Podcasts about Excited

WhoJay Dougherty, President and General Manager of Mount Southington, ConnecticutDate RecordedOct. 2, 2026About Mount SouthingtonOwned by: Multiple shareholders descended from the ski area's foundersYear founded: 1964Pass affiliations:* Snow Pass – 2 days, no blackouts* Snow Triple Play – up to 2 days, no blackoutsThese two passes have a lot of overlap, but completely different rosters:Base elevation: 210 feetSummit elevation: 571 feetVertical drop: 361 feetSkiable acres: 51 acresAverage annual snowfall: 40 inchesLift count: 8 (1 triple, 3 doubles, 4 carpets) – view Lift Blog's inventory of Mount Southington's lift fleetWhy I interviewed himA lot of ski areas are beautiful because they're set within nature's masterpieces. Mount Southington is beautiful because it's not: How cool is that? A ski area in the middle of a neighborhood. A neighborhood that most of us could probably afford to live in. Kids grow up across the street. If it snows enough, they can probably ski from their front door to the lifts. Good thing the ski hill is already there. We rarely build cool things next to where we actually live anymore. But it's hard to get rid of a ski area once it's built, unless it fails. Southington [Suh-thing-ton] is not going anywhere. Three of the bump's chairlifts are under 20 years old (two are younger than five), and a replacement for the fourth - Stardust - starts, well, any second now (a new top terminal is sitting in the parking lot). A few dozen neighborhood ski areas like this still exist across America, mostly east of the Mississippi. Sometimes the neighbors hate them, especially during all-night snowmaking season. But very few people living in a house near a ski area today would have been surprised to find themselves living near a ski area, since the facility would have in most cases preceded them. Maybe a few even moved in to be close to skiing. It's cool to imagine being one of them, waking up to morning turns three months per year. How cool - like having a lake house on a kinda small lake. It's not Aspen, but most of us aren't billionaires, and it's nice to think that, in a few far-flung corners of America, there's a backdoor to that sort of life that no one's really checking.Additional resources* New England Ski History details Mount Southington's early days.* A bit more on Southington's Northstar lift, received second-hand from Craigmeur, New Jersey, migrating for its third life as Lost Valley, Maine's Chair 3.* Somehow all my Mount Southington photos have vanished into the digital void, but Instapost preserves this shot of a really awesome sunset from my 2021 visit. Top of the Stardust chair:TranscriptsThere are two transcripts. Both are generated by robots. Both are helpful and defective in their own unique ways. I do not proofread either of them.Transcript 1: Click the “transcript” button at the top of this article. You can only see this transcript on a computer. Because I don't know why exactly but everything is getting better and dumber all at once it seems. Anyway, this is the transcript that the robots create when I upload the podcast to the internet. The cool thing about it is that you can click on any block of text and the audio will teleport there instantly. The uncool thing about this transcript is that it does not indicate who is talking at any given moment.Transcript 2: You can read this below. This is the transcript that Zoom creates as we record the podcast. The cool thing about this transcript is that it indicates who is talking at any given moment. The uncool thing about this transcript is that the timestamps do not match the audio. Also, you cannot click on this text to move to the associated point in the audio.ZoomStuart Winchester: My guest today has been president and general manager of Mount Southington, Connecticut since 2014.00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:37.000Stuart Winchester: Established in 1964, Mount Southington offers 51 acres of skiable terrain served by four chairlifts and several surface lifts. Jay Doherty is my guest. Jay, welcome to the storm. You are the first Connecticut representative to ever be on the podcast, not.00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:36.000Jay Dougherty: Okay.00:03:37.000 --> 00:03:42.000Stuart Winchester: for any reason other than I haven't been able to figure out who to talk to, so thank you very much for coming on today.00:03:41.000 --> 00:03:45.000Jay Dougherty: Oh, absolutely. I'm excited to be here. Excited to join you.00:03:44.000 --> 00:04:01.000Stuart Winchester: And you're a true Connecticut guy. We were chatting a little bit, and you said that Southington, and I don't know if I'm even pronouncing that right, is in — OK, there we go. There we go. All right, see, this is why I need to get you on the pod, because otherwise I mess up simple things.00:03:52.000 --> 00:03:56.000Jay Dougherty: It's Southern Vin. Yeah, there you go. It's all good.00:03:57.000 --> 00:03:59.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah, exactly.00:04:01.000 --> 00:04:06.000Stuart Winchester: From right down the street, he said, tell us about Southington and what it means to you. Southington.00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:25.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah, so I'm one of those fortunate few to get, have the opportunity to run the actual ski area that I grew up at. You know, I've had a season's pass here since I was probably seven, eight years old. You know, and then I worked, this was my first job was in the rental department here. So it means a lot to me and about something that's got a great community connection.00:04:16.000 --> 00:04:17.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:04:25.000 --> 00:04:26.000Jay Dougherty: Oh.00:04:26.000 --> 00:04:37.000Stuart Winchester: And did you… I noted that you've been general manager since 2014. That's as far back as I could find your history online. Did you work there as a lifty in high school or anything? Was it your first job?00:04:37.000 --> 00:04:52.000Jay Dougherty: I did, yeah, so it was my first job, I worked in the rental department as a technician, um, and then I was going to college for elementary ed, um, didn't really know what I wanted to do, and my parents were like, well, I gotta do something. So I'm like, yeah, alright, you know, there's a shortage of.00:04:45.000 --> 00:04:46.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:04:52.000 --> 00:05:09.000Jay Dougherty: male, young elementary school teacher. So I'm like, that sounds like a great opportunity. But I was working here and got offered a year-round position painting lifts. And I fell in love with it at that point. And then I found a college program that was just starting out with Green Mountain College in connection with Killington.00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:01.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:05:09.000 --> 00:05:19.000Jay Dougherty: Uh, and I ended up going there, and, you know, I graduated 2004, uh, worked for Killington for a very short while, and then came back here as Assistant Mountain Manager.00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:15.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:05:19.000 --> 00:05:34.000Stuart Winchester: So talk to us a little bit about who owns Mount Southington. There's a really good, you know, New England Ski History, this site does a great job with the origin stories and there's a little bit on your site about the doctor and his wife, Dr. Harold Richmond and his wife who started it.00:05:26.000 --> 00:05:27.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah.00:05:33.000 --> 00:05:34.000Jay Dougherty: Oh.00:05:34.000 --> 00:05:38.000Stuart Winchester: I'm not sure who owns it now, but who do you report to?00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:48.000Jay Dougherty: Uh, this is the best story, because it's actually the kin of all the original owners. So all of their kids own it, and now we're starting to see actual, like, fourth generation, like…00:05:40.000 --> 00:05:41.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:05:43.000 --> 00:05:45.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, really? Oh, cool.00:05:47.000 --> 00:05:48.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, wow.00:05:48.000 --> 00:06:05.000Jay Dougherty: starting to enjoy the ski area. You see all the little kids and the nephews, cousins. So, uh, there's actually probably about 25, um, actual owners, um, but we're very organized down to, like, the board of directors that I answer to, that is comprised of those owners.00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:49.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:52.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:05:58.000 --> 00:06:00.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:06:05.000 --> 00:06:08.000Stuart Winchester: So are they still mostly local folks then?00:06:07.000 --> 00:06:14.000Jay Dougherty: No, not at all. Everybody's spread out, uh, basically worldwide at this point.00:06:08.000 --> 00:06:10.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:11.000Stuart Winchester: All over.00:06:11.000 --> 00:06:12.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:06:13.000 --> 00:06:14.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:20.000Stuart Winchester: You know, I… maybe you're not able to speak for them on this, but I'll ask, because I'm seeing…00:06:19.000 --> 00:06:21.000Jay Dougherty: Hmm?00:06:20.000 --> 00:06:24.000Stuart Winchester: Family-owned ski areas all over the country. Go through a sort of, uh…00:06:24.000 --> 00:06:42.000Stuart Winchester: ownership existential crisis where maybe the parents were really into it, or the grandparents, or even the grandkids, but then along comes a generation that maybe just doesn't have an interest in running a ski area. You know, that's how Vail ends up with a lot of its ski areas. They just, they were family owned, and they get.00:06:40.000 --> 00:06:41.000Jay Dougherty: Yep.00:06:42.000 --> 00:06:57.000Stuart Winchester: rolled over. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, I'm just saying that it's a model that is uniquely challenged by, you know, generational transition. What's your sense from Southington and the owners that you work with that.00:06:57.000 --> 00:07:05.000Stuart Winchester: They would like to keep this, as it is, a community ski area owned by families for, you know, the foreseeable future, or not.00:07:05.000 --> 00:07:24.000Jay Dougherty: So what I can say is that they're great at advocating themselves, like the board of directors that advocates amongst the ownership group for involvement. Um, subcommittees, um, and obviously we always promote to them, like, you know, take advantage of this great opportunity that, like, your grandparents, again, or great-grandparents.00:07:13.000 --> 00:07:14.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:28.000Jay Dougherty: Ah, set you up for it. I mean, there's a lot of, um.00:07:25.000 --> 00:07:26.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:07:28.000 --> 00:07:34.000Jay Dougherty: There's a lot of benefits to owning a portion of a ski area and being involved with it.00:07:34.000 --> 00:07:38.000Stuart Winchester: So as it is, it's had all this time to…00:07:38.000 --> 00:07:48.000Stuart Winchester: grow under the original owners, and I imagine it gives it a really cool character, and I want to talk about some of the character things in a minute, but can you tell us, and this is going to sound like a dumb question, Jay, but.00:07:49.000 --> 00:08:05.000Stuart Winchester: I think you're uniquely qualified to answer it, having grown up down the road. What is Mount Southington? And what I mean by that is you look in New England, there's a hundred ski areas, right? And you don't have to go very far north to get to some really big ski areas, some really nice ski areas, you know, Mount Snow, maybe the first one north if you're going.00:07:58.000 --> 00:07:59.000Jay Dougherty: Yes.00:08:05.000 --> 00:08:07.000Stuart Winchester: And…00:08:07.000 --> 00:08:15.000Stuart Winchester: I think a lot of folks kind of look at skiing as, like, up and out. You know, I conquered Southington, so I don't have any reason to go back there, and I talk to people all.00:08:15.000 --> 00:08:21.000Stuart Winchester: who live in New Jersey, and I'm like, do you have a Mountain Creek Pass? They're like, no, why.00:08:21.000 --> 00:08:31.000Stuart Winchester: Right, it's not, you know, Jackson Hole, but it has 1,000 vertical feet and high-speed lifts. Now, Slingson's a different thing, but you have pretty new infrastructure. So, what do you think…00:08:31.000 --> 00:08:47.000Stuart Winchester: Southington is. Is it just a place for the kids? Do you try to make it nice for that? I know every skier has got that, uh, crew of dudes who are, like, 75 and then boot up every morning in the lodge. I think that's a Northeast thing. So, so what is Southington to you, and, and.00:08:43.000 --> 00:08:44.000Jay Dougherty: Yep.00:08:47.000 --> 00:08:50.000Stuart Winchester: What's your kind of core audience you focus on?00:08:50.000 --> 00:09:10.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah. So we're we're really the feeder, right? And and one of the things that we really strive to do, especially over the last decade. So my tenure as general manager is try to create pathways to keep everybody engaged a lot of times. What you'd find is you get that kid that gets to middle school, and they kind of like fall off, and they're no longer interested. So like.00:08:52.000 --> 00:08:53.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah, yeah.00:09:10.000 --> 00:09:26.000Jay Dougherty: What we've tried to do is create pathways for those interested in terrain parks. We've introduced like an intro to free ride or freestyle for those interested in alpine racing. There's intro programs for that. We have weekend.00:09:26.000 --> 00:09:47.000Jay Dougherty: snow sports, school programs like our wild things and all of those type of things. So really, what we focus on are the kids, but also families. I think it's a great family atmosphere. If I had to like, we do a lot of things, and we do a lot of things pretty well. I mean, we go everywhere from like high school racing.00:09:34.000 --> 00:09:35.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:09:44.000 --> 00:09:45.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:09:47.000 --> 00:10:00.000Jay Dougherty: Um, we're the home of Connecticut's high school, like, at least the public school leagues. Uh, we have adult night racing, um, and then, like, we host USASA events, uh.00:09:58.000 --> 00:10:00.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:06.000Jay Dougherty: So it's it's it's a lot and it's a really orchestrated operation.00:10:05.000 --> 00:10:07.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:10:06.000 --> 00:10:13.000Jay Dougherty: You gotta be, you know, sometimes, uh, you can almost think of it as, like, being a maestro, trying to keep everything moving, and…00:10:13.000 --> 00:10:28.000Jay Dougherty: So it's not stepping on something else, you know, because we we really do change, and that that could happen in one day. The demographic completely shifts from yesterday. 75 plus crew that's here during the day. You hit 3 o'clock and the buses start unloading, and it's just.00:10:15.000 --> 00:10:16.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:10:28.000 --> 00:10:39.000Jay Dougherty: crazy here. And then, at the same time, um, we're really unique in, like, our seasons past. Like, most of the visits that come from our seasons past, those folks live within, like.00:10:34.000 --> 00:10:36.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:10:39.000 --> 00:10:51.000Jay Dougherty: probably a 15-mile radius of the mountain. So after school, all of those teenagers are getting dropped off here. Uh, so it's… it's… it's unique, um, in that sense. And then 8 o'clock, it's night racing.00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:46.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:10:51.000 --> 00:10:53.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:10:51.000 --> 00:10:53.000Jay Dougherty: So.00:10:53.000 --> 00:11:08.000Stuart Winchester: So I've pulled up your trail map here, for those who are watching this on StormSkiing.com or YouTube, and the Connecticut ski areas, all four of them that are public, they remind me of Midwest ski areas, and that's… I say that because that's where I grew up, and Midwest ski areas are very.00:11:03.000 --> 00:11:05.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah.00:11:08.000 --> 00:11:19.000Stuart Winchester: efficient, right? They have the racing lane and the terrain park, and what I really liked, I thought was impressive when I came to Southington, was you had a little mogul patch, maybe it was right here when I came.00:11:19.000 --> 00:11:28.000Stuart Winchester: This seemed to be the race hill. Wasn't much going on the day I was there, but that's neither here nor there. That's what I was assuming that was for. And there's some really nice park stuff.00:11:28.000 --> 00:11:35.000Stuart Winchester: I don't know, just… I mean, you can see it on the trail map where it's marked, but… but it's… it's, like, thought.00:11:35.000 --> 00:11:39.000Stuart Winchester: to, you know, give variety and make a small place.00:11:39.000 --> 00:11:49.000Stuart Winchester: feel bigger. I also like how you haven't widened the trails too much up top. So, just talk a little bit about that, you know, efficiency of use, and how challenging it is to make a mountain for everyone.00:11:49.000 --> 00:12:06.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah, it is a challenge, especially when you're only dealing with like 51 acres, right? A skiable terrain. But you, you know, we want our programs to be successful. We want everybody to have a good time. We're fortunate in that, like our lift capacity somewhat matches our parking capacity.00:11:53.000 --> 00:11:55.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:12:01.000 --> 00:12:02.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:12:06.000 --> 00:12:26.000Jay Dougherty: So, like, people see the lots fall. Connecticut's a small state, so, like, if we're full, it's very accessible to go somewhere else. Not that we're encouraging that, but we don't want to… we don't want to overcrowd our trails, right? And yes, I admittedly catch flack, because when you do run high school racing in the afternoons, oftentimes you have to close down that.00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:11.000Stuart Winchester: Down.00:12:18.000 --> 00:12:19.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:12:26.000 --> 00:12:34.000Jay Dougherty: Thunderbolt Trail in its entirety. There's sometimes four GS lanes that are set up across it during training and race days.00:12:27.000 --> 00:12:28.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:12:34.000 --> 00:12:45.000Jay Dougherty: Um, but you… you try to do a good job at everything you're gonna offer. Um, so, you know, oftentimes, we… we get questions about things like tubing, right? Like, why… why don't you have tubing, right? So…00:12:45.000 --> 00:12:57.000Jay Dougherty: unless I can do a really good job at it, um, which our acres just doesn't allow for right now, and our parking capacity, like, it's… it just doesn't make sense to do it, because I don't want to…00:12:57.000 --> 00:13:07.000Jay Dougherty: offer, like, a poor product, a poor on-snow product, so… Um, but yeah, it's, uh, it is a big challenge, uh, for sure, especially when you're…00:13:07.000 --> 00:13:19.000Jay Dougherty: you know again, going back to that demographic shift like on a Saturday or Sunday morning, and you have all these lessons that are out there, and they're all fighting for beginner terrain. Yeah, it's a it's a challenge.00:13:17.000 --> 00:13:18.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:13:19.000 --> 00:13:23.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, and for folks who may be wondering why…00:13:23.000 --> 00:13:35.000Stuart Winchester: Southington doesn't put in more. Here is Southington on the map, right? This is a Google map, and you can see neighborhood. You have development all around you, and I think… what is this, like a nature preserve in the back?00:13:26.000 --> 00:13:27.000Jay Dougherty: No.00:13:35.000 --> 00:13:43.000Jay Dougherty: Uh, so that's actually Southington Water Department, so yeah, there's no… there's no expansion that's gonna happen back there, yeah.00:13:35.000 --> 00:13:36.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:13:37.000 --> 00:13:39.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:41.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:13:42.000 --> 00:13:48.000Stuart Winchester: Right, and if you really zoom in, I mean, some of these houses, they probably have ski-in, ski-out if they want it. I.00:13:46.000 --> 00:13:49.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah, they're really good. Some do, actually.00:13:48.000 --> 00:13:49.000Stuart Winchester: I don't know if they do.00:13:49.000 --> 00:14:05.000Stuart Winchester: But you have this, uh, it's a really unique location, and it feels very New England, because you, you get off the highway, you get off 84, and you're driving through these neighborhoods, you're like, where is this, is there really a ski area here? You know, I'm just blindly following my Google Maps like everyone else, and you pull up, and there's this.00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:01.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah.00:14:05.000 --> 00:14:17.000Stuart Winchester: barn. And I was reading a little bit about the history of it, but I'll let you tell us, what is this barn, and what can you tell us about the history of Southington as far as how you crammed a ski area.00:14:06.000 --> 00:14:07.000Jay Dougherty: Yep.00:14:17.000 --> 00:14:21.000Stuart Winchester: Or how a scary is crammed into a neighborhood that probably wants a neighborhood.00:14:21.000 --> 00:14:39.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah, so, the story goes, as you can read on the website, uh, Dr. Harold Richmond took his family on a ski trip up north, uh, I'm assuming it was probably Mount Snow, and, uh, I wanted to recreate that in Connecticut. I mean, there were already existing areas in Connecticut, obviously Mohawk was around, um, it was Satan Ridge at the time.00:14:27.000 --> 00:14:29.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:14:39.000 --> 00:14:54.000Jay Dougherty: So he came back and was looking for a spot. Initially, I think he wanted to open a skating rink in the town of Southington, and that got like shot down by the planning zoning at the time. So this farm was up for sale on the west side of town.00:14:49.000 --> 00:14:50.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:14:54.000 --> 00:15:02.000Jay Dougherty: At that time period, all of those houses weren't there. There were some, but not nearly the messages there on the map.00:15:01.000 --> 00:15:02.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:15:02.000 --> 00:15:08.000Jay Dougherty: And, you know, he purchased the farm. Uh, he was an orthodontist, which…00:15:09.000 --> 00:15:22.000Jay Dougherty: typically doesn't blend well with construction, uh, at least, uh, on-hill construction. Uh, so they partnered with Palmisano Construction out of Bristol, and they built out the ski area. Uh, in 1964, it opened, so…00:15:17.000 --> 00:15:18.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:15:23.000 --> 00:15:25.000Jay Dougherty: Been going ever since.00:15:25.000 --> 00:15:35.000Stuart Winchester: And then the barn, I understand that this property, I think, was assembled from a lot of things, but part of it was actually a dairy farm, right?00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:29.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah.00:15:32.000 --> 00:15:33.000Jay Dougherty: Yep.00:15:33.000 --> 00:15:34.000Jay Dougherty: Yep.00:15:34.000 --> 00:15:49.000Jay Dougherty: So, yeah, so, yes, I have, uh, actual photos of, um, cows being milked in that barn, uh, by the original owners, uh, which one of the original owners, actually, the family still lives in an adjacent property, so…00:15:48.000 --> 00:15:49.000Stuart Winchester: Really?00:15:49.000 --> 00:15:50.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah.00:15:49.000 --> 00:15:52.000Stuart Winchester: Do you have any idea how old the barn is?00:15:52.000 --> 00:15:56.000Jay Dougherty: Uh, roughly, I think there's a stamp on the side, it's like 1937.00:15:56.000 --> 00:16:12.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, so have you, you know, I imagine a lot of renovations have happened over the years. Do they have to winterize it? Did they, like, what do you, what does it take to maintain a building that's this old? Because it looks super cool, but one other thing I know about old buildings by living in a bunch of them is they're a pain in the butt.00:16:01.000 --> 00:16:03.000Jay Dougherty: Yes.00:16:08.000 --> 00:16:09.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah.00:16:12.000 --> 00:16:28.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah, yeah, it's a challenge. It certainly is. You know, they're not the most efficient structures and like, especially when you're striving for sustainability these days and trying to reduce your carbon footprint and an older facility like that.00:16:14.000 --> 00:16:15.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:16:18.000 --> 00:16:19.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:16:28.000 --> 00:16:43.000Jay Dougherty: you know it. It's it is oftentimes drafty. But there there is that like quaint New England feeling to it when you walk in. Certainly, if it were much larger, it would. It would better service the folks visiting here. But we also have the mountain room, which is a second restaurant.00:16:35.000 --> 00:16:36.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:16:41.000 --> 00:16:42.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:16:43.000 --> 00:16:45.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:16:43.000 --> 00:16:45.000Jay Dougherty: Um…00:16:45.000 --> 00:16:51.000Jay Dougherty: and lounge area. So, you know, we do a good job of spreading folks out, and.00:16:51.000 --> 00:17:01.000Jay Dougherty: you know, in the post-COVID era, people seem to not be as afraid to eat outside anymore. So, like, we've taken full advantage of, like, patio space and things like that.00:16:56.000 --> 00:16:58.000Stuart Winchester: Okay. Yeah.00:16:59.000 --> 00:17:01.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:17:01.000 --> 00:17:06.000Stuart Winchester: That's cool, and then the old original farmhouse, I believe, is your ticket office, is that right?00:17:05.000 --> 00:17:10.000Jay Dougherty: Yep. Yeah, I'm sitting in it right now. My office is in there, guest service office, everything like that.00:17:07.000 --> 00:17:08.000Stuart Winchester: But.00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:26.000Stuart Winchester: That is so cool. So another quirk of Southington and Southington, and you, you find this only, well, I'm sure you find it elsewhere, but I've only seen it in the northeast, is the parking lot across the street. And so I know you have overflow parking here, but I always think it's kind of neat, but also kind of.00:17:20.000 --> 00:17:21.000Jay Dougherty: Yep.00:17:26.000 --> 00:17:36.000Stuart Winchester: scary, considering your demo of kids. I mean, how much of a pain is this? Is this, like, the apple orchards where… because I came on a non-busy day, like I usually do these places, and uh…00:17:27.000 --> 00:17:29.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah.00:17:34.000 --> 00:17:35.000Jay Dougherty: Mm-hmm.00:17:36.000 --> 00:17:44.000Stuart Winchester: you know, like, I know the apple orchards in the fall have to set up a cop to safely get people across the road. What's the… what's the safety situation here?00:17:43.000 --> 00:17:50.000Jay Dougherty: So the states provided us with a great, like, crosswalk there of solar power.00:17:50.000 --> 00:17:56.000Jay Dougherty: It's not… Mount Vernon Road, unless the traffic's coming here, is not typically that busy.00:17:56.000 --> 00:18:01.000Jay Dougherty: It's not one of the main, like, thoroughfares in Southampton by any means.00:17:59.000 --> 00:18:01.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:18:02.000 --> 00:18:18.000Jay Dougherty: And for the most part, yes, occasionally you get the rogue driver that's doing over the speed limit, and you do encounter a scary situation. But knock on wood, I mean, for the most part, it's function. People know we're here. Certainly anybody in town knows we're here.00:18:12.000 --> 00:18:13.000Stuart Winchester: No.00:18:18.000 --> 00:18:30.000Jay Dougherty: So, it really hasn't been quite that big of an issue. It's well-lit, like, you know, at night, the skier would glow.00:18:23.000 --> 00:18:24.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:18:30.000 --> 00:18:40.000Jay Dougherty: as, you know, we put it, it's there. I mean, you know, it hasn't been a huge issue, but it is unique to, you know, New England skiers. You really don't see it anywhere else.00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:35.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:56.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, so, so when I, when I see all these houses, you know, I made the crack that they might have ski in, ski out, and that's my brain going to, I would love to live on the side of a ski area. Uh, not everyone necessarily does. I was talking to the folks over at Thunder Ridge last week up at, uh, the Ski Areas of New York convention.00:18:48.000 --> 00:18:49.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah.00:18:56.000 --> 00:19:12.000Stuart Winchester: And they're similarly built, kind of, aside a neighborhood. But, you know, the ski area's been there longer than most people live there. They said they've been having some issues with neighbors. I don't know how Southington sits with its neighbors, or if this is a blessing or curse to have these homes right here.00:18:58.000 --> 00:19:00.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah.00:19:13.000 --> 00:19:32.000Jay Dougherty: Um, obviously, the ski area itself, before a lot of those homes, especially ones that are trailside, um, you know, the ski area existed. Uh, early on, yeah, there were certainly issues. I mean, they were running, and I don't know if you're familiar with, like, snowmaking equipment, but, like, Radnik's, like, Sky Giant 2, or.00:19:19.000 --> 00:19:20.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:23.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:19:32.000 --> 00:19:49.000Jay Dougherty: snow giant tubes, which were loud, sounded like a jet engine taking off. They were running compressors. They used to pump air into mines in Pennsylvania, like, very much a smaller version of what Hunter had going on a few years ago. And, like, it would, you know, thump and…00:19:33.000 --> 00:19:35.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:19:36.000 --> 00:19:37.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:47.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:19:49.000 --> 00:20:04.000Jay Dougherty: shaking foundations. We've since modernized a lot of our equipment. We've gone to mostly fan technology, and it's quieted down quite a bit, but it was such an issue back then. The town recognized how important the steering was.00:19:56.000 --> 00:19:57.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:20:04.000 --> 00:20:16.000Jay Dougherty: you know, to tax revenue. We bring a lot of skier visits in. Um, you know, I think about this here, it's like a ton of volume on small acreage. So, you know.00:20:06.000 --> 00:20:07.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:20:16.000 --> 00:20:26.000Jay Dougherty: They actually worked with my predecessor, and it's actually in the town ordinance that we're exempt from the noise at night.00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:26.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:20:26.000 --> 00:20:30.000Jay Dougherty: Um, yeah, so…00:20:28.000 --> 00:20:37.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I have to imagine, too, that as your equipment has gotten more efficient, I've seen a lot of skiers, their snowmaking window has really shrunk.00:20:36.000 --> 00:20:37.000Jay Dougherty: Yep.00:20:37.000 --> 00:20:55.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah, that's absolutely us. Um, we have a really difficult climate where we are. You know, it's somewhat coastal. Uh, we deal with Long Island Sound, you're close to the Connecticut River. Um, you know, we always talk about that I-84 corridor in Connecticut before, like the snow line versus rain line, and um…00:20:41.000 --> 00:20:43.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah, yeah.00:20:51.000 --> 00:20:52.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:20:54.000 --> 00:20:56.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:20:55.000 --> 00:21:10.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah, it is a challenge year after year. So, like, staying on top of ZoomMate, that's probably one of our largest investments that we do. We put our new pump house in, fully automated in 2018, and now we've been, every year, just adding more automation to the hill.00:21:01.000 --> 00:21:03.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:21:11.000 --> 00:21:16.000Jay Dougherty: Um, this year we added another, like, 10 TL8 Lances from TechnoAlpin, um…00:21:11.000 --> 00:21:12.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:16.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:21:16.000 --> 00:21:22.000Jay Dougherty: and yeah, I mean, it's the way to go, uh, because our winters are so short, like…00:21:19.000 --> 00:21:20.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:21:21.000 --> 00:21:22.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.00:21:22.000 --> 00:21:23.000Jay Dougherty: Oh.00:21:23.000 --> 00:21:37.000Jay Dougherty: like, manual snowmaking equipment, like, you'll never be able to keep up with a computer as far as, like, changes in the atmosphere and conditions, so it's worked really well for us. And it's manageable because we're small, you know, like, we can bite off small investments at a time with it.00:21:27.000 --> 00:21:28.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:21:37.000 --> 00:21:41.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I try to make that point to my listeners and readers a lot, is that…00:21:41.000 --> 00:21:51.000Stuart Winchester: I was certainly surprised by this when I started this podcast, is sometimes the smallest ski areas have the best snowmaking, and I always point to Pennsylvania, they are just…00:21:49.000 --> 00:21:50.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah.00:21:51.000 --> 00:22:03.000Stuart Winchester: have some incredible snowmaking systems, because they have very challenging weather patterns, and that rain-snow line you're talking about, a lot of times, folks who are in the Northeast, our weather goes sort of up at an angle.00:22:02.000 --> 00:22:05.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah, yeah.00:22:03.000 --> 00:22:14.000Stuart Winchester: So… so it comes from wherever it comes from, and then goes… so there's sometimes this fun little rain-snow line that… that sometimes you're below, but sometimes you're above, right?00:22:13.000 --> 00:22:31.000Jay Dougherty: Right, and you have to be able to recover quickly, and that's what it's all about. I mean, like, typically after you get, like, one of those events, um, you do have usually some colder weather that'll follow in, and you have to take full advantage of that, and you want to be able to resurface as much terrain as possible, so…00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:18.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:34.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm. And are you feeding from this… this pond down here?00:22:34.000 --> 00:22:44.000Jay Dougherty: Yes, but we also have a, uh, water supply from the town. The town owns their own water here, so yeah. And we pay for it, um, but that's another expense item.00:22:38.000 --> 00:22:39.000Stuart Winchester: Oh.00:22:39.000 --> 00:22:41.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, that's great.00:22:43.000 --> 00:22:58.000Stuart Winchester: So, snowmaking's big. Another thing that Southington has really been investing in is lifts, and you're… you have one of the newer lift fleets that I'm aware of for a small ski area, and uh…00:22:44.000 --> 00:22:45.000Jay Dougherty: I don't know how.00:22:58.000 --> 00:23:04.000Stuart Winchester: Let me just pull up my notes here so I get this correct. But the…00:23:04.000 --> 00:23:15.000Stuart Winchester: So you put in North Star just three years ago, right, or two years ago, or 2023. Avalanche was new in 2021, I think.00:23:06.000 --> 00:23:08.000Jay Dougherty: Yep.00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:18.000Stuart Winchester: Thunderbolt was new in, like, 2011, is that right?00:23:18.000 --> 00:23:21.000Jay Dougherty: Uh, 2009 for Thunderbolt.00:23:19.000 --> 00:23:33.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, 2009. Right, and so, uh, before I ask you about these lists individually, I was up at, again, I was at Skiers in New York last year, or last week, and one of the big concerns with these guys, because New York has the most Skiers, but it's mostly family owned.00:23:33.000 --> 00:23:40.000Stuart Winchester: And one of their big concerns is just the cost of new lifts. All your lifts are ParTech lifts.00:23:39.000 --> 00:23:41.000Jay Dougherty: Correct.00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:42.000Stuart Winchester: And I've talked to Hagen, and…00:23:42.000 --> 00:24:00.000Stuart Winchester: Small operators, especially in the Northeast, or actually whoever's worked with them, speak very reverently of Hagen and how if he wasn't around, it would be very hard to afford new lifts. So can you just talk about working with Hagen on these lifts? And I realize, Thunderbolt, you were not in the GM role at that time, but it sounds like you were on site.00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:01.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah.00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:09.000Stuart Winchester: So just talk about Hagen and what it's like to work with him and how important he is to small ski areas in the 2020s.00:24:08.000 --> 00:24:15.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah, so Hagen… Hagen's great. I mean, like, I have a long-standing relationship with Hagen, and…00:24:11.000 --> 00:24:12.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:31.000Jay Dougherty: he's the guy that you can call on, like, Sunday morning, and, like, if you need him to take a ride here to look at something, he will. Um, stands behind his product, always fix it, you know, he'll work with you. He's a solutions guy, really, um, is what it boils down to. And I feel like, um.00:24:18.000 --> 00:24:19.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:24:21.000 --> 00:24:23.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:24:27.000 --> 00:24:28.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:24:31.000 --> 00:24:35.000Jay Dougherty: you know, when it comes to Hagen, like…00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:41.000Jay Dougherty: He's willing to work more with you than… than…00:24:41.000 --> 00:24:56.000Jay Dougherty: I don't have much experience working with the other manufacturers, because really, like, I've only really considered that, because, I mean, one of the important things for me is to try to standardize everything here. It makes it easier on my crew, it makes it easier on what we have to stock for lift parts.00:24:44.000 --> 00:24:45.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:47.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:24:51.000 --> 00:24:52.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:24:56.000 --> 00:25:12.000Jay Dougherty: and all of the above. Um, so, like, every one of our lifts now has the same grip in it, you know, assemblies are all similar, except for one lift, which we'll talk about, I'm sure. Um, but yeah, I mean, I have nothing but good things to say about Hagen, and he's.00:25:01.000 --> 00:25:03.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:25:12.000 --> 00:25:16.000Jay Dougherty: incredibly important to this, and you say you're from the Midwest, so, like…00:25:16.000 --> 00:25:33.000Jay Dougherty: that's where I think you know where where you don't have you know that the lift ticket pricing in general in the Midwest is a bit lower than it is in the northeast, but we all spend have to spend the same amount of money on upgrading our facilities like it's not like there's a.00:25:24.000 --> 00:25:26.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:25:31.000 --> 00:25:32.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.00:25:33.000 --> 00:25:42.000Jay Dougherty: a discount for buying techno alpine equipment if you live in the Midwest, or you're here in the Midwest, or buying, you know, chairlifts. So…00:25:37.000 --> 00:25:38.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:25:42.000 --> 00:25:51.000Jay Dougherty: um, yeah, it's a concern, and guys like Hagen are the… are… what can keep that alive, and come up with the solutions, um, for the future. I mean, like…00:25:52.000 --> 00:25:59.000Jay Dougherty: it, for us, it just makes sense, too. Pine Island, New York's not that far from Southern, like, it's an hour and a half, maybe.00:25:59.000 --> 00:26:06.000Stuart Winchester: Right. How worried are you about Hagen retiring and what's going to happen after that?00:25:59.000 --> 00:26:00.000Jay Dougherty: So.00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:07.000Jay Dougherty: Um…00:26:07.000 --> 00:26:09.000Jay Dougherty: I mean…00:26:09.000 --> 00:26:22.000Jay Dougherty: as with most lift manufacturers, somebody inevitably takes it over and takes care of it, but very concerned. I mean, the loss of, like, Hagen in the industry, if and when he decides to retire.00:26:22.000 --> 00:26:36.000Jay Dougherty: Um, it's gonna be huge for… for the areas that it relied on. There's a ton of part-tech lifts in the Northeast, and you find them at small areas like Mount Southington, and then private clubs, and things like that, and he's still servicing all the old boardwreck equipment.00:26:36.000 --> 00:26:47.000Jay Dougherty: Which I know, like, many people have had issues with Borbug in the past, but truth be told, I mean, there's a number of those installations that are still running from the mid-70s, so…00:26:39.000 --> 00:26:41.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:26:46.000 --> 00:26:47.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.00:26:47.000 --> 00:27:08.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, and one of them is right here. The Stardust, which according to LiftBlog is a 1978 Borvig triple. So you have one, two, three new lifts. Well, I'm going to say they're, you know, anything built in this century, I call it new. And then you have this guy here. What's your thinking on Stardust long term? Are you happy with it? Do you like it? Do you want to replace it?00:26:49.000 --> 00:26:51.000Jay Dougherty: Exactly. Yeah.00:27:08.000 --> 00:27:10.000Stuart Winchester: What's popping around?00:27:08.000 --> 00:27:26.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah, so, speaking of Hagen, we've been working with Hagen, and actually, the new, uh, idler return terminal is actually sitting on site right now, and that's getting replaced. So, we're somewhat redesigning the unload of that area, we're moving it downhill, gaining a little bit of elevation for now, and it's part of, uh.00:27:18.000 --> 00:27:19.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:22.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:27:26.000 --> 00:27:35.000Jay Dougherty: pretty much a three-year, uh, as of right now, it's planned for three years. It could be a shortage, too. Um, planned full replacement of that list.00:27:31.000 --> 00:27:32.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:27:34.000 --> 00:27:38.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, so, so, so you're, you're getting a new…00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:36.000Jay Dougherty: So.00:27:38.000 --> 00:27:44.000Stuart Winchester: So you'll get a new top terminal, then a new… I mean, I guess just take us through the timeline that you plan.00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:41.000Jay Dougherty: Yep.00:27:44.000 --> 00:28:04.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah, so it'd be a new top terminal first year, probably a new bottom terminal the second and then towers in between the third. So unique to board big lifts, they have the hanging ship assemblies, right? So that changes, you know, the dynamic of your of your carrier, right? So you have a shorter with those hanging ship assemblies, you have a shorter hanger.00:27:46.000 --> 00:27:47.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:27:51.000 --> 00:27:53.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:27:55.000 --> 00:27:56.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I think so.00:28:04.000 --> 00:28:06.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:14.000Jay Dougherty: attached to your chair. Um, so for me to do… I couldn't do the towers before I did the terminals, but I could do the terminals before the towers.00:28:14.000 --> 00:28:17.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, so that's essentially going to be a brand new Partech lift.00:28:17.000 --> 00:28:22.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah, essentially. I mean, there'll be huge components in it. Um, the gearbox is…00:28:18.000 --> 00:28:19.000Stuart Winchester: The the.00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:21.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah, yeah.00:28:22.000 --> 00:28:29.000Jay Dougherty: We're in great shape still, so I think that would probably get repurposed into the lift, so… but other than that, yeah.00:28:28.000 --> 00:28:43.000Stuart Winchester: That's an interesting strategy, uh, Lonnie Gleiberman, who runs Ischeria Mount Bohemia up in northern Michigan, he had some old riblets, and he replaced the top terminal and bottom terminal with SkyTrak terminals, and just left all the chairs and, uh…00:28:43.000 --> 00:28:51.000Stuart Winchester: towers in place, because he said it was going to be another couple million dollars to do those, and he said I could just build another lift for that. Talk to us about the 3-year…00:28:51.000 --> 00:28:58.000Stuart Winchester: construction? Is that just a money thing? Is that a labor availability thing? What makes you spread it over 3 years?00:28:58.000 --> 00:29:13.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah, we do a lot in-house, right? I have a very talented team. Most of these guys, they're 10 years or 10 plus years. I mean, we've been working together for a long time, so we know our abilities, we know our timelines, we know what we can fit in. Um, and me coming from the operation end, I know what's, like, feas.00:28:59.000 --> 00:29:01.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:29:04.000 --> 00:29:05.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, so. Yeah.00:29:13.000 --> 00:29:14.000Jay Dougherty: So…00:29:14.000 --> 00:29:30.000Jay Dougherty: you know, we… when we… when we plan these things, yeah, there's a financial component, because, like, just maintaining a ski area like this takes a lot, but we also have a lot of summer activity that goes on here. Last fiscal year, I think we did 39 weddings. Um, we have a summer camp.00:29:22.000 --> 00:29:23.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:43.000Jay Dougherty: for 9 or 10 weeks that operates out of here. Uh, and then midweek, we have sand volleyball and cornhole leagues, so there's always something going on. Oftentimes, we're busier in the summer than we are during the winter.00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:33.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:29:38.000 --> 00:29:40.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:29:42.000 --> 00:29:44.000Stuart Winchester: Really.00:29:43.000 --> 00:29:51.000Jay Dougherty: Um, but that's all part of the sustainability strategy for the skier, you know, you want to be able to absorb those, those bad years.00:29:51.000 --> 00:30:05.000Jay Dougherty: But, with all that activity, um, you know, construction periods get into smaller and smaller, uh, time frames, you know? You can't be running site trucks by, uh, summer camp, you know what I mean? So…00:29:51.000 --> 00:29:53.000Stuart Winchester: That's it.00:29:58.000 --> 00:29:59.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:30:04.000 --> 00:30:05.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:07.000Stuart Winchester: And do you guys self-install?00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:13.000Jay Dougherty: Um, we assist with installation, like, obviously, um, but, I mean…00:30:09.000 --> 00:30:11.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:30:14.000 --> 00:30:18.000Jay Dougherty: I'll hire somebody to put the towers in, I'll, you know…00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:17.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.00:30:18.000 --> 00:30:21.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, no, I know it's rare. The reason I ask…00:30:19.000 --> 00:30:26.000Jay Dougherty: We're very actively involved in installation, I'll say that. It's local concrete work, uh, local site work. It's not, like.00:30:23.000 --> 00:30:24.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:30:24.000 --> 00:30:25.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:30:27.000 --> 00:30:33.000Jay Dougherty: that, you know, Ropeway Construction's helped us a ton. Randy Glennis has been a great partner of ours, so, yeah.00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:31.000Stuart Winchester: Yes.00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:48.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, most people don't. The only reason I ask is I have Dennis Eschbach from Holiday Valley coming on later today, and he's one of the few that has an in-house team that just, they drop the lift off and they put it up. It's kind of amazing. So, you know, you said you were sticking, you know, you had a good gearbox and.00:30:43.000 --> 00:30:45.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah.00:30:48.000 --> 00:30:53.000Stuart Winchester: Assuming that you're just gonna have a, uh, replace Stardust with a triple, then?00:30:52.000 --> 00:31:09.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah, it's going to be a trouble. It's going to remain. In fact, the chairs will be repurposed. So those aren't obviously the original boardwreck chairs that were on it. Those were flats, and they had issues with the chairs back in… that was probably about 2002. I think that was in College Way, and they replaced them with Partech.00:30:53.000 --> 00:30:55.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:30:56.000 --> 00:30:58.000Stuart Winchester: Oh.00:30:58.000 --> 00:31:00.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, okay.00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:06.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:31:09.000 --> 00:31:10.000Jay Dougherty: chairs at that time.00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:25.000Stuart Winchester: Right. So moving over to Avalanche, I don't know if you followed a similar multi-year process with that, but interesting to me that you kept it as a double. We don't build a lot of new doubles these days, just the ski industry in general. I mean, certainly like A-Basin built Pally.00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:16.000Jay Dougherty: We did.00:31:18.000 --> 00:31:20.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah.00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:34.000Stuart Winchester: a few years ago, replaced with a double. Was that the same kind of thing where you were modifying, or was there another reason why you went with a double chair instead of upgrading to that to maybe a triple or quad?00:31:26.000 --> 00:31:27.000Jay Dougherty: Yep.00:31:33.000 --> 00:31:47.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah, so there was a lot that went into that decision, right? So, 2010, I want to say, that terminal at the bottom was replaced. So, there was originally a haul lift there. Um, I think it was, like, a 75 horsepower haul double chair. Um…00:31:41.000 --> 00:31:42.000Stuart Winchester: Hmm.00:31:47.000 --> 00:31:54.000Jay Dougherty: And… you know, it had some issues in the lower terminal, so we knew we had to replace that, so we…00:31:54.000 --> 00:32:11.000Jay Dougherty: took the hall wheel at the time, had a new hub put into it, so it would fit on a gearbox, a, uh, Kistling gearbox, and we had Hagen build a terminal around… around that to service the hall, and we ran it for… well, right up until we did the… all the…00:32:11.000 --> 00:32:23.000Jay Dougherty: last replacement of it. When that lift went in, it was designed that it could be a triple, so Hagen offered, like, two types of terminals at the time, and one could accept both a triple and a double.00:32:12.000 --> 00:32:14.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:32:19.000 --> 00:32:20.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:32:23.000 --> 00:32:35.000Jay Dougherty: Fast forward to 2011, and then time in between, ANSI standard changed. So your swing clearance has changed. Um, and that kind of brought in the issue of the lower terminal legs for us.00:32:29.000 --> 00:32:31.000Stuart Winchester: Umm.00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:50.000Jay Dougherty: And uh… so that was one of them. So I would have… if I wanted to change it to a triple at that point, it would have been a complete teardown of the lower terminal, new concrete, and a lot of… a lot of work that would go into that. Then you have the top, and if… I'm assuming you rode that lift when you're here?00:32:42.000 --> 00:32:44.000Stuart Winchester: Mmm.00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:58.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, Thunderbolt wasn't running, but I rode the other ones. But this was actually before you replaced it, so I rode the old Avalanche.00:32:51.000 --> 00:32:52.000Jay Dougherty: Very tight.00:32:54.000 --> 00:32:55.000Jay Dougherty: Yes.00:32:57.000 --> 00:33:04.000Jay Dougherty: Okay, okay. So, when you get off the avalanche double chair, right, it's a really tight spot at the top.00:33:02.000 --> 00:33:05.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Oh, and suddenly that little hill, yeah.00:33:04.000 --> 00:33:18.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah, yeah. Um, so… one of the things that we salvaged out of that was the original concrete off the top. We had everything, like, NDT'd and tested, and we dug down to the base of the footing and all nine yards. Um…00:33:18.000 --> 00:33:33.000Jay Dougherty: And I got to thinking, I'm like, alright, if we're gonna, you know, add a little bit of uphill capacity, because the difference in all reality between a double and a triple is not… it's not crazy, it's not… you're not getting 33% more people uphill.00:33:29.000 --> 00:33:31.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:33:32.000 --> 00:33:33.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:33:33.000 --> 00:33:34.000Jay Dougherty: um…00:33:34.000 --> 00:33:51.000Jay Dougherty: it boiled down to, like, bang for the buck, and we accomplished this in a different way, and is this the ultimate, um, you know, top unloading for all of Mount Sinai? Can we try to stay, like, 5, 10 years ahead when we think about some of these things? And it's like, well, we knew we had the Stardust triple up there, and.00:33:47.000 --> 00:33:48.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:33:51.000 --> 00:34:16.000Jay Dougherty: you know, that's become more of the lift when we're busy. Yes, the avalanche double runs during the day, because the easy to access lift for the you know, the older crowd that's here skiing during the day. But anytime it's busy, or there's kids here. Family is adaptive programs. It's mostly the starters triple. And really what you lose between the 2 lifts or lost before this year when we replaced doctor and all of.00:34:16.000 --> 00:34:23.000Jay Dougherty: Stardust was probably 2, 3 acres of terrain. That's yeah.00:34:16.000 --> 00:34:18.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:22.000Stuart Winchester: Right. Okay.00:34:22.000 --> 00:34:24.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:34:23.000 --> 00:34:28.000Jay Dougherty: it wasn't… it wasn't that much. I mean, you can still access the primary terrain from the other way.00:34:28.000 --> 00:34:36.000Stuart Winchester: And so you have good reliability to the top. It sounds like you're going to improve it. Well, you said start us starting this summer with that new terminal.00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:40.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah, oh no, the terminal's on site, there's no chairs on the line right now, it's in progress.00:34:37.000 --> 00:34:39.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, wow.00:34:39.000 --> 00:34:45.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, great. Uh, oh, wait, so will that be in place for 26-27 ski season?00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:41.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah.00:34:44.000 --> 00:34:48.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah, the top, the top of it, yeah. Just the top row, yeah.00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:48.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, okay. Okay.00:34:48.000 --> 00:35:02.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, no, that's awesome. Then, North Star is your most recent lift. So, this one's interesting. You went from a double to a triple here. I think I know why, but just tell us about this lift and why you wanted to go triple over here.00:35:01.000 --> 00:35:09.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah, again, our big focus is on teaching people to ski and ride, and, um, you know, when you have… and we have a ton of kids here.00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:06.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:35:09.000 --> 00:35:29.000Jay Dougherty: So, uh, a double chair really didn't make sense, like, it was, you know, for a, um, instructor to ride with only one student. Uh, or a lot of times you'll get families, and the parents want to teach their kids how to ski, and you'll get one parent that skis, and another that sits in the base lodge, and they've got two children with them, so…00:35:17.000 --> 00:35:19.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:35:29.000 --> 00:35:31.000Jay Dougherty: You know, triple makes more sense there.00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:31.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:35:31.000 --> 00:35:47.000Jay Dougherty: Absolutely. So that that was the primary driver of changing that to a triple, and that lift was put in. You know the lift that that replaced was a salvage lift from Craigmere in New Jersey.00:35:46.000 --> 00:35:48.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:35:47.000 --> 00:36:00.000Jay Dougherty: Uh, many years ago, uh, which I was part of taking down. Um, yeah, so, like, steel has an age, and I'm gonna be the first one to tell you that. So that was one of the decisions of, like, where we're, like, you know, let's just get it and replace this.00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:52.000Stuart Winchester: Were you really?00:35:55.000 --> 00:35:56.000Stuart Winchester: Yes.00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:01.000Jay Dougherty: So.00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:12.000Stuart Winchester: That's wild. So that lift is, from what I can tell, it was installed in 76 at Cregmer, and then you guys put it in, I think, 01.00:36:11.000 --> 00:36:13.000Jay Dougherty: Yep.00:36:12.000 --> 00:36:20.000Stuart Winchester: And then when you took it down, Lost Valley, Maine took it, and they made it their chair 3, and I rode that chair last year, and I was like…00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:25.000Stuart Winchester: Hey, is this the one they moved from Southington? Because this is… they did a really good job with it, but…00:36:23.000 --> 00:36:25.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah.00:36:25.000 --> 00:36:30.000Stuart Winchester: how did that whole deal happen? Were you like, dude, you're crazy, this chairlift is, like, 50 years old?00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:39.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah, I mean, so, Scott's very talented, right? And, like, you know, his, um…00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:36.000Stuart Winchester: There.00:36:39.000 --> 00:36:54.000Jay Dougherty: he knows everything there is to know about all grips, and he has access to a lot of parts, so… I mean, for him, it worked. Uh, for us, you know, like, with the volume of people that we do, and what our challenge was with that lift.00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:45.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:36:54.000 --> 00:37:07.000Jay Dougherty: you know, I would say more of it into the functionality of the lift was the… was the reason for the replacement than the age. Yes, steel does have an age, like I said, but I mean, I think for me, it was more, you know.00:37:07.000 --> 00:37:14.000Jay Dougherty: we need this because of the volume of lessons we're doing, and, like, the pinch point it's causing with instructors, so…00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:11.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:37:14.000 --> 00:37:20.000Stuart Winchester: Right. Yeah, you know, one of the arguments I hear from the larger operators.00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:26.000Stuart Winchester: for the reason that they don't sell older lifts, they're worried about liability. You know.00:37:26.000 --> 00:37:30.000Stuart Winchester: I find that dubious. Was that a consideration when you…00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:31.000Stuart Winchester: Sold.00:37:31.000 --> 00:37:33.000Stuart Winchester: To… to Lost Valley?00:37:33.000 --> 00:37:42.000Jay Dougherty: No, I… you know, when you're… when you write up paperwork, you can write it up as you're selling it for scrap, and I don't care what they're doing with it afterwards.00:37:37.000 --> 00:37:38.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:37:41.000 --> 00:37:57.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, right, right, yeah. And they have other halls up there, and there's still a couple hundred halls running in the country. So, but it was probably good, nice for you to get rid of the last one you had. I'm curious about Snowflake, this little, I think this is the handle toe, and then you have the carpets over here.00:37:57.000 --> 00:38:02.000Stuart Winchester: Do you like the handle toes still here, or are you gonna move to a carpet? What's your thinking around there?00:38:01.000 --> 00:38:19.000Jay Dougherty: So, Snowflake is actually a, uh, it was a conveyor lift, um, that was there. The handle tow that we had is over on Whoopi, and that's since gone. Uh, that's moved its way out west to tubing operation this summer. Um, and the conveyor lift that was on Snowflake, our crews kind of, uh.00:38:04.000 --> 00:38:06.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:38:09.000 --> 00:38:11.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, okay.00:38:19.000 --> 00:38:31.000Jay Dougherty: redoing, and that conveyor is moving over to replace the Whoopie handle towel, and we have a new conveyor that arrived yesterday that's, uh, replacing the snowflake, yeah.00:38:24.000 --> 00:38:25.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:34.000Stuart Winchester: Man, there's a lot happening. So you're gonna have, uh, four carpets.00:38:34.000 --> 00:38:36.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah, 4 conveyors, and then, yep.00:38:36.000 --> 00:38:41.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, so that's… look, this is all really impressive, and if I…00:38:41.000 --> 00:38:59.000Stuart Winchester: was looking at any skier area in the country, I think you probably have, top to bottom, one of the newer Lyft fleets, even including Stardust, right? And, you know, I cover skier areas all over the country, and a lot of times, there's so much deferred maintenance, you get something like a Holiday Mountain in New York, where.00:38:49.000 --> 00:38:50.000Jay Dougherty: Yeah.00:38:59.000 --> 00:39:14.000Stuart Winchester: Mike Taylor, I'm not sure if you're acquainted with him, but he bought it, and it was just… it was a junker, and he had to do everything all at once. It sounds like Southington's been able to keep up. And I asked this question, because I have a lot of people who listen to this who run skier areas or want to run skier areas. Is all this money.00:39:14.000 --> 00:39:30.000Stuart Winchester: to upgrade Southington coming from Southington, or is it… is there an outside business that helps feed in, or is it, hey, like, Patch Peak, the ski area, has to make a profit, even though the family owns a bunch of different ski areas. It's, uh, you know, Patch Peak can't take money from whatever their other businesses are.00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:49.000Jay Dougherty: Nope, it's all from outside of it, honestly. And that's, uh, you know, that's the best part of it all, you know, like… And, you know, it's having that strategy of how to continue operating under, like, all these outside pressures that we have. And, you know, we compete with everything.00:39:32.000 --> 00:39:34.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:39:49.000 --> 00:39:52.000Jay Dougherty: Compute with video to complete.00:39:51.000 --> 00:39:52.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:39:52.000 --> 00:40:07.000Jay Dougherty: everything that's on the outside. We're just very fortunate to have like that main artery that runs through Connecticut and I 84 makes us accessible. Honestly, that's that's one of the biggest drivers. So it's helped us develop our after school programs.00:39:59.000 --> 00:40:01.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:40:07.000 --> 00:40:13.000Jay Dougherty: It's helped us become the home for, you know, the high school race leagues.00:40:13.000 --> 00:40:19.000Jay Dougherty: all of those things. And, like, New York City, like, I can be down in New York City in, like, 2 hours.00:40:19.000 --> 00:40:29.000Jay Dougherty: Yankee Stadium, whatever. And, uh, it… we get a lot of traffic from there. We get traffic from Long Island, we get traffic from Westchester County, Fairfield County.00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:21.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:40:29.000 --> 00:40:36.000Jay Dougherty: Um, you name it. So, like, just being accessible has been, like, the key to the success of it, really.00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:39.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, it really is. There's not… There's a lot of…00:40:39.000 --> 00:40:54.000Stuart Winchester: good ski areas that orbit New York City, that that's their main purpose. I, you know, Mount Peter is our go-to for my son for his seasonal program. Thunder Ridge, another one I mentioned. Uh, and there's Camp Gaughan, New Jersey. But then, the Connecticut ski areas, I think, are great, and they're actually…00:40:44.000 --> 00:40:45.000Jay Dougherty: that.00:40:54.000 --> 00:41:01.000Stuart Winchester: So, let's… let's wrap up on this today, Jay. You… last year, Southington joined the Snow Triple Play.00:40:54.000 --> 00:40:56.000Jay Dougherty: Yes.00:41:01.000 --> 00:41:02.000Jay Dougherty: Right.00:41:01.000 --> 00:41:17.000Stuart Winchester: And this year, you are on that product again, plus Snow Partners' new Snow Pass, which has two days each at 16 ski areas. And just to lay this out a little bit for the listeners, the way that I see Southington feeding into this is it's, you have Southington, you have Butternut.00:41:17.000 --> 00:41:33.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, and then you have Bel Air, Gore, Whiteface. So you kind of got those beginner ski areas where people can hop around and learn and then go up to the more aspirational ski areas, I'll call them. But just talk about those passes and snow operating and why.00:41:33.000 --> 00:41:40.000Stuart Winchester: Because I imagine you could have joined IndyPass years ago, but why did you finally go with Snow Operating?00:41:41.000 --> 00:41:52.000Jay Dougherty: So, we've had a great relationship with Snow Operating. Obviously, we're a little later in the ballgame with the attorney-based learning, um, but we've had such good success with them, and such a positive relationship with.00:41:43.000 --> 00:41:44.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:41:47.000 --> 00:41:48.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:41:49.000 --> 00:41:50.000Stuart Winchester: Okay. Yeah.00:41:52.000 --> 00:41:59.000Jay Dougherty: with Joe and Hugh and that whole group, um, that it was kind of, like, the natural choice for us to go with them.00:41:59.000 --> 00:42:00.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:41:59.000 --> 00:42:13.000Jay Dougherty: Um, last year, yeah, we were on the, uh, the Triple Play, which was kind of the product that came out of something they were doing at Mountain Creek for a number of years. And, you know, thinking about it, when you approached us with the idea, it was like, yeah, we'd love to attract new.00:42:07.000 --> 00:42:08.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:42:13.000 --> 00:42:19.000Jay Dougherty: with folks, and, like, we share a similar demographic. Um, people go south to them, they come n

David Haugh and Jarrett Payton were joined by 2005 World Series hero Scott Podsednik to express his excitement about the White Sox as they prepare to face the Cleveland Guardians in the American League Division Series, which begins Saturday.

Hour 3 opens up with Isaac and Suke chatting about the Trail Blazers and if they think that they will go over or under their win total. The guys then discuss Mike Tomlin's Minecraft city. The guys then discuss Oregon State football and say it's ok for fans to get excited about the season. Isaac and Suke then talk about a baseball player who is suing a Major League Baseball stadium.

Joshua Brisco, Pre and Postgame Host for the Chiefs Radio Network, to discuss the Chiefs and Raiders and the fascinating chess match that happens between the two teams.

Mike and Rico lose it over the latest Simon Edvinsson update and discuss whether there's literally anything else to look forward to this season.

Atlanta Falcons Analyst Dave Archer talks about the offense clearly looking different with the return of Michael Penix, how the Packers chose to defend Penix, how Bijan Robinson continues to add to his ability as a running back, getting Kyle Pitts more involved offensively, what stands out about the Falcons defensively so far, the matchup with the Saints, and Jayden Daniels elbow brace.

Three months ago Dwarkesh, who has been posting incredible blogs and episodes about RL, posted a framing question for his video essay on RLVR which upset a lot of Computer Use folks:We are no strangers to learning in public and are no strangers to the stress of getting things wrong when you have a big platform. However, we were at Anthropic for the Computer Use launch, there for Claude Cowork with the first big podcast on it, organized the first Computer Use track at AIE presenting the state of the art, and were close to the OpenAI-Sky Software acquisition that now powers the complete domination of computer use that Codex enjoys today. This is why we're excited to bring you today's first guest, Ari Weinstein, cofounder of Sky and now leading all the amazing CUA progress that casuals might miss:Ari explains why Computer Use is now “180 degrees different” from where it was months ago, how agents are learning to debug and recover from failures, why combining screenshots with accessibility data, the DOM, Playwright, and generated code changes the speed equation, and why the next frontier is making agents literally superhuman at using software.OpenAI clones JevIn the second half, Nikunj Handa from OpenAI's API team breaks down the new developer stack: async tool calling, mid-turn steering, WebSockets, UltraFast inference, the Decisions API, prompt caching, pre-warming, compaction, and the Agents API. Given that we were the first Jev podcast, we particularly focus on the unusually fast sprint on the Decisions API:And why it is just a Luna wrapper for now but the team is motivated and egoless enough to clone what they consider to be good patterns.We discuss:* Why OpenAI thinks Computer Use has changed dramatically in just the last few months* Dots and what changes when every agent gets its own Linux computer* Why Computer Use can now complete some tasks faster than the average human* The path from human-level to “literally superhuman” computer use* Why modern agents are much better at debugging and recovering from failure* How screenshots, accessibility trees, the DOM, Playwright, and generated JavaScript work together* App Shots and why they give models much richer context than ordinary screenshots* Why Computer Use can close the loop between writing software and testing it* Trust, permissions, and safety when agents can make payments and operate websites* Async function calling and why models no longer need to stop reasoning while tools run* Mid-turn steering, WebSockets, and the architecture behind more responsive agents* UltraFast inference and how OpenAI is pushing frontier models toward much lower latency* The rapid internal story behind the Decisions API* Why Decisions API is more than structured outputs at low latency* GPT Live, fast tool calling, and real-time computer control* How OpenAI is already using Decisions API for support classification and internal workflows* Longer prompt caching, cache pre-warming, and cache-aware applications* Server-side compaction vs manual compaction for long-running agent threads* What should live inside an Agents API versus a developer's own harness* OpenAI as an “AI cloud” and the search for higher-level primitives beyond raw model APIsAri Weinstein* Product & Engineering, Computer Use at OpenAI* X: https://x.com/AriX* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weinsteinari/Nikunj Handa* Product, API at OpenAI* X: https://x.com/nikunjhanda* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikunjhanda/Timestamps00:00:00 OpenAI DevDay: Dots, GPT-6.1, Agents API, and Decisions API00:02:52 Dots and Personal Cloud Computers00:04:59 Why Computer Use Is “180 Degrees Different”00:06:04 From Sky to Self-Debugging Computer Use Agents00:09:24 How Computer Use Sees and Operates Software00:12:09 From Faster Than Humans to Superhuman Computer Use00:16:03 Agents API: Trust, Permissions, and Safety00:17:31 Computer Use for Coding, Testing, and QA00:19:14 GPT-6 APIs, Async Tool Calling, and UltraFast Inference00:23:21 The Rapid Story Behind Decisions API00:25:32 What Decisions API Is and How It Works00:30:24 What OpenAI Is Building With the New APIs00:32:23 Prompt Caching, Pre-Warming, and API Performance00:35:20 Context Compaction for Long-Running Agents00:37:13 Memory, Higher-Level APIs, and the AI CloudTranscriptIntroduction: OpenAI DevDay and the New Agent StackVibhu [00:00:00]: Okay. We're very excited to be here. Today is OpenAI DevDay. Special podcastSwyx [00:00:08]: We're the first podcast after your livestream.Vibhu [00:00:10]: First podcast. We have Ari here, who leads the product and engineering team for Computer Use agents. Before we kick in and dive deep on Computer Use, you wanna give a quick recap? What was announced? What's the quick slew of announcements you guys had today?Ari Weinstein [00:00:24]: Yeah. yeah, it was a super exciting day. we just got out of the keynote. It was really sick. there were a bunch of Computer Use announcements that I think are worth thinking about. We have, Dots, which is the new, sort of personal assistant product, and, that has some really exciting Computer Use features. There's GPT-6.1 Sol, which is this amazing new model, that I think is particularly great for Computer Use ‘cause of, sort of the cost and speed, advantages. I think, I think we shared that it's, a fifth of the cost of Astra and a seventh of the cost if you're looking at Computer Use specifically, which is really amazing. sorry, there were so many things. I'm trying to sort through it.Swyx [00:01:02]: And the API.Ari Weinstein [00:01:03]: Agents API, which now has Computer Use in it, which is really cool, ‘cause now developers can build on the same Computer Use, that is part of Codex, and ChatGPT. and then there were some demos of our existing Computer Use features, like app shots, where you can take the context of something you're doing on your computer and bring it into Codex and ChatGPT really fast. And then, like, native Computer Use on your Mac, where Roman had it taking screenshots of his app, automatically, and he could do other things on his computer while Computer Use was using his applications. so yeah, really exciting keynote.Swyx [00:01:35]: And not to mention the Decisions API.Ari Weinstein [00:01:37]: Decisions API.Swyx [00:01:38]: Off the bat, are they all the same model? Like, this is. Or the same dataset distilled to different models?Swyx [00:01:44]: Like, basically, like, is Computer Use using Decisions API, or are they, like, kinda separate?Ari Weinstein [00:01:49]: So what's really cool about the Decisions API is it, you know, it has all these new capabilities. It does inference in parallel. it doesn't have reasoning. It's a smaller model, than the ones we use for Computer Use. and so those capabilities make it really fast.Dots and Delegating Work to a Cloud ComputerSwyx [00:02:07]: Yeah.Ari Weinstein [00:02:07]: They also make it a little bit less good at doing, like, long horizon, sort of sophisticated tasks. And so I think I would say it's still an open area of research for how we, like, bring those approaches together. But, yeah, I'm really excited to see what people build with the Decisions API.Vibhu [00:02:24]: One of the interesting things is Dots now have attached personal computers.Ari Weinstein [00:02:28]: Yeah.Vibhu [00:02:28]: So it seems like they're very much more persistent. You've been using them for a while. How should people push the bounds? Like, what should people aim for? What should they try? Personally, right now I use it for a lot of customer service. LikeAri Weinstein [00:02:41]: CoolVibhu [00:02:41]: “Oh, this was wrong. I don't wanna sign in. I don't wanna authenticate.” Find whatever and just get it fixed.Ari Weinstein [00:02:45]: Yeah.Vibhu [00:02:46]: How should we push further? What should people try?Ari Weinstein [00:02:50]: Dots Are a really cool product because each Dot has access to its own Linux virtual computer in the cloud, which is different from our other products. you know, traditionally, we've have access to a browser in the cloud, or it has access to your own computer, but now you get your own entire Linux computer in the cloud. And so it can run full desktop applications, and it can also use a web browser. And so, yeah, you know, I think the powerful thing about Computer Use and the reason why I think it's so, exciting is because it makes it so that the agent can do anything you as a, as a person can do, because all the software in the world was designed for humans, and now agents can use that same software, and you can delegate to the agent. So, yeah, like, anything that you would do on a computer, you can ask a Dot to do. Yeah, I think what particularly is useful is gonna really depend on who the end user is and what- what's valuable in their life. but yeah, I would just start by thinking about, like, one of the things that you spend time on and how could you delegate those to an agent.Swyx [00:03:47]: Yeah, a lot of flight booking and shopping and honestly even, like, playing a game or whatever, right?Ari Weinstein [00:03:52]: Totally.Swyx [00:03:52]: Yeah.Ari Weinstein [00:03:53]: Yeah, I don't know. For me, something I did recently, I've been working on. I've, subscribed to a meal prep service ‘cause I was trying to, like, eat healthy, you know? And I really like this meal prep service I found because it lets me customize the meals I order to, like, a high degree of granularity. So I can say, like, “I want this many grams of chicken and this many grams of rice.” but it was so complicated. It took me two hours to do an order, and I found that I could ask Computer Use to do it for me, and it did it in 15 minutes. so I actually saved two hours. it both did it eight times faster than I could, and it saved me two hours on GPT-6.1 Sol.Swyx [00:04:32]: Yeah.Ari Weinstein [00:04:32]: So those are the kinds of tasks that I feel like, are really powerful.Swyx [00:04:36]: As a creator, I can tell you automatically, immediately, my number one use case is automating YouTube.Ari Weinstein [00:04:40]: Nice.Swyx [00:04:40]: Because, YouTube doesn't expose a lot of things via API.Ari Weinstein [00:04:43]: Yeah.Swyx [00:04:43]: And you have to just put it in a VM and just, like, run it, for, like, let's say, let's say their AB testing feature or making community posts. None of this is available by API ‘cause they hate developers.Swyx [00:04:53]: Anyway, so,Ari Weinstein [00:04:55]: I've heard that from our developer experience team too. They use it with YouTube a lot. Yeah. It's really awesome.Swyx [00:04:59]: So I wanna draw for, you know. let's say, I wanna get a little bit spicy. One of our, the leading AI podcasts, our friends, is famous for saying that Computer Use hasn't advanced in the last two years.How Computer Use Has Changed in the Last YearAri Weinstein [00:05:12]: Yeah.Swyx [00:05:13]: Which is a very interesting statement, and I think you're one of the best people in the world to talk about this, like, how have things have progressed, right?Ari Weinstein [00:05:20]: Yeah. You know, they said that a few months ago, I think, and I hope they have a different perspective now because Computer Use is, like, 180 degrees different than it was.Swyx [00:05:26]: He's a, he's a tough guy to impress.Ari Weinstein [00:05:27]: Yeah, okay. well, we're working on it.Swyx [00:05:30]: But, you know, you worked on. You've, like, basically spent your whole career working on, like, some kind of computer automation, right?Ari Weinstein [00:05:34]: Yeah.Swyx [00:05:34]: Like shortcutsAri Weinstein [00:05:35]: YeahSwyx [00:05:35]: At Apple, and then Sky, and then, and then joining OpenAI. Can you draw, like, what your through line is for, like, what is driving you and what- you, what wasn't possible back then maybeAri Weinstein [00:05:47]: Yeah.Swyx [00:05:48]: And, like, what your sort of milestones were.Vibhu [00:05:49]: I guess to add on to that as a follow-up question, what's the major change from using Codex Computer Use from, like, last weekAri Weinstein [00:05:57]: YeahVibhu [00:05:57]: Through to today? Is it model? Is it dots? Is it harness? So all the history plus what really just changed in today's announcements?Ari Weinstein [00:06:04]: Yeah. On the through line, I guess I've always been excited about automation and helping people automate tasks because then you can, like, save time in your life and focus on things that are more important to you than, like, operating a computer very intricately. And so, yeah, that was why we worked on some of those products. I was at Apple before. we made a company called Sky. we ended up joining OpenAI, which is really exciting. and I think something that wasSwyx [00:06:27]: And almost like you have to hack around Apple until Apple was like, “Fine, like, we'll just hire you and you can just work on the inside,” right? Like.Ari Weinstein [00:06:35]: It was, it was a cool place to get to work. what was really interesting looking back at Sky is we were, we were working on Computer Use there as well, and the models were so much less capable. And now the models, just in the last one year, have become extraordinarily capable at Computer Use. I think the biggest delta that I see is before they could, like, reliably start tasks, but then they would run into problems, and now they're really good at debugging. They're really good at trying again, introspecting what is and isn't working. and I think we've also brought the Computer Use the Computer Use field itself has moved forward. I think we're using more techniques. now Computer Use, often writes code. So if you actually look at it in Codex and you expand the tool calls manually, you can see that it's not just doing one action at a time. It's actually writing JavaScript code that it executes, that the computer executes to perform sometimes many actions at once, which is a great, you know, speed up and great capability. We use more accessibility, sort of multimodal interfaces. So, the model may use screenshots, it may use accessibility, it may use Playwright. it can use a lot of different mechanisms, based on the task at hand. and then, yeah, the model acceleration has been, has been just amazing. So, yeah, what's different today? I think we're making computers better all the time, so I think just, like, one day's difference, is probably a little bit less consequential than, like, even the past month or the past two months. but, yeah, I think the Computer Use in Dot is really exciting as well as, the new model that we came out with.Measuring Computer Use and Improving the HarnessVibhu [00:08:03]: On the keynote, Tejal was mentioning 7x improvements in Computer Use speed, a lot better on a few benchmarks. How do you guys think about measuring it? Computer Use is one of those things where, as you say, you know, it's improvements over time.Ari Weinstein [00:08:20]: Yeah.Vibhu [00:08:20]: Is it harness? Is it model? Is it post-training?Ari Weinstein [00:08:22]: Right.Vibhu [00:08:22]: How do you guys look at it internally about measuring how good it is, and what were the changes with the new model?Ari Weinstein [00:08:29]: We actually have a bunch of different ways of measuring it, some of which are on different permutations and configurations of the harness. It's a bit of a complicated story because, you know, our production products have, you know, some more safety checks, and, you know, those are configured differently based on the needs of the, of the task at hand. So there's a lot of ways to measure it, but I think regardless of how we measure it, we find pretty consistent gains. and those gains are, sometimes in the harness and sometimes in the model. and yeah, I was really excited by this result that GPT-6.1 is even more cost-effective for Computer Use than its baseline cost improvement as compared to Astra. It's, like, really cool to see.Swyx [00:09:10]: Yeah. I mean, one of the visuals I really liked from the livestream was that, you're sort of improving the Pareto frontier of, your, curve, and there was a lot of talking about how you're improving it together with the harness.Ari Weinstein [00:09:24]: Yeah.Swyx [00:09:24]: Can you give some examples of aha moments that you had, whether it's on, like, model driving the harness driving the model, whatever?Ari Weinstein [00:09:32]: I don't mean to repeat myself, but I think, like, introducing more modalities has been really powerful.Swyx [00:09:36]: Okay.Ari Weinstein [00:09:36]: One more specific example of that is, in the past, I think we saw a lot of Computer Use, products had to spend a lot of time, like, scrolling, you know? So it would, like, take a screenshot. It would try to do something. It would be like, “Oh, I gotta, like, scroll down to the next page of results,” and then it would take a screenshot, and then it would try to do something. It would scroll down again. And so I think, with accessibility and other. and, direct access to the DOM and other things like that, now the language model can actually see, like, an entire page or an entire application. It can write code that can do multiple steps at once. And so I think those have been probably the biggest single aha moments. There's, like, a lot of tiny ones that are less exciting in comparison, but actually we do find also that a lot of speed improvements are driven by, like, a lot of little paper cuts that we gotta go in and introspect.App Shots, Accessibility, and Better Computer ContextSwyx [00:10:21]: Yeah. A lot of really hard engineering.Ari Weinstein [00:10:23]: Yeah.Swyx [00:10:23]: I mean, app shots in general, right? Like, I think people don't quite get the difference if. because there's, like, a nice visual in Codex when itAri Weinstein [00:10:30]: YeahSwyx [00:10:30]: When you take an app shot, but they don't maybe they get the difference that, you are able to actually drive each button and you have the, you have each text, in a very optimal representation.Ari Weinstein [00:10:40]: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. It's kind of fun actually. If you wanna be, like, really nerdy about it, you can go into Codex, take an app shot by hitting the two command keys. So you grab the content from whatever app you're working with, bring it into the, Codex or ChatGPT chat. And then the. if you click on the attachment and you click on this, like, little tiny button in the top right, you can see the raw text and you see the raw accessibility representation. And yeah, we've put a lot of work into, puttingSwyx [00:11:04]: Just dumping everything out. Yeah.Ari Weinstein [00:11:05]: Dumping it out, but also making it token-efficient, doing it efficiently. There's, like, a bit of an art to it. And, you know, it turns out that the same technology that was invented for humans, you know, who maybe have accessibility needs, who wanna use a screen reader technology, that technology is really helpful for them to be able to use computers. It's also really helpful for LLMs to be able to use computers. So that's been, like, really fun to get to work on.Vibhu [00:11:27]: For context, I feel like a lot of people don't understand app shots. They don't even know it's a feature.Ari Weinstein [00:11:30]: Yeah.Vibhu [00:11:31]: It's when you double hit command, it pulls in what looks like a screenshotAri Weinstein [00:11:34]: RightVibhu [00:11:34]: And you're like, “Oh, why have I opened up just a screenshot and thrown it in?” No, it's actually pulling all the metadata, all the code, everything.Ari Weinstein [00:11:40]: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So it's like, you know, if you take a screenshot of a webpage that has a link- The screenshot doesn't include where the link goes. It doesn't include, you know, maybe you take a screenshot of your calendar, the ca- event ti- titles are truncated, you know? But when you take an app shot, it gives, like, the language model, like, full context about everything and, that lets it, just sort of, like, do much more.Swyx [00:12:02]: Yeah. For those who wanna see more, Jason Liu, I invited him to do a full workshop on this, at AI Engineer.Ari Weinstein [00:12:07]: Amazing.Swyx [00:12:08]: Did a great job.Vibhu [00:12:09]: I have a broader vision questionToward Superhuman Computer UseAri Weinstein [00:12:11]: YeahVibhu [00:12:11]: On Computer Use agents. So your example of take a screenshot, scroll page, take a screenshot is where we were.Ari Weinstein [00:12:17]: Right.Vibhu [00:12:17]: Today, they can automate a lot. what are the bottlenecks? Is it models? Is it harnesses? What. Where do you see it going in, like, two years? Do you see it just running for hours? How do we get there? Any predictions on where Computer Use goes?Ari Weinstein [00:12:32]: Yeah. I mean, I think what's really crazy that I think, You know, the team's accomplished over the past couple of months is that now Computer Use is, like, faster at accomplishing tasks than, like, the average human probably in most cases. and I think that the next frontier is to have Computer Use be, like, literally superhuman in its performance where it actually is as fast or faster at using software than, like, expert Computer Users like us. and I think that'll be really consequential and exciting when that happens because I think we'll be able to all of a sudden build products, that, provide just much more real-time experiences. And I think it'll also. lowering the barrier to entry of, or the activation energy, I suppose, of using Computer Use I think will make us start to default to doing certain things in agents that we've become accustomed to doing manually. And I think that's exciting also ‘cause it'll save us a ton of time. and I think there's a, you know, there are a lot of different little paper cuts and bottlenecks that are sort of standing in the way of that. I think that there's, yeah, there's things on the model side, there's things on the inference side, there's things on the harness side, there's things in the, in the representation. You know, we find that as Computer Use gets faster, we're increasingly bottlenecked by just, like, the speed of doing an operation. Like, for example, you know, a non-trivial amount of time in our benchmarks of Computer Use tasks is actually, like, let's say you're automating a task on doordash.com. Like, a lot of the time is actually waiting for doordash.com itself to load, you know?Swyx [00:14:04]: Yeah, then you just write a wait and then you execute the wait.Ari Weinstein [00:14:07]: Yeah, totally. And you wanna get. Yeah, actually, it's actually really important that you get that de- like, you want as little delay as possible between when it finally finishes loading and when you go andSwyx [00:14:16]: YeahAri Weinstein [00:14:16]: Trigger the LLM to do the next action, which is actually- itself a statistical science.Swyx [00:14:20]: Like an event-driven way maybe to do that.Ari Weinstein [00:14:22]: When possible, you want it to be event-driven.Swyx [00:14:24]: JavaScript has some load events.Ari Weinstein [00:14:25]: And JavaScript has load events for. or the web browser has load events for web navigation, but there's other types of events that actually really can't be event-driven. So there's a lot of complexityVibhu [00:14:34]: The one that comes to mind is, like, chatting with customer service.Ari Weinstein [00:14:37]: Yeah.Vibhu [00:14:37]: Replies could take 30 seconds, could take three minutes.Ari Weinstein [00:14:39]: Oh, right.Swyx [00:14:41]: I have dealt with so many bots with Codex. it's great, but I also wonder if the other side knows that they're talking to a bot ‘cause I'm, like, answering in complete sentences. Like, I'm capitalized correctly.Ari Weinstein [00:14:50]: That's hilarious.Swyx [00:14:51]: Like, I'm giving full num- full reference numbers and everything. Like, it's too. it's clearly too good. I don't care. Like Like, I'm just, like, trying to get my support case.Vibhu [00:14:58]: I've prompted it to, like, you know, “Don't pretend you're a bot. Be very annoyed human.”Vibhu [00:15:02]: Short one-liners, likeSwyx [00:15:04]: YeahVibhu [00:15:04]: Push it, do all this. I also tell it, “While you're waiting for responses, like, use subagents to research better ways to figure out what we need.”Ari Weinstein [00:15:12]: Nice.Vibhu [00:15:12]: It's just, like, human little intervention.Ari Weinstein [00:15:14]: That's awesome. I also feel like half the time it's a bot on the other end, so now youVibhu [00:15:17]: YeahAri Weinstein [00:15:17]: Got the bots talking to each other.Swyx [00:15:18]: Yeah. I will also say, you know, like, you know, one milestone of Computer Use that we are, we're at now is, you know, three, four years ago, we were scared of hooking up LLMs to the, to the web and toAri Weinstein [00:15:31]: YeahSwyx [00:15:31]: To our, to our devices. And now I'm having it configure DNS for me.Ari Weinstein [00:15:35]: Wow.Swyx [00:15:36]: I'm having it pay my bills, and, like, really, like, tens of thousands of dollars of, like, stuff I'm just sending it over and yoloing with Computer Use and, like, you know, what's the, what's the worst thing that can happen?Swyx [00:15:48]: So that- that's all, that's all really good.Building Safely With Computer Use in the Agents APIAri Weinstein [00:15:50]: Yeah.Swyx [00:15:50]: I think now that you've. you know, obviously, you also have to dogfood your own products and all these things. Now that you've sort of released this in API, what are some pitfalls or tips that you wanna tell developers, because they're about to, I guess, encounter all this, firsthand?Ari Weinstein [00:16:03]: First of all, I'm just really excited that we brought Computer Use into the Agents API. I think this is, really great because obviously a lot of developers are building applications that wanna be able to work with third-party websites and services. And so Computer Use has this universality to it. It can work with anything. So now all of a sudden, developers can build using the same Computer Use implementation that we're building on. I think there's great work to be done if you wanna build your own Computer Use harness, but it's hard. And also, we train our models on our Computer Use harness, so there is, an advantage to using the one that's in distribution for the model. There actually might be a speed and cost and accuracy advantage. So I think it's really great for people to get to build on top of that. And, yeah, you know, I think kind of to the point that you were making, like, I think we're all sort of still in the process and maybe, like, some of us are ahead of many people in the world of, like, getting comfortable with this technology and trusting it. And so I think it's incumbent on us to, sort of build that trust over time by making sure we're building things that are reliable, by building, the right kinds of safety checks, by asking for the user's consent before doing something consequential like making a payment, by, asking, you know, maybe depending on the application, making sure you're only letting it access the websites or applications that it actually needs for the task. So that's, I think, something important to think about. but yeah, I'd really encourage people to try the new Agents API, build all kinds of cool stuff on it. We'd love to hear your feed- feedback if, you know, depending on how it goes.Vibhu [00:17:31]: Have you seen any changes in the way it affects dev workflows? So one of the things with dots is, you know, you're seeing it in Slack.Ari Weinstein [00:17:38]: Yeah.Vibhu [00:17:38]: You're seeing people use voice and build. the example Roman showed of change this app and send me screenshots along the way and all this.Computer Use for Testing and Closing the Software LoopAri Weinstein [00:17:46]: Yeah.Vibhu [00:17:46]: Is anything that you're seeing there in adoption about how people are using Computer Use for coding workflows? Any tips people should take from that?Ari Weinstein [00:17:55]: One of my favorite use cases for Computer Use actually, and one that we see a lot in the wild, is Computer Use letting the agent- actually test the software that the agent has built, which is far more consequential than it sounds. Because traditionally, you know, you'd build something in Codex and then the-- and the Codex builds it for you, and then you have to test it, and you are now like QA for the agent, right? So with Computer Use, you can complete the develop-- the software development life cycle, where, the agent can build software, it can test it. So I have a lot of fun, you know, building stuff, having the agent test it. By the time it comes to me, it's already working. I have, extra fun because sometimes I'm, like, developing Computer Use itself, and so now I have a Computer Use agent that's using my Computer Use agent that's using something else. so yeah, I really, I really think this is a super powerful class of use case.Swyx [00:18:44]: I have a visual play test skill that I've developed that, really catches a lot of design issues,Ari Weinstein [00:18:49]: NiceSwyx [00:18:50]: That, you know, normally when you just look at code, you wouldn't really pick it up. it's also really good for cloning apps, though. If you're using a shitty SaaS and you wanna kill the SaaS You just clone it screen by screen by screen. and Obviously, Computer Use can completely drive everything, take screenshots, note it down, and then clone everything with Codex.Ari Weinstein [00:19:06]: That's really cool.Swyx [00:19:06]: But yeah, thanks for all your progress. I think, that isAri Weinstein [00:19:08]: AbsolutelySwyx [00:19:09]: Our time.Nikunj Handa: What's New in the OpenAI APIAri Weinstein [00:19:10]: Yeah.Swyx [00:19:10]: This is not the last that we're gonna talk.Ari Weinstein [00:19:12]: Yeah, cool. This has been really fun. Thank you guys for having me.Swyx [00:19:14]: All right.Vibhu [00:19:14]: All right. Okay, we're a strict cutoff. We're just gonna dive right in.Nikunj Handa [00:19:17]: Let's do it, yeah.Vibhu [00:19:19]: Okay, so, Nikunj, we're very excited to have you. You shipped a lot on the API side, like we justNikunj Handa [00:19:25]: YeahVibhu [00:19:25]: Talked about with Ari. You can now build with Computer Use agents. Anything you wanna highlight, the API side of changes, and introduce yourself a little and what you do?Nikunj Handa [00:19:34]: Yeah, for sure. My name is Nikunj. I lead product for the API team. Been here for roughly three years. been working on launching models. I feel like that's just been, like, a thing, constant thing throughout my time, here at OpenAI. And, with every new model, we try to, like, basically work super closely with the post-training team, the research team, to figure out what's new in it. and then we, like, expose those capabilities in the API. so that's, like, the basic way of putting it. and if you just look at, everything that's new with GPT-6, the cool new capabilities that we launched were, firstly, async function calling. so what you see with, like a lot of the things that you're seeing in, like, Codex and Dots and everything is that tool calls take so long that you don't have to, like, pause the model's execution while, the tool is running. So you could just, like, kick off a tool call, keep running, keep reasoning, and then check back in. so we launched async tool calling. We launched, like, mid-turn steering, so now you can, like, inject messages while the model is reasoning, in the middle. so as your tool call finishes, you can put in that instructions.Async Tool Calls, Mid-Turn Steering, and WebSocketsSwyx [00:20:43]: And that's also partially a model alignment capability, right?Nikunj Handa [00:20:46]: Yeah.Swyx [00:20:46]: Like, they have to train in the ability to train.Nikunj Handa [00:20:48]: Exactly, yeah. AndVibhu [00:20:49]: I feel like we've had it in the app. You could always, as it's reasoning, you could steer.Nikunj Handa [00:20:54]: Yes.Vibhu [00:20:54]: It wasn't the best. It's gotten much better.Nikunj Handa [00:20:57]: Yeah.Vibhu [00:20:57]: Excited to see how it does this in versionNikunj Handa [00:20:58]: Yeah, and I like our mainVibhu [00:20:59]: And nowNikunj Handa [00:21:00]: Goal in, our main goal in the API is to, like, put things in the API once it's trained into the harness. And so we kinda wait for that moment until it's good enough. And a lot of that is, like, actually being powered by WebSockets, which we launched, a few, I wanna say months ago. And so WebSockets just opens this, like, whole bidirectional, like, communication thing with the model. This is not, the GPT Life thing. I'm just talking about GPT-6. and you can do all these, like, async tool calling, async reasoning, injecting messages. It's a really fun API to work on. I think, like, really enjoying.Swyx [00:21:33]: Yeah. This is why we are the engineering podcast, because we get to talk about WebSockets.UltraFast and the Inference StackNikunj Handa [00:21:36]: Yeah.Swyx [00:21:37]: This also pairs very well with UltraFast, right?Nikunj Handa [00:21:39]: Oh, yeah.Swyx [00:21:39]: Like, that is now, like, I think for the first time ever available in the API.Nikunj Handa [00:21:43]: Yes.Swyx [00:21:43]: Which is, which is basically the theoretical fastest speed you can ever get, Frontier of Intelligence.Nikunj Handa [00:21:49]: Yeah. It's been so exciting to work on that project. I think, before I go into the API, the most fun part of, UltraFast has been just watching the inference team cook with Astra. Like, they're just, like, constantly having these, like, Codex agents running, trying to, like, squeeze out more performance. And, I would say, like, at least for a couple of months, a lot of it was focused on efficiency and driving the cost down, which is how we, like, were able to cut the Luna price by, like, 80%. It was, like, a lot of that was driven by, like, all the inference improvements they landed. And then now they've, like, shifted gears towards, like, how can we make this run as fast as possible? And so UltraFast has just been, like, amazing to see on a mo- on a model like Astra. Like, to go that fast has been really cool. And yeah, WebSockets is like. actually it was like the first time we launched WebSockets, it was for GPT, 5.3 Codex Spark, which was. Can't believe we named a model that, but, you know, that's what we launched it for. And obviously, it helps so much because, like, you gotta have the tool calls. you had, like, really reduced the overhead, of going back and forth with tools. And so, WebSockets is awesome for that.Swyx [00:22:57]: Yeah. it's always cute to see, like, I have my reset usage limit, and then I have my Spark usage limit that I never use.Nikunj Handa [00:23:03]: Yeah.Swyx [00:23:04]: Like, it's there if I want it.Nikunj Handa [00:23:05]: I think it's gone finally.Swyx [00:23:06]: It's gone. It's gone, yeah.Nikunj Handa [00:23:07]: I know it's gone, so.Swyx [00:23:08]: Yeah. you're slowly killing off all the, you know, theNikunj Handa [00:23:11]: The old ones, yeah.Swyx [00:23:11]: Oldies.Vibhu [00:23:11]: This is a great week. I mean, it was the first time we had Frontier Intelligence at extreme speeds.Nikunj Handa [00:23:17]: Yeah.Vibhu [00:23:18]: People really liked it.Nikunj Handa [00:23:19]: Yeah.Vibhu [00:23:19]: SoSwyx [00:23:20]: YeahVibhu [00:23:20]: First time it comes back.Swyx [00:23:21]: Yeah. for, 5.3 Spark is explicitly attributed to Cerebras. You guys are not confirming or denying that, UltraFast is related to Ce- Cerebras, but people are. I'll just say that people do care and, are wondering about it. And you have your own silicon as well. elephant in the room, decision models.Decisions API: OpenAI's Fast Decision ModelNikunj Handa [00:23:38]: Oh, yeah.Swyx [00:23:38]: Decisions API. We were the first podcast to do a big Jev, deep dive with, Diogo, and I also, you know, featured him at AI Engineer. How quickly did you see Jev and go likeNikunj Handa [00:23:49]: Oh my gosh. Yeah.Nikunj Handa [00:23:50]: Yeah. Firstly, like, huge props to Diogo and, like, the Jev team for, like, really inspiring theSwyx [00:23:55]: YesNikunj Handa [00:23:55]: Like, whole segment in the market. Like, obviously Jev comes out, everyone's, like, losing their minds over it. Our users are, like, hitting us up. But also, like, our internal teams are like, “We need, like, a much faster classification system.” We can. I don't wanna, like, get ahead of some of the dots features that are gonna comeSwyx [00:24:16]: WhooNikunj Handa [00:24:16]: But you're gonna see, like, some cool, like, really snappy, fast things built on top of the decisions API. but, you know, like, yeah. Props to Jev for, like, inspiring this whole thing. obviously a bunch of people at OpenAI get nerd sniped by that, and they're like, “How can we, like, make this work? We're not gonna, like-”Swyx [00:24:33]: Okay.Nikunj Handa [00:24:33]: “. train a new model.” ButSwyx [00:24:34]: Like, four weeks ago, this was not on the dev radar, right?Nikunj Handa [00:24:37]: No, not at all. No.Swyx [00:24:37]: Okay.Nikunj Handa [00:24:37]: This is likeSwyx [00:24:38]: WowNikunj Handa [00:24:38]: Jev-inspired and, likeSwyx [00:24:40]: I think you are officially the first one to your lab to, like, clone and, adopt this.Nikunj Handa [00:24:44]: Yeah. Yeah. I feel like, OpenAI has such a strong, like, hacker culture and, like, people are just, like, they get excited about things. And so, guy from inference, this one awesome guy from, the infra team are like, “ this is amazing. We're gonna, like, hack on it.” They build a prototype, it, like, works, and now we- we are just, like, hill climbing on latency and trying to make this as fast as possible, and we wanna, like, launch it in the coming days. so as soon as we hit our, like, latency target, we'll try to get this out.Vibhu [00:25:13]: It's interesting. At the same time of hacker culture, you also, as Sam said, like 99%, one of the most reliable APIs withNikunj Handa [00:25:20]: Mm-hmmVibhu [00:25:20]: I think probably the most usage, which is your team directly. how should people see decisions API? I feel like a lot of people saw Jev, heard the buzz, haven't built with it. You're making it very mainstream.What Decision Models Are Good ForNikunj Handa [00:25:32]: Mm-hmm.Vibhu [00:25:33]: What should people see it as? How should they use it?Nikunj Handa [00:25:36]: Yeah. I think the main use cases we've seen is, like, really fast classification. all the Computer Use demos have been amazing and really cool. I think there will be limitations, of course, in terms of, you know, having Astra, like, write, like, a JavaScript-like script to control your computer, versus having Luna pick, like, one action at a time. I think, it's not gonna be at the same intelligence level, but, like, maybe there's some Computer Use tasks that this is good enough for. So excited to see that come through. the other cool prototype I've seen internally is people hooking it up with GPT Live. So GPT Live is like, you know, our bidirectional, like, real-time,Swyx [00:26:14]: VoicingNikunj Handa [00:26:14]: A- API. And, it's built on this, like, model of front-end models and back-end models. So GPT Live is this, likeSwyx [00:26:20]: Think or talkerNikunj Handa [00:26:21]: Super fast. Yeah, think or, talker thing. So GPT Live is the talker, super fast, really good at delegation, and you have something like Astra sitting at the ba- at the back. But tool calling has always felt, like, really slow in GPT Live. and so people have been, like, putting together these, like, tool calling demos of GPT Live controlling a computer, and it just feels like so much more snappy and natural. So I'm, like, kinda excited to see, like, what people do with Live and with Luna on decisions API. so that'll be pretty exciting. Yeah.Swyx [00:26:55]: So I wanna iron this out for people, especially from the product side, because a lot of people have been putting out Jev clones. There's been about 100 in the last two weeks.What Makes a Decision Model DifferentNikunj Handa [00:27:01]: Oh, really? That's amazing.Vibhu [00:27:03]: The first couple days.Swyx [00:27:04]: But like, it. Like, they can clone a Jev API, which is honestly structured outputsNikunj Handa [00:27:09]: YeahSwyx [00:27:09]: Which OpenAI was first to.Nikunj Handa [00:27:10]: Yeah.Swyx [00:27:11]: Right? So, like, I think let's iron out for people what is a decision model, as far asNikunj Handa [00:27:16]: YeahSwyx [00:27:17]: As far as, like, what is important? It is not just latency. It's not just structured output, right? Because I could just have Luna as it'- The decision model is priced the same as Luna, right?Nikunj Handa [00:27:26]: Mm-hmm.Swyx [00:27:27]: Have turned off reasoning and then have structured output. Do I have a Jev? you know, no, right? And that's theNikunj Handa [00:27:33]: YeahSwyx [00:27:33]: That's the realVibhu [00:27:34]: There's a confidence there.Swyx [00:27:35]: Yeah.Nikunj Handa [00:27:36]: Yeah, totally. I think, the way that. So we haven't trained, like, a new model for this.Swyx [00:27:40]: Yeah.Nikunj Handa [00:27:40]: We're, like, building this purely on top of the same Luna weights that we have.Swyx [00:27:44]: Oh.Nikunj Handa [00:27:44]: So yeah. This is, like, really just Luna. And, on top of that, what you're doing is you're constraining. So, like, structured output's a big part of it. you're really optimizing the inference stack to, like, get very fast on TTFD. And because you can have multiple questions, what you do is, like, you basically run those in parallel,Swyx [00:28:05]: As a batch.Nikunj Handa [00:28:06]: Yeah. You run those in the-- as a batch. you-- All sorts of, like, inference techniques people are working on to try to make it as fast as possible. But I'd say, like, at least our implementation of it at the start and this first version is, like, zero-shotting this on top of Luna, to see how it goes. And obviously, you wanna, like, put it out there. Like, this is OpenAI's, like, classic iterative deployment thing. Put it out there, see what people think, and then, like, we'll make more model improvements, as needed. so yeah. That's, the decisions API.Swyx [00:28:38]: Yeah. And, obviously as a benefit, you have vision. They don't have vision, right?Nikunj Handa [00:28:42]: That's true.Swyx [00:28:42]: Obviously, Jev's comes withNikunj Handa [00:28:43]: Yeah. Like, we get it for free with Luna. Yeah.Swyx [00:28:45]: Yeah. I do think that, like, you know, some of the innovations, it sounds like, it's still to come if it's still the same Luna weights, which is, like, the confidence stuff, like, the in calibration is something that we've talked about on the podcast with, benchmarking calibration. ‘Cause basically, the whole point is that RLHF kind of collapses you towards what you want to hear.Calibration, Architecture, and the Open Research QuestionsNikunj Handa [00:29:03]: Yeah.Swyx [00:29:03]: But, like, not actually, like, what the amount of confidence is.Nikunj Handa [00:29:06]: Yeah. Yeah, totally. I'm eager to see how it pans out. Maybe there's, like, gonna be. These are gonna be, like, the key areas where we may have to, like, hill climbSwyx [00:29:15]: YeahNikunj Handa [00:29:15]: With the, with the future model release. But, yeah.Swyx [00:29:18]: And then architecture-wise, the other thing that's in the debate, obviously, you-- Nobody knows because Jev doesn't talk about it, but the two speculations are, one, maybe diffusion model instead of autoregressive.Nikunj Handa [00:29:28]: Mm-hmm.Swyx [00:29:29]: But you are able to achieve the parallel, generation in your way. And then the other one is some mech interp type thingNikunj Handa [00:29:37]: Mm-hmmSwyx [00:29:37]: That you're, like, analyzing the activations and then just outputtingNikunj Handa [00:29:40]: That would be coolSwyx [00:29:41]: The weights.Nikunj Handa [00:29:42]: Yeah.Swyx [00:29:42]: Which, like, you guys have all done the research on this. People have speculated.Vibhu [00:29:45]: There have been demos onSwyx [00:29:46]: YeahVibhu [00:29:46]: Both of these as well. I think Gemini shared a Gemini diffusion, Gemma diffusion on a Jev-style output.Nikunj Handa [00:29:53]: Oh, sick.Vibhu [00:29:53]: And, interp people have also, you know, pulled out interp from a middle layer, but this is all speculation.Swyx [00:29:59]: It's just like, what are you trying to aim for, right? Because you can achieve the API. Everyone can achieve the API. It's actually pretty trivial. But, like, then there's the speed, then there's the accuracy, then there's the other calibration features.Nikunj Handa [00:30:11]: Mm-hmm.Swyx [00:30:11]: I don't know what else.Nikunj Handa [00:30:13]: Yeah. Yeah. No, totally. It's so cool that this, like, whole space has been kicked off now and people are gonna do so much cool stuff and everyone's gonna learn from each other. And, yeah, I'm excited about it.What Developers Should Build NextVibhu [00:30:24]: I feel like being on the platform team, a lot of your job is to empower builders.Nikunj Handa [00:30:27]: Mm-hmm.Vibhu [00:30:28]: What do you think people should build with decisions API and also Computer Use agents? Any stuff that you've- been building with internally that you think really opens up after the new change?Nikunj Handa [00:30:39]: Yeah. okay, let's think. decisions API, use cases internally have been pretty obvious. Like, the user ops team was, like, jumping on it. We were like, “We gotta classify all of our support tickets.” what else came up? obviously, there were, like, the really cool GPT Live demos. I'm sure, like, the Codex app team might, like, pick this up and try to do something cool with it. So, you know, like, this whole thing started, like, a week ago, so it's, like, very early andSwyx [00:31:06]: Oh, one week.Nikunj Handa [00:31:07]: We're excited. Yeah. Yeah, pretty much.Vibhu [00:31:08]: There was a big push in, evals, LLM as a judge having really low latency there.Nikunj Handa [00:31:13]: Right. Yeah. That'll be interesting to see. and then, with the Agents API, we have-- we're basically, like, having a bunch of first-party products, like, at OpenAI built fully on top of it. we've had the Codex security stuff that just went out that's fully built on top of, the Agents API. We have, sort of the-- we- we are having, like, a meetings type of thing launching today.Agents API and OpenAI's First-Party ProductsSwyx [00:31:40]: Mm-hmm.Nikunj Handa [00:31:40]: I think there was, like, a demo. do you remember, like, the plugin extensions when Sam was showing it? There was, like, a demo for, like, you're in a calendar, you can sort of, like, have your meeting notesSwyx [00:31:51]: Like, drop into a singleNikunj Handa [00:31:52]: Flow into like your spaceSwyx [00:31:52]: Like, Google Docs type thing.Nikunj Handa [00:31:53]: Yeah.Swyx [00:31:54]: Right?Nikunj Handa [00:31:54]: And so the-- all of that stuff is, like, fully built on top of, the Agents API. and yeah, I'm, like, just excited to see. Like, we're just getting this out, and let's see what people build on top of it.Vibhu [00:32:04]: I think you showed it off very well. The whole edit spaces, pages, collaborate, add in your dot. Like, that's a lot, soNikunj Handa [00:32:12]: YeahVibhu [00:32:12]: There's a lot of inspiration people can go to.Nikunj Handa [00:32:14]: Yeah. All possible with Astra, you know. Like, thing- things just move so fast now. LikeSwyx [00:32:19]: YeahNikunj Handa [00:32:19]: People go from idea to execution so quickly, it's amazing.Swyx [00:32:23]: Is there something that you want, people to focus on to give you feedback? Like, what-- like, you know, maybe you're just putting this out there and you want-- and there's, like, a fork in the road and you want developers to help you decide.Responses API Performance and Long-Lived CachingNikunj Handa [00:32:35]: So I think Agents API and decisions API, they are like, these are our newest products. Would love, like, any and all feedback on that to figure out where to take them. I think, over here, we're, like, very open on Responses API, which is sort of like our workhorse over here. like, really focused on performance right now, and the performance comes in, like, two main ways. first is just, like, latency. We've been, like, rewriting the whole Responses API stack to, like, make it as fast as possible from a TTFT perspective, DVD perspective. So there's like-- that, like, continues to be, like, a main area of focus for us. The second thing we've been trying to do is, like, really go deep on caching, particularly with these, like, personal agents that are, you know, like, basically, like, a single thread that just goes on and on forever. We've been, trying to, like, really up our game on caching. We provide now guarantees of, like, cache hits within, like, 30 minutes. We're actually, like, we-- for one of our users, we just launched, like, a much longer cache window. So we have, like, a 12-hour caching guarantee, that we offer so that you have, like, guaranteed cache hits forSwyx [00:33:40]: Is that a public API?Nikunj Handa [00:33:42]: Not yet. That's in preview.Nikunj Handa [00:33:43]: We're gonna, like, try to get that out to everyone as soon as possible. But, like, just pay a little bit more for the cache write, and we, like, guarantee, like, cache reads for, like, a much longer period. So even if, like, your instinct thread, for example, like, you just, like, do something on it and then come back to it, like, three to four hours later, you- you're still getting the caching performance out of it. And launchedVibhu [00:34:04]: And you cut the cost there quite a bit too, right, with the new model?Nikunj Handa [00:34:07]: Oh, yeah. That's right.Vibhu [00:34:08]: Like, 25% cheaper, soNikunj Handa [00:34:08]: Yeah, with, like, driving down cache reads, yeah.Cache Pre-Warming and Cost-Efficient Agent ThreadsVibhu [00:34:10]: For builders, they should implementNikunj Handa [00:34:13]: YeahVibhu [00:34:13]: Because it's significantly cheaper.Nikunj Handa [00:34:14]: Yeah. Yeah. Just, like, building your apps with, like, to be very cache aware and sort of, like, use our prompt diagnostics or cache diagnostics tool to figure out, like, where things are dropping off. And, so the caching part is, like, really important. yeah, I also wanted to talk about pre-warming. We have that in the API now. So, like, if you know that, “Hey, I'm gonna get a cache,” like-- sorry, “I'm gonna get this prompt. I just wanna, like, pre-warm the cache, pay, like, the cache write fee right now, and then, like, have it sort of ready to go for the next 30 minutes for whenever.”Swyx [00:34:49]: And it can spawn many instances of that thread.Nikunj Handa [00:34:51]: Exactly, yeah.Swyx [00:34:52]: Yeah.Nikunj Handa [00:34:52]: You can just keep going and haveSwyx [00:34:54]: Yeah, just keep messing with the prompt thereNikunj Handa [00:34:55]: Tons and tons of that. and so, yeah, like, I'm very excited about getting feedback on, like, the low-level performance things that we can keep making Responses API the most performant and reliable way to, like, build on top of an LLM. And then you basically have our, like, new products where I'm just looking for, like, any and all feedback.Swyx [00:35:15]: Yeah, just use it, right?Nikunj Handa [00:35:16]: So yeah, just useSwyx [00:35:16]: Tell us what toNikunj Handa [00:35:17]: Yeah. Define our roadmap for us, please. So yeah.Swyx [00:35:20]: I think for me, the caching thing, great, right? Like, obviously very needed. But at the end of the day, you're still bumping up against a million-token contextCompaction and Managing Million-Token ContextsNikunj Handa [00:35:28]: Mm-hmmSwyx [00:35:28]: And that's probably not gonna change for the foreseeable future.Nikunj Handa [00:35:31]: Mm-hmm.Swyx [00:35:31]: Like, you still need good compression.Nikunj Handa [00:35:33]: Yeah.Swyx [00:35:33]: What is the best practice there?Nikunj Handa [00:35:34]: Yeah. Yeah, totally. so firstly, OpenAI has its own, like, proprietary compression, compSwyx [00:35:40]: Which is inNikunj Handa [00:35:41]: Compaction.Vibhu [00:35:42]: Compaction.Swyx [00:35:42]: It's in the agents.Vibhu [00:35:43]: It's in the API.Nikunj Handa [00:35:43]: Yes.Vibhu [00:35:43]: Agents API.Nikunj Handa [00:35:44]: Yeah.Swyx [00:35:44]: You decide for us, right?Nikunj Handa [00:35:45]: Yeah, exactly. So in the Agents API, it comes built into the harness. and if you're in Responses API, there's, like, two ways of doing it. One is what we call server-side compaction, which is you basically tell Responses API that if you ever hit this threshold of tokens, just auto-compact it and, like, go back, or sorry, like, reduce the context, being used. And the second way is, like, /compact, which is, like, if you want full control. So you can, like, /compact at any timeSwyx [00:36:15]: I hear youNikunj Handa [00:36:15]: Have your own logic on when to, likeSwyx [00:36:17]: It's not AGI.Nikunj Handa [00:36:18]: It.Swyx [00:36:18]: It's not AGI.Nikunj Handa [00:36:19]: Yeah. Yeah.Swyx [00:36:20]: Yeah. But it, I meanNikunj Handa [00:36:20]: YeahSwyx [00:36:20]: It is the manual override.Nikunj Handa [00:36:21]: Yeah, it is the manual way. And like, I don't know, but a lot of the big coding agents like to do it manually. I mean, like, if you look at the Codex implementation of it in the Code- open source Codex harness, you can see that they use /compact and do it. and, there's also, like, new, by the way, new compaction techniques that we are working on. Some of them you will be able to see in the Codex harness. Like, it's already implemented in the Codex harness. And so, they're like some file-based, systems that we are, like, experimenting with. So yeah, lots of cool stuff going on around in compaction as well.Swyx [00:36:57]: Cool. we are running out of time.Nikunj Handa [00:36:59]: Okay.Swyx [00:36:59]: I think you've talked about, a lot about performance and talked a lot about, the new APIs that you're launching. Can you give us any other hints as to things that you're interested in as far as the future of the platform is concerned?Higher-Level Platform Primitives and the AI CloudNikunj Handa [00:37:13]: We're obviously like very low level. Like, I used to work at Stripe before this, and, at Stripe a lot of the game was like building these higher level primitives and products on top of like the core payments primitives. and, I'm always like curious about what the best way of doing that is in AI. And I think we've had a couple of attempts at that. We like had launched assistance API like way back in the day, and like wasn't really the right fit. We were sort of like going off with this like Agents API, and, it gives you the codex harness, but like where's like the, what's the right amount of flexibility to give in that? That's like an open question. Like how should we like have memory walls and like all of these like higher level like API objects to take away, also like to abstract away more, like storage concepts. Like this is like a whole, like, there's a whole space that I'm like very curious about figuring out how we design. I think a lot of things in AI are just have a low-level API primitive and see an example harness and go and have your coding agent implement that. But how much of that do we build into the API is like a constant question that I'm thinking about.Swyx [00:38:24]: Yeah.Nikunj Handa [00:38:24]: So I don't know if folks have thoughts on that. If anyone has ideas, it would be super interesting to hear.Swyx [00:38:30]: Yeah. The analogy I always bring back to, and we'll end there, is, you're building an AI cloud, right?Nikunj Handa [00:38:35]: Mm-hmm.Swyx [00:38:35]: Like, which is, something that, Sam said a year agoNikunj Handa [00:38:38]: Mm-hmmSwyx [00:38:38]: Where, and you're, it's almost like you're kind of doing the AWS invention and you have to do, okay, this is EC2Nikunj Handa [00:38:45]: YeahSwyx [00:38:45]: And this is S3, and this is like. But you're doing the AI-native versions of each of these.Vibhu [00:38:48]: There are a lot of analogies, so you're pre-warming caches for stuff that you know will beNikunj Handa [00:38:53]: Yeah.Vibhu [00:38:53]: And it's nice that it's all exposed to buildersClosingNikunj Handa [00:38:56]: Mm-hmmVibhu [00:38:56]: ‘cause it just opens up ways that you can build new things.Nikunj Handa [00:38:59]: Yeah, absolutely.Swyx [00:39:00]: Okay.Vibhu [00:39:00]: Awesome. WellSwyx [00:39:01]: That's everything.Nikunj Handa [00:39:01]: Thank you, guys.Vibhu [00:39:02]: Thank you.Nikunj Handa [00:39:02]: Yeah. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.latent.space/subscribe

Schopp and Bulldog have a discussion focusing on the Buffalo Sabres' upcoming season opener and the difficulty of remaining optimistic given the team's history of missed roster opportunities. They contrast the urgency of the NFL with the long NHL schedule while evaluating the young talent of division rivals like the Montreal Canadiens.

Hour One in Full

Join Ashley and Dylan as they discuss everything they've been watching, including Unabomber, Last Seen, Youth and Line of Fire. They also share their thoughts on the latest Film and TV news, including the announcement of Jon Watts as the director of the next entry in the Star Wars Skywalker Saga, and reveal their Top 3 Elderly Movie Characters. Thumbs for Trailers - The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth: https://youtu.be/RjEZaUBbUvU   -  You Can See Everything: https://youtu.be/HvW_N5p1q44   - Madden: https://youtu.be/xzh7HzLXXpk   - Ray Gunn: https://youtu.be/VL-xjzQFWsY   - Paper Tiger: https://youtu.be/MLwTyQOhBkw   Episode Timecodes 0:00 - Intro 2:55 - What's In Our Watch History? 23:26 - The Mandatory Netflix Segment 28:47 - Film and TV News 44:36 - Thumbs for Trailers 58:52 - Top 3: Elderly Movie Characters 1:02:45 - This Week, What Do You Wanna Watch? What's In Our Watch History? Last Seen Slow Horses: Season 6 Youth Line of Fire Infirmary The Mandatory Netflix Segment Unabomber Hosts: Ashley Hobley: https://bsky.app/profile/ashleyhobley.bsky.social  Dylan Blight: https://bsky.app/profile/dylan.explosionnetwork.com  Follow our Trakt: Ashley - https://trakt.tv/users/ashleyhobley   Dylan - https://trakt.tv/users/vivaladil   Music: Dylan Blight Support Us: http://explosionnetwork.com/support  What Do You Wanna Watch is the Explosion Network's premier media podcast. Join Ashley and Dylan every week to discuss all the current news in TV, film and online media. #WDYWW

Pauly G proposes on stage to his fiance as well as Bruno Mars reacting to Drake dancing with Karol G. All this, and more, covered by Geena! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of The Living Artist podcast, Preston dives into the idea of taking a more intuitive approach to your art—and your life. In a world that constantly encourages us to analyze, strategize and overthink our next move, he explores what can happen when we quiet some of that noise, pay closer attention and begin trusting the signals coming from within. Intuition isn't about abandoning thought, preparation or technique. It's about developing another creative muscle and learning when to follow what feels alive, interesting or meaningful—even when you can't completely explain why. Sometimes we just need to break free from negative thought loops and "sunk cost fallacies". This approach could help you loosen your grip, reconnect with your instincts and bring greater freedom, authenticity and possibility into both your life and creative practice. Enjoy!For more information on Preston M. Smith and his artwork, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.pmsartwork.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or follow him on Instagram at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/pmsartwork⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (social media everywhere @pmsartwork). You can also now subscribe to his YouTube channel at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/c/pmsartwork⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.If you would like to donate to the podcast to keep it going strong, you can do so here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.pmsartwork.com/podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Living Artist makes the top of the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Audible Blog's List⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ of the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Best Art Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to listen to For Artists! Check it!Thrilled to announce that ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Artwork Archive⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ just included The Living Artist on their list of the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Best Art Podcasts of 2021⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! Check it out.Excited that ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Agora Group International Fine Art⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ included The Living Artist on its list of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Best Art Podcasts To Listen To⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (coming in at #5).Huge thank you to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Feedspot⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for choosing The Living Artist for their list of the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Top 70 Art Podcasts You Must Follow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. It is a huge honor to have made this amazing list (coming in at #18) with so many other wonderful podcasts. Big thank you to Feedspot! You can check out this list and more of Feedspot at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://blog.feedspot.com/art_podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.The Living Artist makes the top of the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Best 100 Art Of Living Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Million Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.Podcast theme music: "Music by Jason Shaw on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Audionautix.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠"

Nick Wize continues the debate sparked by Graham Barton's comments about whether Bucs players or fans are more frustrated, taking a few more calls and reading listener texts before shifting to the bigger problem facing Tampa Bay. Nick argues that if the Buccaneers ultimately move on from Todd Bowles, that could finally give fans something to be excited about because he doesn't see much else creating optimism right now. Nick also examines the growing presence of opposing fans at Bucs games, arguing that winning would bring Tampa Bay fans back to the stadium just like the Lightning have built enough trust with their fan base to consistently fill the building with supporters.

“I can see myself in several of these.”If you've ever said that while trying to determine your Enneagram type, you're not alone, and it doesn't necessarily mean you're doing anything wrong.In this episode of Enneagram at Work, we're talking about why it's completely normal to relate to multiple Enneagram types and why identifying your type requires looking beyond individual traits and behaviors.Of course you can be helpful without being a Type 2. Ambitious without being a Type 3. Security-conscious without being a Type 6. Excited by new possibilities without being a Type 7. And there are probably times when you want connection, peace, autonomy, recognition, or certainty.The question isn't “Which type descriptions sound like me?”It's “Which underlying strategy do I find myself returning to most often?”We'll also look at some of the factors that can make multiple types feel familiar, including your work role, learned behaviors, resource points or arrows, Instinctual Biases, and simply being a complex human being.If you're stuck between two (or three!) Enneagram types, the goal isn't to find the description that matches everything you do. Start getting curious about why you do it.Because your Enneagram type isn't meant to explain every behavior.It helps you notice the pattern underneath them.Bring the Enneagram to Your Team: enneagrammba.comHave a request for a future episode? Drop a text here!

Cavs GM Brandon Weems joined "Baskin & Phelps" Monday from Cavs Media Day talking why he's excited about this iteration of the Cavaliers.

Everybody starts out very excited when a business is in its infancy, but after a while, doesn't it get boring? How can you sustain a business for so long? 5000bc is our community site, and it has stayed steady for over two decades. Why is this the case? If you have an information-based community, how can you create something similar? This episode is a lot about me telling my story, but hopefully it will be useful to you as you go over the next few decades. 

9.25.26, Kevin Sheehan asks callers for their reaction to the news of Jayden Daniels avoiding surgery and the injured reserved list which puts his return timeline within 4 games.

Excited for the day, but happy the week is over!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Join Da Sharpshooters Wrestling Podcast as they recap and  preview all of the wrestling shows this week had to offer. #AEWDYNAMITE #WWENXT #WWE NEWS I don't know. Why come here for news? Like go to the Sapp man or someone like that for real news. We just talking nonsense.   WWE NXT REVIEW AEW Dynamite And Collision Review

Nick is joined by Jane Mangan to discuss the latest from around the racing world. With National Stakes winner Folsom Blues out of this weekend's Middle Park, Al Shiraa's Kieran Lalor tells Nick the plan for the exciting colt. Also today, Saffie Osborne shares her delight at being one of four jockeys set to bolster the Hong Kong riding ranks this winter. Plus, Neil Channing has his say on the war of words between Paddy Power founder Stewart Kenny and Betfred boss Fred Done, while renowned broadcaster and The Verdict host Michael Felgate analyses the impact of Racing NSW boss Peter v'Landys, who stood down yesterday. Ex Jockey Club CEO-turned MD at Hampshire CCC Nevin Truesdale drops in with details of a 50km charity walk for Alzheimers at Lord's on Monday, while - at Tatts Ireland - Eva O'Neill chats to Caiomhe Doherty, whose Fornaghts Stud consigned yesterday's top lot.

Nick is joined by Jane Mangan to discuss the latest from around the racing world. With National Stakes winner Folsom Blues out of this weekend's Middle Park, Al Shiraa's Kieran Lalor tells Nick the plan for the exciting colt. Also today, Saffie Osborne shares her delight at being one of four jockeys set to bolster the Hong Kong riding ranks this winter. Plus, Neil Channing has his say on the war of words between Paddy Power founder Stewart Kenny and Betfred boss Fred Done, while renowned broadcaster and The Verdict host Michael Felgate analyses the impact of Racing NSW boss Peter v'Landys, who stood down yesterday. Ex Jockey Club CEO-turned MD at Hampshire CCC Nevin Truesdale drops in with details of a 50km charity walk for Alzheimers at Lord's on Monday, while - at Tatts Ireland - Eva O'Neill chats to Caiomhe Doherty, whose Fornaghts Stud consigned yesterday's top lot.

10am - Brad Riter and Tim Graham discuss Thursday Night Football and if it is really important if the Bills don't play

Overcoming fear and procrastination can help midlife women make stronger decisions, take meaningful action, and move confidently toward the career, business, andfinancial goals they've been preparing for.In this Diamond-ette episode of Divas, Diamonds & Dollars, we move from planning to execution. Because at some point, another strategy session is not what you need. You need a decision.We unpack the mental roadblocks that keep women stuck in hesitation, including comparison, outside opinions, procrastination, confusion, and analysis paralysis. You'll learn how to recognize when you are busy without actuallymoving the needle—and how to get back on track. We also reframe FEAR as Focused, Excited, And Ready, helping women entrepreneurs and career professionals reconnect with the “why” behind their biggest goals and move forward even when uncertainty is still present. This episode is about personal development for women who are ready to stop circling the decision and start acting on it. Whether your next move involves leadership, entrepreneurship, multipreneurship, or financial independence, you do not have to solve everything today.Choose one thing you've been avoiding. Make the decision. Then take the next step.You. Are. Ready.Want more? Join my free online community to keep growing and becoming.

Jason Moore is coming on at defensive tackle for Ohio State. What about the other DTs in the mix? Can the Buckeyes' offense clean up their red zone, third down and short yardage woes against Illinois on Saturday? Dave Biddle flies solo on today's show and discusses that and much more. (2:00) - Intro (4:15) - Jason Moore stepping up at DT (5:10) - Need more from Eddrick Houston (6:35) - Will Jamir Perez be in the mix? (7:30) - Ryan Day not happy with most of the RBs (8:45) - Can red zone/third down woes be fixed on offense? (10:48) - Illinois is a solid team that will pull out all the stops (18:00) - Excited about Phillip Bell at punt returner (20:37) - Luke Fahey continues to impress as QB2 (22:20) - Timmons/Caldwell shining in secondary (24:50) - Awesome slate of Big Ten games this weekend (33:45) - 60% off Bucknuts subscription promo

Matt Spiegel and Laurence Holmes were joined by Northwestern football coach David Braun to discuss his team's 2-0 start and upcoming game at No. 5 Indiana.

In this BEST OF episode, we're revisiting an important conversation about how we can support ourselves and our kids through anxiety, big feelings, and the challenges of life right now. I'll share what actually moves the needle in terms of us feeling happier in our everyday life, what our kids really need from us, and how we can help the people we love build the skills and confidence to navigate life's ups and downs. Whether you're parenting a preteen, teen, or not a parent, this episode offers encouragement and practical ways to support yourself and the people you love without taking on too much responsibility and too much on your shoulders.   In this episode, we'll explore: What has changed since 2008 to make us more anxious and less happy How to help ourselves and those we love feel happier and less anxious What things we can start TODAY to feel more in control of our moods and life How to actually take the small steps that will make big change in our lives and for generations to come. Easy ways to get my support if you want it. Press play and let's dive in.

The White House boots the press and launches Trump TV, and Rob pitches himself as program director with a lineup including Pardon Me, Front Running the Market and Trump's Tanning Hour. Also: the press pool was always an exclusive club, Leavitt admits it's all a show, Iran at the UN, the Greenland "deal," a Naperville cop accused of stalking a man with Flock cameras, what else those cameras can search for, Gemini going rogue, the AI civil war that might save humanity, and Bernie's Department of AI. Plus a Hyrox athlete whose bravery deserves its own Depends ad.www.robbernsteincomedy.com for more episode.Robbernsteinmerch.com for tees and stuffwww.porchtour.com for live gigswww.sheath.com Promocode: RYM

Free "Epic Life Formula" Posterhttps://epic-life-formula.gr-site.com/_Want to start your own business but keep getting stuck?

Right Handed Pitcher for Texas Christian University Ben Schroeder joins Dylan Campione & Nicho Fernandez on today's episode! Hear all about Ben's baseball journey from JUCO to battling back from injury to the transfer portal and playing for his dream school TCU. Excited to see Ben back on the mound this Spring ready to dominate.  To let us know who you'd like to hear from next on the show or to nominate a guest, email us at SideRetiredPod@Gmail.com or DM us on social media @SideRetiredPod on Instagram / TikTok / X (Twitter). 

The WIP Morning Team discusses the upcoming schedule for the four Philadelphia sports teams, with a heavy game lineup this week and next. The team gives away Flyers tickets to the home opener and predicts what the Phillies' postseason will look like. They discuss which players must show up and play well in order to make a deep playoff run.

I promise we do not discuss DEAN ~!!! Sunday SchoolHomework: https://www.youtube.com/live/1rnJvFno3tc?si=i_dsVjLLKUrjti4m&t=7887

Listen to the crew discuss Joe's awkward encounters as of late, what NFL fanbases should be pancaking right now and also in hour two what to be excited about for the upcoming NBA season as a Rockets fan.

#vinayakjoshi #kannadainterviews #podcast 00:00 What's in This Episode?02:19 The Journey Begins07:40 Meet Balakrishna Mohan & Preethu Gowdru13:48 How Did the Bengaluru-Ladakh Journey Begin?19:25 How Did They Fund the Journey?23:18 Day 1: Sleep Problems & Negativity26:10 How Meeting Preethu Gave Him Confidence31:33 Why Preethu Joined the Journey34:52 Facing Police Checkposts on the Way39:42 Driving an Auto at High Altitude45:00 Why Jammu Police Stopped Them48:31 Kargil War Memorial, Dras53:48 Meeting a Kannadiga in Ladakh55:23 Khardung La, Pangong Lake & Umling La01:03:14 Discovering Humanity in Ladakh01:10:16 Returning to Karnataka: What Did He Feel?01:11:25 Rapid Fire Round

The original Square Based Podcast where Rob and Val discuss everything Warhammer the Old World. Always be Bassed.  ► *Join us at the Square Based Open Toronto October 24 and 25!  https://oldworldrankings.com/ca/tourn... Chapters: MENTIONED IN THIS VIDEO: ► *Links to all current Renegade Drafts https://docs.google.com/document/d/16... ► Rob's Old World EVENTS in Nottingham! https://tsnarena.com/events/category/... ► Check out Rob's Event Recaps here! https://thehonestwargamer.com/ ►  Support us on PATREON and join us on Discord:   / squarebased   OLD WORLD RESOURCES ► Square Based Comp AND Tournament Packs    https://thehonestwargamer.com/warhamm... ► The Square Based FAQ: https://www.squarebased.com/faqs ► The Renegade Legacy Pack:  https://www.squarebased.com/ ► Our 500pt Foray Pack: https://thehonestwargamer.com/warhamm... ► Old World Army Builder: https://old-world-builder.com/ ► Old World Rules Wiki: https://tow.whfb.app/ ► Old World Rankings (Past and Upcoming Old World Events: https://oldworldrankings.com/ MERCH   https://thehonestwargamer.com/product... Youtube Music Playlist for Audio Only:  https://tinyurl.com/SB-YouTube-Music-... Podcast on all other Platforms:  https://squarebasedpodcast.podbean.com/ #squarebased #warhammertheoldworld #warhammerfantasy

Excited to be back for Season 8 of the Make Movement Matter podcast. This week it's a mini solo episode. A question from a workshop this week stopped me in my tracks. Someone told me her wrists hurt when she gets up from the ground, and asked if she should just stop putting weight on them. My answer surprised her, but also the question made me realise how so many frame discomfort negatively and fearfully. In this solo episode I'm talking about what discomfort can actually be trying to tell us, and why avoiding it could do more harm than good. As in all the minis, there's a movement for the wrists of course. And as I mention my signature course Reclaim Everyday Ease starting next week - if you would like more information then please click here :https://www.reclaimmovement.co.uk/reclaim-everyday-ease/For the full show notes, visit:⁠ The Make Movement Matter Podcast⁠If you enjoy this podcast, please press Follow and Rate and Review.  To support the show and help me to keep making the podcast, please contribute by ⁠Buying Me a Coffee...or Tea! Connect with your host, Wendy, founder of Reclaim Movement, on:⁠Instagram⁠ | ⁠YouTube⁠ | ⁠Website⁠Receive my free guide that helps you see the ground differently, discover where it could become part of your everyday life again, to keep you mobile now and capable later.  Click Here

From Vanessa Gonzales: Mamona https://www.comedydynamics.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Traitors Canada Season 4 Nipîy Gladue + Cassandra Preseason Interviews Watch the podcast on YouTube! We Know the Traitors is back as Pooya welcomes Season 4 of Traitors Canada with new cast interviews, spotlighting the contestants before the premiere. Joining him for this special preview are Nipîy and Cassandra—a duo ready to share their approaches, inspirations, and what makes them tick as game players. With the RHAP community ramping up for the season, these candid Q&As offer early insight into the minds set to shape the game. Listeners meet Nipîy , who leans on lovability as their guiding strategy, emphasizing hypervigilance and a keen sense for reading shifting energies in the Manor. Nipîy seeks to be a beacon of representation for their community, hoping faithfulness can power their journey unless the traitor role calls. Experience from The Amazing Race Canada comes front and center, where overcoming fears and tackling challenges shaped Nipîy into a resilient competitor. Following this, Cassandra introduces herself as a “deceptive” contender, bringing a competitive spirit rooted in elite athletics. Her approach fuses strong leadership with adaptability, inspired by players like Coco and Gabby Windy, who played with charm and instinct. Nipîy chooses “lovability” as a core gameplay tactic, aiming to spot subtle energy shifts to root out traitors early Cassandra values “deceptive” strategies paired with open-minded leadership honed from sports, eager to control the game as a traitor Both contestants reflect on how past experience—whether from The Amazing Race or athletic competition—informs their approach to the social and competitive layers of Traitors Canada Fan-favorite moments and past inspirations are revealed, with Nipîy recalling rooting for Gerlene, and Cassandra highlighting Coco and Gabby Windy's blend of charm and gameplay Excitement builds for relationship-building in the Manor and facing daunting challenges that push each contestant out of their comfort zone How will Nipîy 's heart-driven approach compete with Cassandra's stealthy leadership style? As the new season dawns, these cast introductions offer a look at the choices and mindsets that could shape the battle between Faithfuls and Traitors. Don't miss this chance to get a head start on Traitors Canada Season 4—tune in to hear firsthand from the players preparing to outwit, outplay, and outlast. Chapters: 00:00 Welcome and Season Preview 00:51 Meet Nipîy: Lovability Strategy 01:34 Nipîy: Playing for Representation 02:14 Nipîy Chooses Faithful Role 02:30 Nipîy's Secret to Spotting Traitors 02:46 Nipîy Excited for New Challenges 03:04 Amazing Race Experience Benefits Nipîy 03:27 Meet Cassandra: Deceptive Game Plan 03:52 Cassandra's Competitive Edge Revealed 04:16 Cassandra's Favorite Past Players 04:38 Cassandra Prefers Traitor Role 04:55 Cassandra's Leadership and Strategy 05:20 Building Relationships in the Game Never all our Traitors US recaps plus recaps from other versions around the world! LISTEN:  Subscribe to the Traitors Around the World podcast feed WATCH:  Subscribe to the podcast on YouTube SUPPORT:  Become a RHAP Patron for bonus content, access to Facebook and Discord groups plus more great perks!

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On Friday's Daily Puck Drop,   Jason “Puck” Puckett and Jim Moore man the ship without Chris Egan.  They touch on the dysfunction of the M's and Jim is not please of Puck laughing at Mitch McConnell memes.    Also, Last Word with Bob Condotta of The Seattle Times and Friday Night Lights with Todd Milles from VarstityWaNews.compreviews the weekend  high school football Last Word with Bob Condotta of The Seattle Times talks about expectations for Drew Lock, injury update on Nick Emmanwori, Anthony Bradford and look ahead to Arizona.  Todd Milles, VarsityWaNews.compreviews a great Friday night schedule in high school football pitting a number of top ranked teams facing off. “Hey, What the Puck!”    Excited for Drew Lock (1:00)  Puck and Jim (39:35 ) Last Word with Bob Condotta  (58:18) Todd Milles, Friday Night Lights( 1:14:31) “Hey, What the Puck!?”  

Anthony has put Raj through the ringer this summer with all the sale drama, so as a reward, Raj got to just straight up nerd out. Anthony followed suit, then the guys wrapped with a couple questions from the live audience.

"McElroy & Cubelic In The Morning" airs 7am-10am weekdays on WJOX-94.5!!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Traitors Canada Season 4 Nipîy Gladue + Cassandra Preseason Interviews Watch the podcast on YouTube! We Know the Traitors is back as Pooya welcomes Season 4 of Traitors Canada with new cast interviews, spotlighting the contestants before the premiere. Joining him for this special preview are Nipîy and Cassandra—a duo ready to share their approaches, inspirations, and what makes them tick as game players. With the RHAP community ramping up for the season, these candid Q&As offer early insight into the minds set to shape the game. Listeners meet Nipîy , who leans on lovability as their guiding strategy, emphasizing hypervigilance and a keen sense for reading shifting energies in the Manor. Nipîy seeks to be a beacon of representation for their community, hoping faithfulness can power their journey unless the traitor role calls. Experience from The Amazing Race Canada comes front and center, where overcoming fears and tackling challenges shaped Nipîy into a resilient competitor. Following this, Cassandra introduces herself as a “deceptive” contender, bringing a competitive spirit rooted in elite athletics. Her approach fuses strong leadership with adaptability, inspired by players like Coco and Gabby Windy, who played with charm and instinct. Nipîy chooses “lovability” as a core gameplay tactic, aiming to spot subtle energy shifts to root out traitors early Cassandra values “deceptive” strategies paired with open-minded leadership honed from sports, eager to control the game as a traitor Both contestants reflect on how past experience—whether from The Amazing Race or athletic competition—informs their approach to the social and competitive layers of Traitors Canada Fan-favorite moments and past inspirations are revealed, with Nipîy recalling rooting for Gerlene, and Cassandra highlighting Coco and Gabby Windy's blend of charm and gameplay Excitement builds for relationship-building in the Manor and facing daunting challenges that push each contestant out of their comfort zone How will Nipîy 's heart-driven approach compete with Cassandra's stealthy leadership style? As the new season dawns, these cast introductions offer a look at the choices and mindsets that could shape the battle between Faithfuls and Traitors. Don't miss this chance to get a head start on Traitors Canada Season 4—tune in to hear firsthand from the players preparing to outwit, outplay, and outlast. Chapters:00:00 Welcome and Season Preview00:51 Meet Nipîy: Lovability Strategy01:34 Nipîy: Playing for Representation02:14 Nipîy Chooses Faithful Role02:30 Nipîy's Secret to Spotting Traitors02:46 Nipîy Excited for New Challenges03:04 Amazing Race Experience Benefits Nipîy03:27 Meet Cassandra: Deceptive Game Plan03:52 Cassandra's Competitive Edge Revealed04:16 Cassandra's Favorite Past Players04:38 Cassandra Prefers Traitor Role04:55 Cassandra's Leadership and Strategy05:20 Building Relationships in the Game Never all our Traitors US recaps plus recaps from other versions around the world!LISTEN:  Subscribe to the Traitors Around the World podcast feedWATCH:  Subscribe to the podcast on YouTubeSUPPORT:  Become a RHAP Patron for bonus content, access to Facebook and Discord groups plus more great perks! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

(00:00-12:08) Jason Gosrau of Schaefer Door stops by the studio. He was out at Doug's house yesterday. Excited to give away a new garage door for this month's EMOTD winner. Putting a garage door on a car port. EMOTD is not a civilian segment but apparently Hubbard was playing it in the lobby. Wife Offerings. Nice broad shoulders. The Super Cute Pat. Doug thinks the garage door opener is one of the great technological advances. Hoop & Stick.(12:16-22:51) How would we look as women? Parchment Paper. Living and dying with high school football results. Who is St. Gabe's big rival? Five televisions in your garage IS in fact hoosier. Are there a lot of CBC graduates serving fries? Things are looking up for a wonderful autumn. Audio of Alexander Steen talking before camp. Doug's not happy with the audio.(23:01-28:14) And the winner of the EMOTD is...See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Run this town. Today is Papers' Friday. Boy crazy in Geneva. Doug says the lede is the Doggies. Clean sheet. Hotter than a pistol. Cards and Giants had a swift one going through six innings yesterday. Some postgame sound from the Doggies head coach. Audio of Roman Burki talking about what it means to play for the club's first trophy. Charming one ply soft. Better atmosphere on Saturday: Cards game or Mizzou vs. Troy? Dan Lanning and Oregon might just put it on Portland State.What's the music theme for the day? Songs that feature 'Run.' Two hosts sleeping together are good for a show. Is Mike Francesa doing EMOTD now. Audio of him trying to find his email. Don Le Greca is hotter than a pistol about a caller being mad about cheering for Pete Alonso. USE YOUR DAMN BRAIN!! Feel bad for Javier. What's your favorite mixed drink, Martin? At the bar with the kids. Doug The Mule. Have the Blues retired Roman Turek's number?The King Roast Beef. Twice the meat. A text sent in 14 times. Audio of Joey Zanaboni's calls of the Doggies goals last night. The whole town went to St. Gabe's. Martin's got a spur of the moment surprise guest. Joined by Chief Craig Berube. In town just hangin' and golfing. Chief's a free agent, what's he got planned? Will he coach again? The Toronto experience. Robert Thomas being named captain. His golf game.LSU QB Sam Leavitt unexpectedly listed on LSU's injury report as doubtful for Saturday. Ole Miss not buying it. Drink was on Wake Up Barstool talking about Ahmad Hardy's path back to the field. Doesn't sound very optimistic. Audio of Mike Norvell talking about moving trucks that he didn't order being outside of his home. Mike Locksley takes the high road when asked a question about the way James Franklin left Maryland and the disparaging comments he's made about the university in the past. Why is Maryland's stadium called The Snake Pit? There's just so much going on here.You know where this song was recorded? Overpaid chuckle buckets. What does the 6-1-Hate actually like? More Doggies talk.Joined by Cardinal analyst, Brad Thompson for his final appearance of the season. The young guys getting tons of experience this season. Brad likes the direction the organization is taking and thinks the future is bright. What's his biggest takeaway from this year? What kind of additions would he like to see for next year and beyond? What does he make of Matthew Liberatore? Jordan Walker's emergence. Catching depth.Questions coming in for the dais. Doug's getting another invite to bowl. The Last MySpace user wants Jackson to call him a 'Good Boy.' Time for a text audit. An astute and accurate diagnosis. TALK SPORTS!! Text warfare. Swamp ass at the game yesterday. Tony Vitello had some praise for the Cards. Are we coming up on the last game at Busch Stadium for a while with the looming work stoppage?Joined by Senator Eric Schmitt to talk the latest on the Protect College Sports Act. Another vote coming in an hour or so. What is the argument against it? A pool for player compensation.Design Aire Heating & Cooling EMOTDJason Gosrau of Schaefer Door stops by the studio. He was out at Doug's house yesterday. Excited to give away a new garage door for this month's EMOTD winner. Putting a garage door on a car port. EMOTD is not a civilian segment but apparently Hubbard was playing it in the lobby. Wife Offerings. Nice broad shoulders. The Super Cute Pat. Doug thinks the garage door opener is one of the great technological advances. Hoop & Stick.How would we look as women? Parchment Paper. Living and dying with high school football results. Who is St. Gabe's big rival? Five televisions in your garage IS in fact hoosier. Are there a lot of CBC graduates serving fries? Things are looking up for a wonderful autumn. Audio of Alexander Steen talking before camp. Doug's not happy with the audio.And the winner of the EMOTD is...See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

For a quick stop at Johnny's House... Kids get overly excited for the smallest things... what is making you excited? Does your significant other dress too sexy? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For a quick stop at Johnny's House... Kids get overly excited for the smallest things... what is making you excited? Does your significant other dress too sexy? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We're talking with Jon Thompson, senior pastor of Sanctus Church, a multisite church on the east side of Toronto. Jon has served at Sanctus for 25 years and has helped lead the church through seasons of growth, renewal, revival, and cultural change. In this conversation, he shares insights from his latest book, Presence: Resilient Witness in Times of Retreat and Revival, and explores how churches can faithfully witness in an increasingly post-Christian—and even re-paganized—culture. Learn to minister in a re-paganized culture. // Jon believes Canada offers a glimpse of where many parts of the United States may be heading. Churches are increasingly engaging people with little or no Christian memory alongside Muslims, Hindus, atheists, New Agers, nominal Christians, and people shaped by contemporary cultural movements. The challenge is not simply to defend Christian truth, but to communicate the gospel thoughtfully and winsomely to radically different audiences at the same time. Open the three evangelistic doors. // Historically, love, word, and power describe three ways people encounter God. Love demonstrates God's character through hospitality and care. Word clarifies truth through preaching, apologetics, and teaching. Power reveals God's presence through experiences such as healing, deliverance, dreams, and other supernatural encounters. Jon argues that churches need all three doors open because different people encounter Jesus through different pathways. Admit your church's bias. // Most churches naturally lean toward one or two of these categories. Conservative evangelical churches often emphasize word. Other churches may prioritize love through compassion and justice, while still others focus heavily on supernatural experiences. Jon encourages leaders to honestly identify their bias and intentionally elevate the areas they tend to neglect. A healthy church needs all three working together rather than allowing one to dominate. Don't let fear quench what God is doing. // Jon tells the story of a woman who came to faith out of Hinduism after experiencing visions, spiritual conflict, and encounters with Jesus. When her church removed those elements from her baptism testimony because leaders were uncomfortable with them, she felt that an essential part of her story had been denied. Jon warns that fear, theological bias, and lack of experience can cause churches to suppress genuine ways God may be working in people's lives. Choose encounter and systems. // Jon believes churches often falsely pit spiritual encounter against organizational structure. Healthy churches need both. Leaders should build systems that support what God is doing without attempting to control it. As spiritual activity increases, churches may need to adjust volunteer processes, pastoral care systems, staff expectations, and leadership structures. The goal is not to eliminate order but to make the organization flexible enough to respond when circumstances change. Understand renewal, revival, and awakening. // Jon distinguishes between renewal, revival, and awakening. Renewal is the recovery of first love in individual believers. Revival is a sovereign move of God that He initiates and ends where sin is revealed and there’s widespread healing. Awakening happens when revival leads to widespread conversion. Leaders should not assume revival is guaranteed, but they should remain faithful and responsive whether God brings extraordinary renewal or simply calls them to steady obedience in an ordinary season. Start by refusing to resist God. // Before changing structures or launching new ministries, Jon believes leaders should begin with a simple posture: “Lord, whatever you want to do, I won't fight you.” Many pastors love God but still struggle to trust Him when ministry becomes unpredictable. Jon encourages leaders to confront their fear, relinquish control, and remain open to correction, repentance, and change. To learn more about Jon Thompson and his books, including Convergence, Perseverance, Presence, and the upcoming re-release of Deliverance, visit jonthompsonresources.com or Amazon.com. Other Conversations with Jon Thompson Reflections on Christian Ministry at the Halfway Point with Jon Thompson // February 8, 2024 What if John Stott, John Wimber, Dallas Willard & Andy Stanley Planted a Church with Jon Thompson? // March 14, 2019 Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I'm grateful for that. If you enjoyed today's show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they're extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Lastly, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church Your church is doing really well right now, and your leadership team is looking for solutions to keep momentum going! It could be time to start a new location. Maybe you have hesitated in the past few years, but you know it's time to step out in faith again and launch that next location. Portable Church has assembled a bundle of resources to help you leverage your growing momentum into a new location by sending a part of your congregation back to their neighborhood on Mission. This bundle of resources will give you a step-by-step plan to launch that new or next location, and a 5 minute readiness tool that will help you know your church is ready to do it! Click here to watch the free webinar “Launch a New Location in 150 Days or Less” and grab the bundle of resources for your church! Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey friends, Rich from the unSeminary Podcast. Listen, you’re going to want to lean in today for this conversation because I think this kind what you’re going to get a sneak peek on is something that’s impacting churches all over the world that’s having, I think, an interesting kind of moment and is maybe points to a bit of where God is at work. And I think could for many churches that are listening in today, give them a sense of maybe some next steps, what the kind of evolution or the development of their church, what that could look like for the future.Rich Birch — Plus, it’s one of those times where I get to talk with like a real live friend, somebody that I know from the real world, not just on the internet, which is so fun. Excited to have Jon Thompson with us. He is the senior pastor at Sanctus Church, a multi-site church in the east side of Toronto with four in-person locations plus church online. This church began in 1985 with just 40 people meeting and now averages over 2,600 weekend attendees with a plan to reach 3,600 by the end of the decade and open a sixth site in the T. Dot in Toronto in the six by 2030. Rich Birch — Jon has served at Sanctus for 25 years, starting as a youth pastor before becoming the senior pastor. He holds both a masters from Tyndale and a doctorate from Fuller. He grew up in Ecuador from missionary parents, he and his wife, Joanna, who’s incredible, have three kids. His books include Convergence, Deliverance, and Perseverance. And the brand new one that I’m excited to have him talk about today, Presence: Resilient Witness in Times of Retreat and Revival. And it’s from our friends at Zondervan Reflective.Rich Birch — Jon, welcome to the show. I am so glad that you’re here today. Welcome.Jon Thompson — Yeah great to be here. Great to be back on the podcast. Hang out with a real friend, like you said, and hi to anyone listening anywhere around the world today.Rich Birch — Yeah, this is good. I’m excited for this. For folks that haven’t maybe picked up a past episode, which you haven’t, you should go go back and find them. Jon’s been on a couple times, a few times. But give us kind of a picture of a normal Sunday at Sanctus. Who’s in the room? Give us a flavor for the church.Jon Thompson —  Yeah, so our church is located, like you said, on the east side of Toronto. And some of your viewers will know this, but lots might might not. Toronto is the most multicultural city on earth, more than London, more than, well, LA, more than New York, more than Singapore, more than Hong Kong. And so there’s between 150 and 300 heart languages spoken every single day in our amazing city, by the way, you got to come to Toronto. The food culture is unbelievable…Rich Birch — That’s true. That is true.Jon Thompson — …and unparalleled because everyone’s here. So on a Sunday morning, depending on our locations, again, because we have rural sites, urban sites, and suburban sites, which makes life interesting to say the least, but we probably got 55 plus identified nationalities. We probably I think we’re on 13 on staff right now. And so everything from someone from Hong Kong to someone who’s moved here from Pakistan. We’ve got Congolese. We’ve got Irish. I mean just fill in the blank and you’re going to discover the amazing diversity of the human race on this side of heaven. And we you know we made a decision a long time ago that we were going to fight for Revelation 7 on this side of uh the moment. Rich Birch — So good. Jon Thompson — And it’s exciting, it’s hard, it’s difficult, and it’s um and it’s worth it.Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. You know, Canada is and I know we share this conviction. I know you’ve said it and I’ve said it on other podcasts when we’ve had Canadian friends on the podcast. But I think it’s really important, particularly, you know, 95 plus percent of the people listening are in the States. But I think it’s important just to to set the context. Because in a lot of ways, Canada is a few a few years ahead or behind, depending on what language you want to use, of our friends in the States. What do you mean by that? When you say that, what springs to mind?Jon Thompson — Yeah, so this is a very interesting place, right? Because Canada moved from, ah you know, Christendom worldview, to a nominal Christian worldview, to a struggling Christian worldview, to a post-Christian worldview. And now I think we’ve moved to a new place, which is not post-Christian, but repaganized.Jon Thompson — And so it’s a it’s a fascinating place. Because In our context, One moment, you’ll be talking to someone who still has Christian memory, who actually doesn’t love Jesus at all, but it’s a family thing. And it’s nominal Christianity. Jon Thompson — The next moment, you’ll still run into a Mormon telling you you’re worshiping the right and wrong Jesus. The next moment, it’s a New Ager. The next moment, it’s ah a Muslim activist. The next moment, it’s a transgender activist. The next moment, it’s someone who has no clue at all on anything.Jon Thompson — And so what’s fascinating about up here is you’ve got modern, postmodern. You’ve got conservative, you’ve got liberal. You’ve got the heart of the sexual revolution in the center center of our city. It’s one of the hubs of that globally. You’ve got every religion on earth. And you’ve got churches that are dying.Jon Thompson — I think, I don’t know of the latest stats. I still think that they’re they’re estimating one third of churches will close in the next decade in Canada, like physical ah buildings will close. And while that’s happening. And all that’s happening. You’ve got still sort of Christianity memory in certain groups, and then there are churches that are exploding. Jon Thompson — And so the the way I talk about we’re a little ahead is we are your future in some form. Because we’re facing down Jesus and how we deal with the gift of immigrants globally, but also the complication of that. We’re dealing with having to pivot the gospel to an a Muslim person, a Hindu person, a nominal Christian, and and a Mormon all in one conversation.Jon Thompson — There are Bible belts left in Canada, very small ones. But like Abbotsford, for example.Rich Birch — Little teeny tiny belts.Jon Thompson —  But but there are those places.Rich Birch — Sure. Yep.Jon Thompson — At the same time there is the post-christian thing. And the reason why I think our American friends should pay more attention to us is not because we’re we’re having a third cousin issue up here and we’re jealous. It’s because actually we reflect where you’re going. Because there are going to be sections in the United States that probably will remain nominally Christian and culturally Christian for a very long time. You know, in certain parts of Houston, for example, or maybe in sections of Kentucky or Louisiana. But then you go to New York and LA or Seattle. And here’s the point. The church has to speak to both audiences at once, which feels in contradiction. But isn’t.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Yeah and I’ve definitely seen that. I like the uh the re-paganizing language you know I’ve used the uh the pre-christian that we’ve it’s like we’ve gone kind of all the way through. And that that totally has been my experience serving here. You know I took a break. I was in the States for a number of years better part of a decade and then came back. And one of the things I’ve noticed has been this shift kind of under the current. We used to say we used to joke actually we ain’t your mama’s church. But like, you can’t make that joke anymore because like mom didn’t go to church. Grandma didn’t go to church. Like nobody in there, you know, we run into that all the time. Like that’s, you know, really common.Jon Thompson — So like literally this week. This week, my daughter is doing swimming lessons. A woman comes up to us and says, hey, I hear you’re a pastor.Rich Birch — Yeah.Jon Thompson —  Really tragic thing. She says, my husband’s dying, 45 years old. And so my wife and I end up speaking to her, praying for her. And she’s like, I have never. So she’s 45 grown up Canada. She says, I’ve never owned a Bible. I’ve never read a Bible. Could I have a Bible? Jon Thompson — Now, for you listening in the Bible Belt before you dismiss this conversation and say not our fight, I just…May I do something for a moment? That might not be true because you’re surrounded by 400 churches. But every time you go online, it is your reality. So what we experience physically in Canada you digitally experience every day. And you have to be as as adaptive thoughtful, winsome, orthodox on your digital thinking as you do your physical thinking. And again, I’ll say this a little strongly. I find a lot of you aren’t.Rich Birch — Okay. We’re starting off spicy, which is great. Okay, so you’ve seen a lot of people. Part of what I love about Sanctus, friends like, I’m trying to, again, give some context. For folks that are listening in, Sanctus is known as a, you know this is a life-giving church. People, they come to Jesus here. This is the kind of place where people take steps towards faith in in Christ, which is amazing. You’ve seen a lot of that happen over the years at Sanctus—thousands of people. When you look back on some of the patterns in people’s lives, some of the, you know, the kind of themes that come back time and time again and how they arrived at that sort of decision. What are you noticing in people’s lives?Jon Thompson —  Well, like I just said about the diversity of our place, the diversity of conversions come from those places. And so like on a Sunday morning, I mean, our baptisms aren’t more epic than yours or anyone else. I mean, praise the Lord. Right.Rich Birch — Yes.Jon Thompson — We’ve got we’ve got 10 year olds confessing the faith of their parents. But it won’t be unusual for literally, I mean, this just happened. So we’ll have like two or three, not babies, but children who say, you know, I want to get baptized. And the next person’s like, I grew up an atheist. I’ve encountered the living God through Christ. The next person is I’m a former witch. And I just actually want to renounce Satan in the tank. And the next person’s like, I used to be a Muslim. And now I’ve actually found out that Jesus is Lord.Jon Thompson —  So, so, that is not now an uncommon experience at any of our sites. And what is behind that is not only that the gospel is good for everyone—praise the Lord—but we worked really hard to make sure that all the doors are open evangelistically to all people. And that gets to our bias in spiritual gifts. But you know—and we’ve had this conversation many times, you and I, Rich—but there are three historic categories that Bobby Clinton invented years ago we’ve used where he divides all the gifts, love, word, and power.Jon Thompson — So love gifts demonstrate the love of God in the room. Word gifts clarify who God is, who he’s not, what he likes, what he doesn’t. Power gifts evidence his presence in the room. That’s true of gifts, but to take a farther step out, those are three doors evangelistically.Jon Thompson — And this is why this is so critical. Because we have to have all three of those doors—such as, hospitality, apologetic defense of the gospel, and miracles and deliverance—open all the time. Because these are the ways people have always come to faith in our movement for 2,000 years. Jon Thompson — Now, all three doors have to lead to the true Christ because there are fake Jesuses. And there’s lots of heresy out there. And it has to be involved in repentance and belief and evidence by baptism. Amen. But I find most churches, theologically and experientially, are comfortable with one or maybe two of those things. And as I always lecture on this, like formally, if you sit on a three-legged stool and there are three legs…Rich Birch — Right.Jon Thompson — …and one leg is missing. You wobble on the best of days, but you usually fall down.Rich Birch — Yeah. I’d love to kind of double click on love, word, and power, these three legs of the stool. And so familiar with, some people will be familiar with that framework for gifting like you talked about, and but kind of give us a little more, you gave you kind of a quick overview of each of them from an evangelistic point of view, but kind of give me some examples or what it might look like in a church that’s opening that that door evangelistically, you know, the love, word, and power door.Jon Thompson — Yeah, and um I think we’re going to talk about this a little bit later. I mean there’s a lot behind these statements.Rich Birch — Yep. Yes.Jon Thompson —  Like almost 30 years of conversation. Rich Birch — Yes. Jon Thompson — But like this is the best way I’ll say it. I’ve seen this in my life. I’ve seen this in my kids’ life. I’ve seen this across our church for two two plus decades, almost three now. Can I tell some stories that might help?Rich Birch — Yeah of course. I love a good story.Jon Thompson — Yeah, so… yeah so like here here’s a great example guy a young adult guy is in his basement.And he’s smoking weed, high as a kite. Freaks freaks out. Okay, great.Rich Birch — Shocker.Jon Thompson — Shocker. But actually sees a demon and like panics. Calls someone at our church, a friend of his, and is like, I’m really scared. And she laughs. And she’s like, no problem. So her first thing is not. Oh you’re an idiot. Her first thing is not, oh, you’re inventing that. The first thing is not, well, of course you’re high, you’re seeing that. Her first reaction is, well, I’ve got an answer to that.Jon Thompson — She’s like, yeah, his name is Jesus. By the way, if you say his name, watch the demon leave and then come talk to us. So the guy—total pagan—does it. Rich Birch — Yeah.Jon Thompson — The demon leaves. He shows up next Sunday. He’s radically converted. Didn’t used to be able to read, by the way, very well. Now reads at a PhD level and on a theology sort of thing, like radically converted. And his starting point was a power encounter.Jon Thompson — Now the person next to it, next to him in a conversation is the one listening to John Lennox at Oxford on the the lack validity and the historicity of Jesus.Jon Thompson — Or or you know, and we’re like, yeah, of course. And then the next person, we were just talking to this on staff. So one of our so SLT members (senior leadership team) was talking about his conversion story. And his conversion story is one of his relatives—I think it was his mom—was really sick in the hospital. Two nurses come in, and and are Christians, start praying over her, and basically start committing you know hospitality in the hospital, probably in a way they’re not supposed to. She’s radically saved, ends up leading her son to Christ, and the hus…Jon Thompson — And and so so here’s all I’m trying to say. We have a gift bias that everyone should know their gifts and be using them not only internally in the church, but see how they work out evangelistically, but beyond the gift thing. This for us is normal. We talk about this in our sermons. We actually take the Bible literally in the sense of what we’ve defended is what we believe. I find a lot of conservative people defend the scriptures and don’t believe the thing they’re defending.Jon Thompson — So for us, when I look at the book of Acts, I’m like, we will see people come to faith through healings and through deliverances and through visions and through dreams, as much as John Lennox or or our good new friend Wes Huff from Canada, who’s on every podcast showing up why the Bible is reliable, and also through that incredible, Hey. Can you just talk to me? I’m really sad. Jon Thompson — And what I’m begging churches to do is this this matrix gives you the ability to pivot to multiple people, but you have to have a culture that believes this, defends it, defines it.Rich Birch — Right. Right.Jon Thompson — And makes the weird normal, as we’ve said for years.Rich Birch — Yeah, okay. So you earlier you talked about how most churches are comfortable with one or maybe two, back to the three-legged stool.Jon Thompson —  Yep.Rich Birch — Unpack that a little bit. How have you seen that? Or maybe even more pointedly, how do you fight a get that against that in your own church? Because I you know I can see naturally we would all kind of lean in one way because of our giftings.Rich Birch — you know As a leader, I always see I see the world through my lens. And so the stuff that’s important to me, if I was leading, we would be we’d love all that stuff, but we might not be into the other two. So help help me understand, what does that look like? How do you fight against that at Sanctus?Jon Thompson — So I’ll step back and just say that you know this has been almost like a three-decade journey. For us, everything changed when we got serious about spiritual gifts, unpacking them and doing all of that. That’s a different podcast we’ve done. But what I will but what i will say is this… is that there are most conservative evangelical churches are word churches: Who God is, who he’s not, what he likes, what he doesn’t, the power of preaching. I’m all for it. I preach for a living. And by the way, for people who are starting to dismiss me, I’m reformed in my soteriology. And not only that, I’m an expository preacher. So you don’t get to throw me out the window too quick. Jon Thompson — So, I mean, i’m’m I’m all I’m all for that. But that is not the answer. It’s part of the answer. And so what we continually have done is when we realize that love, word and power are things that are all needed at once, we made them equally important. In staffing, in our conversations. That’s one. Jon Thompson — Two, you need to admit as a church where you’re comfortable and where you’re not. Because there’s a lot of churches, for example, that I always say it like this. You can have all the word people on earth in your church and know all truth, but you’re cold as anything and you’re not even sure if anyone’s been saved lately. Jon Thompson — I’m in all sorts of other churches where it’s love, love, social justice, and hospitality. But I’m like, but are you believing heresy? Do you even have any compass? Rich Birch — Right. Jon Thompson — And then I’m in other environments where it’s, you know, glory clouds and all this amazing spiritual stuff. But I’m like, do you even know the source of this?Jon Thompson — Where is this coming from? Rich Birch — Yeah that’s good.Jon Thompson — Just because it’s good doesn’t mean it’s from our Lord. The spirit of Antichrist and Christ are identical in action. So so what we’ve tried doing is saying, number one, we have to admit these three things are important. Number two, we have to come up with language for each one of them and affirm them. Number three, and you just did it live so I love this, you need to admit where you’re limited.Jon Thompson — So you’re like, Jon, I mean we know each other you’re like One of my strongest spiritual gifts is leadership. That’s what you said. This is the way I immediately instinctually and spiritually react. So, Rich’s responsibility, if he was the senior pastor, is then to publicly talk about why he’s actually not biased in other directions and why he needs to be, and find other people to be that voice.Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s so good.Jon Thompson — Because a lot of people want to be open to this, but since they have not experienced it, they don’t know what to do. And I’m like, right, because it’s about interdependence. It’s not just about you.Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. I think this is a great framework. And you know, it it explains what I can think think could be what’s missing in, you know, so many of our churches and you know we so many of us are are led by uh very gifted word-oriented gift people. Like our churches are led by those people… Jon Thompson — Right. Rich Birch — …and which is amazing… Jon Thompson — Yep. Rich Birch — …but we could miss the other two. And you know in the last year our mutual friend Jeff Brody said something and that resonates with what you were saying. He’s talked about, you know you might believe that it’s true, but is it real for you? And that has like resonated with me so so deeply. It’s similar to when you talked about you know conservatives defend what they don’t necessarily believe. And you know, does this actually work out in our lives, I think is a powerful idea.Rich Birch — Now, there was a story in your book about a young woman who left Hinduism and then joined a reformed church.Jon Thompson — Yeah.Rich Birch — I thought this was a vivid example. And particularly for us on the system side, I thought, oh, this is a good way to kind of systematize this…Jon Thompson — Yeah.Rich Birch — …or think about this at a systems level. Can you unpack that story?Jon Thompson — A hundred percent. And I just want to acknowledge as we keep going, I know the vast majority of your viewers or listeners are more probably on the system side executive pastor, like that type of leader, which by the way, without you, we all die. So thank you for all your service and what you do.Rich Birch — Sure. Yeah. Yep.Jon Thompson — We’re so thankful for you. But as we keep having this conversation, think this is a challenge for you to think deeply theologically, even before your systems, because what you systematize better be true. Rich Birch — That’s good.Jon Thompson — And so this is a great example of what we’re talking about. So I teach a course up here in a seminary on spiritual conflict, a very boring, non-controversial course. And so I was teaching this, I think it was two years ago now, and a young woman comes on and takes the course, and she is in tears at the end of one of the lectures. And ah and it’s all, it’s online. So so she said, can I meet?Jon Thompson — So I said, yeah. She says, look, she said, I just, I was radically saved out of Hinduism, which is incredible, and and she said soI you know I became a christian, I renounced my hinduism, and I I have no background. Either my family are Hindus or atheists and nothing in between, which even shows you the contradiction there. Her family is made up of atheists and Hindus.Rich Birch —Right.Jon Thompson — Like she is the embodiment of what we’re talking about.Rich Birch — Absolutely.Jon Thompson — And so she says, well, I’m going to find a church. She goes to a very small Reformed church locally, like a Christian Reformed, Dutch Reformed church. They’re of course excited that she’s come to faith, which is great. The average age in the church is much older. She told me, I think she’s the first adult baptism in over a decade or maybe two.Jon Thompson — So, because of course they’re covenantal, they baptize children overall. Fun. So he’s like, well, we want to hear your story. So she writes the whole story of encountering Jesus through visions and dealing with demons and Jesus setting her free. And so submits the the testimony, and the pastor edits every single encounter out of it. And this is like in the last three years in Toronto.Rich Birch — Right. Right. Jon Thompson —  This is in Toronto.Rich Birch — Yes.Jon Thompson — And so she said, why have you edited this out? And he said, because I don’t fully understand this, though it’s true. My people will be afraid and I don’t want to make them afraid. And right there, she wept. And then she said to me. When I took your class, you not only affirmed everything that happened to me was true. Second of all, you gave me the theological principles and categories scripturally and historically to show that I am in the great line of succession of the church. If anyone should be defending the great line of succession of the church, it’s the Reformed kids. I mean, those reform kids.Rich Birch — Yes.Jon Thompson —  And so what I want to point out is in that story, fear and lack of experience, and theological bias ended up quenching what the Spirit wanted to do. Jon Thompson — And I just want to say to anyone listening. I’m not saying that every environment that you’ve been in has been perfect. I mean i think a lot of us have had experiences spiritually where people with right motives have done things wrong.Rich Birch — Yep, true.Jon Thompson — And we ended up getting hurt. So it’s sort of like dating. If you’ve ever dated and broken up or you married and and then and then got divorced, the amount of intensity it takes to re-engage is a lot. Rich Birch — Yep.Jon Thompson — So there’s a lot of you listening, you’re like, Jon, I don’t want this conversation because I don’t want to touch that again. And I’m like, you have to. You have to. The scriptures are chock full of this. This is the only way we’re going to do well between retreat and revival, whether you’re in an environment where everyone’s a false nominal Christian or everyone’s not a Christian at all. This has been the pattern since the beginning. And it’s the way the Spirit works. So maybe I’d encourage some of you to pray about your fear and your anger. So you can get on with the thing.Rich Birch — So good. and And I would say um this, what we’re talking about right here, that story of um you know, this this you know young Hindu woman who came to know Jesus, praise God, amazing story. And, you know, kind of God appearing in dreams and all of that. I feel like has, been or I don’t feel like, has become more normative in my church experience in the same kind of climate that that you’re in. And that was not normative 30 years ago when I started. Rich Birch — Like, you know, it is this kind of like, you know, we have a laundry list of similar conversations where it’s like, you know people are having dreams and then wandering into church you know they’re having dreams on a Tuesday you know between Monday and Tuesday night and then they’re just wandering to the church because they’re like I think that’s a church over there. And are like hey, Jesus told me to come here. And you know then we end up having you know deeper conversations and they you know their life gets transformed. Rich Birch — I don’t remember that stuff going on. That’s happening more, which makes sense, I think, in this context of you know this uh what did you call it repaganizing or you know pre-christian kind of context because, you know, the Spirit’s got to work directly. He’s got to, you know, get directly encounter people. So I think that’s, you know, interesting. Rich Birch — So the people that might be because people listening and…you want to say something?Jon Thompson — Well, I was just going to say, yes, and…Rich Birch — Yep. Good.Jon Thompson — 30 years ago, it was happening.Rich Birch — Sure.Jon Thompson — See, this is this is what we have to admit. Rich Birch — Yep.Jon Thompson — It was happening, but we weren’t open.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s true.Jon Thompson — So for a lot of you listening you’re like, well I don’t live in Toronto. I’m like, I know you don’t. But what you legitimize from your pulpit tells your people what you’re allowed to talk about.Rich Birch — Right. That’s good.Jon Thompson — So if you’re going to have a sincere conversation about love, word, and power, and how the Spirit really works evangelistically, whether you’re speaking again to a a cultural Christian or someone else, here’s the point. I guarantee you in the Bible Belt, lots of people are having dreams too.Rich Birch — Right.Jon Thompson — They just have been told that’s weird, and we don’t talk about that.Rich Birch — Those are the kind of things we don’t talk about here. Yeah.Jon Thompson —  Right.Rich Birch — That’s good. Okay, so pivoting in a slightly different direction. One of the things that I love about Sanctus that’s, you know, if you’re kind of in the outer orbit of the church, eventually you’ll start to hear like, oh, they have a deliverance ministry over there. That’s not on the list of like, you know, men’s ministry, women’s ministry, pioneer girls, deliverance ministry that I hear like in so many churches out there. And you’ve had it for a long time. What does that actually look like? So like an average Tuesday, how does that fit into what’s going on at Sanctus?Jon Thompson — Yeah, so this is a conversation we wanted nothing to do with. Again, we were just again, you know Willow Creek, seeker-sensitive, historic church.Rich Birch — Yep.Jon Thompson — And this is like 27 years ago now where people started coming to us and they’re like, I think I have something happening in my life that is beyond psychological or biological wiring. And we were like, we are not that church that does that. That’s the weird people down the street. You know, we’ll deal with them in heaven, but you know. And the Lord wouldn’t give it up. Jon Thompson — So 27 plus years later, I think we’ve had either been involved in or helped assist globally in a thousand cases. And just for, I love how you put that. It’s just normal for us. It’s not this thing. It’s a thing. Jon Thompson — So for us, a worship team practice and, you know, a youth gathering taking place, an Alpha running and a deliverance having the same building is just normal. Because again, our bias on spiritual gifts is there’s 21 gifts, 21 directions. We need to try to make sure that all the gifts are employed in some way. And this is a certain group of gifts.Jon Thompson — So, yeah, we’ve done it for years. The whole story of that is in the book, Deliverance, which I think you and I maybe have talked about. It’s coming out again in February through Zondervan Reflective.Rich Birch — Yep. Jon Thompson — That’s the whole story. But like for us, dealing with the demonic, both in oppression issues and demonization issues and sanctification with Christians, but also evangelistically with non-Christians is just sort of normal.Rich Birch — Yeah. So good.Rich Birch — Yeah, I yeah there’s ah there’s a lot there that you I just think is kind of ah a great part of the story that God’s writing at your church, and I think can be instructive to many of us as we’re thinking about the future.Rich Birch — So let’s let’s kind of draw in the person that’s listening, maybe like an executive pastor, church of, I don’t know, 800 to a thousand, something like that. And they’re struck by this idea this like ooh maybe we are only opening one door. We’re not talking about these other these other doors. We’re not engaged in any of that.Rich Birch — Where would you suggest that they start? (Outside of actually picking up a copy of the book.) I you know I think that’s an obvious thing where we’re going to get to, but like outside of that, how would you help them think about um you know what they should be thinking about?Jon Thompson — Yeah. So just to step back a little to this question. This book conversation we’re having is about how you deal with an environment where renewal and retreat are happening in the same place. That’s very true in our social media feeds and it’s true in a lot of our cities.Jon Thompson — So I happen to know you and I happen to know your church. Because I’ve been conspiratorially involved behind the scenes at points. So your church’s own story is where all your people need to begin.Jon Thompson — And it’s this. Only when the leaders decide not to resist God will things change. And what I mean by that is not like open rebellion against God. It’s this. The lead, I just happen to know there were moments in your church’s own story where the leaders went, you know what? We’re not going to resist you anymore, Lord. What do you want to do?Rich Birch — Yeah.Jon Thompson — That was it. That and that’s not, you know, like earthquake you know, feel. But it changed everything. I mean what are you starting this week? Is it this week you’re starting? 30 days of like. praying, or has that happened?Rich Birch — Well, yeah, we’ve done that already, which is amazing, and but there’s more of that coming… Jon Thompson — Yep. Right. But… Rich Birch — …like it’s there’s there’s lots of that stuff happening that wasn’t happening 10 years ago for sure.Jon Thompson — Right. The inception point, though, is when people just went like this. You know what? We’re afraid.Rich Birch — Yeah.Jon Thompson — We don’t understand. We prefer system over encounter. We prefer system over encounter and they’re not in competition, but both have to be there. So, Lord, what do you want to say? What do you want to do? That’s the starting point. Rich Birch — Right. Jon Thompson — Because before you work out the theology of love, word, and power and start thinking about how you, you know, witness to people from all the nations and not have a you know a vicious reaction towards them. And how you think through the, like all that.Jon Thompson — The first place is you say to the Lord, I won’t fight you. And the truth is the vast majority of us love God, but don’t trust him. And I said this on a former podcast with you. And and and lots of executive pastors, when they hear me talk, way more than this, get nervous because this starts sounding like Pandora’s box. Well, how do I systematize this? And what would be the implications?Jon Thompson — And I’m like, yeah, before any of that conversation, have you said to the Lord, whatever you want to do, I won’t I won’t fight you.Rich Birch — So good.Jon Thompson — Most pastors would say they have not prayed that. I don’t think. I also think, too, there are a series of systems that relate to what happens in an empowered encounterist church, a systemized church, and then a church going through a revival. Three very different things. And there’s there’s a set of systems.Rich Birch — You want to unpack…you want to unpack that a little bit?Jon Thompson — Yeah, sure. So I mean, there are lots of amazing churches that are commonly faithful who serve communion and preach God’s word and help the poor. And and and and those are all guaranteed places of encounter according to the scriptures. And so amazing. They’re that’s good. That’s right. That’s holy. And that’s one expression of it. Jon Thompson — When you start saying to the holy spirit not only common faithfulness but anything else you’d like to do? At that moment I have a saying, most people praying for revival aren’t praying for revival, they’re praying for a normal church on Monday, they just don’t know it.Rich Birch — That’s good.Jon Thompson — And what I mean by that is most people praying for revival are actually praying for a church where the Spirit is more present, there are more encounters, and everyone’s using their gifts and loving each other better. That’s not revival. That is actually what it’s supposed to be. So when you have a whole group of encounters taking place more than a system, there are other things you have to adjust like we’ve done. Jon Thompson — For example, you start asking your volunteers, what are your spiritual gifts? You start clarifying from the front what encounters look like. You start building house rules of how encounters are handled. It’s part of your intake process. You think about this through pastoral care. There’s no dismissing of experience. You now become an interpreter of experience 24-7.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.Jon Thompson — So like there’s that. And then there’s revival. And revival is a sovereign act of God where everything falls apart, and all sin is revealed, and there’s en masse healing. And if it’s a genuine move of God that moves from renewal to revival to awakening, there’s en masse conversion.Jon Thompson — And as I share in the book, because we went through a three year experience with that, it was documented. There’s another set of organizational rules. I was meeting with a lot of leaders in England for the last three years because they are experiencing this genuinely. And I was just telling them what we went through historically. And I used the analogy for the executive pastors or the admin leaders saying, You’ve got to think about renewal and revival like being on a bike. And I said, you’re all English and you all ride bikes, so you should be fine.Jon Thompson —  And I just said, you know how there are gears on a bike? And I just said, when a move of God actually takes place, you have one set of things that are in place for that. And then when you go back to normal, you use another set. And we just said, you have to have a code word for your staff where you literally say, Monday was normal. Wednesday is now not normal, so the whole system collapses and now looks like this. And when the Spirit walks back, you go, okay. We’re going back to the other gear. Jon Thompson — That thinking is incredibly important in renewal and revival environments for sustainability of staff, for clarification of experience, and also for literal helping people not burn out. Because when God shows up, all hell and heaven break loose. And and maybe I’ll just throw this out quickly too.Rich Birch — Yeah.Jon Thompson — We should never forget that a lot of people dismiss revival-like environments because a lot of things are done wrong. And that’s a horrific starting point. Actually, that’s true in all of this.Jon Thompson — So we forget that, you know, I don’t know if I said this on this pod one of this one of these episodes, but we forget that that that Moses went up the mountain. The people were looking at the physical Shekinah glory of God. And while God was present in the most magnificent of way, they still built the golden calf in real time while they’re looking at him.Rich Birch — Right.Jon Thompson — So anytime there’s a significant move of God, the devil is in the room, the flesh is in the room, and God’s in the room at the same time. If you think God’s just going to be in the room, you’re going to end up dismissing much of what he’s done.Rich Birch — That’s so good. Talk about, you kind of you breezed over this, but I think it’s an important piece of the puzzle—the connection between repentance and revival, you know, and how repentance fits into the overall picture. The reason why I asked that, I don’t know, a year ago, I was at an event where a bunch of leaders were there and there was a Gen Z leader who has been involved in some stuff that’s been going on. And led like a public confession experience with the leaders that were there. And he was challenging us around you know, basically the question was like, well, why why is why repentance? Why is that such a big deal? Rich Birch — And this leader, which I loved, you know, was like, Well, hasn’t that isn’t that always the way? Like isn’t that what isn’t that what this is about? Like aren’t we aren’t we shouldn’t repentance be a part of the transformation of Jesus in in our lives like that? How can you separate those two? And I was like, oh yeah, right. Rich Birch — But I think that that… issue could be the fear you know you’ve mentioned talked about fear a little bit could be a part of the fear that’s in many leaders lives today. Jon Thompson — Yeah. Rich Birch — It’s like man, I’m not sure I want to engage that. Unpack that. Jon Thompson — Yeah, so I’ll I’ll I’ll do it like this. The language we’ve come up with, because I always find that categories are helpful for translation and expectations. So we always talk about renewal as the recovery of first love in an individual’s life.Jon Thompson — Revival is a sovereign act of God that he initiates and he ends. Awakening is when mass conversions take place out of a revival. What you’re talking about is probably the renewal category even more than the revival. Rich Birch — That’s good. Jon Thompson — Revival people tend to mush everything together, which is never helpful.Rich Birch — Yes.Jon Thompson — And it really bothers me.Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s good.Jon Thompson — So and I’m friends with lots of the people. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. That’s good. Jon Thompson — So I keep helping I keep saying, please, please help us. Rich Birch — Yes. Jon Thompson — So here’ here’s what I would say about you know repentance. Yes, of course, it’s always part of the thing. Of course it is. And It’s a fascinating reflection when we look at Adam and Eve. The very first thing that Adam and Eve did when they sinned is they hid. So hiddenness is the first sign of trouble. Then they tried fashioning something to cover their hiddenness. Then, of course, God comes and finds them, exposes them and gives them a better, of course, covering. Jon Thompson — Why this matters is this gets back to the love and trust thing. Lots of us are comfortable with Jesus at the wedding of Cana. Most of us are not okay with Jesus glorified at the Mount of Transfiguration. Or actually the encounter between Jesus and John in Revelation 1. Jon Thompson — And so I think a lot of times as leaders, and and let me just say this boldly too, your people will not go beyond you. You are Moses to your movement. And so I think saying to the Lord, you know, I’m open to what you would say to me, good or bad. And would you help me be in a position where I would want to repent. Jon Thompson — And I think this is okay to say. Regularly, I pray that the Holy Spirit would give me desires I don’t have. Because I don’t have lots of desires for repentance or you know. Rich Birch — Right, right. That’s good.Jon Thompson — So I think for leaders listening, whether God decides sovereignly to bring revival to your church or awakening to your area is not the starting point. That’s actually a sovereign decision. And in in the book, I talk about how I’m really concerned these days that everyone’s saying revival’s coming, revival’s coming. I’m like, actually, the Bible says revival’s not guaranteed. You have to ask if he’s decided to come. If he says, yes, you pray back the prayers, then all Heaven and hell breaks out.Jon Thompson — But if he doesn’t do that, in other words, if summer doesn’t come and you’re stuck in winter you still have to be involved in common faithfulness, including no hiddenness as a leader. And so anyone listening, I would just encourage you to trust the goodness of the God you continually tell others to trust in.Jon Thompson — I was writing a section. yesterday for a sermon I’m doing out of Mark where, you know, Martha is serving in Lazarus’s house and Mary takes the nard and smashes it on Jesus’s feet. And Judas gets really pissed off and says, how dare you do this? Jon Thompson —  And I was reflecting on how her—everyone ready, system leaders?—her uncontrolled, embarrassing, inappropriate public activity exposed his double life. And so I just want to challenge everyone that when genuine encounter starts happening, systems are not the enemy, but it will expose double lives.Rich Birch — So good, Jon, this is I feel like we could go for so long about these things. And I’m always got I got a page of notes here and other questions I’d love to ask you. But this is super helpful.Rich Birch — So the thing for folks that haven’t been tracking along, you’ve been writing a number of books.Jon Thompson — Yeah.Rich Birch — And that, you know, and they they hang together as a bit of a the thing you’re tricking people into is it’s like they think it’s one book, but really it’s like it’s like a Tolkien, more than trilogy. Kind of talk to us how these all fit together. At least that’s how I see them. I see them as like, it’s kind of one continuous conversation around the similar kind of stuff. How does Presence, this current work, fit in the context of the other stuff that you’re working on?Jon Thompson — Sure. You are right about the conspiracy. And I’ll take I’ll take the Tolkien nod.Rich Birch — Yes, I figured you’d like that.Jon Thompson — That’s very kind of you, because I don’t deserve it. I only quote him once in all my books, though. So the only once for one section.Rich Birch — Oh nice. Yes.Jon Thompson — ah Yeah, here’s how I would say it. Convergence is the is the story and the theology of how we wrestled down love, word, and power from the gift side of things. How it was implemented. How we move, basically what is the theology thing what is it what does it feel like, how do you actually build house rules around it, all the good and bad that happened with it, and then tells the story of the renewal and revival we went through, and how we survived it. So that’s book one.Jon Thompson — Book two, well, it’s not really book two anymore, but I’ll do it like this. Deliverance, which comes out in February, is a 25-plus year theological and practical experience of how we dealt with the demonic.Jon Thompson — Perseverance, book three, which is still out which will disappear soon, is all my reflections at the midway point on survivability, because you and I have talked about this before, only 30% of leaders in the Bible end well; 70% fail. The stats have not changed. So there’s a lot of the first two things involved in this. Jon Thompson — This book Presence is talking honestly about retreat and revival, talking about incarnation and why multiple models of church that feeling contradiction to each other is the point. That’s always been the point, which again, for a lot of you as admin leaders, I’d really beg you to read this, not because it’s my book. Because a lot of the battles between churches is a misunderstanding of mission. Jon Thompson — And then I talk about how love, word, and power are employed evangelistically, and then walk again through revival and how you can ask for it and what you do if He says yes or no. But the majority of the book is actually on long-term witness to a very diverse, complicated world.Rich Birch — Yeah, so good.Jon Thompson — That’s the trellis.Rich Birch — Yeah.Jon Thompson —  And the book I’m writing right now is on suffering, but we’re not there yet.Rich Birch — Yeah, so good. Friends, I would strongly encourage you, you know, listen, I’ve had multiple friends, multiple teams who have just been incredibly blessed by by Jon’s work and has challenged and done the best kind of disruptive work that this kind of thinking can do. And so i would strongly endorse uh you know that you pick up copies of Presence for your team. Rich Birch — This could be a great um you know resource to work through with your leaders and ask the question all the time. So what does that mean for us? What does that mean for us? What does that mean for us? Don’t just let these be ideas in your head, but something you can really wrestle with. Rich Birch — Where do we want to send people to pick up, you know, to get copies and all that stuff. I’m assuming you can get them on Amazon, but are there other places we want to let people know about?Jon Thompson — Yeah, so Amazon, of course, is easy for all of us these days. But jonthompsonresources.com has it too. J-O-N. Jon Thompson Resources will have all of that. Like I said, Convergence is out. Presence comes out September 22nd. Deliverance is re-released in February 2027. And Perseverance is available now and will disappear and then we’ll come back…Rich Birch — It’s like the Disney vault.Jon Thompson — …sooner than later. It is like, it’s like the Disney. Yes, it is like the Disney vault.Rich Birch — That’s a throwback to the, the you know for people of a certain age, we’ll get that. And Gen Z friends will be like, what? What are you talking about? Rich Birch — Well, Jon, I just also want to just publicly honor you. You’re you’re doing a fantastic job. Like it’s been fun to watch over the years, your continued leadership and the positive impact you’ve been having and the community that you have stewarded. And you know I can’t I love when you know more people get a chance to interact with you. So thanks so much for being here on the show today. Appreciate your time with us. Thank you.Jon Thompson — Yeah, thanks for your friendship and your prayers. 

Fox Sports' lead College Football analyst Joel Klatt goes around the country and decides whether it's time to panic about teams like Oregon, Ohio State and Oklahoma after analyzing their losses over the weekend. He looks at teams like USC, Colorado, Michigan, Texas and Alabama and decides whether those fanbases should be staying calm and keeping expectations in check or getting excited for what's in store the rest of the season. Klatt also evaluates what to make of the early-season returns for teams like Miami & UCLA that are off to winning starts before pointing out a 2-0 Big Ten team that should have some alarms going off despite the wins. He also points out an SEC team that could be a major spoiler this season behind their QB who looks like a star.Use my code for 10% off your next set of CFB tickets at SeatGeek*:https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/KLATT10 Sponsored by SeatGeek. *Restrictions apply. Max $20 discount Chapters 🏈0:00-2:13 College football fan base check in after week 22:14-9:25 Oregon9:26-11:07 Miami11:08-15:11 Ohio State15:12-16:40 Alabama16:41-18:54 UCLA18:55-23:30 Oklahoma23:31-25:15 Michigan25:16-27:27 Texas27:28-29:16 Colorado29:17-30:44 Washington30:45-33:41 USC33:42-36:05 Florida State36:06-37:05 BYU37:06-38:34 Mississippi State38:35-39:33 Georgia Tech Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In office hours this week the discussion started with AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude for productivity, with Pastor Amos sharing how he used AI to build a CFE website and recommending AI for creating mock websites to clarify business concepts. Anya shared her testimony about returning to the medical field after 26 years as an entrepreneur, receiving a full-time position with leadership responsibilities, and received advice from other members about balancing this new opportunity with her entrepreneurial goals. Micah shared a testimony about attending a business meeting where he connected with a national entrepreneurship association leader, leading to an invitation to speak at an upcoming conference about helping businesses get access to capital. The group also discussed the importance of reaching people where they are rather than expecting them to come to a specific platform or location, with Amos drawing parallels to Jesus's ministry approach of going to people rather than waiting for them to come. The conversation ended with announcements about CFE's upcoming week long hiatus and a discussion about balancing professional work with entrepreneurial calling. __________ Partner with Us: https://churchforentrepreneurs.com/partner Connect with Us: https://churchforentrepreneurs.com __________