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Clay explores Daniel Kahneman's book Thinking, Fast and Slow, unpacking the cognitive biases that quietly shape our investment decisions. While markets often appear to be driven by data and logic, our decisions are frequently influenced by intuition, emotions, and mental shortcuts we don't even realize we're using. IN THIS EPISODE YOU'LL LEARN: 00:00:00 - Intro 00:04:15 - Why temperament matters more than IQ in investing 00:11:10 - The difference between System 1 and System 2 thinking 00:16:01 - How cognitive substitution leads investors to answer the wrong questions and unknowingly ignore the more important questions 00:38:08 - How loss aversion shapes investor behavior during drawdowns and market volatility 00:54:01 - Clay's updated views on Constellation Software Disclaimer: Slight discrepancies in the timestamps may occur due to podcast platform differences. BOOKS AND RESOURCES Join the exclusive TIP Mastermind Community to engage in meaningful stock investing discussions with Stig, Clay, Kyle, and the other community members. Learn how to join us in Omaha for the Berkshire meeting here. Daniel Kahneman's book: Thinking Fast & Slow. Sequoia Fund's 2025 year-end letter. Follow Clay on X and LinkedIn. Related books mentioned in the podcast. Ad-free episodes on our Premium Feed. NEW TO THE SHOW? Get smarter about valuing businesses in just a few minutes each week through our newsletter, The Intrinsic Value Newsletter. Check out our We Study Billionaires Starter Packs. Follow our official social media accounts: X (Twitter) | LinkedIn | Facebook. Browse through all our episodes here. Try our tool for picking stock winners and managing our portfolios: TIP Finance Tool. Enjoy exclusive perks from our favorite Apps and Services. Learn how to better start, manage, and grow your business with the best business podcasts. SPONSORS Support our free podcast by supporting our sponsors: HardBlock Human Rights Foundation Simple Mining Netsuite Masterworks Shopify Vanta Fundrise References to any third-party products, services, or advertisers do not constitute endorsements, and The Investor's Podcast Network is not responsible for any claims made by them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm
Are you in a slump, feeling midway like solar is no longer the industry for you? This episode is going to give you the real talk that you need to be more resilient and optimistic for what's ahead.CLICK HERE: https://apply.solarpreneurs.com/ https://zendirect.com/ https://crmx.app/ https://zapier.com/ https://www.solarscout.app/taylor https://www.youtube.com/@solarpreneurs goals.solarpreneurs.com oneliners.solarpreneurs.com https://solciety.co/ - JOIN SOLCIETY NOW! SIRO APP - LEARN MORE
Did you know your readers are thinking about your book long before they ever think about buying it? Today is a sneak peek into a new three-part series. Let's learn to read the room (as a host or guest) so our Q2 content truly speaks to what readers need right now.
If you're the kind of expert who cannot do surface-level… this episode is for you. In the final part of my 4-part CEO Types series, I'm breaking down what it really means to be a Strategic CEO—the thoughtful, systems-minded leader who sees nuance, builds frameworks that actually work, and refuses to sell "quick fix" nonsense just to keep up with the internet. We're talking about why your depth is a genuine advantage and the sneaky ways it can keep your best ideas trapped in development while other people (with way less expertise) ship faster, sell faster, and get the credit. You'll learn how to get your brilliance out of your head and into the world without dumbing it down and without waiting for perfection. We're also diving into the shifts that help your strategic mind translate into sales, client results, and real impact—because being smart isn't the goal… being effective is. Episode Highlights Timeline [02:39] - Why your depth and intelligence are rare—and why that's not automatically an advantage if people never experience it [03:27] - The brutal truth: "brilliant in development" doesn't create impact (or revenue) [04:11] - What defines a Strategic CEO: task-oriented, intentional, systematic, and research-driven [09:10] - The opportunity: standing out in a sea of oversimplified "garbage advice" by accounting for reality and complexity [21:30] - The biggest blind spot: strategic thinking vs. analysis paralysis (and how "ready" becomes a moving target) [26:05] - Why nitty-gritty explanations can backfire in sales: clarity is emotional, not just logical [33:44] - The Strategic CEO game plan: launch before perfect, lead with conclusions, make clear recommendations, and time-block your thinking Top 5 Quotes "Your brilliance doesn't actually count if no one ever gets to experience it." "A lot of the advice being given online is oversimplified garbage, and you know it." "Thinking things through can end up becoming paralysis by analysis." "Clear does not mean that they're understanding everything that you do… clear just means that they can make a confident decision to move forward." "There's a big difference between strategic thinking and strategic avoidance." Links & Resources Take the CEO Type Quiz: lauraschoenfeld.com/quiz Mentioned client story/interview: Chris Sandel If this episode hit home, I'd love it if you'd follow the show and leave a rating + review so more CEOs can find this series. And if you know a Strategic CEO who needs permission to ship the thing already… send them this episode!
We tackle plenty of your big dope questions here on The Perfect Pour, beer geek show. And talk about things like: Untappd is removing a big feature. We are not open for work. Grandy's (again). Guinness Gilroy hot. Miller Genuine Draft...draught. Ancient Grains beer. Re-draft Beer. An OG New Belgium return! Epcop beers. Best brewed beer on earth? Mathews Brewing Company, more news. That hard to find Sierra IPA. And more! download Thank you for listening! HOSTED BY: Nick, Rad Stacey, Mikey MUSIC BY: Sunburns and Paul From Fairfax. BEER AND SHOW-RELATED LINKS: SUPPORT THE SHOW AND BECOME A GOLDEN GOD! Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts. You can also find us on Spotify and most podcast players. Perfect Pour's YouTube Channel. VOICEMAIL/TEXT LINE: 559-492-0542 Drop Us a Line: perfectpourpodcast@gmail.com. Join our Discord Channel! Send Postcards or Samples to us: The Perfect Pour – co Mike Seay 2037 W. Bullard Ave #153 Fresno, CA 93711 Mikey's newsletter: Drinking & Thinking. Check this!: Mikey's Dorky Amazon Storefront.
Lynette and Stef discuss the horrible abuse case from many years ago and wonder how two awful people found each other. But they make it funny.
Krista Stepney shares powerful tactics for moving forward when fear has you feeling stuck.— YOU'LL LEARN — 1) How to identify and address the root causes of inaction2) How to take your power back from comparisons and self-doubt3) Two powerful scripts for when you're stuckSubscribe or visit AwesomeAtYourJob.com/ep1130 for clickable versions of the links below. — ABOUT KRISTA — Krista D. Stepney is a leadership and business strategist, keynote speaker, and transformation advisor who helps leaders and everyday changemakers turn hesitation into momentum. With over 15 years of experience in operations, organizational leadership, and culture transformation, Krista blends research, faith, and lived experience to help others build a purposeful life and legacy.As the creator of The BOLDprint Method and the W.A.N.D. Methodology, she has coached executives, entrepreneurs, and everyday dreamers on overcoming fear, resisting comparison, and designing a personalized roadmap forward, even when the next step feels unclear.Her mission is simple: to help people get unstuck and move anyway, especially when it feels like the hardest thing to do.• Book: Move Anyway: A Guide for Overthinkers, Perfectionists, and Almost-Starters• Website: KristaStepney.com— RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE SHOW — • Study: Perfectionism Research by Vitale & Co.• Study: “Healthy Reflections: The Influence of Mirror Induced Self-Awareness on Taste Perceptions” by Ata Jami• Study: “Implementation Intentions and Goal Achievement: A Meta‐analysis of Effects and Processes” by Peter M. Gollwitzer and Paschal Sheeran• Book: Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen• Book: Professional Troublemaker: The Fear-Fighter Manual by Luvvie Ajayi Jones• Past episode: 015: David Allen, The World's Leading Authority on Productivity• Past episode: 798: How to Have Difficult Conversations about Race with Kwame Christian• Past episode: 1078: How to Stop Playing Small and Achieve Your Greatest Goals with Richard Medcalf— THANK YOU SPONSORS! — • Monarch.com. Get 50% off your first year on with the code AWESOME.• Shopify. Sign up for your $1/month trial at Shopify.com/better• Factor. Head to factormeals.com/beawesome50off and use the code beawesome50off to get 50% off and free breakfast for a year. (New Factor subscribers only)See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Now witness the intellectual firepower of this fully armed and operational Presidential candidate!
One of the most important aspects of building an audience for your podcast is to provide free, valuable, and consistent content as well as solutions to real-world problems. Join John Lee Dumas as he explains the best ways to find your niche and launch your podcast. WHAT TO LISTEN FOR The best solution for finding your spot in podcasting Getting your questions better to still deliver really good value Bringing listeners to your podcast Creating unique and special episodes Why you should choose a specific niche Ways to generate income RESOURCES/LINKS MENTIONED Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine The Common Path To Uncommon Success ABOUT JOHN LEE DUMAS John Lee Dumas is the founder and host of the award-winning podcast, Entrepreneurs On Fire. With over 100 million listens of his 3000+ episodes, JLD has turned Entrepreneurs On Fire into a media empire that generates over a million listens every month and 7-figures of NET annual revenue 8 years in a row. CONNECT WITH JOHN Website: Entrepreneurs On Fire with John Lee Dumas CONNECT WITH US If you are interested in getting on our show, email us at team@growyourshow.com. Thinking about creating and growing your own podcast but not sure where to start? Click here and Schedule a call with Adam A. Adams! Subscribe so you don't miss out on great content and if you love the show, leave an honest rating and review here!
Melissa Lavasani & Jay Kopelman join our podcast to discuss how psychedelic policy is actually moving in Washington, DC. Lavasani leads Psychedelic Medicine Coalition, a DC-based advocacy organization focused on educating federal officials and advancing legislation around psychedelic medicine. Kopelman is CEO of Mission Within Foundation, which provides scholarships for veterans and first responders seeking psychedelic-assisted therapy retreats, often outside the United States. The conversation centers on veterans, the VA, and why that system may be the first realistic federal pathway for psychedelic care. Early Themes Lavasani describes PMC's work on Capitol Hill, including hosting events that bring lawmakers, staffers, and advocates into the same room. Her focus is steady engagement. In DC, progress often happens through repeated conversations, not headlines. Kopelman shares his background as a Marine and how his own psychedelic-assisted therapy experience led him to Mission Within. The foundation has funded more than 250 scholarships for veterans and first responders seeking treatment for PTSD, mild traumatic brain injury, depression, and addiction. They connect this work to pending veteran-focused legislation and explain why the VA matters. As a closed health system, the VA can pilot programs, gather data, and refine protocols without the pressures of private healthcare markets. Core Insights A recent Capitol Hill gathering, For Veteran Society, brought together members of Congress and leaders from the psychedelic caucus. Lavasani describes candid feedback from lawmakers. The message was clear: coordinate messaging, avoid fragmentation, and move while bipartisan interest remains. Veteran healthcare is not framed as the final goal. It is a starting point. If psychedelic therapies can demonstrate safety and effectiveness within the VA, broader adoption becomes more plausible. Kopelman raises operational realities that must be addressed: Standardized safety protocols across providers Integration support, not medication alone Clear training pathways for clinicians Real-world data beyond tightly screened clinical trials They also address recent negative headlines involving ibogaine treatment abroad. Kopelman emphasizes the need for shared learning across providers, especially when adverse events occur. Lavasani argues that inconsistency within the ecosystem can slow federal confidence. Later Discussion and Takeaways The discussion widens to federal momentum around addiction and mental health. Lavasani notes that new funding initiatives signal growing openness to innovative treatment models, even if psychedelics are not named explicitly in every announcement. Both guests stress that policy moves slowly by design. Meetings, follow-ups, and relationship building often matter more than public statements. For clinicians, researchers, operators, and advocates, the takeaways are direct: Veterans are likely the first federal pathway Public education remains essential Safety standards must be shared and transparent Integration and workforce development need attention now If psychedelic medicine enters federal systems, infrastructure will determine success. Frequently Asked Questions What do Melissa Lavasani & Jay Kopelman say about VA psychedelic policy? They argue that veteran-focused legislation offers a realistic first federal pathway for psychedelic-assisted care. Is ibogaine currently available through the VA? No. They discuss ibogaine in the context of private retreats and future possibilities, not an existing VA program. Why do Melissa Lavasani & Jay Kopelman emphasize coordination? Lawmakers respond more positively when advocates present aligned messaging and clear priorities. What safety issues are discussed by Melissa Lavasani & Jay Kopelman? They highlight the need for standardized screening, monitoring, integration support, and transparent review of adverse events. Closing Melissa Lavasani & Jay Kopelman provide a grounded look at how psychedelic policy develops inside federal systems. Their message is practical: veterans may be the first lane, but long-term success depends on coordination, safety standards, and sustained engagement. Closing This episode captures a real-time view of how federal policy could shape the next phase of the psychedelic resurgence, especially through veteran-facing legislation and VA infrastructure. Melissa Lavasani & Jay Kopelman argue that coordination, public education, and shared safety standards will shape whether access expands with credibility and care. Transcript Joe Moore: [00:00:00] Hello everybody. Welcome back to Psychedelics Today. Today we have two guests, um, got Melissa Sani from Psychedelic Medicine Coalition. We got Jake Pelman from Mission Within Foundation. We're gonna talk about I bga I became policy on a recent, uh, set of meetings in Washington, DC and, uh, all sorts of other things I'm sure. Joe Moore: But thank you both for joining me. Melissa Lavasani: Thanks for having us. Jay Kopelman: Yeah, it's a pleasure. Thanks. Joe Moore: Yeah. Um, Melissa, I wanna have you, uh, jump in. First. Can you tell us a little bit about, uh, your work and what you do at PMC? Melissa Lavasani: Yeah, so Psychedelic Medicine Coalition is, um, the only DC based Washington DC based advocacy organization dedicated to the advancing the issue of psychedelics, um, and making sure the federal government has the education they need, um, and understands the issue inside out so that they can generate good policy around, around psychedelic medicines. Melissa Lavasani: [00:01:00] Uh, we. Host Hill events. We host other convenings. Our big event every year is the Federal Summit on psychedelic medicine. Um, that's going to be May 14th this year. Um, where we talk about kinda the pressing issues that need to be talked about, uh, with government officials in the room, um, so that we can incrementally move this forward. Melissa Lavasani: Um, our presence here in Washington DC is, is really critical for this issue's success because, um, when we're talking about psychedelic medicines, um, from the federal government pers perspective, you know, they are, they are the ones that are going to initiate the policies that create a healthcare system that can properly facilitate these medicines and make sure, um, patient safety is a priority. Melissa Lavasani: And there's guardrails on this. And, um, you know, there, it's, it's really important that we have. A home base for this issue in Washington DC just [00:02:00] because, uh, this is very complicated as a lot of your viewers probably understand, and, you know, this can get lost in the mix of all the other issues that, um, lawmakers in DC are focused on right now. Melissa Lavasani: And we need to keep that consistent presence here so that this continues to be a priority for members of Congress. Joe Moore: Mm. I love this. And Jay, can you tell us a bit about yourself and mission within Foundation? Jay Kopelman: Yeah, sure. Joe, thanks. Uh, I, I am the CEO of Mission within Foundation. Prior to this, most of my adult life was spent in the military as a Marine. Jay Kopelman: And I came to this. Role after having, uh, a psychedelic assisted therapy experience myself at the mission within down in Mexico, which is where pretty much we all go. Um, we are here to help [00:03:00] provide, uh, access for veterans and first responders to be able to attend psychedelic assisted therapy retreats to treat issues like mild TBI, post-traumatic stress disorder, uh, depression, sometimes addiction at, at a very low level. Jay Kopelman: Um, and, and so we've, we've been doing this for a little more than a year now and have provided 250 plus scholarships to veterans and first responders to be able to access. These retreats and these, these lifesaving medicines. Um, we're also partnered, uh, you may or may not know with Melissa at Psychedelic Medicine Coalition to help advance education and policy, specifically the innovative, uh, therapy Centers of Excellence Act [00:04:00] that Melissa has worked for a number of years on now to bring to both Houses of Congress. Joe Moore: Thank you for that. Um, so let's chat a little bit about what this event was that just, uh, went down, uh, what, what was it two weeks ago at this point? Melissa Lavasani: Yeah. Yeah. It's called For Veteran Society and it's all, um, there's a lot of dialogue on Capitol Hill about veterans healthcare and psychedelics, but where I've been frustrated is that, you know, it was just a lot of. Melissa Lavasani: Talk about what the problems are and not a lot of talk about like how we actually propel things forward. Um, so it, at that event, I thought it was really important and we had three members of Congress there, um, Morgan Latrell, who has been a champion from day one and his time in Congress, um, having gone through the experience himself, um, [00:05:00] at Mission within, um, and then the two chairs of the psychedelic caucus, uh, Lou Correa and Jack Bergman. Melissa Lavasani: And we really got down to the nitty gritty of like w like why this has taken so long and you know, what is actually happening right now? What are the possibilities and what the roadblocks are. And it was, I thought it was a great conversation. Um, we had an interesting kind of dynamic with Latres is like a very passionate about this issue in particular. Melissa Lavasani: Um, I think it was, I think it was really. A great event. And, you know, two days later, Jack Bergman introduced his new bill for the va. Um, so it was kind of like the precursor to that bill getting introduced. And we're just excited for more and more conversations about how the government can gently guide this issue to success. Joe Moore: Hmm. Yeah. [00:06:00] That's fantastic. Um, yeah, I was a little bummed I couldn't make it, but next time, I hope. But I've heard a lot of good things and, um, it's, it sounded like there was some really important messages in, in terms of like feedback from legislators. Yeah. Yeah. Could you speak to that? Melissa Lavasani: Yeah, I mean, I think when, uh, representative Latrell was speaking, he really impressed on us a couple things. Melissa Lavasani: Um, first is that, you know, they really kind of need the advocates to. Coordinate, collaborate and come up with like a, a strategic plan, you know, without public education. Um, talking to members of Congress about this issue is, is really difficult. You know, like PMC is just one organization. We're very little mission within, very little, um, you know, we're all like, kind of new in navigating, um, this not so new issue, but new to Washington DC [00:07:00] issue. Melissa Lavasani: Um, without that public education as a baseline, uh, it's, it's, you have to spend a lot of time educating members of Congress. You know, that's like one of our things is, you know, we have to, we don't wanna tell Congress what direction to go to. We wanna provide them the information so they understand it very intimately and know how to navigate through things. Melissa Lavasani: Um, and secondly. Um, he got pretty frank with us and said, you know, we've got one cha one chance at this issue. And it's like, that's, that's kind of been like my talking point since I started. PMC is like, you have a very limited window, um, when these kind of issues pop up and they're new and they're fresh and you have a lot of the veteran community coming out and talking about it. Melissa Lavasani: And there's a lot of energy there. But now is the time to really move forward, um, with some real legislation that can be impactful. Um, but, you know, we've gotta [00:08:00] be careful. We, we forget, I think sometimes those of us who are in the ecosystem forget that our level of knowledge about these medicines and a lot of us have firsthand experience, um, with these drugs and, and our own healing journeys is, um, we forget that there is a public out there that doesn't have the level of knowledge that we all have. Melissa Lavasani: And, um. We gotta make sure that we're sticking to the right elements of, of, of what needs to happen. We need to be sure that our talking points are on track and we're not getting sideways about anything and going down roads that we don't need to talk about. It's why, um, you know, PMC is very focused on, um, moving forward veteran legislation right now. Melissa Lavasani: Not because we're a veteran organization, but because we're, we see this long-term policy track here. Um, we know where we want to get [00:09:00] to, um. Um, and watching other healthcare issues kind of come up and then go through the VA healthcare system, I think it's a really unique opportunity, um, to utilize the VA as this closed system, the biggest healthcare system in the country to evaluate, uh, how psychedelics operate within systems like that. Melissa Lavasani: And, you know, before they get into, um, other healthcare systems. What do we need to fix? What do we need to pay attention to? What's something that we're paying too much attention to that doesn't necessarily need that much attention? So it's, um, it's a real opportunity to look at psychedelic medicines within a healthcare system and obviously continue to gather the data. Melissa Lavasani: Um, Bergman's Bill emerging, uh, expanding veteran access to emerging treatments. Um, not only mandates the research, it gives the VA authority for this, uh, for running trials and, and creating programs around psychedelic medicines. But also, [00:10:00] one of the great things about it, I think, is it provides an on-ramp for veterans that don't necessarily qualify for clinical trials. Melissa Lavasani: You know, I think that's one of the biggest criticisms of clinical trials is like you're cre you're creating a vacuum for people and people don't live in a vacuum. So we don't necessarily know what psychedelics are gonna look like in real life. Um, but with this expanding veteran access bill that Bergman introduced, it provides the VA an opportunity to provide this access under. Melissa Lavasani: Um, in a, in a safe container with medical supervision while collecting data, um, while ensuring that the veteran that is going through this process has the support systems that it needs. So, um, you know, I think that there's a really unique opportunity here, and like Latrell said, like, we've got one shot at this. Melissa Lavasani: We have people's attention in Congress. Um, now's the time to start acting, and let's be really considerate and thoughtful about what we're doing with it. Joe Moore: Thanks for that, Melissa and Jay, how, [00:11:00] anything to add there on kind of your takeaways from the this, uh, last visit in dc? Jay Kopelman: Yeah, I, I think that Melissa highlighted it really well and there, there were a couple other things that I, I think, you know, you could kind of tie it all together with some other issues that we face in this country, uh, and that. Jay Kopelman: Uh, representative Correa brought up as well, but one of the things I wanted to go back and say is that veterans have kind of led this movement already, right? So, so it's a, it's a good jumping off point, right? That it's something people from both sides of the aisle, from any community in America can get behind. Jay Kopelman: You know, if you think about it, uh, in World War ii, you know, we had a million people serving our population was like, not even 200 million, but now [00:12:00] we have a population of 330 million, and at any given time there might be a million people in uniform, including the Reserve and the National Guard. So it's, it, it's an easy thing to get behind this small part of the population that is willing to sign that contract. Jay Kopelman: Where you are saying, yeah, I'm going to defend my country, possibly at the risk of my l my own life. So that's the first thing. The other thing is that the VA being a closed health system, and they don't have shareholders to answer to, they can take some risks, they can be innovative and be forward thinking in the ways that some other healthcare systems can't. Jay Kopelman: And so they have a perfect opportunity to show that they truly care for their veterans, which don't, I'm not saying they don't, but this would be an [00:13:00] opportunity to show that carrot at a whole different level. Uh, it would allow them to innovate and be a leader in something as, uh, as our friend Jim Hancock will say, you know. Jay Kopelman: When he went to the Naval Academy, they had the world's best shipbuilding program. Why doesn't the VA have the world's best care program for things like TBI and PTSD, which affects, you know, 40 something percent of all veterans, right? So, so there's, there's an opportunity here for the VA to lead from the front. Jay Kopelman: Um, the, these medicines provide, you know, reasonably lasting care where it's kind of a one and done. Whereas with the current systems, the, you know, and, and [00:14:00] again, not to denigrate the VA in any way, they're doing the best job they can with the tools in their toolbox, right? But maybe it's time for a trip to Home Depot. Jay Kopelman: Let's get some new tools. And have some new ways of fixing what's broken, which is really the way of doing things. It's not, veterans aren't broken, we are who we are. Um, but it's a, it's a way to fix what isn't working. So I, I think that, you know, given there's tremendous veteran homelessness still, you know, addiction issues, all these things that do translate to the population at large are things that can be worked on in this one system, the va that can then be shown to have efficacy, have good data, have [00:15:00] good outcomes, and, and take it to the population at large. Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. Brilliant. Thanks for that. And so there was another thing I wanted to pivot to, which is some of the recent press. So we've, um, seen a little bit of press around some, um, in one instance, some bad behavior in Mexico that a FI put out Americans thrive again, put out. And then another case there was a, a recent fatality. Joe Moore: And I think, um, both are tragic. Like we shouldn't be having to deal with this at this point. Um, but there's a lot of things that got us here. Um, it's not necessarily the operator's fault entirely, um, or even at all, honestly, like some medical interventions just carry a lot of risk. Like think, think about like, uh, how risky bypass surgery was in the nineties, right? Joe Moore: Like people were dying a lot from medical interventions and um, you know, this is a major intervention, uh, ibogaine [00:16:00] and also a lot of promise. To help people quite a bit. Um, but as of right now, there's, there's risk. And part of that risk, in my opinion, comes from the inability of organizations to necessarily collaborate. Joe Moore: Like there's no kind of convening body, sitting in the middle, allowing, um, for, and facilitating really good data sharing and learnings. Um, and I don't, I don't necessarily see an organization stepping up and being the, um, the convener for that kind of work. I've heard rumors that something's gonna happen there, and I'm, I'm hopeful I'll always wanna share my opinion on that. Joe Moore: But yeah. I don't know. Jay, from your perspective, is there anything you want to kind of speak to about, uh, these two recent incidents that Americans for Iboga kind of publicized recently? Jay Kopelman: Yeah, so I, I'll echo your sentiment, of course, that these are tragic incidents. Um, and I, [00:17:00] I think that at least in the case of the death at Ambio, AMBIO has done a very good job of talking about it, right? Jay Kopelman: They've been very honest with the information that they have. And like you said, there are risks inherent to these medicines, and it's like anything else in medicine, there are going to be risks. You know, when I went through, uh, when I, when I went through chemo, you know, there were, there are risks. You know, you don't feel well, you get sick. Jay Kopelman: Um, and, and it. There are processes in place to counter that when it happens. And there are processes and, and procedures and safety protocols in place when caring for somebody going through an ibogaine [00:18:00] journey. Uh, when I did it, we had EKG echocardiogram. You're on a heart monitor the entire time they push magnesium via iv. Jay Kopelman: You have to provide a urinalysis sample to make sure that there is nothing in your system that is going to potentially harm you. During the ibogaine, they have, uh, a cardiologist who is monitoring the heart monitors throughout the ibogaine experience. So the, the safety protocols are there. I think it's, I think it's just a matter of. Jay Kopelman: Standardizing them across all, all providers, right? Like, that would be a good thing if people would talk to one another. Um, as, as in any system, right? You've gotta have [00:19:00] some collaboration. You've gotta have standardization, you know, so, you know, they're not called standard operating procedures for nothing. Jay Kopelman: That means that in a, you know, in a given environment, everybody does things the same way. It's true in Navy and Marine Corps, air Force, army Aviation, they have standard operating procedures for every single aircraft. So if you fly, let's say the F 35 now, right? Because it's flown by the Navy, the Marine Corps, and the Air Force. Jay Kopelman: The, the emergency procedures in that airplane are standardized across all three services, so you should have the same, or, you know, with within a couple of different words, the same procedures and processes [00:20:00] across all the providers, right? Like maybe in one document you're gonna change, happy to glad and small dog to puppy, but it's still pretty much the, the same thing. Jay Kopelman: And as a service that provides scholarships to people to go access these medicines and go to these retreats, you know, my criteria is that the, this provider has to be safe. Number one, safety's paramount. It's always gotta be very safe. It should, it has to be effective. And you know, once you have those two things in place, then I have a comfort level saying, okay, yeah, we'll work with this provider. Jay Kopelman: But until those standardized processes are in place, you'll probably see these one-off things. I mean, some providers have been doing this longer than others and have [00:21:00] really figured out, you know, they've, they've cracked the code and, you know, sharing that across the spectrum would be good. Um, but just when these things happen, having a clearing house, right, where everybody can come together and talk about it, you know, like once the facts are known because. Jay Kopelman: To my knowledge, we still don't know all the facts. Like as, you know, as horrible as this is, you still have to talk about like an, has an autopsy been performed? What was found in the patient's system? You know, there, there are things there that we don't know. So we need to, we need to know that before we can start saying, okay, well this is how we can fix that, because we just don't know. Jay Kopelman: And, you know, to their credit, you know, Amio has always been safe to, to the, to the best of my knowledge. You know, I, [00:22:00] I haven't been to Ambio myself, but people that I have worked with have been there. They have observed, they have seen the process. They believe it's safe, and I trust their opinion because they've seen it elsewhere as well. Jay Kopelman: So yeah, having, having that one place where we can all come together when this happens, it, it's almost like it should be mandatory. In the military when there's a training accident, we, you know, we would have to have what's called a safety standout. And you don't do that again for a little while until you figure out, okay, how are we going to mitigate that happening again? Jay Kopelman: Believe me, you can go overboard and we don't want to do that. Like, we don't wanna just stop all care, but maybe stop detox for a week and then come back to it. [00:23:00] Joe Moore: Yeah. A dream would be, let's get like the, I don't know, 10, 20 most popular, uh, or well-known operators together somewhere and just do like a three day debrief. Joe Moore: Hey, everybody, like, here's what we see. Let's work on this together. You know how normal medicine works. And this is, it's hard because this is not necessarily, um, something people feel safe about in America talking about 'cause it's illicit here. Um, I don't understand necessarily how the operations, uh, relate to each other in Mexico, but I think that's something to like the public should dig into. Joe Moore: Like, what, what is this? And I, I'll start digging into that. Um, I, I asked a question recently of somebody like, is there some sort of like back channel signal everybody's using and there's no clear Yes. You know? Um, I think it would be good. That's just a [00:24:00] start, you know, that's like, okay, we can actually kind of say hi and watch out for this to each other. Jay Kopelman: It's not like we don't all know one another, right? Joe Moore: Yes. Jay Kopelman: Like at least three operators we're represented. At the Aspen Ibogaine meeting. So like that could be, and I think there was a panel kind of loosely related to this during Aspen Ibogaine meeting, but Joe Moore: mm-hmm. Jay Kopelman: It, you know, have a breakout where the operators can go sit down and kind of compare notes. Joe Moore: Right. Yeah. Melissa, do you have any, uh, comments on this thread here? And I, I put you on mute if you didn't see that. Um, Melissa Lavasani: all right, I'm off mute. Um, yeah, I think that Jay's hits the nail on the head with the collaboration thing. Um, I think that it's just a [00:25:00] problem across the entire ecosystem, and I think that's just a product of us being relatively new and upcoming field. Melissa Lavasani: Um, uh, it's a product of, you know. Our fundraising community is really small, so organizations feel like they are competing for the same dollars, even though their, their goals are all the same, they have different functions. Um, I think with time, I mean, let's be honest, like if we don't start collaborating and, and the federal government's moving forward, the federal government's gonna coordinate for us. Melissa Lavasani: And not, that might not necessarily be a bad thing, but, you know, we understand this issue to a whole other level that the federal government doesn't, and they're not required to understand it deeply. They just need to know how to really move forward with it the proper way. Um, but I think that it. It's really essential [00:26:00] that we all have this come together moment here so we can avoid things. Melissa Lavasani: Uh, I mean, no one's gonna die from bad advocacy. So like I've, I have a bit of an easier job. Um, but it can a, a absolutely stall efforts, um, to move things forward in Washington DC when, um, one group is saying one thing, another group is saying another thing, like, we're not quite at a point yet where we can have multiple lines of conversation and multiple things moving forward. Melissa Lavasani: Um, you know, for PMC, it's like, just let's get the first thing across the finish line. And we think that is, um, veteran healthcare. And, um, I know there's plenty of other groups out there that, that want the same thing. So, you know, I always, the reason why I put on the Federal Summit last year was I kind of hit my breaking point with a lack of collaboration and I wanted to just bring everyone in the same room and say like, all right, here are the things that we need to talk about. Melissa Lavasani: And I think the goal for this year is, um. To bring people in the same room and say, we talked about [00:27:00] we scratched the surface last year and this is where we need to really put our efforts into. And this is where the opportunities are. Um, I think that is going to, that's going to show the federal government if we can organize ourselves, that they need to take this issue really seriously. Melissa Lavasani: Um, I don't think we've done a great job at that thus far, but I think there's still plenty of time for us to get it together. Um, and I'm hoping with these two, uh, VA bills that are in the house right now and Senate is, is putting together their version of these two bills, um, so that they can move in tandem with each other. Melissa Lavasani: I think that, you know, there's an opportunity here for. Us to show the federal government as an ecosystem, Hey, we, we are so much further ahead and you know, this is what we've organized and here's how we can help you, um, that would make them buy into this issue a bit more and potentially move things forward faster. Melissa Lavasani: Uh, at this point in time, it's, I think that, [00:28:00] you know, psychedelics aren't necessarily the taboo thing that they, they used to be, but there's certainly places that need attention. Um, there's certainly conversations that need to be had, and like I said, like PMC is just one organization that can do this. Um, we can certainly organize and drive forward collaboration, but I, like we alone, cannot cover all this ground and we need the subject matter experts to collaborate with us so we can, you know, once we get in the door, we wanna bring the experts in to talk to these officials about it. Melissa Lavasani: So I. I, I really want listeners to really think about us as a convener of sorts when it comes to federal policy. Um, and you know, I think when, like for example, in the early eighties, a lot of people have made comparisons to the issue of psychedelics to the issue of AIDS research and how you have in a subject matter that's like extremely taboo and a patient population that the government [00:29:00] quite honestly didn't really care about in the early eighties. Melissa Lavasani: But what they did as an ecosystem is really organized themselves, get very clear on what they wanted the federal government to do. And within a matter of a couple years, uh, AIDS research funding was a thing that was happening. And what that, what that did was that ripple effect turned that into basically finding new therapies for something that we thought was a death, death sentence before. Melissa Lavasani: So I think. We just need to look at things in the past that have been really successful, um, and, and try to take the lessons from all of these issues and, and move forward with psychedelics. Joe Moore: Love that. And yes, we always need to be figuring out efficient approaches and where it has been successful in the past is often, um, an opportunity to mimic and, and potentially improve on that. Melissa Lavasani: Yeah. Jay Kopelman: One, one thing I think it's important to add to this part of the conversation is that, [00:30:00] you know, Melissa pointed out there are a number of organizations that are essentially doing the same thing. Jay Kopelman: Um, you know, I like to think we do things a little bit differently at Mission within Foundation in that we don't target any one specific type of service member. We, we work with all veterans. We work with first responders, but. What that leads to is that there are, as far as I've seen, nothing but good intentioned people in this space. Jay Kopelman: You know, people who really care about their patient population, they care about healing, they are trying to do a good job, and more importantly, they're trying to do good. Right? It, it, I think they all see the benefit down the road that this has, [00:31:00] pardon me, not just for veterans, but for society as a whole. Jay Kopelman: And, and ultimately that's where I would like to see this go. You know, I, I would love to see the VA take this. Take up this mantle and, and run with it and provide great data, great outcomes. You know, we are doing some data collection ourselves at Mission within foundation, albeit anecdotal based on surveys given before and after retreats. Jay Kopelman: But we're also working with, uh, Greg Fonzo down at UT Austin on a brain study he's doing that will have 40 patients in it when it's all said and done. And I think we have two more guys to put through that. Uh, and then we'll hit the 40. So there, there's a lot of good here that's being done by some really, really good people who've been doing this for a long time [00:32:00] and want to want nothing more than to, to see this. Jay Kopelman: Come to, come full circle so that we can take care of many, many, many people. Um, you know, like I say, I, I wanna work myself out of a job here. I, I just, I would love to see this happen and then I, you know, I don't have to send guys to Mexico to do this. They can go to their local VA and get the care that they need. Jay Kopelman: Um, but one thing that I don't think we've touched on yet, or regarding that is that the VA isn't designed for that. So it's gonna be a pretty big lift to get the right types of providers into the va with the knowledge, right, with the institutional knowledge of how this should be done, what is safe, what is effective, um, and then it, it's not just providing these medicines to [00:33:00] people and sending them home. Jay Kopelman: You don't just do that, you've gotta have the right therapists on the backend who can provide the integration coaching to the folks who are receiving these medicines. And I'm not just talking, I bga, even with MDMA and psilocybin, you should have a proper period of integration. It helps you to understand how this is going to affect you, what it, what the experience really meant, you know, because it's very difficult sometimes to just interpret it on your own. Jay Kopelman: And so what the experience was and what it meant to you. And, and so it will take some time to spin all that up. But once it's, once it's in place, you know, the sky's the limit. I think. Joe Moore: Kinda curious Jay, about what's, what's going on with Ibogaine at the federal level. Is there anything at VA right now? [00:34:00] Jay Kopelman: At the va? No, not with ibogaine. And, you know, uh, we, we send people specifically for IBOGAINE and five MEO, right? And, and so that, that doesn't preclude my interest in seeing this legislation passed, right? Jay Kopelman: Because it, it will start with something like MDMA or psilocybin, but ultimately it could grow to iboga, right? It the think about the cost savings at, at the va, even with psilocybin, right? Where you could potentially treat somebody with a very inexpensive dose of psilocybin or, or iboga one time, and then you, you don't have to treat them again. Jay Kopelman: Now, if I were, uh, you know, a VA therapist who's not trained in psychedelic trauma therapy. I might be worried [00:35:00] about job security, but it's like with anything, right? Like ultimately it will open pathways for new people to get that training or the existing people to get that training and, and stay on and do that work. Jay Kopelman: Um, which only adds another arrow to their quiver as far as I'm concerned, because this is coming and we're gonna need the people. It's just like ai, right? Like ai, yeah. Some people are gonna lose some jobs initially, and that's unfortunate. But productivity ultimately across all industries will increase and new jobs will be created as a result of that. Jay Kopelman: I mean, I was watching Squawk Box one morning. They were talking about the AI revolution and how there's gonna be a need for 500,000 electricians to. Build these systems that are going to work with the AI [00:36:00] supercomputers and, and so, Joe Moore: mm-hmm. Jay Kopelman: Where, where an opportunity may be lost. I think several more can be gained going forward. Melissa Lavasani: And just to add on what Jay just said there, there's nothing specific going on with Ibogaine at, at the va, but I think this administration is, is taking a real look at addiction in particular. Uh, they just launched, uh, a new initiative, uh, that's really centered on addiction treatments called the Great American Recovery. Melissa Lavasani: And, um, they're dedicating a hundred million dollars towards treating addiction as like a chronic treatable disease and not necessarily a law enforcement issue. So, um, in that initiative there will be federal grant programs for prevention and treatment and recovery. And, um, while this isn't just for psychedelic medicines, uh, I think it's a really great opportunity for the discussion of psychedelics to get elevated to the White House. Melissa Lavasani: Um, [00:37:00] there's also, previous to this announcement last week from the White House, there's been a hundred million dollars that was dedicated at, um, at ARPA h, which is. The advanced research projects, uh, agency for healthcare, um, and that is kind of an agency that's really focused on forward looking, um, treatments and technologies, uh, for, um, a, a whole slew of. Melissa Lavasani: Of issues, but this a hundred million dollars is dedicated to mental health and addiction. So there's a lot of opportunity there as well. So we, while I think, you know, some people are talking about, oh, we need a executive order on Iboga, it's like, well, you know, the, the president is thinking, um, about, you know, what issues can land with his, uh, voting block. Melissa Lavasani: And I think it's, I don't think we necessarily need a specific executive order on Iboga to call this a success. It's like, let's look at what, [00:38:00] um, what's just been announced from the White House. They're, they're all in on. Thinking creatively and finding, uh, new solutions for this. And this is kind of, this aligns with, um, HHS secretaries, uh, Robert F. Melissa Lavasani: Kennedy Junior's goals when he took on this, this role of Health Secretary. Um, addiction has been a discussion that, you know, he has personal, um, a personal tie to from his own experience. And, um, I think when this administration started, there was so much like fervor around the, the dialogue of like, everyone's talking about psychedelics. Melissa Lavasani: It was Secretary Kennedy, it was, uh, secretary Collins at the va. It was FDA Commissioner Marty Macari. And I think that there's like a lot of undue frustration within folks 'cause um, you don't necessarily snap your fingers and change happens in Washington dc This is not the city for that. And it's intentionally designed to move slow so that we can avoid really big mistakes. Melissa Lavasani: Um. [00:39:00] I think we're a year into this administration and these two announcements are, are pretty huge considering, um, you know, the, we, there are known people within domestic policy council that don't, aren't necessarily supportive of psychedelic medicine. So there's a really amazing progress here, and frustrating as it might be to, um, just be waiting for this administration to make some major move. Melissa Lavasani: I think they are making major moves like for Washington, DC These, these are major moves and we just gotta figure out how we can, um, take these initiatives and apply them to the issue of psychedelic medicines. Joe Moore: Thanks, Melissa. Um, yeah, it is, it is interesting like the amount of fervor there was at the beginning. You know, we had, uh. Kind of one of my old lawyers, Matt Zorn, jumped in with the administration. Right. And, um, you know, it was, uh, really cool to [00:40:00] see and hopeful how much energy was going on. It's been a little quiet, kind of feels like a black box a little bit, but I, you know, there was, Melissa Lavasani: that's on me. Melissa Lavasani: Maybe I, we need to be more out in public about like, what's actually happening, because I feel like, like day in and day out, it's just been, you gotta just mm-hmm. Like have that constant beat with the government. Mm-hmm. And, um, it's, it's, it's not the photo ops on the hill, it's the conversations that you have. Melissa Lavasani: It's the dinner parties you go to, it's the fundraisers you attend, you know? Mm-hmm. That's why I, I kind of have to like toot my own horn with PCs. Like, we need to be present here at, at not only on the Hill, not only at the White House, but kind of in the ecosystem of Washington DC itself. There's, it's, there are like power players here. Melissa Lavasani: There are people that are connected that can get things done, like. I mean, the other last week we had a big snow storm. I walked over to my friend's house, um, to have like a little fire sesh with them and our kids, and his next door neighbor came over. He was a member of Congress. I talked about the VA bills, like [00:41:00] we're reaching out to his office now, um, to get them, um, up to speed and hopefully get their co-sponsorship for, uh, the two VA bills. Melissa Lavasani: So, I mean, it, the little conversations you have here are just as important as the big ones with the photo ops. So, um, it, it's, it's really like, you know, building up that momentum and, and finding that time where you can really strike and make something happen. Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Jay, anything to add there? Jay Kopelman: Yeah, I was just gonna say that, you know, I, I, I think the fervor is still there, right? Jay Kopelman: But real life happens. Melissa Lavasani: Yes, Jay Kopelman: yes. And gets in the way, right? So, Melissa Lavasani: yeah, Jay Kopelman: I, I can't imagine how many issues. Secretary Kennedy has every day much less the president. Like there's so many things that they are dealing with on a daily basis, right? It, we, we just have to work to be the squeaky wheel in, in the right way, right. Jay Kopelman: [00:42:00] With the, with the right information at the right time. Like just inundating one of these organizations with noise, it's then it be with Informa, it just becomes noise, right? It it, it doesn't help. So when we have things to say that are meaningful and impactful, we do, and Melissa does an amazing job of that. Jay Kopelman: But, you know, it, it takes time. You know, it's, you know, we're not, this is, this is like turning an aircraft carrier, not a ski boat. Melissa Lavasani: Yeah, Joe Moore: yeah, absolutely. Um, and. It's, it's understandably frustrating, I think for the public and the psychedelic public in particular because we see all this hope, you know, we continue to get frustrated at politics. It's nothing new, right? Um, and we, we wanna see more people get well immediately. [00:43:00] And I, I kind of, Jay from the veteran perspective, I do love the kind of loud voices like, you're making me go to Mexico for this. Joe Moore: I did that and you're making me leave the country for the thing that's gonna fix me. Like, no way. And barely a recognition that this is a valid treatment. You know, like, you know, that is complicated given how medicine is structured here domestically. But it's also, let's face the facts, like the drug war kind of prevented us from being able to do this research in the first place. Joe Moore: You know? Thanks Nixon. And like, how do we actually kind of correct course and say like, we need to spend appropriately on science here so we can heal our own people, including veterans and everybody really. It's a, it's a dire situation out there. Jay Kopelman: Yeah. It, it really is. Um, you know, we were talking briefly about addicts, right? Jay Kopelman: And you know, it's not sexy. People think of addicts as people who are weak-minded, [00:44:00] right? They don't have any self-control. Um, but, but look at, look at the opioid crisis, right? That Brian Hubbard was fighting against in Kentucky for all those years. That that was something that was given to the patient by a doctor that they then became dependent on, and a lot of people died from that. Jay Kopelman: And, and so you, you know, it's, I I don't think it's fair to just put all addicts in a box. Just like it's not fair to put all veterans in a box. Just like it's not fair for doctors, put all their patients in a box. We're individuals. We, we have individual needs. Our, our health is very individual. Like, I, I don't think I should be put in the same box as every other 66-year-old that my doctor sees. Jay Kopelman: It's not fair. [00:45:00] You know, if you, if you took my high school classmates and put us all in a photo, we're all gonna have different needs, right? Like, some look like they're 76, not 66. Some look like they're 56. Not like they're, we, we do things differently. We live our lives differently. And the same is true of addicts. Jay Kopelman: They come to addiction from different places. Not everybody decides they want to just try heroin at a party, and all of a sudden they're addicted. It happens in, in different ways, you know, and the whole fentanyl thing has been so daggum nefarious, right? You know, pushing fentanyl into marijuana. Jay Kopelman: Somebody's smoking a joint and all of a sudden they're addicted to fentanyl or they die. Melissa Lavasani: I think we're having a, Jay Kopelman: it's, it's just not fair to, to say everybody in this pot is the same, or everybody in this one is the same. We have [00:46:00] to look at it differently. Joe Moore: Yeah. I like to zoom one level out and kind of talk about, um, just how hurt we are as a country, as a world really, but as a country specifically, and how many people are out of work for so many. Joe Moore: Difficult reasons and away from their families for so many kind of tragic reasons. And if we can get people back to their families and back to work, a lot of these things start to self-correct, but we have to like have those interventions where we can heal folks and, and get them back. Um, yeah. And you know, everything from trauma, uh, in childhood, you know, adulthood, combat, whatever it is. Joe Moore: Like these things can put people on the sidelines. And Jay, to your point, like you get knee surgery and all of a sudden you're, you know, two years later you're on the hunt for Fentanyl daily. You know, that's tough. It's really tough. Carl Hart does a good job talking about this kind of addiction pipeline and [00:47:00] a few others do as well. Joe Moore: But it's just, you know, kind of putting it in a moral failure bucket. It's not great. I was chatting with somebody about, um, veterans, it's like you come back and you're like, what's gonna make me feel okay right now? And it's not always alcohol. Um, like this is the first thing that made me feel okay, because there's not great treatments and there's, there's a lot of improvements in this kind of like bringing people back from the field that needs to happen. Joe Moore: In my opinion. I, it seems to be shared by a lot of people, but yeah, there's, it's, it's, IGA is gonna be great. It's gonna be really important. I really can't wait for it to be at scale appropriately, but there's a lot of other things we need to fix too, um, so that we can just, you know, not have so many people we need to, you know, spend so much money healing. Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. Jay Kopelman: Yeah. You ahead with that. We don't need the president to sign an executive order to automatically legalize Ibogaine. Right. But it would be nice if he would reschedule it so that [00:48:00] then then researchers could do this research on a larger scale. You know, we could, we could now get some real data that would show the efficacy. Jay Kopelman: And it could be done in a safe environment, you know? And, and so that would be, do Joe Moore: you have any kind of figures, like, like, I've been talking about this for a while, Jay. Like, does it drop the cost a lot of doing research when we deschedule things? Jay Kopelman: I, I would imagine so, because it'll drop the cost of accessing the medicines that are being researched. Jay Kopelman: Right? You, you would have buy-in from more organizations. You know, you might even have a pharma company that comes into this, you know, look at j and j with the ketamine, right? They have, they have a nasal spray version of ketamine that's doing very well. I mean, it's probably their, their biggest revenue [00:49:00] provider for them right now. Jay Kopelman: And, and so. You know, you, it would certainly help and I think, I think it would lower costs of research to have something rescheduled rather than being schedule one. You know it, people are afraid to take chances when you're talking about Schedule one Melissa Lavasani: labs or they just don't have the money to research things that are on Schedule one. Melissa Lavasani: 'cause there's so much in an incredible amount of red tape that you have to go through and, and your facility has to be a certain way and how you contain those, uh, medicines. Oh, researching has to be in a specific container and it's just very cumbersome to research schedule one drugs. So absolutely the cost would go down. Melissa Lavasani: Um, but Joe Moore: yeah, absolutely. Less safes. Melissa Lavasani: Yeah. Joe Moore: Yes. Less uh, Melissa Lavasani: right. Joe Moore: Locked. Yeah. Um, it'll be really interesting when that happens. I'm gonna hold out faith. That we can see some [00:50:00] movement here. Um, because yeah, like why make healing more expensive than it needs to be? I think like that's potentially a protectionist move. Joe Moore: Like, I'm not, I'm not here yet, but, um, look at AbbVie's, uh, acquisition of the Gilgamesh ip. Mm-hmm. Like that's a really interesting move. I think it was $1.2 billion. Mm-hmm. So they're gonna wanna protect that investment. Um, and it's likely going to be an approved medication. Like, I don't, I don't see a world in which it's not an approved medication. Joe Moore: Um, you know, I don't know a timeline, I would say Jay Kopelman: yeah. Joe Moore: Less than six years, just given how much cash they've got. But who knows, like, I haven't followed it too closely. So, and that's an I bga derivative to be clear, everybody, um mm-hmm. If you're not, um, in, in the loop on that, which is hopeful, you know? Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. But I don't know what the efficacy is gonna be with that compared to Ibogaine and then we have to talk about the kind of proprietary molecule stuff. Um, there's like a whole bunch of things that are gonna go on here, and this is one of the reasons why I'm excited about. Federal involvement [00:51:00] because we might actually be able to have some sort of centralized manufacturer, um, or at least the VA could license three or four generic manufacturers per for instance, and that way prices aren't gonna be, you know, eight grand a dose or whatever. Joe Moore: You know, it's, Jay Kopelman: well, I think it's a very exciting time in the space. You know, I, I think that there's the opportunity for innovation. There is the opportunity for collaboration. There's the opportunity for, you know, long-term healing at a very low cost. You know, that we, we have the highest healthcare cost per capita in the world right here in the us. Jay Kopelman: And, and yet we are not the number one health system in the world. So to me, that doesn't add up. So we need to figure out a way to start. Bringing costs down for a lot of people and [00:52:00] at the same time increasing, increasing outcomes. Joe Moore: Absolutely. Yeah. There's a lot of possible outcome improvements here and, and you know, everything from relapse rates, like we hear often about people leaving a clinic and they go and overdose when they get home. Tragically, too common. I think there's everything from, you know, I'm Jay, I'm involved in an organization called the Psychedelics and Pain Association. Joe Moore: We look at chronic pain very seriously, and IGA is something we are really interested in. And if. We could have better, you know, research, there better outcome measures there. Um, you know, perhaps we can have less people on opioids to begin with from chronic pain conditions. Um, Jay Kopelman: yeah, I, I might be due for another Ibogaine journey then, because I deal with chronic pain from Jiujitsu, but, Joe Moore: oh gosh, let's Jay Kopelman: talk Joe Moore: later. Jay Kopelman: That's self inflicted. Some people would say take a month off, but Melissa Lavasani: yeah, Jay Kopelman: I'm [00:53:00] not, I'm not that smart. Joe Moore: Yeah. Um, but you know, this, uh, yeah, this whole thing is gonna be really interesting to see how it plays out. I'm endlessly hopeful pull because I'm still here. Right. I, I've been at this for almost 10 years now, very publicly, and I think we are seeing a lot of movement. Joe Moore: It's not always what we actually wanna see, but it is movement nonetheless. You know, how many people are writing on this now than there were before? Right. You know, we, we have people in New York Times writing somewhat regularly about psychedelics and. Even international media is covering it. What do we have legalization in Australia somewhat recently for psilocybin and MDMA, Czech Republic. Joe Moore: I think Germany made some moves recently. Mm-hmm. Um, really interesting to see how this is gonna just keep shifting. Um Jay Kopelman: mm-hmm. Joe Moore: And I think there's no way that we're not gonna have prescription psychedelics in three years in the United States. It pro probably more like a [00:54:00] year and a half. I don't know. Do you, are you all taking odds? Melissa Lavasani: Yeah. I mean, I think Jay Kopelman: I, I gotta check Cal sheet, see what they're saying. Melissa Lavasani: I think it's safe to say, I mean, this could even come potentially the end of this year, I think, but definitely by the end of 2027, there's gonna be at least one psychedelic that's FDA approved. Joe Moore: Yeah. Yeah. Melissa Lavasani: If you're not counting Ketamine. Joe Moore: Right. Jay Kopelman: I, I mean, I mean it mm-hmm. It, it doesn't make sense that it. Shouldn't be or wouldn't be. Right. The, we've seen the benefits. Mm-hmm. We know what they are. It's at a very low cost, but you have to keep in mind that these things, they need to be done with the right set setting and container. Right. And, and gotta be able to provide that environment. Jay Kopelman: So, but I would, I would love, like I said, I'd love to work myself out of a job here and see this happen, not just for our veterans, [00:55:00] but for everybody. Joe Moore: Mm-hmm. Um, so Melissa, is there a way people can get involved or follow PMC or how can they support your work at PMC? Melissa Lavasani: Yeah, I mean, follow us in social media. Melissa Lavasani: Um, our two biggest platforms are LinkedIn and Instagram. Um, I'm bringing my newsletter back because I'm realizing, um, you know, there is a big gap in, in kind of like the knowledge of Washington DC just in general. What's happening here, and I think, you know, part of PC's value is that we're, we are plugged into conversations that are being had, um, here in the city. Melissa Lavasani: And, you know, we do get a little insight. Um, and I think that that would really quiet a lot of, you know, the, a lot of noise that, um, exists in the, our ecosystem. If, if people just had some clarity on like, what's actually happening or happening here and what are the opportunities and, [00:56:00] um, where do we need more reinforcement? Melissa Lavasani: Um, and, and also, you know, as we're putting together public education campaign, you know. My, like, if I could get everything I wanted like that, that campaign would be this like multi-stakeholder collaborative effort, right? Where we're covering all the ground that we need to cover. We're talking to the patient groups, we're talking to traditional mental health organizations, we're talking to the medical community, we're talking to the general population. Melissa Lavasani: I think that's like another area that we, we just seem to be, um, lacking some effort in. And, you know, ultimately the veteran story's always super compelling. It pulls on your heartstrings. These are our heroes, um, of our country. Like that, that is, that is meaningful. But a lot of the veteran population is small and we need the, like a, the just.[00:57:00] Melissa Lavasani: Basic American living in middle America, um, understanding what psychedelics are so that in, in, in presenting to them the stories that they can relate to, um, because that's how you activate the public and you activate the public and you get them to see what's happening in these clinical trials, what the data's been saying, what the opportunities are with psychedelics, and then they start calling their members of Congress and saying, Hey, there is this. Melissa Lavasani: Bill sitting in Congress and why haven't you signed onto it? And that political pressure, uh, when used the right way can be really powerful. So, um, I think, you know, now we're at this really amazing moment where we have a good amount of congressional offices that are familiar enough with psychedelics that they're willing to move on it. Melissa Lavasani: Um, there's another larger group, uh, that is familiar with psychedelics and will assist and co-sponsor legislation, but there's still so many offices that we haven't been able to get to just 'cause like we don't have all the time in the world and all the manpower in the world to [00:58:00] do it. But, you know, that is one avenue is like the advocates can speak to the, the lawmakers, the experts speak to the lawmakers, and we not, we want the public engaged in this, you know, ultimately, like that's. Melissa Lavasani: Like the best form of harm reduction is having an informed public. So we are not, they're not seeing these media headlines of like, oh, this miracle cure that, um, saved my family. It's like, yes, that can happen psychedelics. I mean, person speaking personally, psychedelics did save my family. But what you miss out of that story is the incredible amount of work I put into myself and put into my mental health to this day to maintain, um, like myself, my, my own agency and like be the parent that I wanna be and be the spouse that I wanna be. Melissa Lavasani: So, um, we, we need to continue to share these stories and we need to continue to collaborate to get this message out because we're all, we're all in the same boat right now. We all want the same things. We want patients to have safe and [00:59:00] affordable access to psychedelic assisted care. Um, and, uh. We're just in the beginning here, so, um, sign up for our newsletter and we can sign up on our website and then follow us on social media. Melissa Lavasani: And, um, I anticipate more and more events, um, happening with PMC and hopefully we can scale up some of these events to be much more public facing, um, as this issue grows. So, um, I'm really excited about the future and I'm, I've been enjoying this partnership with Mission Within. Jay is such a professional and, and it really shows up when he needs to show up and, um, I look forward to more of that in the future. Joe Moore: Fantastic. And Jay, how can people follow along and support mission within Foundation? Jay Kopelman: Yeah, again, social media is gonna be a good way to do that. So we, we are also pretty heavily engaged on LinkedIn and on Instagram. Um, I do [01:00:00] share, uh, a bit of my own stuff as well. On social media. So we have social media pages for Mission within Foundation, and we have a LinkedIn page for mission within foundation. Jay Kopelman: I have my own profiles on both of those as well where people can follow along. Um, one of the other things you know that would probably help get more attention for this is if the general public was more aware of the numbers of professional athletes who are also now pursuing. I began specifically to help treat their traumatic brain injuries and the chronic traumatic encephalopathy that they've, uh, suffered as a result of their time in professional sports or even college sports. Jay Kopelman: And, you know. I people worship these athletes, and I [01:01:00] think that if more of them, like Robert Gall, were more outspoken about these treatments and the healing properties that they've provided them, that it would get even more attention. Um, I think though what Melissa said, you know, I don't wanna parrot anything she just said because she said it perfectly Right. Jay Kopelman: And I'd just be speaking to hear myself talk. Um, but being collaborative the way that we are with PMC and with Melissa is I think, the way to move the needle on this overall. And like she said, if she could get more groups involved in, in these discussions, it would, it would do wonders for us. Joe Moore: Well, thank you both so much for your hard work out there. I always appreciate it when people are showing up and doing this important, [01:02:00] sometimes boring and tedious, but nevertheless sometimes, sometimes exciting work. And um, so yeah, just thank you both and thank you both for showing up here to psychedelics today to join us and I hope we can continue to support you all in the future. Jay Kopelman: Thank you, Joe. Thank you, Joe. It's a pleasure being with you today and with Melissa, of course, always Melissa Lavasani: appreciate the time and space. Joe Moore: Thanks.
Thinking about joining the military—or encouraging your child to? You need more than physical strength; you need spiritual stability. Discover the biblical filters every Christian must apply before signing that enlistment contract. Transformed Podcast Episode 163 | February 19, 2026 ___ Thanks for listening! Transformed would not be possible without the financial support of our Gospel Partners. If you would like to support Transformed we would be extremely grateful. VISIT https://fortisinstitute.org/donate/ If you are already a Gospel Partner we couldn't be more thankful for you if we tried!
If you're thinking about divorce, you need to listen to this first. In this new episode, I discuss the four times you should not get a divorce and the four times you should consider separation and possibly divorce. Take a listen and see which points apply to you most!
Review of Marc Spector: Moon Knight #1 (2026) Check out the video version of the episode here! EPISODE 377 The High Priest Rey discusses his thoughts on the brank spankin new series for Moon Knight! It also heralds the return of Devmalya Pramanik on art, which is always a treat! Teaming up with Jed MacKay, you're sure to get one helluva issue! Marc is drugged and out of his mind - but can an unlikely companion help him escape? Tune in to find out! Marc Spector: Moon Knight Vol. 2 #1 "Agency - Part One" Release Date Febuary 11 2026 Cover Date April 2026 Writer(s) Jed MacKay Penciler(s) Devmalya Pramanik Inker(s) Devmalya Pramanik Colorist(s) Rachelle Rosenberg Letterer(s) VC's Cory Petit Editor(s) Devin Lewis Drew Baumgartner Shine those idols, and dust off the cape....IT'S TIME TO GET YOUR KHONSHU ON! SHOW NOTES: Marc Spector: Moon Knight Vol. 2 #1 WHERE TO HEAR US: Podcast Page Podchaser Apple Podcast Google Play Music Spotify Overcast SoundCloud Stitcher Tunein Podbean Into the Knight RSS Feed YouTube DROP US A LINE: Website: intotheknight.libsyn.com Email: feedback@itkmoonknight.com FB Page: Into the Knight- A Moon Knight Podcast Page FB Group: Into the Knight- A Moon Knight Fan Base Bluesky: Into the Knight - Bluesky X: @ITKmoonknight Instagram: ITK Moon Knight Discord ITK Server: ITK Server CHECK OUT THESE OTHER SHOWS WE CO-HOST! Sons of the Dragon - An Immortal Iron Fist Podcast DCAU - The DC Animated Universe Podcast Capes & Lunatics Sidekicks To Know Her Is To Fear Her: The Spider-Woman Podcast Predator & pREY - a Yautja Podcast Rey Plays Games! OFFICIAL ITK MERCHANDISE @ DASHERY - BUY HERE! Thinking of starting your own podcast? Check out our special offer from Libsyn! CREDITS: ITK Logo Graphic Design by The High Priests of Khonshu ITK Graphic Design produced and assisted by Randolph Benoit ITK Opening Sequence for video by Chris Kelly Music Written, Performed and generously provided by Deleter Co-Producers Wayne Hunt Josh Johnson Anthony Sytko Matthew Howell Jonathan Sapsed Dan Newland Executive Producers Justin Osgood Derek O'Neill Daniel Doing Mario Di Giacomo Odin Odinsword Produced by Reynaldo Gesmundo The music for this episode contains excerpts from various songs and music copyrighted by Deleter and Brian Warshaw. The music agreed for use on Into the Knight - A Moon Knight Podcast is licensed under an Attribution License;
I've included a written form of what I say in the podcast and some additional resources on this page that I hope you will find helpful for your discipleship to Jesus as it relates to this conversation.
Tickets for AIEi Miami and AIE Europe are live, with first wave speakers announced!From pioneering software-defined networking to backing many of the most aggressive AI model companies of this cycle, Martin Casado and Sarah Wang sit at the center of the capital, compute, and talent arms race reshaping the tech industry. As partners at a16z investing across infrastructure and growth, they've watched venture and growth blur, model labs turn dollars into capability at unprecedented speed, and startups raise nine-figure rounds before monetization.Martin and Sarah join us to unpack the new financing playbook for AI: why today's rounds are really compute contracts in disguise, how the “raise → train → ship → raise bigger” flywheel works, and whether foundation model companies can outspend the entire app ecosystem built on top of them. They also share what's underhyped (boring enterprise software), what's overheated (talent wars and compensation spirals), and the two radically different futures they see for AI's market structure.We discuss:* Martin's “two futures” fork: infinite fragmentation and new software categories vs. a small oligopoly of general models that consume everything above them* The capital flywheel: how model labs translate funding directly into capability gains, then into revenue growth measured in weeks, not years* Why venture and growth have merged: $100M–$1B hybrid rounds, strategic investors, compute negotiations, and complex deal structures* The AGI vs. product tension: allocating scarce GPUs between long-term research and near-term revenue flywheels* Whether frontier labs can out-raise and outspend the entire app ecosystem built on top of their APIs* Why today's talent wars ($10M+ comp packages, $B acqui-hires) are breaking early-stage founder math* Cursor as a case study: building up from the app layer while training down into your own models* Why “boring” enterprise software may be the most underinvested opportunity in the AI mania* Hardware and robotics: why the ChatGPT moment hasn't yet arrived for robots and what would need to change* World Labs and generative 3D: bringing the marginal cost of 3D scene creation down by orders of magnitude* Why public AI discourse is often wildly disconnected from boardroom reality and how founders should navigate the noiseShow Notes:* “Where Value Will Accrue in AI: Martin Casado & Sarah Wang” - a16z show* “Jack Altman & Martin Casado on the Future of Venture Capital”* World Labs—Martin Casado• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martincasado/• X: https://x.com/martin_casadoSarah Wang• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-wang-59b96a7• X: https://x.com/sarahdingwanga16z• https://a16z.com/Timestamps00:00:00 – Intro: Live from a16z00:01:20 – The New AI Funding Model: Venture + Growth Collide00:03:19 – Circular Funding, Demand & “No Dark GPUs”00:05:24 – Infrastructure vs Apps: The Lines Blur00:06:24 – The Capital Flywheel: Raise → Train → Ship → Raise Bigger00:09:39 – Can Frontier Labs Outspend the Entire App Ecosystem?00:11:24 – Character AI & The AGI vs Product Dilemma00:14:39 – Talent Wars, $10M Engineers & Founder Anxiety00:17:33 – What's Underinvested? The Case for “Boring” Software00:19:29 – Robotics, Hardware & Why It's Hard to Win00:22:42 – Custom ASICs & The $1B Training Run Economics00:24:23 – American Dynamism, Geography & AI Power Centers00:26:48 – How AI Is Changing the Investor Workflow (Claude Cowork)00:29:12 – Two Futures of AI: Infinite Expansion or Oligopoly?00:32:48 – If You Can Raise More Than Your Ecosystem, You Win00:34:27 – Are All Tasks AGI-Complete? Coding as the Test Case00:38:55 – Cursor & The Power of the App Layer00:44:05 – World Labs, Spatial Intelligence & 3D Foundation Models00:47:20 – Thinking Machines, Founder Drama & Media Narratives00:52:30 – Where Long-Term Power Accrues in the AI StackTranscriptLatent.Space - Inside AI's $10B+ Capital Flywheel — Martin Casado & Sarah Wang of a16z[00:00:00] Welcome to Latent Space (Live from a16z) + Meet the Guests[00:00:00] Alessio: Hey everyone. Welcome to the Latent Space podcast, live from a 16 z. Uh, this is Alessio founder Kernel Lance, and I'm joined by Twix, editor of Latent Space.[00:00:08] swyx: Hey, hey, hey. Uh, and we're so glad to be on with you guys. Also a top AI podcast, uh, Martin Cado and Sarah Wang. Welcome, very[00:00:16] Martin Casado: happy to be here and welcome.[00:00:17] swyx: Yes, uh, we love this office. We love what you've done with the place. Uh, the new logo is everywhere now. It's, it's still getting, takes a while to get used to, but it reminds me of like sort of a callback to a more ambitious age, which I think is kind of[00:00:31] Martin Casado: definitely makes a statement.[00:00:33] swyx: Yeah.[00:00:34] Martin Casado: Not quite sure what that statement is, but it makes a statement.[00:00:37] swyx: Uh, Martin, I go back with you to Netlify.[00:00:40] Martin Casado: Yep.[00:00:40] swyx: Uh, and, uh, you know, you create a software defined networking and all, all that stuff people can read up on your background. Yep. Sarah, I'm newer to you. Uh, you, you sort of started working together on AI infrastructure stuff.[00:00:51] Sarah Wang: That's right. Yeah. Seven, seven years ago now.[00:00:53] Martin Casado: Best growth investor in the entire industry.[00:00:55] swyx: Oh, say[00:00:56] Martin Casado: more hands down there is, there is. [00:01:00] I mean, when it comes to AI companies, Sarah, I think has done the most kind of aggressive, um, investment thesis around AI models, right? So, worked for Nom Ja, Mira Ia, FEI Fey, and so just these frontier, kind of like large AI models.[00:01:15] I think, you know, Sarah's been the, the broadest investor. Is that fair?[00:01:20] Venture vs. Growth in the Frontier Model Era[00:01:20] Sarah Wang: No, I, well, I was gonna say, I think it's been a really interesting tag, tag team actually just ‘cause the, a lot of these big C deals, not only are they raising a lot of money, um, it's still a tech founder bet, which obviously is inherently early stage.[00:01:33] But the resources,[00:01:36] Martin Casado: so many, I[00:01:36] Sarah Wang: was gonna say the resources one, they just grow really quickly. But then two, the resources that they need day one are kind of growth scale. So I, the hybrid tag team that we have is. Quite effective, I think,[00:01:46] Martin Casado: what is growth these days? You know, you don't wake up if it's less than a billion or like, it's, it's actually, it's actually very like, like no, it's a very interesting time in investing because like, you know, take like the character around, right?[00:01:59] These tend to [00:02:00] be like pre monetization, but the dollars are large enough that you need to have a larger fund and the analysis. You know, because you've got lots of users. ‘cause this stuff has such high demand requires, you know, more of a number sophistication. And so most of these deals, whether it's US or other firms on these large model companies, are like this hybrid between venture growth.[00:02:18] Sarah Wang: Yeah. Total. And I think, you know, stuff like BD for example, you wouldn't usually need BD when you were seed stage trying to get market biz Devrel. Biz Devrel, exactly. Okay. But like now, sorry, I'm,[00:02:27] swyx: I'm not familiar. What, what, what does biz Devrel mean for a venture fund? Because I know what biz Devrel means for a company.[00:02:31] Sarah Wang: Yeah.[00:02:32] Compute Deals, Strategics, and the ‘Circular Funding' Question[00:02:32] Sarah Wang: You know, so a, a good example is, I mean, we talk about buying compute, but there's a huge negotiation involved there in terms of, okay, do you get equity for the compute? What, what sort of partner are you looking at? Is there a go-to market arm to that? Um, and these are just things on this scale, hundreds of millions, you know, maybe.[00:02:50] Six months into the inception of a company, you just wouldn't have to negotiate these deals before.[00:02:54] Martin Casado: Yeah. These large rounds are very complex now. Like in the past, if you did a series A [00:03:00] or a series B, like whatever, you're writing a 20 to a $60 million check and you call it a day. Now you normally have financial investors and strategic investors, and then the strategic portion always still goes with like these kind of large compute contracts, which can take months to do.[00:03:13] And so it's, it's very different ties. I've been doing this for 10 years. It's the, I've never seen anything like this.[00:03:19] swyx: Yeah. Do you have worries about the circular funding from so disease strategics?[00:03:24] Martin Casado: I mean, listen, as long as the demand is there, like the demand is there. Like the problem with the internet is the demand wasn't there.[00:03:29] swyx: Exactly. All right. This, this is like the, the whole pyramid scheme bubble thing, where like, as long as you mark to market on like the notional value of like, these deals, fine, but like once it starts to chip away, it really Well[00:03:41] Martin Casado: no, like as, as, as, as long as there's demand. I mean, you know, this, this is like a lot of these sound bites have already become kind of cliches, but they're worth saying it.[00:03:47] Right? Like during the internet days, like we were. Um, raising money to put fiber in the ground that wasn't used. And that's a problem, right? Because now you actually have a supply overhang.[00:03:58] swyx: Mm-hmm.[00:03:59] Martin Casado: And even in the, [00:04:00] the time of the, the internet, like the supply and, and bandwidth overhang, even as massive as it was in, as massive as the crash was only lasted about four years.[00:04:09] But we don't have a supply overhang. Like there's no dark GPUs, right? I mean, and so, you know, circular or not, I mean, you know, if, if someone invests in a company that, um. You know, they'll actually use the GPUs. And on the other side of it is the, is the ask for customer. So I I, I think it's a different time.[00:04:25] Sarah Wang: I think the other piece, maybe just to add onto this, and I'm gonna quote Martine in front of him, but this is probably also a unique time in that. For the first time, you can actually trace dollars to outcomes. Yeah, right. Provided that scaling laws are, are holding, um, and capabilities are actually moving forward.[00:04:40] Because if you can put translate dollars into capabilities, uh, a capability improvement, there's demand there to martine's point. But if that somehow breaks, you know, obviously that's an important assumption in this whole thing to make it work. But you know, instead of investing dollars into sales and marketing, you're, you're investing into r and d to get to the capability, um, you know, increase.[00:04:59] And [00:05:00] that's sort of been the demand driver because. Once there's an unlock there, people are willing to pay for it.[00:05:05] Alessio: Yeah.[00:05:06] Blurring Lines: Models as Infra + Apps, and the New Fundraising Flywheel[00:05:06] Alessio: Is there any difference in how you built the portfolio now that some of your growth companies are, like the infrastructure of the early stage companies, like, you know, OpenAI is now the same size as some of the cloud providers were early on.[00:05:16] Like what does that look like? Like how much information can you feed off each other between the, the two?[00:05:24] Martin Casado: There's so many lines that are being crossed right now, or blurred. Right. So we already talked about venture and growth. Another one that's being blurred is between infrastructure and apps, right? So like what is a model company?[00:05:35] Mm-hmm. Like, it's clearly infrastructure, right? Because it's like, you know, it's doing kind of core r and d. It's a horizontal platform, but it's also an app because it's um, uh, touches the users directly. And then of course. You know, the, the, the growth of these is just so high. And so I actually think you're just starting to see a, a, a new financing strategy emerge and, you know, we've had to adapt as a result of that.[00:05:59] And [00:06:00] so there's been a lot of changes. Um, you're right that these companies become platform companies very quickly. You've got ecosystem build out. So none of this is necessarily new, but the timescales of which it's happened is pretty phenomenal. And the way we'd normally cut lines before is blurred a little bit, but.[00:06:16] But that, that, that said, I mean, a lot of it also just does feel like things that we've seen in the past, like cloud build out the internet build out as well.[00:06:24] Sarah Wang: Yeah. Um, yeah, I think it's interesting, uh, I don't know if you guys would agree with this, but it feels like the emerging strategy is, and this builds off of your other question, um.[00:06:33] You raise money for compute, you pour that or you, you pour the money into compute, you get some sort of breakthrough. You funnel the breakthrough into your vertically integrated application. That could be chat GBT, that could be cloud code, you know, whatever it is. You massively gain share and get users.[00:06:49] Maybe you're even subsidizing at that point. Um, depending on your strategy. You raise money at the peak momentum and then you repeat, rinse and repeat. Um, and so. And that wasn't [00:07:00] true even two years ago, I think. Mm-hmm. And so it's sort of to your, just tying it to fundraising strategy, right? There's a, and hiring strategy.[00:07:07] All of these are tied, I think the lines are blurring even more today where everyone is, and they, but of course these companies all have API businesses and so they're these, these frenemy lines that are getting blurred in that a lot of, I mean, they have billions of dollars of API revenue, right? And so there are customers there.[00:07:23] But they're competing on the app layer.[00:07:24] Martin Casado: Yeah. So this is a really, really important point. So I, I would say for sure, venture and growth, that line is blurry app and infrastructure. That line is blurry. Um, but I don't think that that changes our practice so much. But like where the very open questions are like, does this layer in the same way.[00:07:43] Compute traditionally has like during the cloud is like, you know, like whatever, somebody wins one layer, but then another whole set of companies wins another layer. But that might not, might not be the case here. It may be the case that you actually can't verticalize on the token string. Like you can't build an app like it, it necessarily goes down just because there are no [00:08:00] abstractions.[00:08:00] So those are kinda the bigger existential questions we ask. Another thing that is very different this time than in the history of computer sciences is. In the past, if you raised money, then you basically had to wait for engineering to catch up. Which famously doesn't scale like the mythical mammoth. It take a very long time.[00:08:18] But like that's not the case here. Like a model company can raise money and drop a model in a, in a year, and it's better, right? And, and it does it with a team of 20 people or 10 people. So this type of like money entering a company and then producing something that has demand and growth right away and using that to raise more money is a very different capital flywheel than we've ever seen before.[00:08:39] And I think everybody's trying to understand what the consequences are. So I think it's less about like. Big companies and growth and this, and more about these more systemic questions that we actually don't have answers to.[00:08:49] Alessio: Yeah, like at Kernel Labs, one of our ideas is like if you had unlimited money to spend productively to turn tokens into products, like the whole early stage [00:09:00] market is very different because today you're investing X amount of capital to win a deal because of price structure and whatnot, and you're kind of pot committing.[00:09:07] Yeah. To a certain strategy for a certain amount of time. Yeah. But if you could like iteratively spin out companies and products and just throw, I, I wanna spend a million dollar of inference today and get a product out tomorrow.[00:09:18] swyx: Yeah.[00:09:19] Alessio: Like, we should get to the point where like the friction of like token to product is so low that you can do this and then you can change the Right, the early stage venture model to be much more iterative.[00:09:30] And then every round is like either 100 k of inference or like a hundred million from a 16 Z. There's no, there's no like $8 million C round anymore. Right.[00:09:38] When Frontier Labs Outspend the Entire App Ecosystem[00:09:38] Martin Casado: But, but, but, but there's a, there's a, the, an industry structural question that we don't know the answer to, which involves the frontier models, which is, let's take.[00:09:48] Anthropic it. Let's say Anthropic has a state-of-the-art model that has some large percentage of market share. And let's say that, uh, uh, uh, you know, uh, a company's building smaller models [00:10:00] that, you know, use the bigger model in the background, open 4.5, but they add value on top of that. Now, if Anthropic can raise three times more.[00:10:10] Every subsequent round, they probably can raise more money than the entire app ecosystem that's built on top of it. And if that's the case, they can expand beyond everything built on top of it. It's like imagine like a star that's just kind of expanding, so there could be a systemic. There could be a, a systemic situation where the soda models can raise so much money that they can out pay anybody that bills on top of ‘em, which would be something I don't think we've ever seen before just because we were so bottlenecked in engineering, and this is a very open question.[00:10:41] swyx: Yeah. It's, it is almost like bitter lesson applied to the startup industry.[00:10:45] Martin Casado: Yeah, a hundred percent. It literally becomes an issue of like raise capital, turn that directly into growth. Use that to raise three times more. Exactly. And if you can keep doing that, you literally can outspend any company that's built the, not any company.[00:10:57] You can outspend the aggregate of companies on top of [00:11:00] you and therefore you'll necessarily take their share, which is crazy.[00:11:02] swyx: Would you say that kind of happens in character? Is that the, the sort of postmortem on. What happened?[00:11:10] Sarah Wang: Um,[00:11:10] Martin Casado: no.[00:11:12] Sarah Wang: Yeah, because I think so,[00:11:13] swyx: I mean the actual postmortem is, he wanted to go back to Google.[00:11:15] Exactly. But like[00:11:18] Martin Casado: that's another difference that[00:11:19] Sarah Wang: you said[00:11:21] Martin Casado: it. We should talk, we should actually talk about that.[00:11:22] swyx: Yeah,[00:11:22] Sarah Wang: that's[00:11:23] swyx: Go for it. Take it. Take,[00:11:23] Sarah Wang: yeah.[00:11:24] Character.AI, Founder Goals (AGI vs Product), and GPU Allocation Tradeoffs[00:11:24] Sarah Wang: I was gonna say, I think, um. The, the, the character thing raises actually a different issue, which actually the Frontier Labs will face as well. So we'll see how they handle it.[00:11:34] But, um, so we invest in character in January, 2023, which feels like eons ago, I mean, three years ago. Feels like lifetimes ago. But, um, and then they, uh, did the IP licensing deal with Google in August, 2020. Uh, four. And so, um, you know, at the time, no, you know, he's talked publicly about this, right? He wanted to Google wouldn't let him put out products in the world.[00:11:56] That's obviously changed drastically. But, um, he went to go do [00:12:00] that. Um, but he had a product attached. The goal was, I mean, it's Nome Shair, he wanted to get to a GI. That was always his personal goal. But, you know, I think through collecting data, right, and this sort of very human use case, that the character product.[00:12:13] Originally was and still is, um, was one of the vehicles to do that. Um, I think the real reason that, you know. I if you think about the, the stress that any company feels before, um, you ultimately going one way or the other is sort of this a GI versus product. Um, and I think a lot of the big, I think, you know, opening eyes, feeling that, um, anthropic if they haven't started, you know, felt it, certainly given the success of their products, they may start to feel that soon.[00:12:39] And the real. I think there's real trade-offs, right? It's like how many, when you think about GPUs, that's a limited resource. Where do you allocate the GPUs? Is it toward the product? Is it toward new re research? Right? Is it, or long-term research, is it toward, um, n you know, near to midterm research? And so, um, in a case where you're resource constrained, um, [00:13:00] of course there's this fundraising game you can play, right?[00:13:01] But the fund, the market was very different back in 2023 too. Um. I think the best researchers in the world have this dilemma of, okay, I wanna go all in on a GI, but it's the product usage revenue flywheel that keeps the revenue in the house to power all the GPUs to get to a GI. And so it does make, um, you know, I think it sets up an interesting dilemma for any startup that has trouble raising up until that level, right?[00:13:27] And certainly if you don't have that progress, you can't continue this fly, you know, fundraising flywheel.[00:13:32] Martin Casado: I would say that because, ‘cause we're keeping track of all of the things that are different, right? Like, you know, venture growth and uh, app infra and one of the ones is definitely the personalities of the founders.[00:13:45] It's just very different this time I've been. Been doing this for a decade and I've been doing startups for 20 years. And so, um, I mean a lot of people start this to do a GI and we've never had like a unified North star that I recall in the same [00:14:00] way. Like people built companies to start companies in the past.[00:14:02] Like that was what it was. Like I would create an internet company, I would create infrastructure company, like it's kind of more engineering builders and this is kind of a different. You know, mentality. And some companies have harnessed that incredibly well because their direction is so obviously on the path to what somebody would consider a GI, but others have not.[00:14:20] And so like there is always this tension with personnel. And so I think we're seeing more kind of founder movement.[00:14:27] Sarah Wang: Yeah.[00:14:27] Martin Casado: You know, as a fraction of founders than we've ever seen. I mean, maybe since like, I don't know the time of like Shockly and the trade DUR aid or something like that. Way back in the beginning of the industry, I, it's a very, very.[00:14:38] Unusual time of personnel.[00:14:39] Sarah Wang: Totally.[00:14:40] Talent Wars, Mega-Comp, and the Rise of Acquihire M&A[00:14:40] Sarah Wang: And it, I think it's exacerbated by the fact that talent wars, I mean, every industry has talent wars, but not at this magnitude, right? No. Yeah. Very rarely can you see someone get poached for $5 billion. That's hard to compete with. And then secondly, if you're a founder in ai, you could fart and it would be on the front page of, you know, the information these days.[00:14:59] And so there's [00:15:00] sort of this fishbowl effect that I think adds to the deep anxiety that, that these AI founders are feeling.[00:15:06] Martin Casado: Hmm.[00:15:06] swyx: Uh, yes. I mean, just on, uh, briefly comment on the founder, uh, the sort of. Talent wars thing. I feel like 2025 was just like a blip. Like I, I don't know if we'll see that again.[00:15:17] ‘cause meta built the team. Like, I don't know if, I think, I think they're kind of done and like, who's gonna pay more than meta? I, I don't know.[00:15:23] Martin Casado: I, I agree. So it feels so, it feel, it feels this way to me too. It's like, it is like, basically Zuckerberg kind of came out swinging and then now he's kind of back to building.[00:15:30] Yeah,[00:15:31] swyx: yeah. You know, you gotta like pay up to like assemble team to rush the job, whatever. But then now, now you like you, you made your choices and now they got a ship.[00:15:38] Martin Casado: I mean, the, the o other side of that is like, you know, like we're, we're actually in the job hiring market. We've got 600 people here. I hire all the time.[00:15:44] I've got three open recs if anybody's interested, that's listening to this for investor. Yeah, on, on the team, like on the investing side of the team, like, and, um, a lot of the people we talk to have acting, you know, active, um, offers for 10 million a year or something like that. And like, you know, and we pay really, [00:16:00] really well.[00:16:00] And just to see what's out on the market is really, is really remarkable. And so I would just say it's actually, so you're right, like the really flashy one, like I will get someone for, you know, a billion dollars, but like the inflated, um, uh, trickles down. Yeah, it is still very active today. I mean,[00:16:18] Sarah Wang: yeah, you could be an L five and get an offer in the tens of millions.[00:16:22] Okay. Yeah. Easily. Yeah. It's so I think you're right that it felt like a blip. I hope you're right. Um, but I think it's been, the steady state is now, I think got pulled up. Yeah. Yeah. I'll pull up for[00:16:31] Martin Casado: sure. Yeah.[00:16:32] Alessio: Yeah. And I think that's breaking the early stage founder math too. I think before a lot of people would be like, well, maybe I should just go be a founder instead of like getting paid.[00:16:39] Yeah. 800 KA million at Google. But if I'm getting paid. Five, 6 million. That's different but[00:16:45] Martin Casado: on. But on the other hand, there's more strategic money than we've ever seen historically, right? Mm-hmm. And so, yep. The economics, the, the, the, the calculus on the economics is very different in a number of ways. And, uh, it's crazy.[00:16:58] It's cra it's causing like a, [00:17:00] a, a, a ton of change in confusion in the market. Some very positive, sub negative, like, so for example, the other side of the, um. The co-founder, like, um, acquisition, you know, mark Zuckerberg poaching someone for a lot of money is like, we were actually seeing historic amount of m and a for basically acquihires, right?[00:17:20] That you like, you know, really good outcomes from a venture perspective that are effective acquihires, right? So I would say it's probably net positive from the investment standpoint, even though it seems from the headlines to be very disruptive in a negative way.[00:17:33] Alessio: Yeah.[00:17:33] What's Underfunded: Boring Software, Robotics Skepticism, and Custom Silicon Economics[00:17:33] Alessio: Um, let's talk maybe about what's not being invested in, like maybe some interesting ideas that you would see more people build or it, it seems in a way, you know, as ycs getting more popular, it's like access getting more popular.[00:17:47] There's a startup school path that a lot of founders take and they know what's hot in the VC circles and they know what gets funded. Uh, and there's maybe not as much risk appetite for. Things outside of that. Um, I'm curious if you feel [00:18:00] like that's true and what are maybe, uh, some of the areas, uh, that you think are under discussed?[00:18:06] Martin Casado: I mean, I actually think that we've taken our eye off the ball in a lot of like, just traditional, you know, software companies. Um, so like, I mean. You know, I think right now there's almost a barbell, like you're like the hot thing on X, you're deep tech.[00:18:21] swyx: Mm-hmm.[00:18:22] Martin Casado: Right. But I, you know, I feel like there's just kind of a long, you know, list of like good.[00:18:28] Good companies that will be around for a long time in very large markets. Say you're building a database, you know, say you're building, um, you know, kind of monitoring or logging or tooling or whatever. There's some good companies out there right now, but like, they have a really hard time getting, um, the attention of investors.[00:18:43] And it's almost become a meme, right? Which is like, if you're not basically growing from zero to a hundred in a year, you're not interesting, which is just, is the silliest thing to say. I mean, think of yourself as like an introvert person, like, like your personal money, right? Mm-hmm. So. Your personal money, will you put it in the stock market at 7% or you put it in this company growing five x in a very large [00:19:00] market?[00:19:00] Of course you can put it in the company five x. So it's just like we say these stupid things, like if you're not going from zero to a hundred, but like those, like who knows what the margins of those are mean. Clearly these are good investments. True for anybody, right? True. Like our LPs want whatever.[00:19:12] Three x net over, you know, the life cycle of a fund, right? So a, a company in a big market growing five X is a great investment. We'd, everybody would be happy with these returns, but we've got this kind of mania on these, these strong growths. And so I would say that that's probably the most underinvested sector.[00:19:28] Right now.[00:19:29] swyx: Boring software, boring enterprise software.[00:19:31] Martin Casado: Traditional. Really good company.[00:19:33] swyx: No, no AI here.[00:19:34] Martin Casado: No. Like boring. Well, well, the AI of course is pulling them into use cases. Yeah, but that's not what they're, they're not on the token path, right? Yeah. Let's just say that like they're software, but they're not on the token path.[00:19:41] Like these are like they're great investments from any definition except for like random VC on Twitter saying VC on x, saying like, it's not growing fast enough. What do you[00:19:52] Sarah Wang: think? Yeah, maybe I'll answer a slightly different. Question, but adjacent to what you asked, um, which is maybe an area that we're not, uh, investing [00:20:00] right now that I think is a question and we're spending a lot of time in regardless of whether we pull the trigger or not.[00:20:05] Um, and it would probably be on the hardware side, actually. Robotics, right? And the robotics side. Robotics. Right. Which is, it's, I don't wanna say that it's not getting funding ‘cause it's clearly, uh, it's, it's sort of non-consensus to almost not invest in robotics at this point. But, um, we spent a lot of time in that space and I think for us, we just haven't seen the chat GPT moment.[00:20:22] Happen on the hardware side. Um, and the funding going into it feels like it's already. Taking that for granted.[00:20:30] Martin Casado: Yeah. Yeah. But we also went through the drone, you know, um, there's a zip line right, right out there. What's that? Oh yeah, there's a zip line. Yeah. What the drone, what the av And like one of the takeaways is when it comes to hardware, um, most companies will end up verticalizing.[00:20:46] Like if you're. If you're investing in a robot company for an A for agriculture, you're investing in an ag company. ‘cause that's the competition and that's surprising. And that's supply chain. And if you're doing it for mining, that's mining. And so the ad team does a lot of that type of stuff ‘cause they actually set up to [00:21:00] diligence that type of work.[00:21:01] But for like horizontal technology investing, there's very little when it comes to robots just because it's so fit for, for purpose. And so we kinda like to look at software. Solutions or horizontal solutions like applied intuition. Clearly from the AV wave deep map, clearly from the AV wave, I would say scale AI was actually a horizontal one for That's fair, you know, for robotics early on.[00:21:23] And so that sort of thing we're very, very interested. But the actual like robot interacting with the world is probably better for different team. Agree.[00:21:30] Alessio: Yeah, I'm curious who these teams are supposed to be that invest in them. I feel like everybody's like, yeah, robotics, it's important and like people should invest in it.[00:21:38] But then when you look at like the numbers, like the capital requirements early on versus like the moment of, okay, this is actually gonna work. Let's keep investing. That seems really hard to predict in a way that is not,[00:21:49] Martin Casado: I think co, CO two, kla, gc, I mean these are all invested in in Harvard companies. He just, you know, and [00:22:00] listen, I mean, it could work this time for sure.[00:22:01] Right? I mean if Elon's doing it, he's like, right. Just, just the fact that Elon's doing it means that there's gonna be a lot of capital and a lot of attempts for a long period of time. So that alone maybe suggests that we should just be investing in robotics just ‘cause you have this North star who's Elon with a humanoid and that's gonna like basically willing into being an industry.[00:22:17] Um, but we've just historically found like. We're a huge believer that this is gonna happen. We just don't feel like we're in a good position to diligence these things. ‘cause again, robotics companies tend to be vertical. You really have to understand the market they're being sold into. Like that's like that competitive equilibrium with a human being is what's important.[00:22:34] It's not like the core tech and like we're kind of more horizontal core tech type investors. And this is Sarah and I. Yeah, the ad team is different. They can actually do these types of things.[00:22:42] swyx: Uh, just to clarify, AD stands for[00:22:44] Martin Casado: American Dynamism.[00:22:45] swyx: Alright. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, I actually, I do have a related question that, first of all, I wanna acknowledge also just on the, on the chip side.[00:22:51] Yeah. I, I recall a podcast that where you were on, i, I, I think it was the a CC podcast, uh, about two or three years ago where you, where you suddenly said [00:23:00] something, which really stuck in my head about how at some point, at some point kind of scale it makes sense to. Build a custom aic Yes. For per run.[00:23:07] Martin Casado: Yes.[00:23:07] It's crazy. Yeah.[00:23:09] swyx: We're here and I think you, you estimated 500 billion, uh, something.[00:23:12] Martin Casado: No, no, no. A billion, a billion dollar training run of $1 billion training run. It makes sense to actually do a custom meic if you can do it in time. The question now is timelines. Yeah, but not money because just, just, just rough math.[00:23:22] If it's a billion dollar training. Then the inference for that model has to be over a billion, otherwise it won't be solvent. So let's assume it's, if you could save 20%, which you could save much more than that with an ASIC 20%, that's $200 million. You can tape out a chip for $200 million. Right? So now you can literally like justify economically, not timeline wise.[00:23:41] That's a different issue. An ASIC per model, which[00:23:44] swyx: is because that, that's how much we leave on the table every single time. We, we, we do like generic Nvidia.[00:23:48] Martin Casado: Exactly. Exactly. No, it, it is actually much more than that. You could probably get, you know, a factor of two, which would be 500 million.[00:23:54] swyx: Typical MFU would be like 50.[00:23:55] Yeah, yeah. And that's good.[00:23:57] Martin Casado: Exactly. Yeah. Hundred[00:23:57] swyx: percent. Um, so, so, yeah, and I mean, and I [00:24:00] just wanna acknowledge like, here we are in, in, in 2025 and opening eyes confirming like Broadcom and all the other like custom silicon deals, which is incredible. I, I think that, uh, you know, speaking about ad there's, there's a really like interesting tie in that obviously you guys are hit on, which is like these sort, this sort of like America first movement or like sort of re industrialized here.[00:24:17] Yeah. Uh, move TSMC here, if that's possible. Um, how much overlap is there from ad[00:24:23] Martin Casado: Yeah.[00:24:23] swyx: To, I guess, growth and, uh, investing in particularly like, you know, US AI companies that are strongly bounded by their compute.[00:24:32] Martin Casado: Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, I, I would view, I would view AD as more as a market segmentation than like a mission, right?[00:24:37] So the market segmentation is, it has kind of regulatory compliance issues or government, you know, sale or it deals with like hardware. I mean, they're just set up to, to, to, to, to. To diligence those types of companies. So it's a more of a market segmentation thing. I would say the entire firm. You know, which has been since it is been intercepted, you know, has geographical biases, right?[00:24:58] I mean, for the longest time we're like, you [00:25:00] know, bay Area is gonna be like, great, where the majority of the dollars go. Yeah. And, and listen, there, there's actually a lot of compounding effects for having a geographic bias. Right. You know, everybody's in the same place. You've got an ecosystem, you're there, you've got presence, you've got a network.[00:25:12] Um, and, uh, I mean, I would say the Bay area's very much back. You know, like I, I remember during pre COVID, like it was like almost Crypto had kind of. Pulled startups away. Miami from the Bay Area. Miami, yeah. Yeah. New York was, you know, because it's so close to finance, came up like Los Angeles had a moment ‘cause it was so close to consumer, but now it's kind of come back here.[00:25:29] And so I would say, you know, we tend to be very Bay area focused historically, even though of course we've asked all over the world. And then I would say like, if you take the ring out, you know, one more, it's gonna be the US of course, because we know it very well. And then one more is gonna be getting us and its allies and Yeah.[00:25:44] And it goes from there.[00:25:45] Sarah Wang: Yeah,[00:25:45] Martin Casado: sorry.[00:25:46] Sarah Wang: No, no. I agree. I think from a, but I think from the intern that that's sort of like where the companies are headquartered. Maybe your questions on supply chain and customer base. Uh, I, I would say our customers are, are, our companies are fairly international from that perspective.[00:25:59] Like they're selling [00:26:00] globally, right? They have global supply chains in some cases.[00:26:03] Martin Casado: I would say also the stickiness is very different.[00:26:05] Sarah Wang: Yeah.[00:26:05] Martin Casado: Historically between venture and growth, like there's so much company building in venture, so much so like hiring the next PM. Introducing the customer, like all of that stuff.[00:26:15] Like of course we're just gonna be stronger where we have our network and we've been doing business for 20 years. I've been in the Bay Area for 25 years, so clearly I'm just more effective here than I would be somewhere else. Um, where I think, I think for some of the later stage rounds, the companies don't need that much help.[00:26:30] They're already kind of pretty mature historically, so like they can kind of be everywhere. So there's kind of less of that stickiness. This is different in the AI time. I mean, Sarah is now the, uh, chief of staff of like half the AI companies in, uh, in the Bay Area right now. She's like, ops Ninja Biz, Devrel, BizOps.[00:26:48] swyx: Are, are you, are you finding much AI automation in your work? Like what, what is your stack.[00:26:53] Sarah Wang: Oh my, in my personal stack.[00:26:54] swyx: I mean, because like, uh, by the way, it's the, the, the reason for this is it is triggering, uh, yeah. We, like, I'm hiring [00:27:00] ops, ops people. Um, a lot of ponders I know are also hiring ops people and I'm just, you know, it's opportunity Since you're, you're also like basically helping out with ops with a lot of companies.[00:27:09] What are people doing these days? Because it's still very manual as far as I can tell.[00:27:13] Sarah Wang: Hmm. Yeah. I think the things that we help with are pretty network based, um, in that. It's sort of like, Hey, how do do I shortcut this process? Well, let's connect you to the right person. So there's not quite an AI workflow for that.[00:27:26] I will say as a growth investor, Claude Cowork is pretty interesting. Yeah. Like for the first time, you can actually get one shot data analysis. Right. Which, you know, if you're gonna do a customer database, analyze a cohort retention, right? That's just stuff that you had to do by hand before. And our team, the other, it was like midnight and the three of us were playing with Claude Cowork.[00:27:47] We gave it a raw file. Boom. Perfectly accurate. We checked the numbers. It was amazing. That was my like, aha moment. That sounds so boring. But you know, that's, that's the kind of thing that a growth investor is like, [00:28:00] you know, slaving away on late at night. Um, done in a few seconds.[00:28:03] swyx: Yeah. You gotta wonder what the whole, like, philanthropic labs, which is like their new sort of products studio.[00:28:10] Yeah. What would that be worth as an independent, uh, startup? You know, like a[00:28:14] Martin Casado: lot.[00:28:14] Sarah Wang: Yeah, true.[00:28:16] swyx: Yeah. You[00:28:16] Martin Casado: gotta hand it to them. They've been executing incredibly well.[00:28:19] swyx: Yeah. I, I mean, to me, like, you know, philanthropic, like building on cloud code, I think, uh, it makes sense to me the, the real. Um, pedal to the metal, whatever the, the, the phrase is, is when they start coming after consumer with, uh, against OpenAI and like that is like red alert at Open ai.[00:28:35] Oh, I[00:28:35] Martin Casado: think they've been pretty clear. They're enterprise focused.[00:28:37] swyx: They have been, but like they've been free. Here's[00:28:40] Martin Casado: care publicly,[00:28:40] swyx: it's enterprise focused. It's coding. Right. Yeah.[00:28:43] AI Labs vs Startups: Disruption, Undercutting & the Innovator's Dilemma[00:28:43] swyx: And then, and, but here's cloud, cloud, cowork, and, and here's like, well, we, uh, they, apparently they're running Instagram ads for Claudia.[00:28:50] I, on, you know, for, for people on, I get them all the time. Right. And so, like,[00:28:54] Martin Casado: uh,[00:28:54] swyx: it, it's kind of like this, the disruption thing of, uh, you know. Mo Open has been doing, [00:29:00] consumer been doing the, just pursuing general intelligence in every mo modality, and here's a topic that only focus on this thing, but now they're sort of undercutting and doing the whole innovator's dilemma thing on like everything else.[00:29:11] Martin Casado: It's very[00:29:11] swyx: interesting.[00:29:12] Martin Casado: Yeah, I mean there's, there's a very open que so for me there's like, do you know that meme where there's like the guy in the path and there's like a path this way? There's a path this way. Like one which way Western man. Yeah. Yeah.[00:29:23] Two Futures for AI: Infinite Market vs AGI Oligopoly[00:29:23] Martin Casado: And for me, like, like all the entire industry kind of like hinges on like two potential futures.[00:29:29] So in, in one potential future, um, the market is infinitely large. There's perverse economies of scale. ‘cause as soon as you put a model out there, like it kind of sublimates and all the other models catch up and like, it's just like software's being rewritten and fractured all over the place and there's tons of upside and it just grows.[00:29:48] And then there's another path which is like, well. Maybe these models actually generalize really well, and all you have to do is train them with three times more money. That's all you have to [00:30:00] do, and it'll just consume everything beyond it. And if that's the case, like you end up with basically an oligopoly for everything, like, you know mm-hmm.[00:30:06] Because they're perfectly general and like, so this would be like the, the a GI path would be like, these are perfectly general. They can do everything. And this one is like, this is actually normal software. The universe is complicated. You've got, and nobody knows the answer.[00:30:18] The Economics Reality Check: Gross Margins, Training Costs & Borrowing Against the Future[00:30:18] Martin Casado: My belief is if you actually look at the numbers of these companies, so generally if you look at the numbers of these companies, if you look at like the amount they're making and how much they, they spent training the last model, they're gross margin positive.[00:30:30] You're like, oh, that's really working. But if you look at like. The current training that they're doing for the next model, their gross margin negative. So part of me thinks that a lot of ‘em are kind of borrowing against the future and that's gonna have to slow down. It's gonna catch up to them at some point in time, but we don't really know.[00:30:47] Sarah Wang: Yeah.[00:30:47] Martin Casado: Does that make sense? Like, I mean, it could be, it could be the case that the only reason this is working is ‘cause they can raise that next round and they can train that next model. ‘cause these models have such a short. Life. And so at some point in time, like, you know, they won't be able to [00:31:00] raise that next round for the next model and then things will kind of converge and fragment again.[00:31:03] But right now it's not.[00:31:04] Sarah Wang: Totally. I think the other, by the way, just, um, a meta point. I think the other lesson from the last three years is, and we talk about this all the time ‘cause we're on this. Twitter X bubble. Um, cool. But, you know, if you go back to, let's say March, 2024, that period, it felt like a, I think an open source model with an, like a, you know, benchmark leading capability was sort of launching on a daily basis at that point.[00:31:27] And, um, and so that, you know, that's one period. Suddenly it's sort of like open source takes over the world. There's gonna be a plethora. It's not an oligopoly, you know, if you fast, you know, if you, if you rewind time even before that GPT-4 was number one for. Nine months, 10 months. It's a long time. Right.[00:31:44] Um, and of course now we're in this era where it feels like an oligopoly, um, maybe some very steady state shifts and, and you know, it could look like this in the future too, but it just, it's so hard to call. And I think the thing that keeps, you know, us up at [00:32:00] night in, in a good way and bad way, is that the capability progress is actually not slowing down.[00:32:06] And so until that happens, right, like you don't know what's gonna look like.[00:32:09] Martin Casado: But I, I would, I would say for sure it's not converged, like for sure, like the systemic capital flows have not converged, meaning right now it's still borrowing against the future to subsidize growth currently, which you can do that for a period of time.[00:32:23] But, but you know, at the end, at some point the market will rationalize that and just nobody knows what that will look like.[00:32:29] Alessio: Yeah.[00:32:29] Martin Casado: Or, or like the drop in price of compute will, will, will save them. Who knows?[00:32:34] Alessio: Yeah. Yeah. I think the models need to ask them to, to specific tasks. You know? It's like, okay, now Opus 4.5 might be a GI at some specific task, and now you can like depreciate the model over a longer time.[00:32:45] I think now, now, right now there's like no old model.[00:32:47] Martin Casado: No, but let, but lemme just change that mental, that's, that used to be my mental model. Lemme just change it a little bit.[00:32:53] Capital as a Weapon vs Task Saturation: Where Real Enterprise Value Gets Built[00:32:53] Martin Casado: If you can raise three times, if you can raise more than the aggregate of anybody that uses your models, that doesn't even matter.[00:32:59] It doesn't [00:33:00] even matter. See what I'm saying? Like, yeah. Yeah. So, so I have an API Business. My API business is 60% margin, or 70% margin, or 80% margin is a high margin business. So I know what everybody is using. If I can raise more money than the aggregate of everybody that's using it, I will consume them whether I'm a GI or not.[00:33:14] And I will know if they're using it ‘cause they're using it. And like, unlike in the past where engineering stops me from doing that.[00:33:21] Alessio: Mm-hmm.[00:33:21] Martin Casado: It is very straightforward. You just train. So I also thought it was kind of like, you must ask the code a GI, general, general, general. But I think there's also just a possibility that the, that the capital markets will just give them the, the, the ammunition to just go after everybody on top of ‘em.[00:33:36] Sarah Wang: I, I do wonder though, to your point, um, if there's a certain task that. Getting marginally better isn't actually that much better. Like we've asked them to it, to, you know, we can call it a GI or whatever, you know, actually, Ali Goi talks about this, like we're already at a GI for a lot of functions in the enterprise.[00:33:50] Um. That's probably those for those tasks, you probably could build very specific companies that focus on just getting as much value out of that task that isn't [00:34:00] coming from the model itself. There's probably a rich enterprise business to be built there. I mean, could be wrong on that, but there's a lot of interesting examples.[00:34:08] So, right, if you're looking the legal profession or, or whatnot, and maybe that's not a great one ‘cause the models are getting better on that front too, but just something where it's a bit saturated, then the value comes from. Services. It comes from implementation, right? It comes from all these things that actually make it useful to the end customer.[00:34:24] Martin Casado: Sorry, what am I, one more thing I think is, is underused in all of this is like, to what extent every task is a GI complete.[00:34:31] Sarah Wang: Mm-hmm.[00:34:32] Martin Casado: Yeah. I code every day. It's so fun.[00:34:35] Sarah Wang: That's a core question. Yeah.[00:34:36] Martin Casado: And like. When I'm talking to these models, it's not just code. I mean, it's everything, right? Like I, you know, like it's,[00:34:43] swyx: it's healthcare.[00:34:44] It's,[00:34:44] Martin Casado: I mean, it's[00:34:44] swyx: Mele,[00:34:45] Martin Casado: but it's every, it is exactly that. Like, yeah, that's[00:34:47] Sarah Wang: great support. Yeah.[00:34:48] Martin Casado: It's everything. Like I'm asking these models to, yeah, to understand compliance. I'm asking these models to go search the web. I'm asking these models to talk about things I know in the history, like it's having a full conversation with me while I, I engineer, and so it could be [00:35:00] the case that like, mm-hmm.[00:35:01] The most a, you know, a GI complete, like I'm not an a GI guy. Like I think that's, you know, but like the most a GI complete model will is win independent of the task. And we don't know the answer to that one either.[00:35:11] swyx: Yeah.[00:35:12] Martin Casado: But it seems to me that like, listen, codex in my experience is for sure better than Opus 4.5 for coding.[00:35:18] Like it finds the hardest bugs that I work in with. Like, it is, you know. The smartest developers. I don't work on it. It's great. Um, but I think Opus 4.5 is actually very, it's got a great bedside manner and it really, and it, it really matters if you're building something very complex because like, it really, you know, like you're, you're, you're a partner and a brainstorming partner for somebody.[00:35:38] And I think we don't discuss enough how every task kind of has that quality.[00:35:42] swyx: Mm-hmm.[00:35:43] Martin Casado: And what does that mean to like capital investment and like frontier models and Submodels? Yeah.[00:35:47] Why “Coding Models” Keep Collapsing into Generalists (Reasoning vs Taste)[00:35:47] Martin Casado: Like what happened to all the special coding models? Like, none of ‘em worked right. So[00:35:51] Alessio: some of them, they didn't even get released.[00:35:53] Magical[00:35:54] Martin Casado: Devrel. There's a whole, there's a whole host. We saw a bunch of them and like there's this whole theory that like, there could be, and [00:36:00] I think one of the conclusions is, is like there's no such thing as a coding model,[00:36:04] Alessio: you know?[00:36:04] Martin Casado: Like, that's not a thing. Like you're talking to another human being and it's, it's good at coding, but like it's gotta be good at everything.[00:36:10] swyx: Uh, minor disagree only because I, I'm pretty like, have pretty high confidence that basically open eye will always release a GPT five and a GT five codex. Like that's the code's. Yeah. The way I call it is one for raisin, one for Tiz. Um, and, and then like someone internal open, it was like, yeah, that's a good way to frame it.[00:36:32] Martin Casado: That's so funny.[00:36:33] swyx: Uh, but maybe it, maybe it collapses down to reason and that's it. It's not like a hundred dimensions doesn't life. Yeah. It's two dimensions. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like and exactly. Beside manner versus coding. Yeah.[00:36:43] Martin Casado: Yeah.[00:36:44] swyx: It's, yeah.[00:36:46] Martin Casado: I, I think for, for any, it's hilarious. For any, for anybody listening to this for, for, for, I mean, for you, like when, when you're like coding or using these models for something like that.[00:36:52] Like actually just like be aware of how much of the interaction has nothing to do with coding and it just turns out to be a large portion of it. And so like, you're, I [00:37:00] think like, like the best Soto ish model. You know, it is going to remain very important no matter what the task is.[00:37:06] swyx: Yeah.[00:37:07] What He's Actually Coding: Gaussian Splats, Spark.js & 3D Scene Rendering Demos[00:37:07] swyx: Uh, speaking of coding, uh, I, I'm gonna be cheeky and ask like, what actually are you coding?[00:37:11] Because obviously you, you could code anything and you are obviously a busy investor and a manager of the good. Giant team. Um, what are you calling?[00:37:18] Martin Casado: I help, um, uh, FEFA at World Labs. Uh, it's one of the investments and um, and they're building a foundation model that creates 3D scenes.[00:37:27] swyx: Yeah, we had it on the pod.[00:37:28] Yeah. Yeah,[00:37:28] Martin Casado: yeah. And so these 3D scenes are Gaussian splats, just by the way that kind of AI works. And so like, you can reconstruct a scene better with, with, with radiance feels than with meshes. ‘cause like they don't really have topology. So, so they, they, they produce each. Beautiful, you know, 3D rendered scenes that are Gaussian splats, but the actual industry support for Gaussian splats isn't great.[00:37:50] It's just never, you know, it's always been meshes and like, things like unreal use meshes. And so I work on a open source library called Spark js, which is a. Uh, [00:38:00] a JavaScript rendering layer ready for Gaussian splats. And it's just because, you know, um, you, you, you need that support and, and right now there's kind of a three js moment that's all meshes and so like, it's become kind of the default in three Js ecosystem.[00:38:13] As part of that to kind of exercise the library, I just build a whole bunch of cool demos. So if you see me on X, you see like all my demos and all the world building, but all of that is just to exercise this, this library that I work on. ‘cause it's actually a very tough algorithmics problem to actually scale a library that much.[00:38:29] And just so you know, this is ancient history now, but 30 years ago I paid for undergrad, you know, working on game engines in college in the late nineties. So I've got actually a back and it's very old background, but I actually have a background in this and so a lot of it's fun. You know, but, but the, the, the, the whole goal is just for this rendering library to, to,[00:38:47] Sarah Wang: are you one of the most active contributors?[00:38:49] The, their GitHub[00:38:50] Martin Casado: spark? Yes.[00:38:51] Sarah Wang: Yeah, yeah.[00:38:51] Martin Casado: There's only two of us there, so, yes. No, so by the way, so the, the pri The pri, yeah. Yeah. So the primary developer is a [00:39:00] guy named Andres Quist, who's an absolute genius. He and I did our, our PhDs together. And so like, um, we studied for constant Quas together. It was almost like hanging out with an old friend, you know?[00:39:09] And so like. So he, he's the core, core guy. I did mostly kind of, you know, the side I run venture fund.[00:39:14] swyx: It's amazing. Like five years ago you would not have done any of this. And it brought you back[00:39:19] Martin Casado: the act, the Activ energy, you're still back. Energy was so high because you had to learn all the framework b******t.[00:39:23] Man, I f*****g used to hate that. And so like, now I don't have to deal with that. I can like focus on the algorithmics so I can focus on the scaling and I,[00:39:29] swyx: yeah. Yeah.[00:39:29] LLMs vs Spatial Intelligence + How to Value World Labs' 3D Foundation Model[00:39:29] swyx: And then, uh, I'll observe one irony and then I'll ask a serious investor question, uh, which is like, the irony is FFE actually doesn't believe that LMS can lead us to spatial intelligence.[00:39:37] And here you are using LMS to like help like achieve spatial intelligence. I just see, I see some like disconnect in there.[00:39:45] Martin Casado: Yeah. Yeah. So I think, I think, you know, I think, I think what she would say is LLMs are great to help with coding.[00:39:51] swyx: Yes.[00:39:51] Martin Casado: But like, that's very different than a model that actually like provides, they, they'll never have the[00:39:56] swyx: spatial inte[00:39:56] Martin Casado: issues.[00:39:56] And listen, our brains clearly listen, our brains, brains clearly have [00:40:00] both our, our brains clearly have a language reasoning section and they clearly have a spatial reasoning section. I mean, it's just, you know, these are two pretty independent problems.[00:40:07] swyx: Okay. And you, you, like, I, I would say that the, the one data point I recently had, uh, against it is the DeepMind, uh, IMO Gold, where, so, uh, typically the, the typical answer is that this is where you start going down the neuros symbolic path, right?[00:40:21] Like one, uh, sort of very sort of abstract reasoning thing and one form, formal thing. Um, and that's what. DeepMind had in 2024 with alpha proof, alpha geometry, and now they just use deep think and just extended thinking tokens. And it's one model and it's, and it's in LM.[00:40:36] Martin Casado: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.[00:40:37] swyx: And so that, that was my indication of like, maybe you don't need a separate system.[00:40:42] Martin Casado: Yeah. So, so let me step back. I mean, at the end of the day, at the end of the day, these things are like nodes in a graph with weights on them. Right. You know, like it can be modeled like if you, if you distill it down. But let me just talk about the two different substrates. Let's, let me put you in a dark room.[00:40:56] Like totally black room. And then let me just [00:41:00] describe how you exit it. Like to your left, there's a table like duck below this thing, right? I mean like the chances that you're gonna like not run into something are very low. Now let me like turn on the light and you actually see, and you can do distance and you know how far something away is and like where it is or whatever.[00:41:17] Then you can do it, right? Like language is not the right primitives to describe. The universe because it's not exact enough. So that's all Faye, Faye is talking about. When it comes to like spatial reasoning, it's like you actually have to know that this is three feet far, like that far away. It is curved.[00:41:37] You have to understand, you know, the, like the actual movement through space.[00:41:40] swyx: Yeah.[00:41:40] Martin Casado: So I do, I listen, I do think at the end of these models are definitely converging as far as models, but there's, there's, there's different representations of problems you're solving. One is language. Which, you know, that would be like describing to somebody like what to do.[00:41:51] And the other one is actually just showing them and the space reasoning is just showing them.[00:41:55] swyx: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Got it, got it. Uh, the, in the investor question was on, on, well labs [00:42:00] is, well, like, how do I value something like this? What, what, what work does the, do you do? I'm just like, Fefe is awesome.[00:42:07] Justin's awesome. And you know, the other two co-founder, co-founders, but like the, the, the tech, everyone's building cool tech. But like, what's the value of the tech? And this is the fundamental question[00:42:16] Martin Casado: of, well, let, let, just like these, let me just maybe give you a rough sketch on the diffusion models. I actually love to hear Sarah because I'm a venture for, you know, so like, ventures always, always like kind of wild west type[00:42:24] swyx: stuff.[00:42:24] You, you, you, you paid a dream and she has to like, actually[00:42:28] Martin Casado: I'm gonna say I'm gonna mar to reality, so I'm gonna say the venture for you. And she can be like, okay, you a little kid. Yeah. So like, so, so these diffusion models literally. Create something for, for almost nothing. And something that the, the world has found to be very valuable in the past, in our real markets, right?[00:42:45] Like, like a 2D image. I mean, that's been an entire market. People value them. It takes a human being a long time to create it, right? I mean, to create a, you know, a, to turn me into a whatever, like an image would cost a hundred bucks in an hour. The inference cost [00:43:00] us a hundredth of a penny, right? So we've seen this with speech in very successful companies.[00:43:03] We've seen this with 2D image. We've seen this with movies. Right? Now, think about 3D scene. I mean, I mean, when's Grand Theft Auto coming out? It's been six, what? It's been 10 years. I mean, how, how like, but hasn't been 10 years.[00:43:14] Alessio: Yeah.[00:43:15] Martin Casado: How much would it cost to like, to reproduce this room in 3D? Right. If you, if you, if you hired somebody on fiber, like in, in any sort of quality, probably 4,000 to $10,000.[00:43:24] And then if you had a professional, probably $30,000. So if you could generate the exact same thing from a 2D image, and we know that these are used and they're using Unreal and they're using Blend, or they're using movies and they're using video games and they're using all. So if you could do that for.[00:43:36] You know, less than a dollar, that's four or five orders of magnitude cheaper. So you're bringing the marginal cost of something that's useful down by three orders of magnitude, which historically have created very large companies. So that would be like the venture kind of strategic dreaming map.[00:43:49] swyx: Yeah.[00:43:50] And, and for listeners, uh, you can do this yourself on your, on your own phone with like. Uh, the marble.[00:43:55] Martin Casado: Yeah. Marble.[00:43:55] swyx: Uh, or but also there's many Nerf apps where you just go on your iPhone and, and do this.[00:43:59] Martin Casado: Yeah. Yeah. [00:44:00] Yeah. And, and in the case of marble though, it would, what you do is you literally give it in.[00:44:03] So most Nerf apps you like kind of run around and take a whole bunch of pictures and then you kind of reconstruct it.[00:44:08] swyx: Yeah.[00:44:08] Martin Casado: Um, things like marble, just that the whole generative 3D space will just take a 2D image and it'll reconstruct all the like, like[00:44:16] swyx: meaning it has to fill in. Uh,[00:44:18] Martin Casado: stuff at the back of the table, under the table, the back, like, like the images, it doesn't see.[00:44:22] So the generator stuff is very different than reconstruction that it fills in the things that you can't see.[00:44:26] swyx: Yeah. Okay.[00:44:26] Sarah Wang: So,[00:44:27] Martin Casado: all right. So now the,[00:44:28] Sarah Wang: no, no. I mean I love that[00:44:29] Martin Casado: the adult[00:44:29] Sarah Wang: perspective. Um, well, no, I was gonna say these are very much a tag team. So we, we started this pod with that, um, premise. And I think this is a perfect question to even build on that further.[00:44:36] ‘cause it truly is, I mean, we're tag teaming all of these together.[00:44:39] Investing in Model Labs, Media Rumors, and the Cursor Playbook (Margins & Going Down-Stack)[00:44:39] Sarah Wang: Um, but I think every investment fundamentally starts with the same. Maybe the same two premises. One is, at this point in time, we actually believe that there are. And of one founders for their particular craft, and they have to be demonstrated in their prior careers, right?[00:44:56] So, uh, we're not investing in every, you know, now the term is NEO [00:45:00] lab, but every foundation model, uh, any, any company, any founder trying to build a foundation model, we're not, um, contrary to popular opinion, we're
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What is a logical fallacy? What is a sound argument? And, why does it matter for Christians today? In this episode of the Bible and Theology Matters podcast, Dr. Paul Weaver is joined by the co-authors of Talking About World Views: A Conversational Introduction to Thinking Philosophically for a powerful discussion on logic, logical fallacies, and sound reasoning in a confused culture.Featuring:-Michael Jones – Professor of Philosophy & Religion, Liberty University-Mark J. Farnham – Professor of Apologetics, Lancaster Bible College-David Saxon – Professor of Church History, Maranatha Baptist UniversityTogether, they explore:✔️ What a worldview is—and why everyone has one✔️ Why logic is foundational for defending the Christian faith ✔️ The difference between factual mistakes and logical fallacies ✔️ Common fallacies like: Ad Hominem Straw Man Appeal to Authority Appeal to Pity Genetic Fallacy Red Herring Self-Referential Incoherence✔️ How to construct sound deductive and inductive arguments✔️ Why truth corresponds to reality ✔️ How Christians can argue graciously, clearly, and persuasivelyIn a world shaped by expressive individualism, emotional reasoning, and intellectual shortcuts, this conversation equips believers to think critically and biblically. As C.S. Lewis famously emphasized, Christianity is not something we would have invented—it confronts us with reality. Whether you're a pastor, Bible teacher, seminary student, homeschool parent, or simply someone who wants to strengthen your reasoning skills, this episode will sharpen your thinking and deepen your confidence in the Christian worldview.
In an online meeting with the San Diego Ramana Satsang (ramana-satsang-sd@googlegroups.com) on 1st February 2026, Michael answers various questions about Bhagavan's teachings. This episode can be watched as a video on YouTube. A more compressed audio copy in Opus format can be downloaded from MediaFire. Advertisement-free videos on the original writings of Bhagavan Ramana with explanations by Michael James can be accessed on our Vimeo video channel. Books by Sri Sadhu Om and Michael James that are currently available on Amazon: By Sri Sadhu Om: ► The Path of Sri Ramana (English) By Michael James: ► Happiness and Art of Being (English) ► Lyckan och Varandets Konst (Swedish) ► Anma-Viddai (English) Above books are also available in other regional Amazon marketplaces worldwide. - Sri Ramana Center of Houston
Slovakia Today, English Language Current Affairs Programme from Slovak Radio
Slovakia consistently ranks among countries with high levels of belief in conspiracy theories. But what drives this phenomenon? In this episode, we look beyond misinformation and focus on feelings. Based on new research conducted by a team of researchers from the Institute of Experimental Psychology of the Center for Social and Psychological Sciences of the Slovak Academy of Sciences published in the British Journal of Social Psychology, we discuss with researcher of this project Magdalena Adamus how conspiracy narratives teach people to perceive the world as hostile and unstable — and why this matters for public trust and democracy.
Time to go to the New Albion Museum of Fine Arts and look at… art?CW: Profanity, threats of violence, animal sounds, immature jokes, and more! (Let us know)—The Trevor Project for LGBTQIA+ mental health---Podcast art by Nate---Phil's Organised Fun PodcastVault Hunter Theme SongMusic from SharXIIIOrganised Fun's AP EpisodesKids on BikesKids on BroomsTeens in Space---Main Cast:Kimberly as FayleonKyle as MercuriusMatt as Good BoyPhil as Tarquin BritstoneRiley as the Bunker Master---Friend & Foe Merch Store!Friend & Foe PatreonFriend & Foe Zencastr Referral LinkFriend & Foe Linktree (Discord, socials, etc)—Paperback Adventures Vol: 2 Board GameBunkers and Badasses from Nerdvana GamesThe Tannis Job B&B ModuleBorderlands and Tiny Tina's Wonderlands by Gearbox Software and 2K Games
Send a textIn this inspiring episode of Soulful Self-Care Conversations, Pearl welcomes Cathy Derksen, founder of Inspire Tenacity, international speaker, 23-time number one bestselling author, and publisher who helps midlife women step into visibility, legacy, and impact through books, retreats, and community.Together, they explore the power of storytelling, overcoming self-doubt, and why your story matters more than you think.
Day to day, it's only our individual actions that are up to us: How we treat people, how we run our businesses, what we think about.
The Poco a Poco Podcast with the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal
Episode 285 - From Son to Orphan How does a beloved son end up living like an orphan? As Lent begins, the friars enter deeply into the parable of the Prodigal Son, not starting with the return, but with the rupture. What happens in a heart that makes someone walk away from home? What wounds, doubts, shame, or disappointments lead us to take our inheritance and try to live without the Father? In this episode, they reflect on the subtle shift that happens long before the son leaves: the movement from trust to self-reliance, from intimacy to isolation, from sonship to an orphan spirit. They explore how sin and shame distort our vision of God's goodness, and how easy it is to believe we're better off on our own. This conversation isn't about condemnation, it's about awareness. Because before we become "prodigal," we often become wounded. Join us as we begin Lent by asking the Lord to reveal where we've chosen distance and to restore us to the truth of being sons and daughters again. The Poco a Poco podcast happens because of many generous donors, including recurring monthly donations of any amount. Thinking about helping out? You can give at https://spiritjuice.org/supportpoco. Thank you! Get your own copy of the Prodigal Son prints https://spiritjuice.shop/collections/poco-a-poco/products/print-coming-home
The Dad Edge Podcast (formerly The Good Dad Project Podcast)
In this powerful behind-the-scenes conversation, I sit down with Marc Hildebrand — former LAPD sergeant turned high-performance coach — to unpack what men are actually thinking before they decide to step into brotherhood. We break down the hidden anxiety, ego, embarrassment, and "mind talk" that keeps men isolated, stuck, and spinning in quiet defeat. You'll hear raw audio from one of our members, Tim Cox, as he shares what life looked like before he joined — the mental spiral, the weight gain, the doctor's warning, the loneliness, and the breakthrough that changed everything. This episode isn't just about business or health. It's about identity. It's about the stories we tell ourselves. And it's about the moment a man decides he's no longer doing life alone. Timeline Summary [0:00] Why men feel defeated before they ever ask for help [3:37] Marc Hildebrand's transformation from overweight LAPD sergeant to coach [9:20] Tim's confession: anxiety, mind talk, and feeling like a fraud [11:01] The danger of "should" statements and internal pressure [17:22] Ego, embarrassment, and the fear of being seen [24:58] The doctor's ultimatum: insulin or change [27:01] Dopamine, food, and emotional coping [30:52] Rock bottom isn't a place — it's a decision [34:22] Why you shouldn't wait until crisis hits [37:54] "You're not alone" — the most powerful realization [41:03] The myth of the lone wolf [44:21] Inside Base Camp: the first 6 weeks of transformation [46:19] The BRAVE Man Code framework explained [49:57] Thinking differently and leveling up identity [53:39] Why Larry left a lucrative corporate career to build The Dad Edge Five Key Takeaways Rock bottom is not a location — it's a decision to stop going lower. Ego often disguises itself as embarrassment and self-protection. Isolation amplifies anxiety — brotherhood dissolves it. Health transformation starts with identity, not tactics. You don't have to wait for crisis to change direction. Links & Resources Dad Edge Alliance Preview Call: http://thedadedge.com/preview Dad Edge Business Boardroom (Mastermind): https://thedadedge.com/mastermind Episode Show Notes & Resources: https://thedadedge.com Closing Remark If you've been telling yourself you'll change when it "gets bad enough," this is your sign not to wait. You're not alone — and you don't have to figure this out by yourself. If this episode hit home, please rate, review, follow, and share the podcast. Let's change the trajectory of fathers, families, and future generations. From my heart to yours — go out and live legendary.
What if the thing shaping almost every decision you make is happening quietly — without you realizing it? John breaks down a powerful idea from psychologist and Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman: there are two selves at play — the experiencing self (who lives life moment-to-moment) and the remembering self (who tells the story and makes most decisions). When those two don't agree, you can end up living a life that looks “right” on paper… but still feels empty inside. MENTIONED / LINKS (Daniel Kahneman – Nobel Prize) Nobel Prize profile (2002, Economic Sciences): https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2002/kahneman/facts/ Daniel Kahneman (Wikipedia): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Kahneman Thinking, Fast and Slow (book): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow PRACTICAL TAKEAWAYS (2-QUESTION FILTER) Before a major decision (work, love, moves, commitments), ask: “How does this feel in my body right now?” “When you look back on this in 5 years, will I be glad I did it?”
On this episode, Travis is joined in-studio by his producer Eric for a fast-paced, funny breakdown of money and success quotes from famous entrepreneurs and billionaires. They react in real time—often disagreeing, reframing, or adding nuance—showing you how to think critically instead of blindly accepting “guru” wisdom. On this episode we talk about: Why some viral money quotes sound clever but fall apart under real-world scrutiny The danger of “borrow big” advice and why risk tolerance matters for each person Whether you really need inspiration and motivation to build something meaningful If work–life “balance” is even real for ambitious people who want to build wealth Why “never save, always invest” can be both smart and reckless depending on context Top 3 Takeaways Don't just accept big-name quotes at face value; pause and ask, “Is this actually true for my situation, my goals, and my risk profile?” Advice about debt, hustle, and balance is highly personal—what works for a founder who thrives with their back against the wall might wreck someone else financially or emotionally. It's better to build a life and business that genuinely lights you up than to chase money metrics (like being “the richest in the world”) that will never actually make you happy. Notable Quotes “You can take some of this advice way too far too quickly and end up in a position that's almost impossible to recover from.” “If you need a pat on the back every day just to keep going, you might be doing the wrong thing in the first place.” “There is no balance—so you need to decide what trade-offs you're actually willing to live with.” Connect with Travis Chappell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/travischappell Twitter/X: https://x.com/traviscchappell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/travischappell Other: https://travischappell.com Travis Makes Money is made possible by High Level – the all-in-one sales and marketing platform built for agencies, by an agency. Capture leads, nurture them, and close more deals—all from one powerful platform. Get an extended free trial at gohighlevel.com/travis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Thinking about planning a Disney wedding but wondering if the Swan Reserve at Walt Disney World might be the better option? In this episode of the Disney Wedding Podcast, Carrie Hayward talks with Amy Gifford about her real wedding at Disney's Swan Reserve — including her ceremony in the Oasis Ballroom, reception in the Vue Ballroom, vendor choices, budget priorities, weather backup plan, and what it was really like having Minnie & Mickey at the reception. You'll hear firsthand insight into: ✨ Why they chose The Vue at The Swan Reserve instead of Disney Fairy Tale Weddings ✨ Wedding costs, value, and what's included ✨ Ceremony and reception timelines ✨ Food, florals, entertainment, and vendor selection ✨ Viewing Epcot fireworks during the reception ✨ Tips for couples worried a Swan & Dolphin wedding won't feel "Disney enough" Whether you're just starting your Disney wedding planning or comparing venues, this episode is packed with real-world advice and honest experiences from a recent couple.
Are your thoughts about alcohol driving you into a spiral of anxiety? Coach Matt reveals the critical difference between spontaneous thoughts and the active process of thinking. Learn how engaging with uncomfortable thoughts creates unnecessary suffering and activates the brain's Default Mode Network, leading to chronic rumination. Discover the neuroscience of "Rosy Retrospection" and why 90% of what we fear never actually occurs. This episode provides practical tools for mindful awareness and logical detachment, helping you realize that "thoughts are not facts" so you can navigate your alcohol-free journey with peace, clarity, and self-trust. Download my FREE guide: The Alcohol Freedom Formula For Over 30s Entrepreneurs & High Performers: https://social.alcoholfreelifestyle.com/podcast ★ - Learn more about Project 90: www.alcoholfreelifestyle.com/Project90 ★ - (Accountability & Support) Speak verbally to a certified Alcohol-Free Lifestyle coach to see if, or how, we could support you having a better relationship with alcohol: https://www.alcoholfreelifestyle.com/schedule ★ - The wait is over – My new book "CLEAR" is now available. Get your copy here: https://www.alcoholfreelifestyle.com/clear
Are you exhausted from always putting yourself last? Is taking care of you a mystery or an afterthought? In this episode, we talk about why your needs matter, how you may have learned to ignore them, and how to start taking care of yourself—physically, emotionally, and mentally—without guilt. Taking care of you isn't selfish; it's essential to getting your energy, clarity, and peace back. Schedule your Free Mind Shift Coaching Call at www.rympodcast.com. And scroll down to the bottom to sign up for Thinking on a Thursday so you never miss an invite to join classes or coaching groups.
If you've ever felt like no matter how much you do for your family, it's still not enough, this episode is for you. Dr. Allison Alford, who holds a PhD in Communication Studies with a concentration in Interpersonal Communication from The University of Texas at Austin, is here to name the invisible labor so many daughters carry, and help us explore how to untangle our worth from sacrifice and reclaim what healthy daughtering can look like. In this episode, you'll learn: The four types of daughtering work: doing, feeling, thinking, and being Why emotional labor with family can quietly drain your energy and reserves How to shift from obligation to choice in your role as a daughter A step-by-step approach to setting boundaries without immediately creating conflict How to define your own "rubric" for what being a good daughter means About the guest: Allison Alford is a clinical associate professor in the Department of Information Systems and Business Analytics. She holds a PhD in Communication Studies with a concentration in Interpersonal Communication from The University of Texas at Austin. Alford has 17 years' experience teaching university courses and her specialties are value propositions, conflict resolution techniques, teamwork, meeting facilitation and people-skills for leaders. Alford is active in the Association for Business Communication and National Communication Association. Connect with Dr. Allison Alford: Book: Good Daughtering: The Work You've Always Done, the Credit You've Never Gotten, and How to Finally Feel Like Enough: https://www.amazon.com/Good-Daughtering-Always-Credit-Finally/dp/0063436426 Website: https://daughtering101.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/daughtering101/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@daughtering101 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Daughtering101/61564467700155/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisonalford/ 00:00 Feeling Like You're Never Doing Enough for Your Family 00:54 Meet Dr. Allison Alford + What "Daughtering" Means 03:36 How Daughtering Changes in Adulthood (and Why It Stays Invisible) 07:40 Family Scripts, Unspoken Rules, and Why Patterns Feel Hard to Break 10:15 Why She Researched Daughtering: The Origin Story + 10 Years of Interviews 13:12 What Women Say Daughtering Is: Hosting, Protecting Feelings, and Not Feeling Seen 16:56 The 4 Types of Daughtering Work: Doing, Feeling, Thinking, Being 23:57 From Obligation to Choice: Making the Invisible Visible and Recalibrating 25:32 Start With 'Narrating' Before You Set Boundaries 28:31 From Awareness to Action: Asking for What You Want 30:01 Who This Advice Is For (and When to Get Extra Help) 31:25 The 'Family CEO' Role: Invisible Labor, Real Value 34:30 Perfectionism & 'Never Enough': Create Your Daughtering Rubric 37:03 Plant the Flag: Beta-Test New Limits Without Guilt 39:25 New Traditions That Fit Your Life (Not Just the Default) 42:46 About the Book + Why This Work Matters for Future Generations 46:16 Where to Find More + Final Takeaways ——————— Calmly Coping is a self-improvement podcast for high achievers who struggle with high-functioning anxiety to help you feel more calm, balanced, and confident from within. ———————
DREAM WISH PLAN - Disney Vacation Planning, Travel Tips and Hacks
Thinking about staying at Disney's Pop Century Resort at Walt Disney World? In this episode of the Dream Wish Plan Podcast, we're diving into a full Pop Century review so you can decide if this popular Disney value resort is actually the right fit for your family.
Love the show? Have any thoughts? Click here to let us know!On this week's episode, we welcome one of Kenzie's best friends, Lindsay, as we travel to the Show-Me State, Missouri! Kenzie shares the strange and unsettling story of the prominent Swope family, whose household was rocked by a series of sudden deaths in a very short period of time. The family's trusted in-house doctor insisted the deaths were from natural causes, but the nurses caring for the patients began to question his treatment methods and the care being provided. Was the Swope family simply the victim of tragic coincidence? Or was something far more sinister unfolding behind closed doors? Join us as we dig into a century-old case that remains controversial and debated to this day.Follow us on Social Media and find out how to support A Scary State by clicking on our Link Tree: https://instabio.cc/4050223uxWQAl--Have a scary tale or listener story of your own? Send us an email to ascarystatepodcast@gmail.com! We can't wait to read it!--Thinking of starting a podcast? Thinking about using Buzzsprout for that? Well use our link to let Buzzsprout know we sent you and get a $20 Amazon gift card if you sign up for a paid plan!https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=1722892--Works cited!https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Dq_0tJvFgEFuU1ZpZQ3E_LcuLc-RrTML8fSt9ILWb6k/edit?usp=sharing --Intro and outro music thanks to Kevin MacLeod. You can visit his site here: http://incompetech.com/. Which is where we found our music!
Ever wondered why you react the way you do? Or how you could make better choices in the moment? In this episode, host Mathew Blades and psychiatrist Dr. Dave explore metacognition, the art of thinking about your thinking. Dr. Dave explains how developing awareness of your own thought processes can help you create space between stimulus and response, offering practical strategies to break reactive habits and gain more control over your actions, especially in stressful situations at work or in life. Whether you're quick to anger, struggle with anxiety, or just want to feel more in control, this episode offers insightful tools to help you respond with intention instead of reaction. To get in touch with our podcast, email INFO@Learnfrompeoplewholivedit.com Visit our Guests: Mathew Blades - MathewBlades.com Dr. Anna Marie Frank - https://drannamarie.com Cortney McDermott - https://www.cortneymcdermott.com Dr. Dave - https://www.drdaveaz.com/ Jill McMahon - Jillmcmahoncounseling.com To grab a copy of our 6-Week Wellness course, which is video-led, visit https://a.co/d/0ihE1vaw If you want to use Streamyard to create a podcast like this, use this link: https://streamyard.com/pal/c/4656111098003456
“Ugh… I'm going to sound like a broken record.”If you've felt that in a 2nd or 3rd meeting, you've probably had the urge to “freshen up” your story just to keep it interesting.In this episode, Stacy breaks down why that instinct can backfire.She's digging into what actually matters in follow-up meetings, especially when new people join, when the sales team thinks “we already covered that,” and when you're tempted to improvise a whole new version of your story.Listen in to learn:Why “repetitive” might be a you problem (not a them problem)Why you don't want your story to shift too much between meetingsThe simple test for whether you should “run it back” (even in a 3rd meetingHow to tee up repetition without it feeling awkwardThis is Story Snacks, a bite-sized, jam-packed series for fund managers who are ready to master strategic storytelling in under 20 minutes a week. ---Running a fund is hard enough.Ops shouldn't be.Meet the team that makes it easier. | billiondollarbackstory.com/ultimus- - -Thinking about expanding your investor base beyond the US? Not sure where to start? Take our quick quiz to find out if your firm is ready to go global and get all the info at billiondollarbackstory.com/gemcap
241 Welcome back to Tailoring Talk Magazine and the first episode of Season 15.In this long-overdue return, Roberto, Alex and Jon sit down for an honest conversation about electric vehicles, real ownership experiences and whether switching from petrol to electric actually makes sense in the real world.Roberto opens with a confession: after years of saying he'd never own an EV, he's now seriously considering selling his BMW M2 and making the switch. From there, the conversation explores the realities of EV ownership, including range anxiety, charging, running costs, practicality and how different lifestyles change what makes a good car.Rather than reviewing cars or reading spec sheets, this episode focuses on real-world use, real budgets, and what each of us would actually buy with our own money.In this episode• Why Roberto is reconsidering electric cars after years of resisting them• Alex's long-term experience living with EVs and what he'd change next• Jon's experience with EV ownership, hybrids and reliability challenges• Range anxiety – myth or real problem?• Charging at home vs public charging• How lifestyle and driving habits change what car makes sense• Running costs and the reality of EV ownership day-to-day• The cars we're currently considering buying• Family EVs vs performance EVs vs city cars• What we'd each choose if we had to decide tomorrowThe discussion also covers several popular electric cars currently on the market, including models from Tesla, Hyundai, BMW, Volkswagen, Kia and others as the team compares range, practicality and real-world usability.Timestamps00:00 – Intro and confession: from petrolhead to considering EVs02:25 – Why this episode: honest conversation, no reviews or spec sheets03:10 – Why Roberto's M2 isn't getting used and how this conversation started 04:50 – Alex's EV journey and living with a Polestar 08:50 – Jon's EV history, Nissan issues and going electric again 10:50 – Roberto's Hyundai IONIQ 6 experience and dealership problems13:10 – Realisation: why EVs make sense for city driving15:40 – Running costs, practicality and daily usage20:30 – Range anxiety: myth vs reality and how charging actually works 29:40 – Different lifestyles, commuting and choosing the right EV30:40 – Roberto test driving EVs and reconsidering his stance31:30 – Home charging, solar, and real-world running costs 33:15 – Alex's criteria for his next EV (road trips, range, usability)37:55 – Roberto presents EV shortlist for Alex38:00 – Tesla Model 3 discussion46:00 – Volkswagen, BMW, Hyundai and Kia comparisons 49:30 – Counter suggestions and alternative EV options50:10 – Jon's shortlist and priorities for a family EV 01:13:50 – Roberto's current thinking about replacing the M2 01:22:20 – Options, trims and spec pricing discussion01:23:45 – Final thoughts: where each of us stands on EVs 01:25:40 – Outro and wrap-upKey themesOne of the biggest takeaways from this conversation is that there's no single “best” EV.The right choice depends on how you actually use your car, whether you can charge at home, how far you regularly travel, and what matters most: comfort, range, driving experience or practicality.The episode also highlights how quickly EV technology and infrastructure have evolved in recent years, changing the ownership experience significantly compared with earlier electric cars.Listen if you are:• Thinking about buying your first electric car• Curious about real EV ownership rather than marketing claims• A petrolhead wondering whether electric cars are worth considering• Interested in cars, technology and honest conversationsAbout Tailoring Talk MagazineTailoring Talk Magazine is a podcast about style, technology, cars, culture and the things that make modern life interesting, hosted by Roberto Revilla with co-hosts Alex Hansford and Jon Evans.Follow and SubscribeIf you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast and share it with someone who's thinking about going electric. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Join our crew as they dish out the latest news and rumors. Be sure to stay in the know and up to date on all things Disney and much more! Follow us on all our social media accounts on Facebook and on Twitter at @Mousecapadespod. Thinking about being a guest on our show, or have a question or comment? Contact us anytime via text or phone at 636-373-4497. Have a magical day!
We don't always make great choices when we get games, dear listeners. Great merchandising, hype cycles, allusions to other properties we do like, and clever marketing can all feed into trying to gloss over a sub-par title and get us to buy into it. That's the point, after all. Best understand that once in a while you'll pick up a bad game and not realize it until you are already playing it. On this episode, part two of three, I go back to the NES for some games that weren't very good but were not bad enough for a verbal takedown elsewhere. Maybe they are your favorites, but they certainly aren't mine. Give it a listen, and let's commiserate.
Everyone seems more stressed than ever — and oddly, some people even wear it like a badge of honor. But chronic stress isn't something to brag about. It quietly alters the way you think. It amplifies worry, exaggerates threats, narrows your options, and makes worst-case scenarios feel not just possible, but probable. Over time, stress doesn't just affect your mood — it reshapes your perception, your judgment, and the decisions you make. And because the shift happens gradually, you often don't realize it's happening at all. Clinical psychologist Arthur Ciaramicoli has spent decades studying stress and its impact on the brain and behavior. In this conversation, he explains what's actually happening neurologically when stress rises — how your brain shifts into a more reactive mode, why you become more negative and less flexible in your thinking, and how chronic stress can trap you in a self-reinforcing loop. We also explore why modern life seems perfectly designed to keep stress levels elevated and why simply “relaxing” isn't a realistic solution. Most importantly, Arthur shares practical, science-based strategies to interrupt the cycle — techniques you can use in the moment to calm your nervous system, widen your perspective, and prevent stress from distorting your thinking. If you've ever made a decision under pressure and later wondered, “What was I thinking?” — this episode will help you understand exactly what was happening and how to prevent it next time. Arthur is the author of The Stress Solution (https://amzn.to/3yQgt22). PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS QUINCE: Refresh your wardrobe with Quince! Go to https://Quince.dom/sysk for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too! HIMS: For simple, online access to personalized and affordable care for Hair Loss, ED, Weight Loss, and more, visit https://Hims.com/SOMETHING for your free online visit! SHOPIFY: Sign up for your $1 per month trail and start selling today at https://Shopify.com/sysk DELL: Dell Tech Days are here. Enjoy huge deals on PCs like the Dell 14 Plus with Intel® Core™ Ultra processors. Visit https://Dell.com/deals PLANET VISIONARIES: We love the Planet Visionaries podcast, so listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you're listening to this podcast! In partnership with The Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
So much on this week's broadcast, including dog trackers, quantum vibrations, angry atheism, the Epstein files, reptile rain, and of course, Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/thethinkingatheist--3270347/support.
Thrive from the Inside Out Podcast | Personal Transformation|Entrepreneurship
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Do you eat “perfectly” all day… then lose control at night? You're not lazy. You're not broken. And this is not a willpower problem. In this video, registered dietitian, lactation counselor, and mom of three Brooke Miller explains why nighttime cravings hit so hard for moms and exactly how to stop the cycle without restriction, guilt, or extreme dieting. If you find yourself: • Raiding the pantry after the kids go to bed • Thinking about food even when you're not hungry • Feeling out of control at night • Overeating on weekends after being “good” all week • Using food to cope with exhaustion or stress • Waking up guilty the next morning This episode will help you understand what's actually going on in your body and brain. You'll learn: • Why cravings are delayed until nighttime • How under-eating protein and fiber fuels night eating • The link between stress, cortisol, and cravings • How sleep affects hunger hormones (leptin & ghrelin) • Why emotional eating increases at night • What to eat earlier in the day to prevent night snacking • How to build a balanced evening snack • Blood sugar friendly snack ideas before bed • Healthier ways to decompress without using food • How to stop nighttime overeating without cutting foods out Brooke also shares realistic strategies for busy moms, including how to plan snacks, reduce stress eating, and feel more in control around food even in the most exhausting seasons of motherhood.
In this episode of the Open Bar Podcast, we tap into another world — literally. Our special guest, Dre'sha Dior, artist and creator of Alien World, opens up about her journey through music, business, and self-discovery. From Virginia to Atlanta, Dre'sha has built her brand by saying what others only think — unapologetically and authentically.We talk about:
Episode Summary Kim Butler and Spencer Shaw reflect on navigating a devastating Texas ice storm and the lessons it revealed about preparation, emergency funds, layered backups, and prosperity thinking. The episode explores how mindset, gratitude, and preparedness make perseverance possible when systems fail. Episode Resources For resources and additional information of this episode go to https://prosperitythinkers.com/podcasts/ http://prosperityparents.com/ https://storage.googleapis.com/msgsndr/yBEuMuj6fSwGh7YB8K87/media/68e557c906b06d836d9effad.pdf https://www.youtube.com/@KimDHButler Keywords / SEO prosperity thinking perseverance preparation emergency fund cash liquidity mindset resilience crisis planning Episode Highlights with Timestamps 00:00–00:03 - Perseverance vs suffering 00:01–00:03 - Texas power grid and storm context 00:02–00:04 - Multi-layer backup systems 00:03–00:04 - System failures and family consolidation 00:04–00:06 - Mental exhaustion and equilibrium 00:06–00:08 - Unbelievable thinking spectrum 00:08–00:09 - Emergency fund analogy 00:09–00:11 - State of being as contribution 00:11–00:12 - Gratitude and discipline 00:13–00:15 - Cash, community, and recovery
Is creativity only about coming up with lots of ideas? Or does it also involve choosing the right idea in the right moment? What can sport teach us about thinking under pressure? In this episode of the Fueling Creativity in Education Podcast, Dr. Matthew Worwood and Dr. Cyndi Burnett welcome sports psychologist Dr. Daniel Memmert to explore how creativity shows up on the field. Listen in as the conversation explores tactical creativity, which combines generating many possible plays with selecting the most effective one. Daniel explains why creativity in sport is not about being flashy, but about making decisions that are both unexpected and appropriate. In this thoughtful conversation, they explore: – The difference between generating options and choosing the best one – Why young athletes need freedom to experiment – How fear of mistakes can shut down creativity – Why coaches should be mindful of when and how they give feedback – How early training should focus more on exploration than rigid systems Daniel also shares research showing that at elite levels, physical skills often level out. What makes the difference is how players think, notice patterns, and respond in the moment. If you are a coach, educator, or parent involved in youth sports, this episode offers practical insights on nurturing creative thinking while still supporting strong performance. About the Guest Dr. Daniel Memmert is a professor at the German Sport University Cologne. He has published more than 300 research articles and over 40 books on creativity, attention, and performance in sport. He also holds coaching licenses in several sports, bringing both research and real world experience to his work. Be sure to subscribe to your favorite platform and sign up for our Extra Fuel newsletter for more resources and inspiration. Visit FuelingCreativityPodcast.com for more information or email us at questions@fuelingcreativitypodcast.com.
What separates solopreneurs who stay stuck from those who scale into something bigger?In this episode of The Aspiring Solopreneur, Carly Ries and Joe Rando sit down with attorney and business strategist Brandon Williams, whose experience working with major brands like Steve Harvey Global gives him a unique perspective on what it really takes to grow a business from a single idea into a lasting legacy.Brandon breaks down one of the biggest myths about solopreneurship: that doing it alone means building it alone. He explains why the most successful solopreneurs actively build networks, leverage contractors, and think years ahead, even when they're just starting out.Whether you're still in the idea phase or actively growing your business, this conversation will help you shift from thinking small to building intentionally.What You'll Learn in This EpisodeWhy solopreneurs should think like CEOs, even on day oneHow to scale without hiring employees (using contractors and partnerships)The mindset shift that helps solopreneurs overcome imposter syndromeHow to break big, long-term goals into actionable daily prioritiesThe legal structures solopreneurs should set up early (like LLCs and contracts)Why sharing your idea accelerates growth instead of risking itHow to build confidence when entering rooms with more “established” peopleThe biggest partnership mistakes solopreneurs make (and how to avoid them)Why effort and momentum attract opportunities and supportKey Takeaways1. Flying solo doesn't mean building alone Solopreneurs who scale successfully surround themselves with contractors, mentors, and collaborators.2. Confidence comes from action, not experience The difference between those who succeed and those who don't is often the willingness to try.3. Structure makes your business real Creating an LLC, separating finances, and putting agreements in place protects your future growth.4. Focus on where you're going, not just where you are Thinking years ahead helps guide better decisions today.5. Effort attracts momentum Taking consistent action creates opportunities, connections, and growth.Episode FAQsHow can solopreneurs scale their business without hiring employees?Solopreneurs can scale by building a network of contractors, freelancers, and collaborators instead of hiring full-time employees. This allows them to expand their capabilities, take on more clients, and increase revenue while maintaining flexibility and low overhead. Many successful solopreneurs use contractors for marketing, operations, design, and technical work.What legal structure should a solopreneur set up when starting a business?Most solopreneurs should create an LLC (Limited Liability Company) early in their business. An LLC separates personal and business assets, protecting the owner from personal liability if legal issues arise. Solopreneurs should also open a separate business bank account and use written agreements with contractors and clients.How do solopreneurs build confidence when starting or growing a business?Solopreneurs build confidence through action, not experience alone. Taking small steps, such as networking, talking about their business, working with clients, and executing consistently, helps build belief over time. Even experienced business leaders are constantly learning, and confidence grows by doing, not waiting until everything feels perfect.
Iatrogenic Harm
Explore Your Personality: https://PersonalityHacker.com Why is finding your Myers-Briggs type so frustrating, even after years of studying it? In this episode, Joel and Antonia break down how biased function descriptions, culture, burnout, and "I relate to everything" thinking can distort self-typing, then clarify the real differences between Harmony (Fe), Accuracy (Ti), Effectiveness (Te), and Authenticity (Fi). If you've ever felt stuck between types or doubted your results, this conversation will help you see what you can't stop doing and finally make your best-fit type click.
The high is over. The "holiday" is gone. Now comes the fallout.If you woke up today to the silent treatment, a cold shoulder, or a partner who is acting like the chaos of yesterday never happened—you are experiencing the "Valentine's Fallout." On this Sunday after, the narcissist has reclaimed control by ruining your expectations, and now they are using the "Day After" to test how much you'll tolerate.In this episode/Live, we are breaking down:The Emotional Hangover: Why you feel "crazy" today and they feel fine.Selective Amnesia: Why the narcissist refuses to acknowledge the fight they started yesterday.The Power of the Pivot: How they shift from "Villain" to "Victim" within 24 hours.Holding the Line: How to protect your peace when the mask is officially off.Stop waiting for an apology that isn't coming. Start understanding the game.Connect with Lee:My Courses: https://courses.mentalhealness.net 1-on-1 Coaching Calls: https://link.me/mentalhealnessAll My Link: https://beacons.page/mentalhealness Follow on Instagram/TikTok: @mentalhealnesssIf this episode helped you gain clarity, please leave a 5-star review on Spotify! It helps others find the validation they need to heal.
Michael Norton reveals the science behind rituals that can help us change the way we feel and perform.— YOU'LL LEARN — 1) What makes rituals more powerful than habits2) How rituals help you get into the zone3) Simple team rituals to build closenessSubscribe or visit AwesomeAtYourJob.com/ep1129 for clickable versions of the links below. — ABOUT MICHAEL — Michael I. Norton is a professor at Harvard Business School. Michael's research focuses on behavioral economics and well-being, with particular attention given to happiness and spending, income inequality, the IKEA effect, and, most recently, rituals.Michael Norton's research has been published in popular media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, and The New York Times, as well as academic journals like Science, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, and the American Economic Review. His “How to Buy Happiness” TED Talk has been viewed over 4 million times, and his work has been parodied by The Onion. In 2013, Norton co-authored Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending with Elizabeth Dunn. His recent book The Ritual Effect focuses on the surprising and versatile power of rituals.• Book: The Ritual Effect: From Habit to Ritual, Harness the Surprising Power of Everyday Actions• Quiz: "Are you turning mundane moments into meaningful ones?"• Website: MichaelNorton.com— RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE SHOW — • Study: "Overearning" by Christopher K. Hsee, Jiao Zhang, Fengyan Cai, and Shirley Zhang• Book: The Gift: How the Creative Spirit Transforms the World by Lewis Hyde— THANK YOU SPONSORS! — • Monarch.com. Get 50% off your first year on with the code AWESOME.• Shopify. Sign up for your $1/month trial at Shopify.com/betterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.