highest leverage tools a leader has." "The essence of strategy is saying no." "Be a lighthouse for your team, not a disco ball." "If you notice yourself getting frustrated that people are doing stuff that's off task or that feels off task to you, like why is this person taking time to do that? That's on you as the leader to say, oh, I must not have made this strategy clear." "You can spend the money without asking, but you must tell me you spent it next time we meet." Chapters 00:00 Introduction 02:08 Start of Interview 02:20 Becoming an Accidental Boss 07:10 The Four Leadership Quadrants 12:10 Warning Signs You Are Neglecting People 15:15 When Task Focus Goes Too Far 21:24 Mediocrity Mongering and Good Enough Work 25:47 The Value of a Crappy First Draft 30:00 Removing Hassles from Team Work 35:30 Lighthouse vs. Disco Ball Leadership 39:40 Why Being 'Less Terrible' Matters 45:40 Applying Leadership Lessons at Home 48:31 End of Interview 49:15 Andy Comments After the Interview 52:38 Outtakes Learn More You can learn more about Joel and his work at JoelHilchey.com. Make sure to try the complimentary assessment Joel refers to in the interview. For more learning on this topic, check out: Episode 468 with James Turk. It's a practical discussion about what to do when you are suddenly in charge. Episode 467 with Sabina Nawaz, former executive coach to Bill Gates, sharing insights on what no one usually tells you about becoming the boss. Episode 419 with Molly McGrath. Her book focuses on fixing your boss, but it almost always inspires listeners to become better leaders themselves. Level Up Your AI Skills During the episode, Andy mentioned our AI Made Simple class. Join listeners from around the world who are learning how to prepare for an AI-infused future. Just go to ai.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com. Thanks! Pass the PMP Exam This Year If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start. Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year! Join Us for LEAD52 I know you want to be a more confident leader, that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks! Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Talent Triangle: Power Skills Topics: Leadership, People Management, Accidental Managers, Team Culture, Recognition, Project Leadership, Manager Development, Communication, Prioritization, Continuous Improvement The following music was used for this episode: Music: Brooklyn Nights by Tim Kulig License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license Music: Tuesday by Sascha Ende License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Happy 2026! It's a new year but we are still obsessing over the same ole shit. We're deep diving into the latest Epstein files, and why doesn't anyone talk about Bill Gates?? We chat about Epstein island and all of the lame ass Lolita quotes. Plus, what the HELL is going on with Riley Keough and John Travolta??

The Santa era may have ended for the Ziegler's, some lessons from the Reiner murders, more MAGA Housewives, the Epstein myth, a citizen journal in Minnesota, Tiger at 50, will AI reach AGI and "that which does not kill us makes us stronger.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-death-of-journalism--5691723/support.

Nintendo just shattered a lifelong assumption about Mario and Princess Peach — and that’s only the beginning. On this fast-paced edition of Nina’s What’s Trending, the crew breaks down a surprising relationship update from the Mushroom Kingdom, plus a bold prediction from Bill Gates that could make smartphones a thing of the past. Nina's What's Trending is your daily dose of the hottest headlines, viral moments, and must-know stories from The Jubal Show! From celebrity gossip and pop culture buzz to breaking news and weird internet trends, Nina’s got you covered with everything trending right now. She delivers it with wit, energy, and a touch of humor. Stay in the know and never miss a beat—because if it’s trending, Nina’s talking about it! This is just a tiny piece of The Jubal Show. You can find every podcast we have, including the full show every weekday right here…➡︎ https://thejubalshow.com/podcasts The Jubal Show is everywhere, and also these places: Website ➡︎ https://thejubalshow.com Instagram ➡︎ https://instagram.com/thejubalshow X/Twitter ➡︎ https://twitter.com/thejubalshow Tiktok ➡︎ https://www.tiktok.com/@the.jubal.show Facebook ➡︎ https://facebook.com/thejubalshow YouTube ➡︎ https://www.youtube.com/@JubalFresh Support the show: https://the-jubal-show.beehiiv.com/subscribeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Watch The X22 Report On Video No videos found (function(w,d,s,i){w.ldAdInit=w.ldAdInit||[];w.ldAdInit.push({slot:17532056201798502,size:[0, 0],id:"ld-9437-3289"});if(!d.getElementById(i)){var j=d.createElement(s),p=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];j.async=true;j.src="https://cdn2.decide.dev/_js/ajs.js";j.id=i;p.parentNode.insertBefore(j,p);}})(window,document,"script","ld-ajs");pt> Click On Picture To See Larger Picture[CB] around the world are dumping the Fed note, they just aren’t taking on anymore, everything is about to change. Trump’s GDP outshines Biden’s. China is now going to restrict silver, silver is used in electronics, batteries,solar panels etc. Silver prices are going to move. [CB] fraud is now exposed. The Tariff system is the future. The [DS] criminal syndicate is being exposed, it’s not just in DC it is world wide. As people learn how corrupt the system is and most of the taxes and borrowing goes to support the criminal system the people will be with Trump to remove the Fed. Trump is in the process of bringing down the entire corrupt temple on the [DS]. Trump moves closer to peace with Ukraine, 2026 is going to change everything. Economy Status of the US Dollar as Global Reserve Currency: USD Share Drops to Lowest since 1994  Central Banks diversify their holdings into dozens of smaller “non-traditional reserve currencies.”  The share of USD-denominated assets held by other central banks dropped to 56.9% of total foreign exchange reserves in Q3, the lowest since 1994, from 57.1% in Q2 and 58.5% in Q1, according to the IMF's new data on Currency Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves. USD-denominated foreign exchange reserves include US Treasury securities, US mortgage-backed securities (MBS), US agency securities, US corporate bonds, and other USD-denominated assets held by central banks other than the Fed. Excluded are any central bank's assets denominated in its own currency, such as the Fed's Treasury securities or the ECB's euro-denominated securities. It's not that foreign central banks dumped US-dollar-denominated assets, such as Treasury securities. They did not. They added a little to their holdings. But they added more assets denominated in other currencies, particularly a gaggle of smaller currencies whose combined share has surged, while central banks' holdings of USD-denominated assets haven't changed much for a decade, and so the percentage share of those USD assets continued to decline.   Central banks' holdings of foreign exchange reserves in all currencies, and expressed in USD, rose to $13.0 trillion in Q3. Top holdings, expressed in USD: USD assets: $7.41 trillion Euro assets (EUR): $2.65 trillion Yen assets (YEN): $0.76 trillion British pound assets (GBP): $0.58 trillion Canadian dollar assets (CAD): $0.35 trillion Australian dollar assets (AUD): $0.27 trillion Chinese renminbi (RMB) assets: $0.25 trillion Source: wolfstreet.com (function(w,d,s,i){w.ldAdInit=w.ldAdInit||[];w.ldAdInit.push({slot:18510697282300316,size:[0, 0],id:"ld-8599-9832"});if(!d.getElementById(i)){var j=d.createElement(s),p=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];j.async=true;j.src="https://cdn2.decide.dev/_js/ajs.js";j.id=i;p.parentNode.insertBefore(j,p);}})(window,document,"script","ld-ajs");  https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/2004750391435755846?s=20 https://twitter.com/ElectionWiz/status/2004928015172821228?s=20 https://twitter.com/ElectionWiz/status/2004946780216328590?s=20  Political/Rights https://twitter.com/Patri0tContr0l/status/2004590513182367845?s=20  https://twitter.com/Geiger_Capital/status/2005107085865103608?s=20 ICE: 70% Arrested Had Criminal Ties Roughly 70% of illegal migrants arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under the second Trump administration reportedly had been convicted of or faced charges for criminal offenses. New data provided to the Washington Examiner shows the Trump administration arrested about 595,000 illegal immigrants between Jan. 20 and Dec. 11, according to the Department of Homeland Security. ICE said 70%, roughly 416,000, had “criminal convictions or pending criminal charges” in the United States, underscoring President Donald Trump’s promise to prioritize the “worst of the worst” in immigration enforcement. ICE officials stressed that even those without U.S. criminal records can still pose major public safety threats, the agency said, noting many are wanted abroad for violent crimes or have ties to gangs, terrorism, or other serious offenses. “This statistic doesn’t account for those wanted for violent crimes in their home country or another country, INTERPOL notices, human rights abusers, gang members, terrorists, etc. The list goes on,” an ICE spokesperson told the Examiner. Source: newsmax.com   New Files Show Epstein Was ‘Too Useful' for Banks to Drop — Trump Was ‘Too Politically Dangerous' to Keep  The newest Epstein disclosures include deposition testimony that illustrates, in unusually concrete detail, how major financial institutions assessed risk, value, and accountability. The transcript does not add new allegations about Epstein. Instead, it explains why he remained bankable long after his 2008 conviction and why his relationship with major banks survived despite generating almost no traditional revenue. That institutional logic is the same logic that later drove JPMorgan to end its ties with Trump Media, and the contrast between the two cases shows how selectively these standards are applied. In the deposition, Paul Morris—a private banker who handled Epstein's accounts at JPMorgan Chase and later Deutsche Bank—described Epstein's financial profile with unusual precision. Epstein's trading was minimal. His accounts produced limited fees. He was not a high-activity client and did not utilize the investment tools that banks rely on to generate consistent revenue. By every conventional benchmark, he was a low-value account. And yet, the relationship continued. The deposition shows why. Epstein was not retained for his financial performance but for his institutional usefulness. Morris acknowledged that Epstein facilitated introductions to ultra-wealthy individuals that the bank viewed as essential prospects. One example was Leon Black, whom Morris identified as a “priority prospect” because of Black's significant net worth and influence in the investment sector. Epstein introduced the bank to real-estate investor Andrew Farkas and discussed a potential connection involving biotech investor Boris Nikolic, who had ties to Bill Gates. These introductions were specific, documented, and initiated by Epstein, not the bank. This is the key element that many public accounts overlook. Epstein was not being managed as a traditional client. He functioned as a relationship broker inside a system where introductions to power carry more internal value than account-level returns. Source: thegatewaypundit.com  DOGE Geopolitical The EU Leaders Shouting About Visa Bans Are the Same EU Leaders Who Sent Political Operatives Into the U.S. to Support Kamala Harris  EU leaders from across the spectrum of their collective assembly, are furious with the administration of President Donald Trump for restricting their entry into the United States by blocking their visa permissions.  However, these same EU leaders are the people who sent operatives into the United States in order to interfere in our 2024 election. The Vice President of the European Commission, Kaja Kallas, sums up the European position: “The decision by the U.S. to impose travel restrictions on European citizens and officials is unacceptable and an attempt to challenge our sovereignty. Europe will keep defending its values — freedom of expression, fair digital rules, and the right to regulate our own space.” The “attempt to challenge our sovereignty” statement is a particular type of hubris when we consider THIS: GREAT BRITAIN (October 2024) – The British Labour Party is sending approximately 100 current and former staff members to the United States to work for Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign in key swing states. [SOURCE – LINKEDIN] Not only did the U.K attempt to challenge our sovereignty, but they also actively worked to influence the outcome of our national election in 2024. It is worth remembering the British intelligence operation, (Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6), was at the center of the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy in 2016. The first EU political group to be targeted with the visa bans includes French former EU commissioner Thierry Breton, who was one of the architects of the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA). Also: Imran Ahmed, the British CEO of the U.S.-based Center for Countering Digital Hate, Anna-Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon of the German non-profit HateAid, and Clare Melford, co-founder of the Global Disinformation Index. https://twitter.com/GeneHamilton/status/2004656229684224393?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2004656229684224393%7Ctwgr%5E91706d63d41394916634b106fbd2268d7711e121%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheconservativetreehouse.com%2Fblog%2F2025%2F12%2F27%2Fthe-eu-leaders-shouting-about-visa-bans-are-the-same-eu-leaders-who-sent-political-operatives-into-the-u-s-to-support-kamala-harris%2F https://twitter.com/GeneHamilton/status/2004656234910433405?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2004656234910433405%7Ctwgr%5E91706d63d41394916634b106fbd2268d7711e121%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheconservativetreehouse.com%2Fblog%2F2025%2F12%2F27%2Fthe-eu-leaders-shouting-about-visa-bans-are-the-same-eu-leaders-who-sent-political-operatives-into-the-u-s-to-support-kamala-harris%2F Source: theconservativetreehouse.com https://twitter.com/michaelgwaltz/status/2005058695647166898?s=20 https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/2005035840934723894?s=20 War/Peace   EIGHT, perhaps the United States has become the REAL United Nations, which has been of very little assistance or help in any of them, including the disaster currently going on between Russia and Ukraine. The United Nations must start getting active and involved in WORLD PEACE!   the United States is capable of doing. Under my leadership, our Country will not allow Radical Islamic Terrorism to prosper. May God Bless our Military, and MERRY CHRISTMAS to all, including the dead Terrorists, of which there will be many more if their slaughter of Christians continues.   DONALD J. TRUMP PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Trump Tasks Military With an ‘Oil Quarantine' Against Venezuela, as Economic Pressure Is Chosen for Now Over Military Action Venezuela's oil industry under maximum pressure.   And now that the extended holidays are over, the socialist regime will have to deal with the veritable siege imposed by the US and its unprecedented armada. Venezuela is running out of storage space for its oil production since some ships are being seized and many others turned around and left.  Now, it arises that Donald J. Trump has directed US forces to enforce ‘an oil quarantine' against Venezuela for at least the next two months. These moves lead many to think that the Trump team will focus on economic rather than military means to pressure Caracas into ousting Maduro. Reuters reported:   Read  more: Source: thegatewaypundit.com Trump Blockade Leaves $1 Billion Of Venezuelan Crude Stranded On Tankers  With a two-month “quarantine” placed on Venezuelan oil by the Trump administration in a foreign policy move called “gunboat diplomacy,” new data estimate that roughly $900 million worth of crude is currently loaded on tankers, unable to depart Venezuela due to the U.S. blockade. “Based on our visual analysis from both shore and space, we estimate that there are around 17.5 million barrels of crude oil floating onboard tankers in Venezuela which are unable to depart due to the ongoing US blockade,” independent research Tanker Trackers wrote on X. “That’s around $900M of oil.” https://twitter.com/TankerTrackers/status/2004713684871078162?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2004713684871078162%7Ctwgr%5E016cd45f97095edcd74bb159f40c4e93caf9794d%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fcommodities%2Ftrump-blockade-leaves-1-billion-venezuelan-crude-stranded-tankers Source: zerohedge.com Trump to POLITICO: Zelenskyy ‘doesn't have anything until I approve it' Trump's comments come ahead of his Sunday meeting with Zelenskyy, who will bring with him a new 20-point plan to end the war President Donald Trump on Friday cast himself as the ultimate arbiter of any peace deal between Ukraine and Russia, in an exclusive conversation with POLITICO. “He doesn't have anything until I approve it,” Trump said. “So we'll see what he's got.” Source: politico.com https://twitter.com/FoxNews/status/2005352028365848993?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2005352028365848993%7Ctwgr%5E1588e24fb392689513bf7b2f064c646c1bf5f470%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thegatewaypundit.com%2F2025%2F12%2Ftrump-says-russia-ukraine-peace-talks-entering-final%2F  Medical/False Flags 19 Blue States Sue Trump Admin to Preserve Right to Perform Child Sex Changes Last week, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he would cut off Medicare and Medicaid funding to any provider that offers so-called gender-affirming treatment to minors. “Under my leadership, and answering President Trump's call to action, the federal government will do everything in its power to stop unsafe, irreversible practices that put our children at risk,” Kennedy said at the time. The Oregon-led lawsuit claims that the decision “exceeds the Secretary's authority and violates the Administrative Procedure Act and the Medicare and Medicaid statutes.” A total of nineteen blue states are suing the Trump administration in a bid to protect the right to perform child sex changes. His office said in a press release: Source: thegatewaypundit.com [DS] Agenda  https://twitter.com/nickshirleyy/status/2004642794862961123?s=20   work way too hard and pay too much in taxes for this to be happening, the fraud must be stopped. https://twitter.com/MAGAVoice/status/2005011311756017964?s=20 https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/2005158623442600391?s=20 https://twitter.com/DataRepublican/status/2005292438114738555?s=20  diabolical. And it’s going to work until we understand that primaries will be more important than generals from here out on. https://twitter.com/C_3C_3/status/2005016429687701811?s=20 https://twitter.com/WarClandestine/status/2005351086115405986?s=20 https://twitter.com/CynicalPublius/status/2005030256382464493?s=20  and your tribe. I spent a lot of my life in the Middle East and Central Asia, working closely with foreign contractors and foreign governments to provide support to American military operations. As a US Army officer with a big checkbook courtesy of Uncle Sam, I can't really count the sheer number of times I was offered bribes to award a contract, or falsify records to do things like create larger (fake) headcounts at places like dining facilities, or to just simply be on the take for future illegal requests. Of course I had enough sense to never comply with such requests. Moreover, they were never explicitly structured as “bribes”; instead it was usually along the lines of “Here I have these Rolexes as gifts for you and your wife to show our friendship.” (Unfortunately, too many US officers and NCOs succumbed to this siren song and ended up breaking rocks in Leavenworth.) The weird thing about this to me was that whenever I turned down such an offering, it was treated as a grave insult. I was the one in the wrong, and not the fraudster trying to bribe me. They considered it rude that I was in their country and refused to accept how things got done. After all, why did I not want to help my tribe by helping their tribe? Let me repeat: in these cultures, FRAUD IS NOT EVEN A CONCEPT. There is only what helps your tribe. Such thought processes are so alien to Americans and much of the West. We are raised on the presumption that our institutions are valid, that the rule of law always prevails, and that integrity is universal. We need these presumptions to have working governments and economies, and without those presumptions—without the mental barrier that causes us not to accept outright fraud—our nation would quickly descend into the economic and social hellscape of countries like…. ummm… you know…. SOMALIA! So when we import people en masse from cultures that accept bribery and fraud as routine, acceptable ways to advance one's tribe, we should not be surprised that things like the $8 BILLION fraud schemes of the Somali population in Minnesota happen so easily. Introducing a fraud-based culture based on tribalism into America is like introducing some sort of lethal virus into a population that has no natural immunity. The virus will spread and grow, unchecked, because it is so alien to the host. Similarly, a culture of fraud is anathema to American thinking, and it must be cut out before it consumes the host. So when you see and hear patriotic Americans decrying what is happening in Minnesota or elsewhere, and when they seek deportation of the offenders, it is not “racism,” it is not “bigotry,” it is not “xenophobia”; instead, it is preserving the American tradition of responsible institutions and national integrity. https://twitter.com/MarioNawfal/status/2005262465190223928?s=20 https://twitter.com/FBIDirectorKash/status/2005305530651189719?s=20   exploiting federal programs. Fraud that steals from taxpayers and robs vulnerable children will remain a top FBI priority in Minnesota and nationwide. To date, the FBI dismantled a $250 million fraud scheme that stole federal food aid meant for vulnerable children during COVID. The investigation exposed sham vendors, shell companies, and large-scale money laundering tied to the Feeding Our Future network. The case led to 78 indictments and 57 convictions. Defendants included Abdiwahab Ahmed Mohamud, Ahmed Ali, Hussein Farah, Abdullahe Nur Jesow, Asha Farhan Hassan, Ousman Camara, and Abdirashid Bixi Dool, each charged for roles ranging from wire fraud to money laundering and conspiracy. These criminals didn't just engaged in historic fraud, but tried to subvert justice as well. Abdimajid Mohamed Nur and others were charged for attempting to bribe a juror with $120,000 in cash. Those responsible pleaded guilty and were sentenced, including a 10-year prison term and nearly $48 million in restitution in related cases. The FBI believes this is just the tip of a very large iceberg. We will continue to follow the money and protect children, and this investigation very much remains ongoing. Furthermore, many are also being referred to immigrations officials for possible further denaturalization and deportation proceedings where eligible. https://twitter.com/ScottPresler/status/2004932316926193933?s=20 https://twitter.com/HarmeetKDhillon/status/2004976287270731981?s=20 https://twitter.com/rising_serpent/status/2005080344610177489?s=20  https://twitter.com/amuse/status/2005092720927232198?s=20  “skeptical jurors” in federal cases involving President Trump. Co-founder Alex Dodds said jurors have “enormous power” to judge the administration itself. Critics report the sessions encourage rigging trials against the administration, conduct plainly barred under 8 USC §1503. President Trump's Plan https://twitter.com/WarClandestine/status/2004653262491058216?s=20 accomplished what no one else could. When we arrived, taxpayers were about to be on the hook for nearly $5 billion for a new headquarters that wouldn't open until 2035. We scrapped that plan. Instead, we selected the already-existing Reagan Building, saving billions and allowing the transition to begin immediately with required safety and infrastructure upgrades already underway. Once complete, most of the HQ FBI workforce will move in, and the rest are continuing in our ongoing push to put more manpower in the field, where they will remain. This decision puts resources where they belong: defending the homeland, crushing violent crime, and protecting national security. It delivers better tools for today's FBI workforce at a fraction of the cost. The Hoover Building will be shut down permanently.  They Got Her: FBI Caught Hillary Clinton Talking Donations with Foreign Felon on Tape As Hillary Clinton closed in on the presidential nomination in the spring of 2016, FBI field officers advised colleagues at headquarters to press her on the foreign donations flowing to the Clinton Foundation while she steered American foreign policy and whether she had used the charity as a campaign piggy bank. But the FBI HQ in Washington — a city in which the former secretary of state and first lady wields enormous influence — let the trail go cold. FBI New York Assistant Director in Charge Diego Rodriguez advised agents in Washington to ask Clinton several questions about the foundation, which are reproduced in full in documents released to the Senate Judiciary Committee by the FBI and published on Dec. 15. The questions reveal the concerns about foreign bribery that the Clinton Foundation case — codenamed “Cracked Foundation” — had uncovered. Among the evidence available to investigators, according to their questions: A recorded conversation between Clinton and Indian hotel magnate Sant Singh Chatwal in which Clinton discussed donations to the foundation and her remaining 2008 campaign debt. The new documents confirm that the FBI had at one time been “intercepting individuals associated with the Clinton Foundation.” Source: westernjournal.com  John Brennan's Lawfare Lawyers are Revealing More Than They Intend   former CIA Director John Brennan are sending proactive letters to the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Florida {SEE HERE}.  However, some of the information included in the letters intended to be exculpatory is actually damning against their defense position. You have to go deep in the weeds to see it but if you understand the details of the events, the information being revealed by Brennan's lawyers is the opposite of helpful to his case.  As an example, there is a citation included in a footnote of the December 22, 2025, [fn #20 page 6] letter that links to a March 31, 2022, letter sent to John Durham. Here's page 6 of the 2025 letter. Compare the underlined section to the 2022 letter sent to John Durham. In 2025 Brennan is telling the Florida court the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) conclusion was confirmed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller in a “very serious review.”  However, in 2022 Brennan told John Durham that Robert Mueller never interviewed him or offered an assessment of the ICA; Mueller just regurgitated it. So, which is it? These contradictions are throughout both of the letters when you compare them side-by-side.  In 2022 former CIA Director John Brennan was trying to escape the Durham review.  In 2025 Brennan is trying to escape a grand jury review. [We are aware that the U.S Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Jason Reding Quiñones, has access to the CTH public library of research into all of these historic events.] There are other citations in the 2022 letter that are certainly worth reviewing because the legally binding statements made by John Brennan at the time have been shown to be false in 2025. Another of the claims in the 2022 letter to John Durham highlights why it was critical for the CIA to assist in the capture and arrest of Julian Assange in 2019. Source: thegatewaypundit.com  Trump: Upcoming Midterms Will Be ‘About Pricing’ The 2026 midterm elections will be “about pricing,” according to President Donald Trump, who said that his administration is restoring the nation’s economy after the condition in which former President Joe Biden left it. “I think it’s going to be about the success of our country,” Trump said in an interview with Politico, the outlet reported Saturday. “They gave us high pricing, and we’re bringing it down. Energy’s way down. Gasoline is way down.” Over the past two weeks, a series of positive economic reports has shown that inflation is decreasing, with the White House highlighting the latest data while addressing cost-of-living concerns nationwide. According to a Politico poll conducted last month, Americans say they are finding that the costs of groceries, utilities, healthcare, housing, and transportation are too expensive. Trump has been fighting to reframe that, however, blaming Democrats under Biden for driving prices up. He said in the interview, conducted Friday, that “electricity is down. It’s way down.” “When the gasoline goes down, and when the oil and gas go down, the electricity comes down naturally,” he said. “But it’s all coming down. It’s all coming down. It’s coming beautifully.” Source: newsmax.com https://twitter.com/WarClandestine/status/2004696380531503505?s=20   the NG will have quick response troops on standby in every state, the FBI building is being moved to a new location, the war between Russia and Ukraine is coming to an end, and all of Trump's pieces will be in place. There seems to be a shift in attitude. I think we are passing into a different phase of the operation. The shadow war will eventually have to come to the surface. (function(w,d,s,i){w.ldAdInit=w.ldAdInit||[];w.ldAdInit.push({slot:13499335648425062,size:[0, 0],id:"ld-7164-1323"});if(!d.getElementById(i)){var j=d.createElement(s),p=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];j.async=true;j.src="//cdn2.customads.co/_js/ajs.js";j.id=i;p.parentNode.insertBefore(j,p);}})(window,document,"script","ld-ajs");

Second try podcast after my coughing attack. Let's see if this works.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Politics, Governor DeSantis AI Skeptic, Free Will Illusion, James Comey, Dick Wolf's FBI Content, CA Community College Fraud, Somali Day Care Fraud, Somali Healthcare Fraud, Qui Tam Reward Laws, Improved Audit System, Nick Shirley, Minnesota Fraud, CA Wealth Tax, Ro Khanna, Somali Tribal Culture, Mike Cernovich, USAID Life Saving Myth, Bill Gates, Soros Leticia James Funding, Huma Abedin, US Dollar Dominance, Ukraine Peace Talks, President Putin's Military Uniform, President Trump, Progress Persuasion, President Zelenskyy, 15 Year Security Guarantee, Jared Kushner, Free Economic Zones Concept, Scott Adams~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~If you would like to enjoy this same content plus bonus content from Scott Adams, including micro-lessons on lots of useful topics to build your talent stack, please see scottadams.locals.com for full access to that secret treasure.

Welcome back to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering® Podcast. AI agents are your next customers. Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/ Check Out UPX:https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ https://youtu.be/vEdq8rpBM3I In this data-rich keynote, Jay McBain deconstructs the tectonic shifts reshaping the $5.3 trillion global technology industry, arguing that we are entering a new 20-year cycle where traditional direct sales models are obsolete. McBain explains why 96% of the industry is now surrounded by partners and how successful companies must pivot from “flywheels and theory” to a granular strategy focused on the seven specific partners present in every deal. From the explosion of agentic AI and the $163 billion marketplace revolution to the specific mechanics of multiplier economics, this discussion provides a roadmap for navigating the “decade of the ecosystem” where influence, trust, and integration—not just product—determine winners and losers. Key Takeaways Half of today's Fortune 500 companies will likely vanish in the next 20 years due to the shift toward AI and ecosystem-led models. Every B2B deal now involves an average of seven trusted partners who influence the decision before a vendor even knows a deal exists. Microsoft has outpaced AWS growth for 26 consecutive quarters largely because of a superior partner-led geographic strategy. Marketplaces are projected to grow to $163 billion by 2030, with nearly 60% of deals involving partner funding or private offers. The “Multiplier Effect” is the new ROI, where partners can make up to $8.45 for every dollar of vendor product sold. Future dominance relies on five key pillars: Platform, Service Partnerships, Channel Partnerships, Alliances, and Go-to-Market orchestration. If you're ready to lead through change, elevate your business, and achieve extraordinary outcomes through the power of partnership—this is your community. At Ultimate Partner® we want leaders like you to join us in the Ultimate Partner Experience – where transformation begins. Keywords: Jay McBain, Canalys, partner ecosystem, channel chief, agentic AI, marketplace growth, multiplier economics, B2B sales trends, tech industry forecast, service partnerships, strategic alliances, Microsoft vs AWS, distribution transformation, managed services growth, SaaS platforms, customer journey mapping, 28 moments of truth, future of reselling, technology spending 2025, ecosystem orchestration, partner multipliers. T Transcript: Jay McBain WORKFILE FOR TRANSCRIPT [00:00:00] Vince Menzione: Just up from, did you Puerto Rico last night? Puerto Rico, yes. Puerto Rico. He dodged the hurricane. Um, you all know him. Uh, let him introduce himself for those of you who don’t, but just thrilled to have on the stage, again, somebody who knows more about what’s going on in, in the, and has the pulse on this industry probably than just about anybody I know personally. [00:00:21] Vince Menzione: J Jay McBain. Jay, great to see you my friend. Alright, thank you. We have to come all the way. We live, we live uh, about 20 minutes from each other. We have to come all the way to Reston, Virginia to see each other, right? That’s right. Very good. Well, uh, that’s all over to you, sir. Thank you. [00:00:35] Jay McBain: Alright, well thank you so much. [00:00:36] Jay McBain: I went from 85 degrees yesterday to 45 today, but I was able to dodge that, uh, that hurricane, uh, that we kind of had to fly through the northern edge of, uh, wanna talk today about our industry, about the ultimate partner. I’m gonna try to frame up the ultimate partner as I walk through the data and the latest research that, uh, that we’ve been doing in the market. [00:00:56] Jay McBain: But I wanted to start here ’cause our industry moves in 20 year cycles, and if you look at the Fortune 500 and dial back 20 years from today, 52% of them no longer exist. As we step into the next 20 year AI era, half of the companies that we know and love today are not gonna exist. So we look at this, and by the way, if you’re not in the Fortune 500 and you don’t have deep pockets to buy your way outta problems, 71% of tech companies fail over the course of 10 years. [00:01:30] Jay McBain: Those are statistics from the US government. So I start to look at our industry and you know, you may look at the, you know, mainframe era from the sixties and seventies, mini computers, August the 12th, 1981, that first IBM, PC with Microsoft dos, version one, you know, triggered. A new 20 year era of client server. [00:01:51] Jay McBain: It was the time and I worked at IBM for 17 years, but there was a time where Bill Gates flew into Boca Raton, Florida and met with the IBM team and did that, you know, fancy licensing agreement. But after, you know, 20 years of being the most valuable company in the world and 13 years of antitrust and getting broken up, almost like at and TIBM almost didn’t make payroll. [00:02:14] Jay McBain: 13 years after meeting Bill Gates. Yeah, that’s how quickly things change in these eras. In 1999, a small company outta San Francisco called salesforce.com got its start. About 10 years later, Jeff Bezos asked a question in a boardroom, could we rent out our excess capacity and would other companies buy it? [00:02:35] Jay McBain: Which, you know, most people in the room laughed at ’em at the time. But it created a 20 year cloud era when our friends, our neighbors, our family. Saw Chachi PT for the first time in March of 2023. They saw the deep fakes, they saw the poetry, they saw the music. They came to us as tech people and said, did we just light up Skynet? [00:02:58] Jay McBain: And that consumer trend has triggered this next 20 years. I could walk through the richest people in the world through those trends. I could walk through the most valuable companies. It all aligns. ’cause by the way, Apple’s no longer at the top. Nvidia is at the top, Microsoft. Second, things change really quickly. [00:03:17] Jay McBain: So in that course of time, you start to look at our industry and as people are talking about a six and a half or $7 trillion build out of ai, that’s open AI and Microsoft numbers, that is bigger than our industry that’s taken over 50 years to build. This year, we’re gonna finish the year at $5.3 trillion. [00:03:36] Jay McBain: That’s from the smallest flower shop to the biggest bank. Biggest governments that Caresoft would, uh, serve biggest customer in the world is actually the federal government of the us. But you look at this pie chart and you look at the changes that we’re gonna go through over the next 20 years, there’s about a trillion dollars in hardware. [00:03:54] Jay McBain: There’s about a trillion dollars in software. If you look forward through all of the merging trends, quantum computing, humanoid robots, all the things that are coming that dollar to dollar software to hardware will continue to exist all the way through. We see services making up almost two thirds of this pie. [00:04:13] Jay McBain: Yesterday I was in a telco conference with at and t and Verizon and T-Mobile and some of the biggest wireless players and IT services, which happen to be growing faster than products. At the moment, there is more work to be done wrapping around the deal than the actual products that the customer is buying. [00:04:32] Jay McBain: So in an industry that’s growing at 7%. On top of the world economy that’s grown at 2.2. This is the fastest growing industry, and it will be at least for the next 10 years, if not 2070 0.1% of this entire $5 trillion gets transacted through partners. While what we’re talking to today about the ultimate partner, 96% of this industry is surrounded by partners in one way or another. [00:05:01] Jay McBain: They’re there before the deal. They’re there at the deal. They’re there after the deal. Two thirds of our industry is now subscription consumption based. So every 30 days forever, and a customer for life becomes everything. So if every deal in medium, mid-market, and higher has seven partners, according to McKinsey, who are those seven people trying to get into the deal? [00:05:25] Jay McBain: While there’s millions of companies that have come into tech over the last 10 to 20 years. Digital agencies, accountants, legal firms, everybody’s come in. The 250,000 SaaS companies, a million emerging tech companies, there’s a big fight to be one of those seven trusted people at the table. So millions of companies and tens of millions of people our competing for these slots. [00:05:49] Jay McBain: So one of the pieces of research I’m most proud of, uh, in my analyst career is this. And this took over two years to build. It’s a lot of logos. Not this PowerPoint slide, but the actual data. Thousands of people hours. Because guess what? When you look at partners from the top down, the top 1000 partners, by capability and capacity, not by resale. [00:06:15] Jay McBain: It’s not a ranking of CDW and insight and resale numbers. It is the surrounding. Consulting, design, architecture, implementations, integrations, managed services, all the pieces that’s gonna make the next 20 years run. So when you start to look at this, 98% of these companies are private, so very difficult to get to those numbers and, uh, a ton of research and help from AI and other things to get this. [00:06:41] Jay McBain: But this is it. And if you look at this list, there’s a thousand logos out of the million companies. There’s a thousand logos that drive two thirds of all tech services in the world. $1.07 trillion gets delivered by a thousand companies, but here’s where it gets fun. Those companies in the middle, in blue, the 30 of them deliver more tech services than the next 970. [00:07:08] Jay McBain: Combined the 970 combined in white deliver more tech services. Then the next million combined. So if you think we live in an 80 20 rule or maybe a 99, a 95 5 rule, or a 99 1 rule, we actually live in a 99.9 0.1 parallel principle. These companies spread around the world evenly split across the uh, different regions. [00:07:35] Jay McBain: South Africa, Latin America, they’re all over. They split. They split among types. All of the Venn diagram I just showed from GSIs to VARs to MSPs, to agencies and other types of companies. But this is a really rich list and it’s public. So every company in the world now, if you’re looking at Transactable data, if you’re looking at quantifiable data that you can go put your revenue numbers against, it represents 70 to 80% of every company in this room’s Tam. [00:08:08] Jay McBain: In one piece of research. So what do you do below that? How do you cover a million companies that you can’t afford to put a channel account manager? You can’t afford to write programs directly for well after the top down analysis and all the wallet share and you know exactly where the lowest hanging fruit is for most of your tam. [00:08:28] Jay McBain: The available markets. The obtainable markets. You gotta start from the community level grassroots up. So you need to ask the question for the million companies and the maybe a hundred thousand companies out there, partner companies that are surrounding your customer. These are the seven partners that surround your customer. [00:08:48] Jay McBain: What do they read, where do they go, and who do they follow? Interestingly enough, our industry globally equates to only a thousand watering holes, a thousand companies at the top, a thousand places at the bottom. 35% of this audience we’re talking. Millions of people here love events and there’s 352 of them like this one that they love to go to. [00:09:13] Jay McBain: They love the hallway chats, they love the hotel lobby bar, you know, in a time reminded by the pandemic. They love to be in person. It’s the number one way they’re influenced. So if you don’t have a solid event strategy and you don’t have a community team out giving out socks every week, your competitors might beat you. [00:09:31] Jay McBain: 12% of this audience loves podcasts. It’s the Joe Rogan effect of our industry. And while you know, you may not think the 121 podcasts out there are important, well, you’re missing 12% of your audience. It’s over a million people. If you’re not on a weekly podcast in one of these podcasts in the world, there’s still people that read one of the 106 magazines in the world. [00:09:55] Jay McBain: There are people that love peer groups, associations, they wanna be part of this. There’s 15 different ways people are influenced. And a solid grassroots strategy is how you make this happen. In the last 10 years, we’ve created a number of billionaires. Bottom up. They never had to go talk to la large enterprise. [00:10:15] Jay McBain: They never had to go build out a mid-market strategy. They just went and give away socks and new community marketing. And this has created, I could rip through a bunch of names that became unicorns just in the last couple of years, bottoms up. You go back to your board walking into next year, top down, bottom up. [00:10:34] Jay McBain: You’ve covered a hundred percent of your tam, and now you’ve covered it with names, faces, and places. You haven’t covered it with a flywheel or a theory. And for 44 years, we have gone to our board every fourth quarter with flywheels and theory. Trust me, partners are important. The channel is key to us. [00:10:57] Jay McBain: Well, let’s talk at the point of this granularity, and now we’re getting supported by technology 261 entrepreneurs. Many of them in the room actually here that are driving this ability to succeed with seven partners in every deal to exchange data to be able to exchange telemetry of these prospects to be able to see twice or three times in terms of pipeline of your target addressable market. [00:11:26] Jay McBain: All these ai, um, technologies, agentic technologies are coming into this. It’s all about data. It’s all about quantifiable names, faces, and places. Now none of us should be walking around with flywheels, so let’s flip the flywheels. No. Uh, so we also look at, and I sold PCs for 17 years and that was in the high times of 40% margins for partners. [00:11:55] Jay McBain: But one interesting thing when you study the p and l for broad base of partners around the world, it’s changed pretty significantly in this last 20 year era. What the cloud era did is dropped hardware from what used to be 84% plus the break fix and things that wrap around it of the p and l to now 16% of every partner in the world. [00:12:16] Jay McBain: 84% of their p and l is now software and services. And if you look at profitability, it’s worse. It’s actually 87% is profitability wise. They’ve completely shifted in terms of where they go. Now we look at other parts of our market. I could go through every part of the pie of the slide, but we’re watching each of the companies, and if you can see here, this is what we want to talk about in terms of ultimate partner. [00:12:43] Jay McBain: Microsoft has outgrown AWS for 26 straight quarters. They don’t have a better product. They don’t have a better price, they don’t have better promotion. It’s all place. And I’ll explain why you guess here in the light green line. Exactly. The day that Google went a hundred percent all in partner, every deal, even if a deal didn’t have a partner, one of the 4% of deals that didn’t have a partner, they injected a partner. [00:13:09] Jay McBain: You can see on the left side exactly where they did it. They got to the point of a hundred percent partner driven. Rebuilt their programs, rebuilt their marketplace. Their marketplace is actually larger than Microsoft’s, and they grew faster than Microsoft. A couple of those quarters. It is a partner driven future, and now I have Oracle, which I just walked by as I walked from the hotel. [00:13:31] Jay McBain: Oracle with their RPOs will start to join. Maybe the list of three hyperscalers becomes the list of four in future slides, but that’s a growth slide. Market share is different. AWS early and commanding lead. And it plays out, uh, plays out this way. But we’re at an interesting moment and I stood up six years ago talking about the decade of the ecosystem after we went through a decade of sales starting in 1999 when we all thought we were born to be salespeople. [00:14:02] Jay McBain: We managed territories with our gut. The sales tech stack would have it different, that sales was a science, and we ended the decade 2009, looking at sales very differently in 2009. I remember being at cocktail parties where CMOs would be joking around that 50% of their marketing dollars were wasted. They just didn’t know which 50%. [00:14:23] Jay McBain: And I’ll tell you, that was really funny. In 2009 till every 58-year-old CMO got replaced by a 38-year-old growth hacker who walked in with 15,348 SaaS companies in their MarTech and ad tech stack to solve the problem, every nickel of marketing by 2019 was tracked. Marketo, Eloqua, Pardot, HubSpot, driving this industry. [00:14:50] Jay McBain: Now, we stood up and said the 28 moments that come before a sale are pretty much all partner driven. In the best case scenario, a vendor might see four of the moments. They might come to your website, maybe they read an ebook, maybe they have a salesperson or a demo that comes in. That’s four outta 28 moments. [00:15:10] Jay McBain: The other 24 are done by partners. Yeah, in the worst case scenario and the majority scenario, you don’t see any of the moments. All 28 happen and you lose a deal without knowing there ever was a deal. So this is it. We need to partner in these moments and we need to inject partners into sales and marketing, like no time before, and this was the time to do it. [00:15:33] Jay McBain: And we got some feedback in the Salesforce state of sales report, which doesn’t involve any partnerships or, or. Channel Chiefs or anything else. This is 5,500 of the biggest CROs in the world that obviously use Salesforce. 89% of salespeople today use partners every day. For the 11% who don’t, 58% plan two within a year. [00:15:57] Jay McBain: If you add those two numbers together, that’s magically the 96% number. They recognize that every deal has partners in it. In 2024, last year, half of the salespeople in the world, every industry, every country. Miss their numbers. For the minority who made their numbers, 84 point percent pointed to partners as the reason why they made their numbers. [00:16:21] Jay McBain: It was the cheat code for sales, so that modern salesperson that knows how to orchestrate a deal, orchestrate the 28 moments with the seven partners and get to that final spot is the winning formula. HubSpot’s number in separate research was 84% in marketing. So we’re starting to see partners in here. We don’t have to shout from the mountaintops. [00:16:44] Jay McBain: These communities like ultimate Partner are working and we’re getting this to the highest levels in the board. And I’ll say that, you know, when 20 years from now half of the companies we know and love fail after we’re done writing the book and blaming the CEO for inventing the thing that ended up killing them, blaming the board for fiduciary responsibility and letting it happen. [00:17:06] Jay McBain: What are the other chapters of the book? And I think it’s all in one slide. We are in this platform economy and the. [00:17:31] Jay McBain: So your battery’s fine. Check, check, check, check. Alright, I’ll, I’ll just hold this in case, but the companies that execute on all five of these areas, well. Not only today become the trillion dollar valued companies, but they become the companies of tomorrow. These will be the fastest growing companies at every level. [00:17:50] Jay McBain: Not only running a platform business, but participating in other platforms. So this is how it breaks out, and there are people at very senior levels, at very big companies that have this now posted in the office of the CEO winning on integrations is everything. We just went through a demographic shift this year where 51% of our buyers are born after 1982. [00:18:15] Jay McBain: Millennials are the number one buyer of the $5 trillion. Their number one buying criteria is not service. Support your price, your brand reputation, it’s integrations. The buy a product, 80% is good as the next one if it works better in their environment. 79% of us won’t buy a car unless it has CarPlay or Android Auto. [00:18:34] Jay McBain: This is an integration world. The company with the most integrations win. Second, there are seven partners that surround the customer. Highly trusted partners. We’re talking, coaching the customer’s, kids soccer team, having a cottage together up at the lake. You know, best men, bate of honors at weddings type of relationships. [00:18:57] Jay McBain: You can’t maybe have all seven, but how does Microsoft beat AWS? They might have had two, three, or four of them saying nice things about them instead of the competition. Winning in service partnerships and channel partnerships changes by category. If you’re selling MarTech, only 10% of it today is resold, so you build more on service partnerships. [00:19:18] Jay McBain: If you’re in cybersecurity today, 91.6% of it is resold. Transacted through partners. So you build a lot of channel partnerships, plus the service partnerships, whatever the mix is in your category, you have to have two or three of those seven people. Saying nice things about you at every stage of the customer journey. [00:19:38] Jay McBain: Now move over to alliances. We have already built the platforms at the hyperscale level. We’ve built the platforms within SaaS, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Workday, Marketo, NetSuite, HubSpot. Every buyer has a set of platforms that they buy. We’ve now built them in cybersecurity this year out of 6,500 as high as cyber companies, the top five are starting to separate. [00:20:02] Jay McBain: We built it in distribution, which I’ll show in a minute. We’re building it in Telco. This is a platform economy and alliances win and you have alliances with your competitors ’cause you compete in the morning, but you’re best friends by the afternoon. Winning in other platforms is just as important as driving your own. [00:20:20] Jay McBain: And probably the most important part of this is go to market. That sales, that marketing, the 28 moments, the every 30 days forever become all a partner strategy. So there’s still CEOs out there that believe platform is a UI or UX on a bunch of disparate products and things you’ve acquired. There’s still CFOs out there that Think platform is a pricing model, a bundle model of just getting everything under one, you know, subscription price or consumption price. [00:20:51] Jay McBain: And it’s not, platforms are synonymous with partnerships. This is the way forward and there’s no conversation around ai. That doesn’t involve Nvidia over there, an open AI over here and a hyperscaler over there and a SaaS company over here. The seven layer stack wins every single time, and the companies that get this will be the ones that survive this cycle. [00:21:16] Jay McBain: Now, flipping over to marketplaces. So we had written research that, um, about five years ago that marketplaces were going to grow at 82% compounded. Yeah, probably one of the most accurate predictions we ever made, because it happened, we, we predicted that, uh, we were gonna get up to about $85 billion. Well, now we’ve extended that to 2030, so we’re gonna get up to $163 billion, and the thing that we’re watching is in green. [00:21:46] Jay McBain: If 96% of these deals are partner assisted in some way, how is the economics of partnering going to work? We predicted that 50% of deals by 2027. Would be partner funded in some way. Private offers multi-partner offers distributor sellers of record, and now that extends to 59% by 2030, the most senior leader of the biggest marketplace AWS, just said to us they’re gonna probably make these numbers on their own. [00:22:14] Jay McBain: And he asked what their two competitors are doing. So he’s telling us that we under called this. Now when you look at each of the press releases, and this is the AWS Billion Dollar Club. Every one of the companies on the left have issued a press release that they’re in the billion dollar club. Some of them are in the multi-billions, but I want you to double click on this press release. [00:22:35] Jay McBain: I’m quoted in here somewhere, but as CrowdStrike is building the marketplace at 91% compounded, they’re almost doubling their revenue every single year. They’re growing the partner funding, in this case, distributor funding by 3548%. Almost triple digit growth in marketplace is translating into almost quadruple digit growth in funding. [00:23:01] Jay McBain: And you see that over and over again as, as Splunk hit three, uh, billion dollars. The same. Salesforce hit $2 billion on AWS in Ulti, 18 months. They joined in October 20, 23, and 18 months later, they’re already at $2 billion. But now you’re seeing at Salesforce, which by the way. Grew up to $40 billion in revenue direct, almost not a nickel in resell. [00:23:28] Jay McBain: Made it really difficult for VARs and managed service providers to work with Salesforce because they couldn’t understand how to add services to something they didn’t book the revenue for. While $40 billion companies now seeing 70% of their deals come through partners. So this is just the world that we’re in. [00:23:44] Jay McBain: It doesn’t matter who you are and what industry you’re in, this takes place. But now we’re starting to see for the first time. Partners join the billion dollar club. So you wonder about partnering and all this funding and everything that’s working through Now you’re seeing press releases and companies that are redoing their LinkedIn branding about joining this illustrious club without a product to sell and all the services that wrap around it. [00:24:10] Jay McBain: So the opening session on Microsoft was interesting because there’s been a number of changes that Microsoft has done just in the last 30 days. One is they cut distribution by two thirds going from 180 distributors to 62. They cut out any small partner lower than a thousand dollars, and that doesn’t sound like a lot, but that’s over a hundred thousand partners that get deed tightening the long tail. [00:24:38] Jay McBain: They we’re the first to really put a global point system in place three years ago. They went to the new commerce experience. If you remember, all kinds of changes being led by. The biggest company for the channel. And so when we’re studying marketplaces, we’re not just studying the three hyperscalers, we’re studying what TD Cynic is doing with Stream One Ingram’s doing with Advant Advantage Aerosphere. [00:25:01] Jay McBain: Also, we’re watching what PAX eight, who by the way, is the 365 bestseller for Microsoft in the world. They are the cybersecurity leader for Microsoft in the world and the copilot. Leader in the world for Microsoft and Partner of the Year for Microsoft. So we’re watching what the cloud platforms are doing, watching what the Telco are doing, which is 25 cents out of every dollar, if you remember that pie chart, watching what the biggest resellers are converting themselves into. [00:25:30] Jay McBain: Vince just mentioned, you know, SHI in the changes there watching the managed services market and the leaders there, what they’re doing in terms of how this industry’s moving forward. By the way, managed services at $608 billion this year. Is one and a half times larger than the SaaS industry overall. [00:25:48] Jay McBain: It’s also one and a half times larger than all the hyperscalers combined. Oracle, Alibaba, IBM, all the way down. This is a massive market and it makes up 15 to 20 cents of every dollar the customer spend. We’re watching that industry hit a trillion dollars by the end of the decade, and we’re watching 150 different marketplace development platforms, the distribution of our industry, which today is 70.1% indirect. [00:26:13] Jay McBain: We’re starting to see that number, uh, solidify in terms of marketplaces as well. Watching distributors go from that linear warehouse in a bank to this orchestration model, watching some of the biggest players as the world comes around, platforms, it tightens around the place. So Caresoft, uh, from from here is the sixth biggest distributor in the world. [00:26:40] Jay McBain: Just shows you how big the. You know, biggest client in the world is that they serve. But understand that we’re publishing the distributor 500 list, but it’ll be the same thing. That little group in blue in the middle today, you know, drives almost two thirds of the market. So what happens in all this next stage in terms of where the dollars change hands. [00:27:07] Jay McBain: And the economics of partnering themselves are going through the most radical shift that we’ve seen ever. So back to the nineties, and, and for those of you that have been channel chiefs and running programs, we went to work every day. You know, everything’s on fire. We’re trying to check hundred boxes, trying to make our program 10% better than our competitors. [00:27:30] Jay McBain: Hey, we gotta fix our deal registration program today, and our incentives are outta whack or training programs or. You know, not where they need to be. Our certification, you know, this was the life of, uh, of a channel chief. Everybody thought we were just out drinking in the Caribbean with our best partners, but we were under the weight of this. [00:27:49] Jay McBain: But something interesting has happened is that we turned around and put the customer at the middle of our programs to say that those 28 moments in green before the sale are really, really important. And the seven partners who participate are really important. Understanding. The customer’s gonna buy a seven layer stack. [00:28:09] Jay McBain: They’re gonna buy it With these seven partners, the procurement stage is much different. The growth of marketplaces, the growth of direct in some of these areas, and then long term every 30 days forever in a managed service, implementations, integrations, how you upsell, cross-sell, enrich a deal changes. So how would you build a program that’s wrapped around the customer instead of the vendor? [00:28:35] Jay McBain: And we’re starting to hear our partners shout back to us. These are global surveys, big numbers, but over half of our partners, regardless of type, are selling consulting to their customer. Over half are designing architecting deals. A third of them are trying to be system integrators showing up at those implementation integration moments. [00:28:55] Jay McBain: Two thirds of them are doing managed services, but the shocking one here is 44% of our partners, regardless of type, are coding. They’re building agents and they’re out helping their customer at that level. So this is the modern partner that says, don’t typecast me. You may have thought of me in your program. [00:29:14] Jay McBain: You might have me slotted as a var. Well, I do 3.2 things, and if I don’t get access to those resources, if you don’t walk me to that room, I’m not gonna do them with you. You may have me as a managed service provider that’s only in the morning. By the afternoon I’m coding, and by the next morning I’m implementing and consulting. [00:29:33] Jay McBain: So again, a partner’s not a partner. That Venn diagram is a very loose one now, as every partner on there is doing 3.2 different business models. And again, they’re telling us for 43 years, they said, I want more leads this year it changed. For the first time, I want to be recognized and incentivized as more than just a cash register for you. [00:29:57] Jay McBain: I want you to recognize when I’m consulting, when I’m designing, when you’re winning deals, because of my wonderful services, by the way, we asked the follow up question, well, where should we spend our money with you? And they overwhelmingly say, in the consulting stage, you win and lose deals. Not at moment 28. [00:30:18] Jay McBain: We’re not buying a pack of gum at the gas station. This is a considered purchase. You win deals from moment 12 through 16 and I’m gonna show you a picture of that later, and they say, you better be spending your money there, or you’re not gonna win your fair share or more than your fair share of deals. [00:30:36] Jay McBain: The shocking thing about this is that Microsoft, when they went to the point system, lifted two thirds of all the money, tens of billions of dollars, and put it post-sale, and we were all scratching our heads going. Well, if the partners are asking for it there, and it seems like to beat your biggest competitors, you want to win there. [00:30:54] Jay McBain: Why would you spend the money on renewal? Well, they went to Wall Street and Goldman Sachs and the people who lift trillions of dollars of pension funds and said, if we renew deals at 108%, we become a cash machine for you. And we think that’s more valuable than a company coming out with a new cell phone in September and selling a lot of them by Christmas every year. [00:31:18] Jay McBain: The industry. And by the way, wall Street responded, Microsoft has been more valuable than Apple since. So we talk in this now multiplier language, and these are reports that we write, uh, at AMIA at canals. But talking about the partner opportunity in that customer cycle, the $6 and 40 cents you can make for every dollar of consumption, or the $7 and 5 cents you can make the $8 and 45 cents you can make. [00:31:46] Jay McBain: There’s over 24 companies speaking at this level now, and guess what? It’s not just cloud or software companies. Hardware companies are starting to speak in this language, and on January 25th, Cisco, you know, probably second to Microsoft in terms of trust built with the channel globally is moving to a full point system. [00:32:09] Jay McBain: So these are the changes that happen fast. But your QBR with your partners now less about drinking beers at the hotel lobby bar and talking dollar by dollar where these opportunities are. So if you’re doing 3.2 of these things, let’s build out a, uh, a play where you can make $3 for every dollar that we make. [00:32:28] Jay McBain: And you make that profitably. You make it in sticky, highly retained business, and that’s the model. ’cause if you make $3 for every dollar. We make, you’re gonna win Partner of the year, and if you win partner of the year, that piece of glass that you win on stage, by the time you get back to your table, you’re gonna have three offers to buy your business. [00:32:51] Jay McBain: CDW just bought a w. S’s Partner of the Year. Insight bought Google’s eight time partner of the year. Presidio bought ServiceNow’s, partner of the year over and over and over again. So I’m at Octane, I’m at CrowdStrike, I’m at all these events in Vegas every week. I’m watching these partners of the year. [00:33:05] Jay McBain: And I’m watching as the big resellers. I’m watching as the GSIs and the m and a folks are surrounding their table after, and they’re selling their businesses for SaaS level valuations. Not the one-to-one service valuation. They’re getting multiples because this is the new future of our industry. This is platform economics. [00:33:25] Jay McBain: This is winning and platforms for partners. Now, like Vince, I spent 20 minutes without talking about ai, but we have to talk about ai. So the next 20 years as it plays out is gonna play out in phases. And the first thing you know to get it out of the way. The first two years since that March of 23, has been underwhelming, to say the least. [00:33:47] Jay McBain: It’s been disappointing. All the companies that should have won the biggest in AI have been the most disappointing. It’s underperformed the s and p by a considerable amount in terms of where we are. And it goes back to this. We always overestimate the first two years, but we underestimate the first 10. [00:34:07] Jay McBain: If you wanna be the point in time person and go look at that 1983 PC or the 1995 internet or that 2007 iPhone or that whatever point in time you wanna look at, or if you want to talk about hallucinations or where chat chip ET version five is version, as opposed to where it’s going to be as it improves every six months here on in. [00:34:30] Jay McBain: But the fact of the matter is, it’s been a consumer trend. Nvidia got to be the most valuable company in the world. OpenAI was the first company to 2 billion users, uh, in that amount of speed. It’s the fastest growing product ever in history, and it’s been a consumer win this trillions of dollars to get it thrown around in the press releases. [00:34:49] Jay McBain: They’re going out every day, you know, open ai, signing up somebody new or Nvidia, investing in somebody new almost every single day in hundreds of billions of dollars. It is all happening really on the consumer side. So we got a little bit worried and said, is that 96% of surround gonna work in ag agentic ai? [00:35:10] Jay McBain: So we went and asked, and the good news is 88% of end customers are using partners to work through their ag agentic strategy. Even though they’re moving slow, they’re actually using partners. But what’s interesting from a partner perspective, and this is new research that out till 2030. This is the number one services opportunity in the entire tech or telco industry. [00:35:34] Jay McBain: 35.3% compounded growth ending at $267 billion in services. Companies are rebuilding themselves, building out practices, and getting on this train and figuring out which vendors they should hook their caboose to as those trains leave the station. But it kind of plays out like this. So in the next three to five years, we’re in this generative, moving into agentic phase. [00:36:01] Jay McBain: Every partner thinks internally first, the sales and marketing. They’re thinking about their invoicing and billing. They’re thinking about their service tickets. They’re thinking about creating a business that’s 10% better than their competitors, taking that knowledge into their customers and drive in business. [00:36:17] Jay McBain: But we understand that ag agentic AI, as it’s going to play out is not a product. A couple of years ago, we thought maybe a copilot or an agent force or something was going to be the product that everybody needed to buy, and it’s not a product, it’s gonna show up as a feature. So you go back in the history of feature ads and it’s gonna show up in software. [00:36:38] Jay McBain: So if you’re calling in SMB, maybe you’re calling on a restaurant. The restaurant isn’t gonna call OpenAI or call Microsoft or call Nvidia directly. They’re running their restaurant. And they may have chosen a platform like Toast Square, Clover, whatever iPads people are running around with, runs on a platform that does everything in their business, does staffing, does food ordering, works with Uber Eats, does everything end to end? [00:37:08] Jay McBain: They’re gonna wait to one of those platforms, dries out agent AI for them, and can run the restaurant more effectively, less human capital and more consistently, but they wait for the SaaS platform as you get larger. A hundred, 150 people. You have vice presidents. Each of those vice presidents already have a SaaS stack. [00:37:28] Jay McBain: I talked about Salesforce, ServiceNow, Workday, et cetera. They’ve already built that seven layer model and in some cases it’s 70 layers. But the fact is, is they’re gonna wait for those SaaS layers to deliver ag agentic to them. So this is how it’s gonna play out for the next three and a half, three to five years. [00:37:45] Jay McBain: And partners are realizing that many of them were slow to pick up SaaS ’cause they didn’t resell it. Well now to win in this next three to half, three to five years, you’re gonna have to play in this environment. When you start looking out from here, the next generation, you know, kind of five through 15 years gets interesting in more of a physical sense. [00:38:06] Jay McBain: Where I was yesterday talking about every IOT device that now is internet access, starts to get access to large language models. Every little sensor, every camera, everything that’s out there starts to get smart. But there’s a point. The first trillionaire, I believe, will be created here. Elon’s already halfway there. [00:38:24] Jay McBain: Um, but when Bill Gates thought there was gonna be a PC in every home, and IBM thought they were gonna sell 10,000 to hobbyists, that created the richest person in the world for 20 years, there will be a humanoid in every home. There’s gonna be a point in time that you’re out having drinks with your friends, and somebody’s gonna say, the early adopter of your friends is gonna say. [00:38:46] Jay McBain: I haven’t done the dishes in six weeks. I haven’t done the laundry. I haven’t made my bed. I haven’t mowed the lawn. When they say that, you’re gonna say, well, how? And they’re gonna say, well, this year I didn’t buy a new car, but I went to the car dealership and I bought this. So we’re very close to the dexterity needed. [00:39:05] Jay McBain: We’ve got the large language models. Now. The chat, GPT version 10 by then is going to make an insane, and every house is gonna have one of the. [00:39:17] Jay McBain: This is the promise of ai. It’s not humanoid robots, it’s not agents. It’s this. 99% of the world’s business data has not been trained or tuned into models yet. Again, this is the slow moving business. If you want to think about the 99% of business data, every flight we’ve all taken in this room sits on a saber system that was put in place in 1964. [00:39:43] Jay McBain: Every banking transaction, we’ve all made, every withdrawal, every deposit sits on an IBM mainframe put in place in the sixties or seventies. 83% of this data sits in cold storage at the edge. It’s not ready to be moved. It’s not cleansed, it’s not, um, indexed. It’s not in any format or sitting on any infrastructure that a large language model will be able to gobble up the data. [00:40:10] Jay McBain: None of the workflows, none of the programming on top of that data is yet ready. So this is your 10 to 20 year arc of this era that chat bot today when they cancel your flight is cute. It’s empathetic, it feels bad for you, or at least it seems to, but it can’t do anything. It can’t book you the Marriott and get you an Uber and then a 5:00 AM flight the next morning. [00:40:34] Jay McBain: It can’t do any of that. But more importantly, it doesn’t know who you are. I’ve got 53 years of flights under my belt and they, I’m the person that get me within six hours of my kids and get me a one-way Hertz rental. You know, if there’s bad weather in Miami, get me to Tampa, get me a Hertz, I’m driving home, I’m gonna make it home. [00:40:56] Jay McBain: I’m not the 5:00 AM get me a hotel person. They would know that if they picked up the flights that I’ve taken in the past. Each of us are different. When you get access to the business data and you become ag agentic, everything changes. Every industry changes because of this around the customers. When you ask about this 35% growth, working on that data, working in traditional consulting and design and implementation, working in the $7 trillion of infrastructure, storage, compute, networking, that’s gonna be around, this is a massive opportunity. [00:41:30] Jay McBain: Services are gonna continue to outgrow products. Probably for the next five to 10 years because of this, and I’m gonna finish here. So we talked a lot about quantifying names, faces, places, and I think where we failed the most as ultimate partners is underneath the tam, which every one of our CEOs knows to the decimal point underneath the TAM that our board thinks they’re chasing. [00:41:59] Jay McBain: We’ve done a very poor job. Of talking about the available markets and obtainable markets underneath it, we, we’ve shown them theory. We’ve shown them a bunch of, you know, really smart stuff, and PowerPoint slides up the wazoo, but we’ve never quantified it for them. If they wanna win, if they want to get access, if they want to double their pipeline, triple their pipeline, if they wanna start winning more deals, if they wanna win deals that are three times larger, they close two times faster. [00:42:31] Jay McBain: And they renew 15% larger. They have to get into the available and obtainable markets. So just in the last couple weeks I spoke at Cribble, I spoke at Octane, I spoke at CrowdStrike Falcon. All three of those companies at the CEO level, main stage use those exact three numbers, three x, two x, 15%. That’s the language of platforms, and they’re investing millions and millions and millions of dollars on teams. [00:42:59] Jay McBain: To go build out the Sam Andal in name spaces and places. So you’ve heard me talk about these 28 moments a lot. They’re the ones that you spend when you buy a car. Some people spend one moment and they drive to the Cadillac dealership. ’cause Larry’s been, you know, taking care of the family for 50 years. [00:43:18] Jay McBain: Some people spend 50 moments like I do, watching every YouTube video and every, you know, thing on the internet. I clear the internet cover to cover. But the fact is, is every deal averages around these 28 moments. Your customer, there’s 13 members of the buying committee today. There’s seven partners and they’re buying seven things. [00:43:37] Jay McBain: There’s 27 things orchestrating inside these 28 moments. And where and how they all take place is a story of partnering. So a couple of years ago, canals. Latin for channel was acquired by amia, which is a part of Informa Tech Target, which is majority owned by Informa. All that being said, there’s hundreds of magazines that we have. [00:44:00] Jay McBain: There’s hundreds of events that we run. If somebody’s buying cybersecurity, they probably went to Black Hat or they probably went to GI Tech. One of these events we run, or one of the magazines. So we pick up these signals, these buyer intent signals as a company. Why did they wanna, um, buy a, uh, a Canals, which was a, you know, a small analyst firm around channels? [00:44:22] Jay McBain: They understood this as well. The 28 moments look a lot like this when marketers and salespeople are busy filling in the spots of every deal. And by the way, this is a real deal. AstraZeneca came in to spend millions of dollars on ASAP transformation, and you can start to see as the customer got smart. [00:44:45] Jay McBain: The eBooks, they read the podcasts, they listened to the events they went to. You start to see how this played out over the long term. But the thing we’ve never had in our industry is the light blue boxes. This deal was won and lost in December. In this particular case, NTT software won and Yash came in and sold the customer five projects. [00:45:07] Jay McBain: The millions of dollars that were going to be spent were solved here. The design and architecture work was all done here. A couple of ISVs You see in light blue came in right at the end, deal was closed in April. You see the six month cycle. But what if you could fill in every one of the 28 boxes in every single customer prospect that your sales and marketing team have? [00:45:30] Jay McBain: But here’s the brilliance of this. Those light blue boxes didn’t win the deals there. They won the deals months before that. So when NTT and Software one walked into this deal. They probably won the deal back in October and they had to go through the redlining. They had to go through the contracting, they had to go through all the stuff and the Gantt chart to get started. [00:45:54] Jay McBain: But while your CMO is getting all excited about somebody reading an ebook and triggering an MQL that the sales team doesn’t want, ’cause it’s not qualified, it’s not sales qualified, you walk in and say, no, no. This is a multimillion deal, dollar deal. It’s AstraZeneca. I know the five partners that are coming in in December to solidify the seven layers, and you’re walking in at the same time as the CMOs bragging about an ebook. [00:46:21] Jay McBain: This changes everything. If we could get to this level of data about every dollar of our tam, we not only outgrow our competitors, we become the platforms of the next generation. Partnering and ultimate partnering is all here. And this is what we’re doing in this room. This is what we’re doing over these couple of days, and this is what, uh, the mission that Vince is leading. [00:46:43] Jay McBain: Thank you so much. [00:46:47] Vince Menzione: Woo. Day in the house. Good to see you my friend. Good to see you. Oh, we’re gonna spend a couple minutes. Um, I’m put you in the second seat. We’re gonna put, we’re gonna make it sit fireside for a minute. Uh, that was intense. It was pretty incredible actually, Jay. And so I’m, I think I wanna open it up ’cause we only have a few minutes just to, any questions? [00:47:06] Vince Menzione: I’m sure people are just digesting. We already have one up here. See, [00:47:09] Question: Jay knows I’m [00:47:10] Vince Menzione: a question. I love it. We, I don’t think we have any I can grab a mic, a roving mic. I could be a roving mic person. Hold on. We can do this. This is not on. [00:47:25] Vince Menzione: Test, test. Yes it is. Yeah. [00:47:26] Question: Theresa Carriol dared me to ask a question and I say, you don’t have to dare me. You know, I’m going to Anyway. Um, so Jay, of the point of view that with all of the new AI players that strategic alliances is again having a moment, and I was curious your point of view on what you’re seeing around this emergence and trend of strategic alliances and strategic alliance management. [00:47:52] Question: As compared to channel management. And what are you seeing in terms of large vendors like AWS investing in that strategic alliance role versus that channel role training, enablement, measurement, all that good stuff? [00:48:06] Jay McBain: Yeah, it’s, it’s a great question. So when I told the story about toast at the restaurant or Square or Clover, they’re not call, they’re not gonna call open AI or Nvidia themselves either. [00:48:17] Jay McBain: When you look out at the 250,000 ISVs. That make up this AI stack, there is the layers that happen there. So the Alliance with AWS, the alliance they have with Microsoft or Google is going to be how they generate agent AI in their platforms. So when I talk about a seven layer stack, the average deal being seven layers, AI is gonna drive this to nine, and then 11, then probably 13. [00:48:44] Jay McBain: So in terms of how alliances work, I had it up there as one of the five core strategies, and I think it’s pretty even. You can have the best alliances in the world, but if the seven partners trusted by the customer don’t know what that alliance is and the benefits to the customer and never mention it, it’s all for Naugh. [00:49:00] Jay McBain: If you’re go-to market, you’re co-selling, your co-marketing strategies are not built around that alliance. It’s all for naught. If the integration and the co-innovation, the co-development, the all the co-creation work that’s done inside these alliances isn’t translated to customer outcomes, it’s all for naugh. [00:49:17] Jay McBain: These are all five parallel swim lanes. All five are absolutely critically needed. And I think they’re all five pretty equally weighted in terms of needing each other. Yes. To be successful in the era of platforms. Yeah. [00:49:32] Vince Menzione: And the problem is they’re all stove pipe today. If, if at all. Yeah. Maintained, right. [00:49:36] Vince Menzione: Alliances is an example. Channels and other example. They don’t talk to one another. Judge any, we’ve got a mic up here if anybody else has. Yep. We have some questions here, Jacqueline. [00:49:51] Question: So when we’re developing our channel programs, any advice on, you know, what’s the shift that we should make six months from now, a year from now? The historical has been bronze, silver, gold, right? And you’ve got your deal registration, but what’s the future look like? [00:50:05] Jay McBain: Yeah, so I mean, the programs are, are changing to, to the point where the customer should be in the middle and realizing the seven partners you need to win the deal. [00:50:15] Jay McBain: And depending on what category of product you’re in, security, how much you rely on resell, 91.6%. You know, the channel partners are gonna be critical where the customer spends the money. And if you’re adding friction to that process, you’re adding friction in terms of your growth. So you know, if you’re in cybersecurity, you have to have a pretty wide open reseller model. [00:50:39] Jay McBain: You have to have a wide open distribution model, and you have to make sure you’re there at that point of sale. While at the same time, considering the other six partners at moment 12 who are in either saying nice things about you or not, the customer might even be starting with you. ’cause there is actually one thing that I didn’t mention when I showed the 28 moments filled in. [00:51:00] Jay McBain: You’ll notice that the customer went to AWS twice direct. AWS lost the deal. Microsoft won the deal software. One is Microsoft’s biggest reseller in the world. They just acquired crayon. NTT who, who loves both had their Microsoft team go in. [00:51:18] Question: Mm. [00:51:19] Jay McBain: So I think that they went to AWS thinking it was A-W-S-S-A-P, you know, kind of starting this seven layer stack. [00:51:25] Jay McBain: I think they finished those, you know, critical moments in the middle looking at it. And then they went back to AWS kind of going probably WWTF. Yeah. What we thought was happening isn’t actually the outcome that was painted by our most trusted people. So, you know, to answer your question, listen to your partners. [00:51:43] Jay McBain: They want to be recognized for the other things they’re doing. You can’t be spending a hundred percent of the dollars at the point of sale. You gotta have a point of system that recognizes the point of sale, maybe even gold, silver, bronze, but recognizing that you’re paying for these other moments as well. [00:51:57] Jay McBain: Paying for alliances, paying for integrations and everything else, uh, in the cyber stack. And, um, you know, recognizing also the top 1000. So if I took your tam. And I overlaid those thousand logos. I would be walking into 2026 the best I could of showing my company logo by logo, where 80% of our TAM sits as wallet share, not by revenue. [00:52:25] Jay McBain: Remember, a million dollar partner is not a million dollar partner. One of them sells 1.2 million in our category. We should buy them a baseball cap and have ’em sit in the front row of our event. One of them sells $10 million and only sells our stuff if the customer asks. So my company should be looking at that $9 million opportunity and making sure my programs are writing the checks and my coverage. [00:52:48] Jay McBain: My capacity and capability planning is getting obsessed over that $9 million. My farmers can go over there, my hunters can go over here, and I should be submitting a list of a thousand sorted in descending order of opportunity. Of where my company can write program dollars into. [00:53:07] Vince Menzione: Great answer. All right. I, I do wanna be cognizant of time and the, all the other sessions we have. [00:53:14] Vince Menzione: So we’ll just take one other question if there are any here and if not, we’ll let I know. Jay, you’re gonna be mingling around for a little while before your flight. I’m [00:53:21] Jay McBain: here the whole day. [00:53:22] Vince Menzione: You, you’re the whole day. I see that Jay’s here the whole day. So if you have any other questions and, and, uh, sharing the deck is that. [00:53:29] Vince Menzione: Yep. Alright. We have permission to share the deck with the each of you as well. [00:53:34] Jay McBain: Alright, well thank you very much everyone. Jay. Great to have you.

December, 28 2025, 7AM; Instead of releasing all of the files 9 days ago as required by law, flooding the zone with documents and possibly helping the White House move past this controversy, the DOJ has prolonged the damage, giving journalists time to pick through each partial release before the next one comes. Amid the files' continued release President Trump has lashed out in social media about their release, even going as far as to question when will the DOJ stop releasing files. Paul Butler and Joyce Vance join the Weekend to discuss the president's frustration with the DOJ and its continued Epstein file releases.For more, follow us on social media:Bluesky: @theweekendmsnow.bsky.socialInstagram: @theweekendmsnowTikTok: @theweekendmsnow To listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

December, 28 2025, 9AM; The meeting comes at a critical moment as Kiev is currently recovering from a deadly assault on the nation's capital. Zelenskyy said the city was hit by roughly 40 missiles and five-hundred drones and slammed Russia over the strikes in a post on social media. He further accused Russian representatives of engaging in lengthy peace talks, but said in reality, their drone and missile strikes speak for them. Alex Tabet joins The Weekend to discuss what to expect at the meeting between the two leaders.For more, follow us on social media:Bluesky: @theweekendmsnow.bsky.socialInstagram: @theweekendmsnowTikTok: @theweekendmsnow To listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This week on Hustleshare, host Ron Baetiong sits down with tech pioneer Dado Banatao, alongside Maria Banatao of the Phildev Foundation, to trace the journey that earned him the title “Bill Gates of the Philippines”—from a rural barrio to engineering school, Boeing, and Silicon Valley. They also dive into Dado's semiconductor breakthroughs, early entrepreneurial setbacks, and the VC framework he now uses to support the next generation of Filipino founders.Resources:LinkedIn (Dado Banatao): https://www.linkedin.com/in/dado-banatao-96ba89b7/LinkedIn (Maria Banatao): https://www.linkedin.com/in/maria-banatao-49721a38/Website (PhilDev): https://www.phildev.org/Links/Sponsors:OneCFO: https://www.onecfoph.co/PLDT Enterprise: https://pldtenterprise.com- MSME Fiberbiz - https://bit.ly/pldtenterprise-ROId-nbsi-fiberbiz - 5G SIM Only - https://bit.ly/pldtenterprise-ROId-nbsi-smart-postpaid Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Todd Bishop and John Cook reflect on the top tech stories of 2025, a pivotal year defined by the AI boom's dual nature: massive infrastructure spending alongside widespread layoffs. We discuss Bill Gates' framing of AI as "intelligence becoming free," the tension between tech workers and corporate mandates to adopt AI, and the "best of times, worst of times" dichotomy playing out at Microsoft, Amazon, and across the industry. We also cover the top story of the year — UW rethinking its computer science curriculum — the Statsig acquisition by OpenAI, Seattle's competitive position, and the human side of tech through Ambika Singh's heartfelt speech at the GeekWire Awards. Featuring audio clips from Gates, Satya Nadella, Andy Jassy, Ken Jennings, and more. Audio editing by Curt Milton.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

December, 27 2025, 7AM; In one post he once again peddled 2020 election conspiracy theories, wished a merry Christmas to everyone, including "radical left scum," and shared false claims about Somali immigrants. Akayla Gardner, Kimberly Atkins-Stohr, and David Drucker join The Weekend to discuss Trump's rage posting.For more, follow us on social media:Bluesky: @theweekendmsnow.bsky.socialInstagram: @theweekendmsnowTikTok: @theweekendmsnow To listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

It is okay to ask for help. Asking for help is NOT a sign of weakness. We can't go through lives doing everything by ourselves, so don't be ashamed or afraid to ask for help. Text me at 972-426-2640 so we can stay connected!Support me on Patreon!Twitter: @elliottspeaksInstagram: @elliottspeaks

Angel Studios https://Angel.com/HermanJoin the Angel Guild today where you can stream Thank You, Dr. Fauci and be part of the conversation demanding truth and accountability.  Renue Healthcare https://Renue.Healthcare/ToddYour journey to a better life starts at Renue Healthcare. Visit https://Renue.Healthcare/Todd Bulwark Capital https://KnowYourRiskPodcast.comBe confident in your portfolio with Bulwark! Schedule your free Know Your Risk Portfolio review. Go to KnowYourRiskPodcast.com today. Alan's Soaps https://www.AlansArtisanSoaps.comUse coupon code TODD to save an additional 10% off the bundle price.Bonefrog https://BonefrogCoffee.com/ToddThe new GOLDEN AGE is here! Use code TODD at checkout to receive 10% off your first purchase and 15% on subscriptions.LISTEN and SUBSCRIBE at:The Todd Herman Show - Podcast - Apple PodcastsThe Todd Herman Show | Podcast on SpotifyWATCH and SUBSCRIBE at: Todd Herman - The Todd Herman Show - YouTubeJulie Barrett, founder of Conservative Ladies of America, joins the show to talk about how digital ID is looming over the head of Americans, and how Republicans are going to help implement it.Episode Links:According to Bill Gates, digital ID and digital currency are both necessary tools for granting people access to voting, financial services, healthcare, and education.Here comes digital id for the states, probably soon in Canada.  Republicans and conservatives here will cheer it on, I'm sure, all too fight the evil immigrants that your government brought here on purpose. Cause problem fix it with authoritarianismSenators Introduce Bill to Create Digital Identity for All AmericansBill Gates praises India's "digital public infrastructure"—a combination of biometric digital ID, bank accounts and payments—as "foundational" for keeping tabs on farmers, monitoring people's health records and helping with "climate problems".Bill Gates Calls for Digital ID "Systems & Behaviors" to Combat "Misinformation". "The U.S. is a tough one because we have the notion of the First Amendment. And so what are the exceptions? ... I do think over time...you're going to want to be in an environment where the people are truly identified … We're going to have to have systems and behaviors that we're more aware of who says that, who created this?"

Neoborn Caveman spins a marble-mouthed pro-humanity satire on truth, sovereignty, and tyranny, blending green tea slurp and burp with critiques of Avatar 3 as overpriced garbage versus The Promised Land series as low-budget fun, champions vinyl and CDs over streaming for control, exposes poisoned food and water amid ignored protests like Belgium farmers, questions Rep. Ashley Hinson's Iowa bill forcing fathers to pay pregnancy costs as socialist overreach demanding relationship responsibility, condemns UK silent prayer bans near abortion clinics as thought crime absurdity, and urges good people to unite in humility and accountability against parasitic elites.Key TakeawaysTruth requires personal responsibility.Sovereignty favors tangible over digital control.Globalists suppress protests while toxifying essentials.Relationships demand commitment before consequences.Government laws erode family autonomy.Silent thought faces criminalization.Good unity defeats sinister regimes.Humility exposes elite parasites.Accountability restores human freedom.You are special—one of a kind.Sound Bites"Let's slurp and burp together just to annoy Bill Gates and the globalists because we will provide some methane gases after today!""Watch The Promised Land, this is the series title, The Promised Land""CDs are back, maybe they never went away. And I think it's all about control and sovereignty.""That's not life, that's not what God designed for us.""I will be a lawmaker on a way as well to ensure father's shoulder 50% of pregnancy expenses.""Keep it in your pants or keep your pants up. That's it.""It's not only a Northern Ireland thing, it's not only an England thing, it's not a British thing, it's American...""What are you doing? You don't move your lips. What are you thinking of?""We have to take responsibility for our own lives.""You are amazing. You are special. You are one of a kind."Gather for unfiltered rambles at patreon.com/theneoborncavemanshow —free join, chats, lives.keywords: truth, sovereignty, avatar critique, promised land series, streaming control, poisoned food, belgium protests, iowa pregnancy bill, ashley hinson, relationship responsibility, silent prayer bans, uk abortion zones, humility, accountabilityHumanity centered satirical takes on the world & news + music - with a marble mouthed host.Free speech marinated in comedy.Supporting Purple Rabbits. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Send us a textEP 266 -Today's show covers explosive developments you need to know about. Ghislaine Maxwell filed a habeas corpus that could potentially freeze the Epstein estate and prevent more damaging documents from leaking - and the timing with new Bill Gates photos surfacing alongside emails showing Epstein discussing young models from Jean-Luc Brunel's MC2 management is raising serious questions. Wait until you hear which powerful people this could protect and why Chrissy Teigen's name keeps coming up in my mind. Jen Shah's day in the life of home confinement, I'm breaking down exactly how her ankle monitor works and why she's wearing long pants everywhere. In Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, something serious went down - Meredith Marks may have been suspended during an investigation into the plane incident with Brittani Bateman, the cast is allegedly pushing for her demotion, and there are contract negotiation rumors, which I tell you where they come from. Plus Brittani Bateman's engagement ring was given back by Jared Osmond and then stolen in a bizarre incident involving Melissa Gilbert is this some how connected.  I recap and do a gossip dump of RHOSLC S6 Ep 14.  For the Diddy Reckoning docuseries, I'm fact-checking Kirk Burrows' allegations about Biggie and Tupac's murders because a Rolling Stone insider is saying major parts of the story are wrong, and wait until you hear what they completely left out about Clive Davis. The Diddy trial PR machine was working overtime manipulating jurors through social media and bloggers - I'm exposing exactly how they did it. We recap RHOSLC episode 14 and discuss the disturbing WEHO Abbey sex trafficking allegations. Plus Princess Sammy announces her engagement with a 39-carat ring and a proposal story involving a swan attack in Geneva that you have to hear to believe..Full episode only available at Dishing Drama Dana Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/DishingDramaWithDanaWilkeyTIME CODE HIGHLIGHTS:

December, 21 2025 7AM;The Associated Press is now reporting that 16 files have disappeared from the department's public web page out of the trove of thousands of images and heavily redacted documents. House Oversight Democrats are already investigating one of the photos that are missing, which shows a desk lined with framed photographs, with an open drawer holding additional images, including one of President Trump. Rep. Becca Balint joins The Weekend to discuss the latest on the Epstein files.For more, follow us on social media:Bluesky: @theweekendmsnow.bsky.socialInstagram: @theweekendmsnowTikTok: @theweekendmsnow To listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

December, 21 2025 8AM;Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem shared video on X of a helicopter landing on the deck of the ship before dawn on Saturday. It's the second time in less than two weeks that U.S. forces stopped a vessel off of the coast, and comes days after President Trump announced a "blockade" of all sanctioned oil tankers entering or leaving Venezuela. President Donald Trump, who campaigned on "no new wars" has refused to rule out war with Venezuela. Evelyn Farkas and David Rohde join The Weekend to discuss the rising tensions between Venezuela and the U.S.For more, follow us on social media:Bluesky: @theweekendmsnow.bsky.socialInstagram: @theweekendmsnowTikTok: @theweekendmsnow To listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode of The David Knight Show, we dive into the escalating tensions in the Caribbean as the U.S. government engages in what looks suspiciously like piracy on the high seas. David breaks down the "Narco-Terrorism" narrative being used to justify a potential war with Venezuela, the seizure of oil tankers, and the dangerous geopolitical game involving Russia and China. Is this really about drugs, or is it about the gold and oil?We also examine the stunning reversals of former anti-establishment figures now within the Trump administration. From Tulsi Gabbard's silence to Pete Hegseth's defense of "illegal orders" and hidden combat videos, we look at how power changes principles.War for Oil & Gold:Analysis of the U.S. naval buildup off Venezuela, the seizure of a massive tanker, and why the "Narco-Terrorism" label is a pretext for regime change and resource control.The Hypocrisy of "War Pete":A look at Pete Hegseth's refusal to release video footage of military strikes on shipwrecked individuals and the administration's shifting stories.EU "Piracy":How the European Union is moving to seize frozen Russian assets to fund the war in Ukraine, and the global financial implications of this theft.Medical Tyranny & The Environment:Discussion on the environmental dangers of flushing chemical abortion drugs into the water supply and Bill Gates' latest push for "quantum dot" vaccine records and implants.The Case for Miracles:A spiritual look at Lee Strobel's work and the reality of divine intervention in the modern world.Special Guest: Jack Lawson, author of the Civil Defense Manual, joins the show to discuss the fragility of our modern infrastructure. From EMP threats to AI-driven cyber attacks, Jack explains why the grid is more vulnerable than ever and gives practical advice on essential preparedness, starting with water storage.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-david-knight-show--2653468/support.

In this episode of The David Knight Show, we dive into the escalating tensions in the Caribbean as the U.S. government engages in what looks suspiciously like piracy on the high seas. David breaks down the "Narco-Terrorism" narrative being used to justify a potential war with Venezuela, the seizure of oil tankers, and the dangerous geopolitical game involving Russia and China. Is this really about drugs, or is it about the gold and oil?We also examine the stunning reversals of former anti-establishment figures now within the Trump administration. From Tulsi Gabbard's silence to Pete Hegseth's defense of "illegal orders" and hidden combat videos, we look at how power changes principles.War for Oil & Gold:Analysis of the U.S. naval buildup off Venezuela, the seizure of a massive tanker, and why the "Narco-Terrorism" label is a pretext for regime change and resource control.The Hypocrisy of "War Pete":A look at Pete Hegseth's refusal to release video footage of military strikes on shipwrecked individuals and the administration's shifting stories.EU "Piracy":How the European Union is moving to seize frozen Russian assets to fund the war in Ukraine, and the global financial implications of this theft.Medical Tyranny & The Environment:Discussion on the environmental dangers of flushing chemical abortion drugs into the water supply and Bill Gates' latest push for "quantum dot" vaccine records and implants.The Case for Miracles:A spiritual look at Lee Strobel's work and the reality of divine intervention in the modern world.Special Guest: Jack Lawson, author of the Civil Defense Manual, joins the show to discuss the fragility of our modern infrastructure. From EMP threats to AI-driven cyber attacks, Jack explains why the grid is more vulnerable than ever and gives practical advice on essential preparedness, starting with water storage.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-david-knight-show--5282736/support.

For a masterclass in true bipartisanship, look no further than the guest list of Jeffrey Epstein! We all love a good conspiracy story, but it's often just business as usual for the class in power.Nolan Higdon – lecturer, media critic, and author of The Gaslight Gazette – is back for a deep analytical dive into the Epstein saga. Moving beyond true-crime sensationalism, Nolan and Steve frame the scandal as a stark case study in systemic class power, media complicity, and the mechanisms elite networks use to protect their own.The discussion hinges on several key points: evidence from released emails shows Epstein's role as a trans-partisan power broker, connecting figures like Trump and Clinton to finance (Les Wexner) and tech (Bill Gates, Peter Thiel).The media's failure to investigate is no accident. (Are we surprised?) It's a function of class interests acting to manage public perception and manufacture consent. The episode goes on to connect Epstein's documented interest in spyware and AI to a broader project of militarized surveillance for social control.Nolan Higdon is a founding member of the Critical Media Literacy Conference of the Americas, Project Censored National Judge, author, and lecturer at Merrill College and the Education Department at University of California, Santa Cruz. Higdon's areas of concentration include podcasting, digital culture, news media history, propaganda, and critical media literacy. He is the author of The Anatomy of Fake News: A Critical News Literacy Education (2020); Let's Agree to Disagree: A Critical Thinking Guide to Communication, Conflict Management, and Critical Media Literacy (2022); The Media And Me: A Guide To Critical Media Literacy For Young People (2022); and the forthcoming Surveillance Education: Navigating the conspicuous absence of privacy in schools (Routledge). Higdon is a regular source of expertise for CBS, NBC, The New York Times, and The San Francisco Chronicle.Find his work on Substack: nolanhigdon.substack.com@NolanHigdonCML on X

December, 20 2025 7AM; The files include a trove of new photographs, including images of former President Bill Clinton alongside Jeffrey Epstein. Many of the files and photos were heavily redacted, presumed to protect the identities of many of the victims. , The DOJ missed its midnight deadline last night to release all the files pertaining to Epstein under the law. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told lawmakers that an ongoing review of the material would be completed over the next two weeks. Rep. Suhas Subramanyam joins The Weekend to discuss the latest release of files on Jeffrey Epstein.For more, follow us on social media:Bluesky: @theweekendmsnow.bsky.socialInstagram: @theweekendmsnowTikTok: @theweekendmsnow To listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Story of the Week (DR):Embattled BP replaces CEO, naming Woodside Energy chief as first-ever woman leader of a Big Oil giant MMBP names new CEO — its fourth in 6 yearsO'Neill will replace Murray Auchincloss, after less than two years in the role.BP's C-suite milestone: Women in both the CEO and CFO seatsMelody Meyer: Chair of the safety and sustainability committeeDame Amanda Blanc: Senior independent director Interim CEO Carol HowleCFO Kate ThomsonEmma Delaney: EVP, customers & productsKerry Dryburgh - EVP, people, culture & communications and chief human resources and communications officer *Emeka Emembolu: EVP, technology*William Lin - EVP, gas & low carbon energy2 of 8 white dude leadershipEven after Pamela Daley stepped down in July, still 43% female board influenceMeg O'Neill: ‘hard-nosed' outsider who will head BP's pivot away from green energyFirst female appointment to a major oil company has faced fierce resistance from climate activists as boss of Woodside43% female board influence at WoodsideCarol Howle, current executive vice president, supply, trading & shipping of bp, will serve as interim CEO until Meg joins as CEO.BP 'woke' agenda axed as it hires first female chief exec and doubles down on fossil fuelsWarner Bros Discovery board rejects rival bid from ParamountWBD's board of directors (chaired by Samuel Di Piazza Jr.) has unanimously rejected the Paramount tender as inferior and risky, urging shareholders to reject it and uphold the Netflix transaction instead.David Ellison pulled the dad card early onRight after WBD rejected one of multiple secret bids in September, David Ellison called Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav to request that Zaslav meet with his father, Larry Ellison. The conventional wisdom was that the Oracle cofounder's billions would prevail. In the end, that didn't happen. WBD expressed concern that the bid relied on a revocable trust, whose assets or liabilities were subject to change.A zealous Paramount pulled out all the stops to woo ZaslavWe already knew Zaslav stood to make over $500 million from a Paramount deal, based mainly on his shares that would vest immediately after it closed ($567,712,631, to be exact, according to the filing). Zaslav told the WBD board that the Ellisons had "indicated to him that" if a deal went through, he would "receive a compensation package worth several hundred million dollars," per the filing. Zaslav responded that it "would be inappropriate to discuss any such arrangements at that time," he told the board.Paramount also offered Zaslav the position of co-CEO and co-chairman of the combined company, a role Netflix didn't offer, the filing said.That runs contrary to the narrative put forth in a letter Paramount's attorneys at Quinn Emanuel sent to WBD, stating they suspected the process was biased in favor of Netflix due to WBD leadership's expectations that there could be roles for them at the new company. Paramount's legal and financial advisors didn't know about the "December 3 Quinn Emanuel" letter and, in their view, the letter should not have been sent, was "not helpful," and was a "mistake," the filing says.TikTok signs agreement to create new U.S. joint ventureTikTok has signed binding agreements with investors including Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX for the sale of its US arm, creating a joint venture as part of a deal orchestrated by President Donald Trump.The U.S. joint venture will be 50% held by a consortium of new investors, including Larry Ellison's Oracle, Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi's MGX, with 15% each. Just over 30% will be held by affiliates of certain existing investors of ByteDance, and almost 20% will be retained by ByteDanceHouse Democrats release more Epstein photos, including Bill Gates and a dinner full of wealthy philanthropists Donald TrumpBill Clinton Bill Gates – Microsoft co-founderSergey Brin – Google co-founderRichard Branson – Virgin Group founderLarry Summers – Economist, Harvard President, OpenAI directorSalar Kamangar – Former YouTube CEO Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem — Emirati businessman; Chair/CEO of DP WorldLes Wexner — Founder of L BrandsLeon Black — co-founder and former CEO of Apollo Global ManagementTom Pritzker — Executive Chair Hyatt HotelsGlenn Dubin — Hedge fund manager Dubin & Co.; co-founder of Highbridge Capital Management Ron Baron — Founder & chairman of Baron Capital ManagementJosh Harris — co-founder of Apollo Global Management and managing partner of Philadelphia 76ers, New Jersey Devils, and Washington CommandersAriane de Rothschild — Wealthy banking heir; CEO of Edmond de Rothschild GroupGoodliest of the Week (MM/DR):DR: Canada to Launch Sustainable Investment Taxonomy in 2026According to the government, the new taxonomy will provide a set of criteria for the identification of investments that are eligible for a “green” or “transition” investment label, enabling companies to issue green or transition bonds, and investors to evaluate the credibility of sustainable investment products.MM: Tesla's having a good time at the DMVCalifornia won the right to ban sales of Tesla vehicles in the state due to false advertising about “self driving cars”MM: Walmart's women truckers surge thanks to $115,000 starting pay and other perks bringing in nontraditional candidatesAssholiest of the Week (MM):Helge LundEmbattled BP replaces CEO, naming Woodside Energy chief as first-ever woman leader of a Big Oil giant:O'Neill is “taking over the British energy behemoth at a time when it has fallen behind the other global oil and gas supermajors and was even a potential takeover target earlier this year by rival Shell.”Is there anything glass cliff-ier than this stat:Helge Lund has now overseen BP's failed Murray Auchincloss tenure, Bernard Looney's tenure, and Bob Dudley's leaving (6 year tenure) and Novo Nordisk's incredible succession failure, the failure of Nokia in 2013… I hate having to celebrate a female first - like becoming a CEO when eminently overqualifiedSam Altman againSam Altman says he has '0%' excitement about being CEO of a public company ahead of a potential OpenAI IPOHe changed it from a non profit to a for profit in order to go public and make all the money.Also: “billionaire says”Sam Altman Sounds Alarm As ChatGPT Explodes Globally: 'Rate Of Change' Sparks AI Anxiety, Job FearsSam Altman Uses His New Image Generator to Show Himself As a Jacked Fireman With Washboard Abs… With an Absolutely Hilarious ErrorSam Altman says OpenAI has gone 'code red' multiple times; and they'll do it againThe “sound the alarm” gaslightPeter C. Earle, Ph.D, Director of Economics and Economic Freedom and Senior Research Fellow at American Institute for Economic Research DRStop Fixating on CEO Pay Ratios and Start Fixing Labor Markets“The average employee is hired under conditions of broad substitutability — many people can competently perform the role with modest training. The CEO labor market is the opposite: extremely small, specialized, global, and contingent on track records that can shift a firm's valuation by billions of dollars. The demand curve for top executive talent is steep; the supply curve is extraordinarily thin.”“Skilled executives can influence strategy, capital allocation, risk management, and organizational culture in ways that affect firm performance far more than incremental labor inputs elsewhere in the organization, even if the latter are voluminous. If a CEO's decisions add even a few percentage points to long-term returns, the economic value created dwarfs the compensation.”Translation: CEOs are worth it, regular workers are not. “Such a ratio also ignores value creation. [...] The relevant question is not “Is the ratio of worker to executive pay too large?” but rather “Does the CEO create more value than their talent costs?”Does not propose how to prove value creation of the CEO other than “stock go up”Earle had this to say about leadership in 2019: “teams (also companies, organizations, groups, and so on) which experience outstanding success inevitably cite leadership as a factor — often the decisive one, and frequently emanating from a particular individual.”“But it should come as no surprise that many successful sports teams, firms, and organizations readily identify leadership as the decisive factor in their triumphs. It's a better story than merely having incredible resources and facilities, superior performance, or as is often the case: simple, garden-variety luck.”Headliniest of the WeekDR: Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary plans to step down by 2035 & Chipotle chases the protein craze with new menu items — including meat in a cupMM: LinkedIn CEO says it's ‘outdated' to have a five-year career plan: It's a ‘little bit foolish' considering the pace AI is changing the workplaceWho Won the Week?DR: Powerful women at BPMM: 4 year career plansPredictionsDR: David Ellison cancels his Netflix subscription then hires Erika Kirk to run programming at Nickelodeon and MTVMM: Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary steps down in 2035 and become executive chair, pledging to step down as executive chair in 2057.

"Baker at $20 million or Tua at $55 million? Will Aaron Rodgers finish Top 3 in MVP voting? Will Bill Belichick ever coach again? China buying U.S. farmland? Bill Gates?" No mobility. No arm. No vision. No chance to improve. No. More. Tua. Today's cast: Dan, Greg, Zaslow, Chris, Jeremy, Mike, Roy, and Tony. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

December 12, 2025; 6pm; House Democrats releasing numerous photos of Jeffrey Epstein with prominent individuals including Bill Gates, Donald Trump, Steve Bannon and Bill Clinton, ahead of the December 19 deadline for DOJ to release its Epstein files. MS NOW's Ari Melber reports and is joined by Molly Jong-Fast, Michelle Goldberg, and 50 Cent. To listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee is a computer scientist and the inventor of the World Wide Web. He was born in 1955, a golden year for technology innovators. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were also born in the same year. A curious child, he learned about electronics from his train set and spent his pocket money on transistors. His first significant connecting invention was building an intercom as a teenager for the family home before moving on to build his first computer. His parents were both mathematicians and coders who met whilst building one of the first commercially available computers in the early nineteen fifties. Sir Tim came up with the idea of the World Wide Web whilst working at CERN and insisted that the technology be released to the world without commercial reward so that it would be free for everyone to use. He was knighted for his world changing invention and also appointed to the Order of Merit. In 2016 he was given the Turing Award. Sir Tim Berners-Lee divides his time between the US, the UK and Canada with his wife Rosemary, who is also a technology entrepreneur.Presenter Lauren Laverne Producer Sarah TaylorDesert Island Discs has cast many computer scientists away over the years including Dame Wendy Hall and Sir Demis Hassibis. You can hear their programmes if you search through BBC Sounds or our own Desert Island Discs website.

House Democrats release more photos of Jeffrey Epstein with then-friend and businessman Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates and more. Tonight, President Trump's reaction to the pictures. Plus, an in depth, revealing conversation with actor, writer, and director Ben Stiller, about growing up with his famous mom and dad, losing them, and what he discovered about them and himself going through the things they left behind. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's Fuck It Friday, but there's no shortage of news to discuss! Plus, we're joined by friend of the pod Michael Cohen to discuss the latest news! We discuss: Bombshell new photos released today showing Trump, Bill Clinton, Steve Bannon, Woody Allen, Bill Gates and more with Epstein and various victims. God presses Michael on where all the stolen tariff money goes and why no one seems to give a shit God, Jesus and Michael discuss the coming bloodbath for Republicans in the midterms God closes out the show with his karaoke version of "God Only Knows" Don't forget that God and Jesus live stream every weekday starting at 2 PM ET / 11 AM PT at TheGodPodcast.com!

SHOW 12-9-25 CBS EYE ON THE WORLD WITH JOHN BATCHELOR 1918 THE SHOW BEGINS IN THE DOUBTS ABOUT THE FED CUT AND THE MARKETS. FIRST HOUR 9-915 Wall Street Bets on Rate Cuts Despite Mixed Economic Signals: Colleague Elizabeth Peek discusses the near certainty of a Federal Reserve rate cut, noting Wall Street's optimism despite steady inflation and mixed employment signals, highlighting strong holiday spending and arguing that fears regarding tariffs were overblown, while emphasizing that AI investment is reshaping, rather than reducing, corporate hiring. 915-930 Concerns Over New York City Mayor-Elect Mamdani's Appointments: Colleague Elizabeth Peek criticizes Mayor-elect Mamdani's controversial appointments, including an ex-convict as a criminal justice adviser and anti-car activists for transportation roles, arguing these ideological choices neglect the pragmatic needs of citizens concerned with safety and education, predicting administrative failure for the new administration. 930-945 Rising Tensions: Hezbollah's Rearmament and Hamas's Defiance: Colleague Jonathan Schanzer warns that Hezbollah has rebuilt its strength in Lebanon using Iranian weapons, prompting Israeli threats of a full-scale attack, noting that Hamas refuses to disarm in Gaza, supported by Turkey and Qatar, while the U.S. moves to designate Muslim Brotherhood branches as terrorist organizations. 945-1000 Syria's Fragmentation and the Regional Arms Race: Colleague Jonathan Schanzer describes Syria as a chaotic mix of armed factions, including Al-Qaeda-led pragmatists and Iranian proxies, held together only by regime brutality, mentioning potential U.S. plans for a base to deter bad actors and highlighting rapid military expansions by Turkey and Egypt amid regional instability. SECOND HOUR 10-1015 The Trump Corollary: Reasserting Influence in the Western Hemisphere: Colleague Mary Kissel analyzes the new National Security Strategy, praising its focus on the Western Hemisphere to counter Russian and Chinese influence in Venezuela and Cuba, warning against accepting separate global spheres of influence and emphasizing that the U.S. faces a coordinated threat from China, Russia, and Iran globally. 1015-1030 Europe's Defense Dilemma and Demographic Decline: Colleague Mary Kissel attributes Europe's inability to fund Ukraine's defense to decades of relying on U.S. protection while prioritizing generous welfare states, citing "scary statistics" regarding France's aging population and pension burdens, arguing that Europe must pursue economic growth rather than government handouts to survive security challenges. 1030-1045 Europe's Economic Stagnation and the Innovation Gap: Colleague Joseph Sternberg discusses Europe's economic decline relative to the U.S., driven by high energy costs and excessive regulation, noting a growing debate in Brussels about deregulation but arguing Europe lacks a unified vision to encourage the entrepreneurship and healthcare innovation seen in the American system. 1045-1100 Angela Rayner's Return and Labour's Economic Struggles: Colleague Joseph Sternberg analyzes the political return of Angela Rayner and her push for a "workers rights bill" despite Prime Minister Starmer's plummeting popularity, arguing this move highlights internal Labour Party conflict and risks imposing policies detrimental to an economy already struggling with inflation and stagnation.THIRD HOUR 1100-1115 Paul Manafort and the Origins of Modern Foreign Lobbying: Colleague Ken Vogel chronicles how Paul Manafort revolutionized the lobbying industry by merging political consulting with foreign representation, creating a model later adopted by Tony Podesta and others, explaining how the fall of Ukraine's Yanukovych and subsequent investigations exposed the industry's widespread failure to comply with FARA regulations. 1115-1130 Robert Stryk's Risky Lobbying Missions in Somalia and Venezuela: Colleague Ken Vogel details lobbyist Robert Stryk's dangerous mission to Mogadishu to secure U.S. aid for Somalia's President Farmajo during the Trump administration, also describing Stryk's controversial efforts to represent Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, illustrating the lucrative and often perilous nature of foreign influence peddling in unstable regions. 1130-1145 The Revolving Door: Democratic Insiders and Foreign Influence: Colleague Ken Vogel explains how Democratic operatives like Anita Dunn and Antony Blinken leveraged government experience for lucrative consulting roles at firms like SKDK and WestExec, also discussing Hunter Biden's pardon regarding Chinese business dealings and Robert Stryk's representation of sanctioned Russian defense executives. 1145-1200 The Decline of FARA Enforcement and Politicized Justice: Colleague Ken Vogel argues that enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act is weakening, citing Rudy Giuliani's work for sanctioned Balkan leaders and Attorney General Pam Bondi's potential decriminalization of FARA, suggesting the U.S. is returning to a "Wild West" era of unregulated foreign influence where laws are flouted. FOURTH HOUR 12-1215 Reviving the Monroe Doctrine via the Trump Corollary: Colleague Gregory Copley analyzes the Trump administration's National Security Strategy, which reasserts the Monroe Doctrine to counter Chinese and Russian influence in the Western Hemisphere, arguing that "gunboat diplomacy" off Venezuela effectively restores U.S. sovereignty, signaling a shift toward self-reliance and away from traditional alliances like NATO. 1215-1230 European Leaders Scramble to Support Ukraine Amidst Domestic Crises: Colleague Gregory Copley discusses the meeting between UK, French, and German leaders with Zelenskyy, noting they are using the Ukraine war to distract from domestic political failures, tracing Europe's defense dependency to U.S. post-WWII policies and suggesting Zelenskyy is leveraging European fears against Washington to secure his future. 1230-1245 The Strategic Implosion of China and Global Realignments: Colleague Gregory Copley asserts that the People's Republic of China has strategically collapsed due to economic failure and demographic decline, claiming Xi Jinping is no longer effectively in power, noting that Russia is distancing itself from Beijing and Western leaders like Albanese are pivoting back toward Washington. 1245-100 AM King Charles, Environmental Realism, and UK Political Instability: Colleague Gregory Copley observes that King Charles avoids political climate statements despite Bill Gates' recent realism regarding environmental alarmism, discussing political instability in the UK and suggesting Prime Minister Starmer faces challenges from the left that could force new elections, potentially benefiting reformists like Nigel Farage.

 King Charles, Environmental Realism, and UK Political Instability: Colleague Gregory Copley observes that King Charles avoids political climate statements despite Bill Gates' recent realism regarding environmental alarmism, discussing political instability in the UK and suggesting Prime Minister Starmer faces challenges from the left that could force new elections, potentially benefiting reformists like Nigel Farage. OCTOBER 1961

Khan Academy offers hundreds of free tutorials in fifty languages, and has 170 million monthly global users. It all began in 2009 when Sal Khan walked away from a high-paying job to start a business that had no way of making money. His idea to launch a non-profit teaching platform was sparked while helping his young cousins do math homework over the computer. When he started posting his tutorials on Youtube, the world took notice. You will learn: Not just cat videos: How Sal discovered the early power of YouTube. How a book by Isaac Asimov lay the foundation for Khan AcademyWhy Sal said no to a for-profit business modelHow Sal got discovered by Bill Gates–and other wealthy donors How Sal defines ambition: Free world class education for anyone, anywhere Listen now to hear how Khan Academy has grown to become one of the most trusted teaching tools around the world. This episode was produced by Jed Anderson, with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Neva Grant. Follow How I Built This:Instagram → @howibuiltthisX → @HowIBuiltThisFacebook → How I Built ThisFollow Guy Raz:Instagram → @guy.razYoutube → guy_razX → @guyrazSubstack → guyraz.substack.comWebsite → guyraz.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Once primarily limited to severely disabled people, autism began to be viewed as a spectrum that included children and adults far less impaired. Along the way, the disorder also became an identity, embraced by college graduates and even by some of the world's most successful people, like Elon Musk and Bill Gates.Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has called the steep rise in autism cases “an epidemic.” He blames theories of causality that mainstream scientists reject — like vaccines and, more recently, Tylenol — and has instructed the C.D.C. to abandon its longstanding position that vaccines do not cause autism.Today, Azeen Ghorayshi explains what's really driving the increase in diagnoses.Guest: Azeen Ghorayshi, a science reporter for The New York Times.Background reading: Should the autism spectrum be split apart?There are no easy answers for parents of children with autism.Photo: Eric Gay/Associated PressFor more information on today's episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.  Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.