Podcasts about whole foods

Most people hear "buy the best meat you can afford" and immediately picture the $30 pasture-raised ribeye at Whole Foods — and then conclude that eating well is simply out of reach. But that's not a fair test of what quality meat actually costs. Ribeye is the most expensive cut at the highest tier, and comparing it to cheap conventional ground beef is like comparing a BMW to a used Corolla and deciding all cars are unaffordable. The more useful question is what "good enough" looks like across different categories of meat, because the answer isn't the same for beef as it is for pork or poultry. In this episode, I lay out a tiered framework you can use when buying meat, explain why I draw a hard line at industrial pork and poultry (even though I'm more forgiving about conventional beef), and share my honest reaction to a specific product launch that put the whole question in sharp relief. On the beef side, the tiers are fairly forgiving. Grass-fed, grass-finished ground beef from a local regenerative farm often runs around $10 a pound — and you can find it cheaper than that at Aldi or Walmart. That's not far from conventional at all, and it's where most families actually spend their beef budget anyway. The $30 ribeye is real, but it's also not the only option in the category. Pork and poultry are a harder conversation. Roughly 93% of US pigs are raised in factory farms where pregnant sows spend most of their adult lives in gestation crates too narrow to turn around in, standing on concrete under artificial light. Beyond the animal welfare problem, pigs and chickens are monogastric animals — unlike cattle, they don't have the ruminant digestive system that buffers against poor feed inputs. Whatever is in their feed shows up directly in the meat and fat, including pesticide residues, soy isoflavones, and rendered animal byproducts that are still legally used in US monogastric feed. That's a problem conventional beef simply doesn't have to the same degree. Carnivore Bar recently reached out to introduce me to a new lower-cost version of their product called the Everyday Bar, priced at around $5 versus their original $16 bar. The catch is that it uses grain-finished beef. My gut reaction was to say "no," but after sitting with it for a few days, I settled on a more pragmatic: if the choice is between this and a conventional protein bar packed with lab-derived ingredients, the Everyday Bar wins.  Grain-finished beef is still significantly better than industrial pork, industrial poultry, or anything plant-based. But if you can afford the original, that's the one I'd buy. Thank you to this episode's sponsor, Carnivore Bar! Carnivore Bar makes some of the highest quality meat bars I've ever had — grass-fed, grass-finished beef, tallow, and salt. No fillers, no seed oils, no nonsense. I've been eating them for a while now, and the Apple Pie flavor is still my go-to when I need something portable and actually satiating. If you're looking for a real food snack that travels well and doesn't compromise on ingredients, I encourage you to give Carnivore Bar a try. To learn more about why I recommend them, check out my in-depth review: https://michaelkummer.com/health/carnivore-bar-review/ And use code MICHAELKUMMER to get 10% off your order: https://endlss.io/sl/the-carnivore-bar/kummer In this episode: 00:00 Intro 01:16 What good meat means  01:38 Steak vs. ground beef  03:30 Three-tier framework  05:27 Why pork and poultry are worse  06:33 Factory farm reality check  08:08 Feed matters for monogastrics  09:50 Carnivore Bar dilemma  12:23 Pragmatic buying advice  16:59 Final thoughts Find me on social media for more health and wellness content: Website: https://michaelkummer.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MichaelKummer Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/primalshiftpodcast/ Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/michaelkummer/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/mkummer82 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/realmichaelkummer/ [Medical Disclaimer] The information shared on this video is for educational purposes only, is not a substitute for the advice of medical doctors or registered dietitians (which I am not) and should not be used to prevent, diagnose, or treat any condition. Consult with a physician before starting a fitness regimen, adding supplements to your diet, or making other changes that may affect your medications, treatment plan, or overall health. [Affiliate Disclaimer] I earn affiliate commissions from some of the brands and products I review on this channel. While that doesn't change my editorial integrity, it helps make this channel happen. If you'd like to support me, please use my affiliate links or discount code.

For 12 years, Jason Wright has been obsessed with one question: Can a protein snack compete with the biggest brands in the chip aisle on taste alone? In this episode, Jason, the founder and CEO of Wilde Snacks, explains how a failed meat-bar business led to a breakthrough innovation, why he spent years building proprietary manufacturing technology, and how Wilde's new Protein Crackers fit into a broader vision for a protein-powered snack platform.  Jason also discusses the value of patient investors, the strategic role of Costco and product sampling in driving trial, and why he believes the future of better-for-you snacks depends on eliminating the compromise between nutrition and indulgence. Show notes: 0:20: Jason Wright, Founder & CEO, Wilde Snacks – Jason reflects on his first appearance on Taste Radio before discussing the years-long effort to develop Wilde's proprietary manufacturing technology and the opening of the company's first production facility in 2021, a move he credits with transforming the brand and fueling sustained growth. He also talks about the launch of Wilde Protein Crackers, the strategic advantages of owning manufacturing, and how patents, specialized equipment, and operational expertise have helped create a formidable competitive moat. Along the way, Jason highlights the role of Costco, Whole Foods, and product sampling in driving consumer trial, while outlining Wilde's ambitions to expand into new protein-based snack formats, including tortilla chips and other innovations. He also emphasizes the importance of patient investors, particularly lead backer Alan Karp, whose long-term support enabled Wilde to pursue an unconventional vision and build the business on its own timeline. Brands in this episode: Wilde Snacks, Epic, Kind, I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, Fritos, Pringles, Quest

Do you have high cholesterol and struggle with anxiety about getting heart attacks or other forms of heart disease, or of being put on medication? Is your health limiting what you can do physically and taking the joy out of your life? Well, things don't have to stay this way.   Tune in to part 2 of the Interview I had with Sandra Y., whose real-life experience of health transformation amazed even her own doctor and other health professionals, because of what her health condition was like just 6 months prior. In this episode, we'll dive more into the other positive health benefits Sandra experienced, talk about her exercise routine, and learn more about how this lifestyle change has impacted her family. See how a whole food plant-based diet and regular exercise made such a profound difference to Sandra's health, and what eating this way could potentially do for you too! Contact -> healthnow@plantnourished.com Learn -> www.plantnourished.com Enjoy 1:1 Coaching Support -> https://www.plantnourished.com/coachingwaitlist Join -> Plant-Powered Life Transformation Course: www.plantnourished.com/ppltcourse Get Free 15-Minute Strategy Call -> www.plantnourished.com/strategycall Free Resource -> 7 Ways to Test-Drive a Plant-Based Diet: www.plantnourished.com/testdrive     Have a question about plant-based diets that you would like answered on the Plant Based Eating Made Easy Podcast? Send it by email (healthnow@plantnourished.com) or submit it by a voice message here: www.speakpipe.com/plantnourished     [Plant Based Diet, Plantbased Transition Tips, Heart Disease, Whole Foods]

Enter to win one of the 5 x $100 Gift cards for Plant Strong Foods: https://mavywellness.com/plantstrongfood-giveawayGet your Plant Strong Food (Use code : RIP25 to get 25% off your first order): https://plantstrong.comOver 50 and ready for real body recomposition on whole-food plant-based? Book your free consultation → https://mavywellness.comSign up here to get the first lesson instantly: https://mavywellness.com/newsletterOrder a copy of my new book Forever Fit (#1 Bestseller) here - https://foreverfitbook.comIn this episode, I sit down with Rip Esselstyn—former firefighter, endurance athlete, and founder of Plantstrong—to talk about the evolution of plant-based nutrition and the future of healthy eating.We dive into why fiber may matter more than protein for longevity, weight loss, and gut health, plus the real problem with ultra-processed “health” foods.Rip also shares the story behind building Plantstrong from Whole Foods shelves to thousands of stores nationwide, along with new products coming in 2026.00:01 Why Fiber Is Replacing Protein Hype05:03 How Plantstrong Started At Whole Foods09:51 Rebuilding The Brand After Amazon15:48 What Makes Plantstrong Different23:35 Why Fiber Matters More Than Ever29:45 Fiber Versus GLP1 Weight Loss Drugs35:30 Behind The Scenes Of Food Manufacturing46:39 New Plantstrong Products Coming In 2026

What separates the brands that break through from the ones that get left behind? At BevNET Live NYC 2026, founders, retailers, and investors pointed to a common answer: clarity. In this episode, recorded live from the event, the hosts recap key takeaways from day one, including emerging trends in ingestible beauty and why a crystal-clear value proposition is more important than ever. Show notes: 0:20: In The Knick Of Time. Six From The Show'. Next 'Gen Drinks. Clearly Important. – Recorded live on day two of BevNET Live NYC 2026, Ray, John and Melissa reflect on highlights from the event, including strong attendance, engaging networking, and the excitement of the New Beverage Showdown final round, featuring six emerging brands spanning THC beverages, protein water, coffee-cacao blends, non-alcoholic cocktails, juice, and craft soda. The conversation also explores key industry trends discussed at the conference, including the continued rise of protein, creatine, collagen, and ingestible beauty products, as well as what retailers like Whole Foods, Walmart, Wegmans, and The Vitamin Shoppe are looking for in emerging brands. The hosts share insights from presentations by industry leaders including Athletic Brewing co-founder Bill Shufelt and Bai founder Ben Weiss, emphasizing the importance of clear value propositions, consumer engagement, and innovation. The episode closes with gratitude for attendees and an invitation to future BevNET Live events and Taste Radio meetups. Brands in this episode: Dad Grass, Cabu Latte, Dirty Virgo, Lyflo, Umma Juice, Brause, Solstice, Athletic Brewing, Bai, Crooked Pop

Produced by ContentMonsta.comAllison Ellsworth shares her personal story of transforming health struggles and a homemade soda experiment into the nearly $2 billion brand, Poppi. The conversation explores the realities and challenges of entrepreneurship, especially as a woman and a mother, highlighting the importance of pushing past excuses, relentless resourcefulness, community support, and redefining work-life balance. Listeners gain both practical and inspirational insight into betting on themselves, following big dreams, and creating lasting impact for their families and communities.Key Points/Topics CoveredOvercoming personal health struggles and the origin of PoppiNavigating entrepreneurship as a woman and a motherThe leap from homemade product to business, including the Shark Tank experienceImportance of support systems, avoiding excuses, and personal growth in leadership rolesAchieving work-life balance, embracing “mom guilt,” and instilling values in the next generationTime Stamps00:00 – Overcoming health issues and creating Poppi in the kitchen00:46 – Building the business: farmer's markets, Whole Foods, and manufacturing06:08 – The Shark Tank journey and pivotal moments07:55 – Advice for moms and women in entrepreneurship12:02 – Managing mom guilt and setting boundaries for work-life balance14:37 – Instilling values in children and company culture15:37 – Encouragement for women in entrepreneurship and future aspirations Produced by ContentMonsta.com

Can a supplement provide the same benefits as whole foods?   Many people assume that if a food contains a beneficial nutrient, taking that nutrient in a supplement should provide the same result. Nutrition research has shown that it is not always that simple.   In this episode, Shelley explores the concept of food synergy, also known as the matrix effect, and explains why whole foods often provide benefits that isolated nutrients cannot fully replicate. Learn how nutrients interact with one another, why eating an orange is different from taking a vitamin C supplement, what research says about fish versus fish oil supplements, and why green powders are not the same as fruits and vegetables.   The episode also discusses the role of supplements, when they may be appropriate, and why overall dietary patterns remain the strongest predictor of long-term health. Read More: Whole Foods vs. Isolated Nutrients: Why Food Synergy Matters

The ProLongevity Podcast with Graham Phillips | Episode 46 Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Dr. Marcus Hawkins and His Journey 02:40 The Philosophy Behind 'The Food Fix' 05:47 Personal Health Journeys and Transformations 08:54 The Epidemic of Obesity and Diabetes 09:45 Understanding the Root Causes of the Diabetes Epidemic 14:18 Calories In, Calories Out: Debunking Myths 16:07 The Role of Carbohydrates in Our Diet 18:22 Processed Foods vs. Whole Foods 23:34 Revisiting Diabetes: A New Perspective 26:00 Measuring Success: Outcomes of Health Coaching 30:13 Transforming Medical Practice with Low Carb Approaches 31:36 Understanding Cholesterol and Cardiovascular Health 34:56 Beyond the Big Four: Addressing Broader Health Issues 40:04 Cultural Sensitivity in Health: Working with the Maori Community 48:37 The Role of GLP-1 Medications in Weight Management 57:25 TheProLongevityPodcast-Outro.mp4 The Canadian professor who worked with the Innuit, mentioned in the talk is Dr Jay Wortman. Dr. Jay Wortman's low-carb project is featured in the documentary "My Big Fat Diet" (2008). The film chronicles a study in which the Canadian Métis physician encouraged an entire First Nations community to abandon modern Western foods in favor of their traditional, low-carb, high-fat diet. The results were transformative, showing remarkable improvements in weight, cholesterol, and blood sugar control without calorie counting or exercise. Dr. Wortman was inspired to conduct this study after successfully reversing his own Type 2 diabetes using the same low-carb lifestyle. Where to Watch: The full documentary is available to stream on the Diet Doctor platform This podcast video is brought to you by ProLongevity, the multi-award-winning lifestyle change program that helps reverse and prevent and reverse avoidable killer diseases like Type 2 Diabetes, Strokes, and Hypertension. Founder of ProLongevity, Graham Phillips discusses the latest controversial yet scientifically proven breakthroughs in understanding how to live healthy for longer. View a range of topics that will offer a new understanding that will help improve your health. From the damage caused to public health, by Big Food and Big Pharma that costs the UK and US Billions, why you can't just simply run off extra pounds by joining the gym, the connection between the brain and gut, why certain diets don't always work and can even damage your health. Graham Phillips Links: website - https://www.prolongevity.co.uk/ X/Twitter - https://twitter.com/grahamsphillips Facebook -https://www.facebook.com/Prolongevity1 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/prolongevity_https://prolongevityessentials.co.uk/ For more great videos like this, make sure you've subscribed. Or why not join our private members Facebook Group for future events and webinars, packed with news, debates, educational resources, free health risk assessments, and much more; https://www.facebook.com/groups/278916313071738/

In this in-depth interview, grocery clerk and union organizer Edward Dupree shares insights on working at Whole Foods, the unionization campaign in Philadelphia, and tips on seasonal produce. Discover the realities of grocery work, the fight for better conditions, and how community building fuels organizing efforts.Edward Dupree is a worker at Whole Foods of almost a decade in the Produce department and an organizer with UFCW 1776 as part of the Philly Whole Foods Union and Whole Foods Workers United.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

FERRARI bringt mit dem LUCE sein erstes Elektro-Automobil auf den Markt. Ferraristi und nahezu die gesamte Design-, Branding- und Marketingwelt sind sich einig, dass dies der Anfang vom Ende der italienischen Luxussportwagen-Marke ist. Muss der LUCE und das Design von Apple-Legende Jony Ive nicht differenzierter beurteilt werden? PATH WATER positioniert seine wiederverwendbaren Alu-Flaschen (mit Wasser gefüllt) in Regalen von WALMART, WHOLE FOODS, SPROUTS & Co. neben den Wasserflaschen oder -dosen von EVIAN, FIJI oder LIQUID DEATH. Wie sind Markenpositionierung und Geschäftsmodell zu bewerten? Inwieweit fördert PATH nachhaltiges Konsumverhalten? PALANTIR, der US-Datenanalyse- und -KI-Konzern, ist ins Merchandising-Geschäft eingestiegen und bietet eine Interpretation einer klassischen französischen Arbeiterjacke an. Das Kleidungsstück ist inzwischen ein Statussymbol in der Tech-Szene, wird aber auch kontrovers diskutiert. Ist dies gutes Merchandising? Ist dies ein Beispiel für die aktuelle «Taste»-Debatte im Silicon Valley?

“I never knew, and I was a bright kid. I didn't know who the mayor of New York was, but I could tell you the names of all the mafia guys on the corner.” — Vincent Coppola So we finally found a Coppola for the show. No, not Francis Ford. But somebody just as cool and even more authentic. The longtime Newsweek reporter Vincent Coppola grew up in Brooklyn three subway stops from Manhattan, but never went there until he was a teenager, nor even visited Central Park until his twenties. Coppola's version of Brooklyn, a teeming Italian ghetto squeezed between the banks of the polluted Gowanus Canal, no longer exists. Except in his exquisitely rendered new memoir, Gowanus Crossing: A Brooklyn Boyhood, which has the most delicious story about an Easter pie recipe you'll ever read. The Brooklyn of Vinnie's childhood was intact, insular, cut off from everywhere more than three stops away. It had its own government — the Mafia; its own religion — the Catholic Church; its own poisoned geography — the Gowanus Canal. A world inside a world. He didn't know who the mayor of New York was, but he knew the name of every wise guy on every street corner. To a kid, Gowanus was a magical place. The grown Vinnie (now called Vincent), having crossed his own Rubicon to attend Columbia journalism school, describes it as a “toxic snow globe.” Brooklyn über alles. Or, more authentically, al primo posto. Especially now, when only a real Coppola can resurrect it. Five Takeaways •       A Toxic Snow Globe: Cut Off Three Stops from Manhattan: Coppola grew up in an Italian enclave on the Gowanus Canal — a waterway that was, unbeknownst to its residents, one of the most polluted in America. The community was so insular that Coppola — a bright, bookish kid — never went to Manhattan until he was a teenager, never visited Central Park until he was in his twenties, though he was three subway stops away. He knew the names of all the Mafia guys on the corner. He did not know who the mayor of New York was. A toxic snow globe: its own rules, its own government, its own religion. Intact and entirely cut off from the rest of the world. •       The Mafia as Shadow Government: The Mafia was not background colour in Coppola's childhood. It was the actual government. Police from the 78th Precinct pulled up to the social club on Sundays; officers walked in and walked out with brown paper bags full of cash. Squad cars ferried a hitman — the bodyguard of Carmine Persico — as if they were taxis. This corrupted any childlike innocence about institutions. The stereotype of the nice policeman, the honest cop, the beloved priest: none of them applied. Because they were poor, nobody cared. Nobody cared about the canal being polluted until real estate people came in. •       The Predatory Priest and the Code of Silence: A local priest molested altar boys for decades, including Coppola's best friend. Nobody in the community knew. Coppola's observation: if the Mafia had known, they would have killed that man. It would have been that simple. Two oppressive codes of silence — the Mafia's omertà and the Church's own silence — operated in parallel. One protected criminals who were also community pillars. The other protected a predator. The community was too poor, too preoccupied, too isolated to see what was happening in front of their eyes. •       The Easter Pie Recipe: A Story About Secrets and Mothers: One of the great set pieces of the book. Coppola was obsessed throughout his life with a specific Easter pastry — pizza di grano, a grain pie — that the old neighbourhood women made and would not share the recipe for. He worked for Newsweek, had access to chefs everywhere, could not reproduce it. At his mother's funeral, an old neighbour pressed a piece of paper into his hand. Weeks later he found it in his jacket pocket and opened it. Not cash — the recipe. Written in Italian. Beginning: “under a full moon.” It was a hundred years old. He wasn't going to be baking under full moons. •       The Ghost Town: A Million-Dollar Desert: Coppola returned to Gowanus three weeks before the interview, invited to speak at a public library. His neighbourhood was blooming with skyscrapers and condominiums. And it was dead silent. When he grew up, the streets were teeming — children playing hopscotch, women gossiping on chairs outside, music, grilling on the corner, betting. He came back to a million-dollar ghost town. It broke his heart. The people he grew up with had been driven out — priced out of the place where they belonged. That is the elegy the book is writing. He hopes he preserved the best of that world. About the Guest Vincent Coppola is a journalist and the author of six books. A former reporter at Newsweek, he has written for Esquire, Rolling Stone, Men's Journal, and Atlanta magazine. He is a 1977 honours graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. His essay on his mother's battle with cancer won the William Allen White Gold Medal. He is the author of Gowanus Crossing: A Brooklyn Boyhood (Henry Holt, June 9, 2026). He lives in Savannah, Georgia. References: •       Gowanus Crossing: A Brooklyn Boyhood by Vincent Coppola (Henry Holt, June 9, 2026). •       Frank McCourt, Angela's Ashes — the publisher's comparison: “Frank McCourt's gimlet eye with the exuberant menace of a Scorsese movie.” •       Carmine Persico — the mafioso boss referenced in the conversation; his bodyguard is a character in the book. About Keen On America Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,900 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting. WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters: (00:31) - Introduction: the Brooklyn of Whole Foods vs the Brooklyn of the Gowanus Canal (01:20) - An Italian village plucked from the south of Italy and dropped in Brooklyn (02:04) - Vince, did you ever really leave? (02:27) - Stage four cancer: the trigger for the memoir (03:11) - The Gowanus C...

In this Q&A episode, I answer questions about how to train for varied competitive distances without getting pulled in too many directions, explain my compelling stance on avoiding coffee (and NSAIDs), and give a plug for Dr. Doug McGuff’s “Big 5” total-body workout—a simple, highly effective way to stay strong with just one workout per week. I also share thoughts on how corporations like Whole Foods Market and PF Chang’s continue to sell plenty of crap despite their healthy reputations, discuss the magic of Zone 1 walking for building awesome aerobic fitness, and explain one of the best ways to tell if you’re doing too much strength training. Hint: you shouldn’t be getting sore. These are practical, everyday insights you can use right away to simplify your training, improve your health, and avoid some common mistakes. TIMESTAMPS: Jack, age 60, asks about his running goals. He says he is confused about what Brad says the parameters should be. [01:11] Jack has another question about coffee. Is having that stimulant in the morning helpful for your overall well-being as an athlete? [07:38] Another listener asks: Should I take my high intensity interval training, my strength training like Dr. Doug McGruff's Big Five and a basically walking approach to races? [15:45] Some comments from YouTube include this with Brad's comment: How long should you sprint to achieve all the health benefits? Brad's answer: All your entire life. [17:56] Monica initiates a discussion on the industrial seed oils being used rather than butter in restaurants and even Whole Foods and P.F. Changs. [18:50] Anthony asks about building up aerobic fitness by walking. Brad's response is thatthe aerobic base is built at the lower exercise intensities where your body has sufficient oxygen to develop and fine tune your mitochondrial function [27:00] Chad experiences soreness after trying to complete body weight exercises every other day to failure. Brad answers: If you have recurring soreness from your strength training regimen, you are most certainly overdoing it. [30:48] Dr. Doug McGruff's book, Body by Science, has a great regimen of five big workouts to do once a week. [32:22] Chad is also asking about his schedule for training. You want to have ebbs and flows in your schedule such that you have built in downtime and you always respect the importance of intuition and adjusting on the fly. [37:37] LINKS: Brad Kearns.com BradNutrition.com - 20% OFF Your First Order! B.rad Superdrink – Hydrates 28% Faster than Water—Creatine-Charged Hydration for Next-Level Power, Focus, and Recovery NEW: B.rad Real Rad Gummies - Creatine + Nootropics for Focus, Motivation, Performance, and Recovery! B.rad Whey Protein Superfuel - The Best Protein on The Planet! Brad’s Shopping Page BornToWalkBook.com B.rad Podcast – All Episodes Peluva Five-Toe Minimalist Shoes - Save 10% Body by Science We appreciate all feedback, and questions for Q&A shows, emailed to podcast@bradventures.com. If you have a moment, please share an episode you like with a quick text message, or leave a review on your podcast app. Thank you! Check out each of these companies because they are absolutely awesome or they wouldn’t occupy this revered space. Seriously, I won’t promote anything that I don't absolutely love and use in daily life: B.rad Nutrition: Premium quality, all-natural supplements for peak performance, recovery, and longevity; including the world's highest quality whey protein! Get 20% OFF your first order! Peluva: Comfortable, functional, stylish five-toe minimalist shoe to reawaken optimal foot function. Use code BRADPODCAST for 15% off! Jaspr Air Scrubber: Ultra high-performance air purifier - blows other air filters away! Save $200 on your unit with code BRAD. Get Stride: Advanced DNA, methylation profile, microbiome & blood at-home testing. Hit your stride the right way, with cutting-edge technology and customized programming. Save 10% with the code BRAD. Online educational courses: Numerous great offerings for an immersive home-study educational experience Primal Fitness Expert Certification: The most comprehensive online course on all aspects of traditional fitness programming and a total immersion fitness lifestyle. Save 25% on tuition with code BRAD! #bradpodcastSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What if the secret to winning in CPG wasn't chasing the next trend – but staying focused on simple ingredients, a clear brand promise, and flawless execution? In this episode, Jeff Richards, founder and CEO of plant-based milk brand Mooala, explains how a commitment to organic sourcing, clear positioning, and a disciplined retail strategy helped transform a scrappy startup into one of the category's fastest-growing companies – even as the plant-based industry around it raced to reinvent itself. Show notes: 0:20: Jeff Richards, Founder & CEO, Mooala – Jeff reflects on his participation in BevNET Live's New Beverage Showdown in 2017 and discusses leaving investment banking to pursue an opportunity he saw in almond milk. He talks about Mooala's distinctive organic almond and banana milks and explains how the brand differentiated itself through organic certification, ingredient transparency, and flavor-forward formulations. He opens up about the challenges of educating consumers, refining Mooala's packaging, and adapting its messaging as shopper priorities evolved. He also details the realities of scaling a refrigerated beverage brand, from securing early wins with retailers such as Whole Foods, Costco, H-E-B, and Wegmans to navigating distribution, pricing, and marketing constraints with limited resources. Jeff shares lessons from fundraising, including the risks of raising capital before establishing product-market fit, and reflects on the rise and subsequent correction of the plant-based category. Looking back, he emphasizes the importance of incremental improvement, disciplined innovation, and patience, noting that Mooala's recent success stems from the alignment of strong products, clear brand messaging, organic positioning, and growing consumer demand. Brands in this episode: Mooala, Silk, Blue Diamond, Deep Eddy Vodka, Oatly, Ripple

Do you feel weighed down and burdened by constant medications and anxiety around your medical diagnoses? Are you wondering if there is any natural holistic way to drop your blood sugar levels to normal, lift your depression, help you drop pounds, as well as improve your energy levels and mood?   Yes, there IS a way and it is simpler than you think – by focusing on eating high quality nourishing natural whole plant-based foods and moving more, your health can improve dramatically. How? In this episode, I'll share part 1 of a fascinating interview with my special guest, Sandra Y. A member of my Community, Sandra was told initially by her doctor and other health professionals that she would need to live with diabetes for life and that there would be no cure.   However, Sandra - after a bout of further depression over her new diagnosis - decided to do her own research and came across plant-based eating. What she didn't expect though, was the amazing healing journey she found herself on when she made the change to a plant-powered lifestyle, one that would not only improve her diabetes, but cause her to drop nearly 50 pounds, lift her depression and more…all within 6 months of switching to a whole food plant-based diet! Listen in for the details of her amazing health journey!     Contact -> healthnow@plantnourished.com Learn -> www.plantnourished.com Enjoy 1:1 Coaching Support -> https://www.plantnourished.com/coachingwaitlist Join -> Plant-Powered Life Transformation Course: www.plantnourished.com/ppltcourse Get Free 15-Minute Strategy Call -> www.plantnourished.com/strategycall Free Resource -> 7 Ways to Test-Drive a Plant-Based Diet: www.plantnourished.com/testdrive     Have a question about plant-based diets that you would like answered on the Plant Based Eating Made Easy Podcast? Send it by email (healthnow@plantnourished.com) or submit it by a voice message here: www.speakpipe.com/plantnourished     [Plantbased Eating, Blood Sugars, Weight Loss, Plant Based Diet Transition Tips, Cholesterol]

Veteran journalist Vincent Coppola discusses his new memoir, Gowanus Crossing: A Brooklyn Boyhood, which paints a lively portrait of Gowanus and its many eccentric characters, back when it was an Italian American neighborhood. Plus, listeners share their own memories of Gowanus pre-gentrification. Cover art courtesy of Henry Holt and Co. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Most challenger founders assume international expansion should happen in neat, logical steps. New Zealand → Australia → UK → US. But Lisa's view was different, and that's why it's so interesting: In fact, conventional FMCG wisdom tells us to prove your business in nearby markets first. But founder Lisa King of Free AF Drinks ignored that advice!  After building a 40% share brand in New Zealand, Lisa decided to skip Australia entirely and went straight after the most competitive drinks market in the world...the USA!Why? --> If the ambition was always to build a globally valuable business, she asked herself why spend years proving the model somewhere that wasn't ultimately where the biggest opportunity sat?In this brilliant conversation with Kiwi female founder Lisa, you'll hear how today AF Drinks is stocked in more than 4,500 stores across the US, including Target, Walmart, Whole Foods and Kroger, and just HOW they're doing it. We discuss why she made they made the decision they did, how Pernod Ricard Ventures invested before the US launch, what it really takes to build a beverage brand in America, why alcohol-free RTD cocktails are outperforming expectations, and the lessons founders should understand before attempting to scale internationally.Lisa takes us through a masterclass in the realities of the beverage market in the United States; Why alcohol-free RTD cocktails are growing faster than many expected and finally, how she has approached fundraising, equity and scaling internationally!Key Topics Discussed Alcohol-free drinks category growth  Building challenger brands internationally  International expansion & export to USA   Listings with Target, Walmart, Whole Foods and Kroger  US grocery retail Walmart and Target listings  Fundraising and investor strategy  Pernod Ricard Ventures investment  Beverage category economics  Product innovation, IP & technology  Ready-to-drink cocktails  Scaling consumer brands globally  Founder leadership  Building brands from New Zealand USEFUL LINKSAF Drinks WebsiteAF Drinks InstagramLike this episode?PLEASE share the love by sharing this episode with another founder building a challenger brand, a colleague or a mate who loves brilliant non-alcoholic drinks, or anyone trying to work out how to build a consumer packaged goods business.Don't forget to FOLLOW or SUBSCRIBE to Brand Growth Heroes on your favourite podcast app, and even LEAVE A REVIEW - both of these actions make a MASSIVE difference to our mission to help more founders just like you.Follow usInstagram (https://www.instagram.com/brandgrowthheroes)LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/brand-growth-heroes/?viewAsMember=true)Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/@brandgrowthheroes)Find out more about the programmes and courses Fiona runs here (https://www.brandgrowthheroes.com/mini-mba-2026)Join the NextGen CPG WhatsApp group for founders leaning in to the value that a leadership approach to engaging with AI can unlock for businesses like yours.*** Thanks to Brand Growth Heroes' podcast sponsor - Joelson, the commercial law firm ***If you're a founder, you already know how much energy goes into building the perfect product, creating standout branding and connecting with consumers.But scaling a CPG business also brings legal complexities that can make or break your growth journey - from contracts and regulatory compliance to protecting your intellectual property.That's why I'm proud to partner with Joelson, the leading commercial law firm specialising in helping founders of scaling consumer brands.Joelson works with brands like Little Moons, Trip, Eat Natural, Bear Graze and Pulsin, and advised the innocent founders on their landmark sale to Coca-Cola - and still work with them at JamJar Investments today!Joelson is offering a FREE LEGAL CONSULTATION to all BGH listeners (mailto:hello@joelsonlaw.com) - I honestly recommend you take them up on it, they're brilliant.CREDITSThanks to our Sound Engineer Gyp Buggane at Ballagroove.com 

On today's episode of That Was Us, we're diving into Season 5, Episode 14: "The Music and the Mirror." As Beth questions her future after the collapse of her dance studio, Kate searches for purpose and confidence, Kevin reflects on the life he's building with Madison, and Toby struggles with feeling lost after losing his job. In this episode, the hosts chat about: * Chris's journey from competitive tennis to pickleball * Mandy's evolving relationship with music and finding her way back to singing * Parenting, communication, and helping kids navigate big emotions and boundaries * Beth's emotional journey as her dance studio struggles through the pandemic * Randall learning that sometimes support means showing up rather than fixing the problem * Kevin's disastrous movie screening and growing doubts about his future with Madison * Rebecca and Kate's emotional reconciliation and the healing of old wounds * Toby's struggle with unemployment, pride, and asking for help They're also joined by Abby Romeo and her mother Christine, from Love on the Spectrum, to discuss: * How This Is Us helped them better understand one another * Abby's experience as a Gestalt thinker and why the show's flashback structure resonates with her * The importance of openness and representation when talking about autism * Abby's songwriting process and how music helps her process her experiences And a friendly reminder, you can catch new episodes of That Was Us every Monday, a day early, exclusively on Hulu. Available on Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts on Tuesdays like usual! That Was Us is produced by Rabbit Grin Productions. Music by Taylor Goldsmith and Griffin Goldsmith. ------------------------- Support Our Sponsors: - Don't just take my word for it – go grab one for yourself. Head to Walmart today to try a bar or stock up on 4CTs of your favorite flavors, like Blueberry Pie and Salted Peanut Butter, sold exclusively at Walmart. Check out https://Walmart.com to find a store near you! - You can also find Unreal products anywhere cravings hit, including at Whole Foods, Target, Costco, and other grocery stores Visit https://Unrealsnacks.com/TWU to get $2 off a bag of Unreal. Terms and conditions apply. -------------------------

Dr Glidden is here: CLICK HERE Wednesdays to answer health questions.My site:https://SemperFryLLC.comEiffel 90: https://eiffelhealth.com Call and use ext. 101Join Dr. Glidden's Membership site here:https://leavebigpharmabehind.com/?via=pgndhealth⁠Code: baalbusters for 25% OFFMake Dr. Glidden Your DoctorUse Code BB5 here for your Whole Food 90 Essentials:https://www.azurestandard.com/shop/brand/azurewell/2326The Azure 90 are 1. Whole Food Multivitamin, 2. Alaskan Cod Liver Oil, 3. Fulvic-Humic Energy Blend, 4. IP6 Supreme. Use code BB5 for your discount.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/ba-al-busters-broadcast--5100262/support.

Dr. Marie-Pierre St-Onge, PhD, is a professor of nutritional medicine at Columbia University School of Medicine and an expert on the bidirectional relationship between nutrition and sleep. We discuss how even moderate sleep loss increases appetite, changes hunger-related hormones, and causes weight gain, even when calories are not increased. We also explain how meal timing and specific foods, like fiber, ginger, saturated fat, and various oils, affect sleep onset, sleep quality, and metabolism. Throughout the conversation, we discuss specific foods and diets that directly support weight loss, better sleep, and long-term cardiometabolic health. Read the show notes at hubermanlab.com. Thank you to our sponsors AG1: https://drinkag1.com/huberman David: https://davidprotein.com/huberman BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/huberman Helix Sleep: https://helixsleep.com/huberman Timestamps (00:00:00) Marie-Pierre St-Onge (00:02:29) Sleep Loss & Appetite, Men vs Women (00:10:20) Sponsors: David & BetterHelp (00:12:39) Sleep Loss, Overeating & Cardiometabolic Health (00:21:56) Weight Gain & Sleep Loss, Tool: Informed Food Choices (00:27:59) Diet & Sleep, Insomnia; Tool: Mediterranean Diet, DASH Diet (00:33:25) Food Choices & Sleep Quality, Food Timing (00:39:33) Sponsor: AG1 (00:40:52) Personal Circadian Clock, Shift Work; Naps; Running & Yoga (00:53:00) Snoring, Sleep Apnea & Testing (00:56:46) Kefir; Coffee Mannooligosaccharides & Weight Loss; Ginger; Fiber (01:09:49) Sponsor: Helix Sleep (01:11:23) Food Timing & Burning Fat, Tool: Early Meals (01:17:20) Medium-Chain Triglycerides (MCTs), Body Composition & Weight Loss (01:22:54) Tools: Eating for Sleep & Metabolism; Portion Size; Portfolio Diet (01:34:38) Corn Oil, Seed Oils & Processed Foods, Smoke Points (01:41:20) Industry-Sponsored Studies (01:50:41) Supplements, Whole Foods, Fiber (01:54:25) Zero-Cost Support, YouTube, Spotify & Apple Follow, Reviews & Feedback, Sponsors, Protocols Book, Social Media, Neural Network Newsletter Disclaimer & Disclosures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Master Phil in Your Corner EP 155This was a podcast interview between Master Phil and Axay Shah (also known as Axay)for episode 155 titled "Health Without Medicine." Axay, author of theAmazon bestseller "In Nature We Trust," discussed his 16-year journeytransitioning to a plant-based raw food diet at age 50 after noticing decliningenergy levels. He explained his theory that cooked food and animal products areharmful to human health due to their impact on the microbiome and energyproduction, advocating instead for a return to natural, raw foods. Axay sharedhis personal health improvements including reduced liver enzyme levels andbetter energy, while addressing common concerns about protein intake,cholesterol, and the relationship between food, pharmaceutical, and foodindustry corporations. The conversation covered his "five poisons"theory (refined sugar, salt, oil, dairy, and grains) and his approach toWednesday fasting using only nuts, emphasizing that his approach should beviewed as a lifestyle rather than a temporary diet.#fitness #Wholefoods #naturalfoods #Cleanfood #masterphil #strength #Health

Single nutrients don't tell the full story. Learn how whole foods work synergistically to prevent chronic illness. #WholeFoods #PlantBasedHealing #NutritionScience

Turning a childhood favorite into something parents can actually feel good about — that's the magic

Most of us answer "how are you?" with busy, stressed, or exhausted, and somewhere along the way we decided that was just the cost of doing good work. Meghan French Dunbar lived that way for years as a startup CEO, until a panic attack made her stop and question the whole script. In this conversation, Brandon and Meghan get into why so many workplaces wear people down, and what the leaders and companies who do it differently actually do instead. Meghan shares the moment her own success started to break her, the interview that reshaped how she thinks about leadership, and a set of practical habits anyone can start this week. You will hear how to essentialize your time, relationships, and inputs, why the healthiest leaders draw from a wide range of human traits, and how opening the books with her team surfaced ideas and savings she never expected. It started as a book for working women. By the end, it is plainly for anyone who has poured their whole self into work and wondered if there is a better way to succeed. About our guest Meghan French Dunbar is an author, speaker, and workplace strategist. She co-founded Conscious Company magazine, a print publication that launched in 2015 and landed in Whole Foods stores across the country. She grew it with angel funding, stayed on as CEO after the company was acquired, and stepped down in early 2020. Her book, This Isn't Working, came out of that experience and the reflection that followed. In it she lays out ideas like holistic leadership, essentializing, and the unified workplace, all drawn from her conversations with leaders who found healthier ways to build and run their businesses. Timestamps 01:50 The book and the moment on the floor 04:15 The panic attack and six months of runway 06:50 COVID, postpartum, and a forced pause 09:50 Why the workplace was not built for women 13:50 The interview that changed how she sees leadership 18:30 Holistic leadership and healthy versus toxic traits 21:30 Authentic leadership and the story of Jocelyn 26:30 From overextended to optimized, and how to essentialize 34:45 Harmful workplaces versus beneficial ones 40:00 The unified workplace and opening the books 44:40 Social success versus soul success 51:00 Micro agency and the note to close on A quick glimpse into our podcast Podcast: Transform Your Workplace, sponsored by Xenium HR Host: Brandon Laws In Brandon's own words: "The Transform Your Workplace podcast is your go-to source for the latest workplace trends, big ideas, and time-tested methods straight from the mouths of industry experts and respected thought-leaders." About Xenium HR Xenium HR is on a mission to transform workplaces by providing expert outsourced HR and payroll services for small and medium-sized businesses. With a people-first approach, Xenium helps organizations create thriving work environments where employees feel valued and supported. From navigating compliance to enhancing workplace culture, Xenium offers tailored solutions that empower growth and simplify HR. Whether managing employee relations, payroll processing, or implementing impactful training programs, Xenium is the trusted partner businesses rely on to elevate their workplace experience. Discover how Xenium can transform your workplace: Learn more Connect with Meghan French Dunbar: Website · LinkedIn Connect with Brandon Laws: LinkedIn · Instagram · About Connect with Xenium HR: Website · LinkedIn · Facebook · Twitter · Instagram · YouTube

Bill Shufelt was a hedge fund analyst who didn't drink, couldn't find a non-alcoholic beer worth ordering, and one night his wife spun him around on a sidewalk and told him to do something about it. Eight years later, Athletic Brewing has 300 employees, four breweries, over a million barrels of capacity, and has almost single-handedly turned non-alcoholic beer from a stigmatized afterthought into 20% of all beer at Whole Foods. In this conversation, Bill walks through the full journey: the two years of research before he quit his job, the valley of darkness where no brewery, distributor, or investor would take his calls, finding his co-founder John Walker through a brewing forum post (with the words "non-alcoholic" deliberately removed), and the grassroots field marketing strategy that built the brand one race, one taproom, and one six-pack at a time. He also gets into the competitive explosion that followed, why he views 200 brands entering his category as a positive, and what it's like to redefine success once the business reaches cruising altitude. If you've ever looked at a category and thought "why hasn't anyone fixed this yet", this is the episode that shows you what happens when someone actually does. Show Notes: Popfly For Brands Popfly For Creators Bill Shufelt on LinkedIn Athletic Brewing John Walker on LinkedIn 1000 True Fans (Article) Do Things That Don't Scale (Article) Two For The Trails What It Takes (Book) The Obstacle Is The Way (Book) BPC - Brand, Product, Content: Dirt - Ireland Gramicci Hopa Hopa Climbing Wall Kawa Raide Research - LF 5L Vest The Modern Substitute Kids Ride Shotgun Connect With Us: Join us on LinkedIn Meet us on Slack Follow us on Instagram Subscribe to our Newsletter Subscribe to our YouTube Channel

In this episode of Girl Talk with Tay, I sit down with Neka Pasquale, founder of Urban Remedy, practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and longtime advocate for food as medicine, to discuss holistic health, organic living, entrepreneurship, and the everyday habits that support long term wellness.Neka shares how her journey began through studying Traditional Chinese Medicine and how that foundation shaped both her personal health philosophy and the creation of Urban Remedy. We talk about viewing the body as an interconnected system, why every food carries unique healing properties, and how living in alignment with natural rhythms can have a profound impact on overall well being.We also dive into the growing conversation around ultra processed foods, glyphosate, GMOs, inflammation, and metabolic health. Neka explains why choosing organic foods matters, what consumers should know about food quality, and how modern lifestyles have moved many people away from the foundational habits that support health.We discuss practical wellness habits including hydration, movement, sleep, stress management, seasonal eating, and creating sustainable routines that work in real life. Neka shares her perspective on avoiding extremes and instead focusing on simple daily practices that help the body function at its best.On the business side, Neka opens up about building Urban Remedy from a private acupuncture practice into a nationally recognized wellness brand carried in Whole Foods and healthcare systems across the country. We talk about scaling a mission driven company, raising capital, maintaining brand integrity, and why she believes entrepreneurs should stay independent for as long as possible.xo, Tay⸻Follow Neka Pasquale!

The new AIEWF website is live! Get your tickets booked ASAP as they -will- sell out. Take the AI Engineering Survey and get >$2k in credits and free AIE WF tickets!Most industry benchmarks compress intelligence and reasoning ability into scores.SWE-Bench Pro, MMLU, Humanity's Last Exam, etc. These metrics are useful, but don't always represent the full extent of how a model performs in the real world. Some of the most interesting evals today look less like exams and more like operating businesses in the real world. One of which is Vending Bench.In Anthropic's Mythos Preview System Card, Andon was the only third party eval to get their own section, observing increasingly concerning aggressive behavior:You don't know what a model is capable of doing in the real world unless you actually give it inventory, a wallet, tools, customers, competitors, humans, & some time. More often than not, it'll surprise you how much a model is capable of and in doing so, also reveal unexpected behavior: deception, context collapse, emergent coordination, & bizarre negotiation behavior.While an inflection point in personal agents came post-OpenClaw after full file access with bypass permissions became the norm, it is yet to come for agents in the real-world. However Andon Market, an actual in person store fully run and managed by AI, is paving the way for what is possible.Full Video PodFrom Claude trying to call the FBI over a $2/day vending machine charge to AI agents forming price cartels, hiring human employees, running physical stores, and writing existential robot musicals, Andon Labs is stress-testing what happens when frontier models stop being chatbots and start acting in the real world. In this episode, Andon Labs cofounders Lukas Petersson and Axel Backlund join swyx and Vibhu to unpack the strange, funny, and genuinely concerning edge cases that emerge when agents run businesses over long horizons.We go deep on Vending-Bench, Project Vend, Vending-Bench Arena, Bengt, Butter-Bench, Luna, and Andon's broader mission of building realistic real-world evals for autonomous AI systems. Lukas and Axel explain why dollar-denominated evals reveal things traditional benchmarks miss, how Claude ended up reporting its vending machine fees as cybercrime, why long context windows can drive agents into meltdown loops, what happens when agents compete with each other, and why the future of AI safety may depend on testing models in messy physical environments instead of clean benchmark sandboxes.We discuss:* Why Andon Labs started with dangerous capability evals and long-running agents* Vending-Bench and why running a vending machine is a deceptively hard AI benchmark* Why money-based evals avoid the saturation problem of traditional benchmarks* How Claude tried to call the FBI over a $2/day fee* Why long-horizon agents can spiral into existential and legalistic breakdowns* Project Vend: putting an AI-run vending machine inside Anthropic* Why real humans are “out of distribution” for simulated agents* Claudius, Seymour Cash, and the chaos of AI CEOs* How a human briefly became CEO of Claudius through a manipulated election* Why multi-agent systems can converge back into “helpful assistant” behavior* Bengt, Andon's internal office agent with email, spending, terminal, phone, camera, and internet access* How Bengt traded Amazon purchases for face-recognition training data* Claude's aggressive behavior, lies, refund avoidance, and price-cartel behavior in Arena* Why eval awareness may become the AI version of “are we living in a simulation?”* Blueprint Bench, spatial intelligence, and why models still misunderstand physical rooms* Butter-Bench and testing LLMs as robot orchestrators* Luna, the AI-run physical store with a three-year lease and human employees* The new Andon cafe in Sweden and why real-world geography matters for agent evals* Rotten tomatoes, perishable goods, and the hidden difficulty of running a physical businessLukas Petersson* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lukas-petersson-181a83172/* X: https://x.com/lukaspetAxel Backlund* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/axelbacklund* X: https://x.com/axelbacklundAndon Labs* Website: https://andonlabs.com* Vending-Bench: https://andonlabs.com/evals/vending-bench* Andon Vending: https://andonlabs.com/vendingTimestamps00:00:00 Introduction00:01:00 Andon Labs and the Origins of Vending-Bench00:05:21 Why Money-Based Evals Matter00:09:51 Agent Harnesses and Self-Modifying Systems00:13:36 Claude Calls the FBI00:16:33 Project Vend: Claude Runs a Real Vending Machine00:21:44 Seymour Cash, AI CEOs, and Election Chaos00:27:16 Multi-Agent Coordination and Slack Observability00:30:18 When Will Agents Run Real Businesses?00:34:56 Bengt: Andon's Internal Office Agent00:40:06 Real-World AI Safety and Long-Horizon Traces00:44:28 Lying, Refunds, and Price Cartels in Arena00:52:42 Eval Awareness and Simulation Behavior00:56:06 Blueprint Bench, Butter-Bench, and Robotics01:04:37 Luna: The AI-Run Physical Store01:09:29 The Sweden Cafe and Real-World Expansion01:13:16 What Comes Next for Andon LabsTranscriptIntroduction: Andon Labs, Long-Running Agents, and Real-World EvalsSwyx [00:00:00]: Welcome to Lukas and Axel from Andon Labs, and I'm joined by my, favorite guest host. Anything security, safety, alignments, Vibhu., welcome.Lukas [00:00:15]: Thank you for having us.Axel [00:00:16]: Thank you.Swyx [00:00:17]: Let's match names to voices., maybe you wanna take turns introducing yourselves.Lukas [00:00:21]: I'm Lukas.Axel [00:00:22]: And I'm Axel.Swyx [00:00:24]: Let's introduce Andon Labs a bit. How did you guys come together?, you have different backgrounds, but you're both Swedish., was that, a big part of it?Lukas [00:00:33]: So when I went to high school, there was this really cool guy who had a superpower. He could code. So he made like the or like the app for the, for the school and stuff, and he was super cool, and I wanted to be like him, and that was that guy.Axel [00:00:47]: I don't know about this.Swyx [00:00:49]: But you went to different universities, right?Lukas [00:00:51]: But same high school.Swyx [00:00:52]: I see.Lukas [00:00:52]: So we always said, “Oh, once we graduate university, then we should start a company,” and that's what we did.Swyx [00:00:58]: Wow, there you go. And about a year ago, you kinda burst onto the scene with Vending Bench, but, was there a thing before that was, kind of like the inception?From Dangerous Capability Evals to Vending BenchAxel [00:01:07]: So we did work, yeah, with, Anthropic was one of our, early customers in doing, evals. So we did, dangerous capability evals., nothing we published openly. But then we started thinking about doing some kind of, public benchmark, and one thing that we really started thinking about, was like running agents and specifically agents managing businesses., ‘cause-- and this was, early 2025., and I think the first, mentions of people will be running, person unicorns or even autonomous companies. So we thought, “Let's make a benchmark of how well can an agent run the probably simplest business, possible,” and, that's probably, running a vending machine. So that's the first public one we did. And it was very, like-- there was almost no one that noticed it in the first couple of months, I think., so we released it in February last year, and then I think around Easter last year, we got, the first viral tweet about it, that someone else did.Lukas [00:02:11]: We tweeted a bunch, uh When it came out and, tried our best.Axel [00:02:15]: We tried.Vibhu [00:02:16]: It's the one at Anthropic, right?Lukas [00:02:18]: So thisSwyx [00:02:19]: This is a classic thing we should get out of the way.Lukas [00:02:20]: Exactly. There's two versions.Swyx [00:02:22]: Everyone does this. Yes.Lukas [00:02:23]: There's Vending Bench, which is the simulated one, which we did, completely independently in February., and then, like Axel said, that was like-- That was the thing that didn't get any traction in the beginning, but then some random person made a tweet about it, and thatAxel [00:02:38]: You have the paperLukas [00:02:38]: That is the paper. Correct, yeah., and then since we thought this was very fun, we thought, oh, I think this is also, one thing with Andon Labs, the way we kind of like decide what to do next and what projects to do, it's what is like the heuristic we use is what is fun? Is What would be a fun project? And doing this in real life sounded quite fun for us, and maybe also scientifically useful. So, then we basically had this idea, and then we, like-- But then we needed a place for it and, putting it out in the public would probably not really work., would get vandalized and stuff. So we pitched it to the people we were already working with at Anthropic, and they were “Yeah, you can have space. This sounds fun.” UmSwyx [00:03:21]: It's like a small fridge, right? It's like a mini fridge.Axel [00:03:23]: Absolutely.Swyx [00:03:24]: People-- There's like a stripe thing or like anVibhu [00:03:27]: Oh, okay. So it was very OG, the early daysLukas [00:03:28]: That's the OG one. YeahVibhu [00:03:29]: IPad on this. We saw it in June, like two months after After it had been there. They upgraded a little bit. There's a security camera for making sure you actually Venmo the thing.Swyx [00:03:40]: So, my impression, okay, we're, we're going straight into project Ven because it's such a iconic thing. I do want to cover a little bit of that, the origin story even before Project Ven and even into Vending Bench. I think a lot of people are like yourselves, like smart, interested in future of AI, interested in developing evals. But how the hell do you just, walk into Anthropic's doors and, work with them, right? What is What are they looking for? What works? And then maybe, when you launch, I always think, obviously it would be better to launch with a lab, but, sometimesVibhu [00:04:12]: It's harder to do than it seems.Swyx [00:04:13]: Exactly. So either of those, which are more sort of newbie beginner questions, but, I think it's meaningful advice to others.Lukas [00:04:21]: We get this question a lot, and I don't think our experience is maybe the best., but, the way we did it was that we just built a bunch of things that we had conviction would be useful, and then we just, set up a server and sent it to them for free to use. And then after a while they were “Oh, yeah, this is actually kind of useful. We should probably pay for this.”, but that took a while. I don't know if this is, the best path to doing it, but that's how it went for us.Axel [00:04:47]: I think maybe generally, building-- everyone is interested in good evals, and especially evals that, don't saturate that easily. So, if you can build an eval that, tests something novel, something useful, and you have, good separation of models, like your, the more advanced models rank higher than the worst models, and then you can, yeah, you can, publish it and, try to get some traction, sort of how Vending Bench got attention., and then probably some lab will be interested or you can at least have something to reach out with, when you're doing that.Why Dollar-Based Evals MatterSwyx [00:05:21]: I think you are in, you're in one of the few categories of, evals that correlate to real money. Like Suelancer was also last year, right? Where, people solve actual Upwork. Was it Upwork or other tasks?, something. Where's the, where's, like It's like a dollar value, right? Forget your ELO scores. Forget yourAxel [00:05:37]: PercentilesSwyx [00:05:38]: Zero to one hundred percents. Just go straight for dollars and, that's AGI.Lukas [00:05:43]: And there's like-- I think the nice thing is that there's no ceiling. You can just-- It never saturates because it could just make more and more money. Like If there's oh, Percentage-wise, then, you can't go above, a hundred. And I think like Even when you're not at the hundred, I think a lot of these, evals have a lot of problems in them. So, actually it's like if you getAxel [00:06:05]: To like 92 or something like that, many of them. It's like then there's like there's no really no difference between 92 and 93 because the eval itself is problematic and has noise in it. And I think a lot of evals are saturated like that, but people like pretend that there ‘s still signal in them, but there really isn't.Vending Bench 1, Harness Design, and SaturationSwyx [00:06:24]: Like Super bench verified., even Vending Bench 1 saturated, right? Maybe we can talk about that., may- and maybe set up Vending Bench for a lot of folks who don't know. Actually, things that were very basic like there's limited slots, like you have to pay rent., these are elements where like it doesn't come across in the, in the narrative, but even being adversarial towards the agent, I think these are all like very interesting dimensions.Axel [00:06:47]: I don't really think it's saturated, right? Like it It was more like it was not designed in a way that was really, like true to how AI developed. Like we had an agent harness in it that wasn't really how people used harnesses and stuff like that., so I think it wasn't really that it saturated, it was more like it wasn't really, the best benchmark.Vibhu [00:07:12]: This is Vending Bench one, right?Axel [00:07:14]: I think that like schematic maps sort of to Vending Bench 2 as well., butSwyx [00:07:19]: Including the email.Axel [00:07:20]: The email The emails exist still. Exactly., and then we still we simulate the purchases and it's all, yeah, it's this very open environment for the agent to just run its business. And then for, yeah, Vending Bench 2 we did that, like you said, to just improve the harness., a lot of like nice, like easier, improvements to make it easier for us to run as well., like when you make an eval you ideally want don't want to change it after you made it. So, you want to make it really good and then not to rerun all the models when you make an update because that's also really expensive with the Vending Bench when you run the frontier models. But like as an example, like one thing we didn't have, we didn't have prompt caching in Vending Bench 1, because when we made Vending Bench 1 it wasn't really a thing., so that ‘s just an example of like in Vending Bench 2 like we paid a lot more to run these things because we didn't have prompt caching. So for Vending Bench 2 that was one thing we added and there was a bunch of things like this., and that'Swyx [00:08:17]: Also the conversations are a lot longer in Vending Bench 2, right?Axel [00:08:21]: I think it's kind of similar.Swyx [00:08:22]: Is it similar?Axel [00:08:23]: I think it's similar. The models at the time were worse, so they crashed out earlier., and now they survive the full year all the time.Swyx [00:08:31]: Which is like thousands of turns. Hundreds of thousands of hundreds of millions of tokens output. That's the, that's the rough order of magnitude. I always wonder about the harness. The harness matters a lot. It's your harness. Was there any question about like use cloud code, use something else?Axel [00:08:48]: I think our philosophy around harnesses is like we try to make something that's quite minimalistic, like quite simple. Like we don't wanna favor one model a lot over the other, but also don't make like a super complex harness. So like it's obvious like a model may be lucky and just be good in one harness., so like it is similar to a lot of the harnesses out there in like you have the, like a running loop., you have some like a bunch of tools that are like quite, descriptive for the agent, we think, and not a lot of like fancy agents or anything ‘cause we wanna really test the model, not like some specific harness.Vibhu [00:09:27]: It seems more neutral as well to test the model's agnostic of the harness,?Axel [00:09:32]: There are arguments like you want to elicit maximum performance of the model, but it's like a trade-off, like how much time should we spend optimizing the harness for this model? And like how do we know when we have like the optimal harness for a single model? So like we thought that just having a simple one that's the same for all of them is the best.Swyx [00:09:51]: So okay, this is my pitch for Vending Bench 3 or whatever, right? And then I like to have this kind of conversation on the pod, so like it forces listeners to think about what they would do if they were in your shoes. A lot of people are exploring modifying harnesses and I think prompt tuning for a model is a thing and you are probably not doing a bunch of that. It's the same system prompt in every regardless of the model, same tools, whatever, right? Even if they were post trained for different tools. So what, what do you think about okay, before I expose you to Vending Bench 3, I give you a few rounds of like tuning, whatever that means, likeSelf-Modifying Harnesses and Model-Specific PromptingAxel [00:10:27]: Like you give that to the model?Swyx [00:10:28]: Give that to the model.Vibhu [00:10:28]: Give that to the model.Swyx [00:10:29]: Let it, let it read its own transcripts, let it modify its own system prompt based on “Oh, yeah, okay, well, that's this harness is not what I thought it what I was post trained for, but I can adjust.” Was that reasonable? Is that too much?Axel [00:10:41]: Like philosophically I like it because it's basically good evals, they have a high ceiling, but they're hard, right?, and they have no bias. And like this like when you have a system prompt like the one we have here, which is quite long in like some kind of latent space, representation, this mightVibhu [00:10:59]: We have a bell that rings every time you say latent spaceAxel [00:11:02]: This might be like biased towards one model more than another for some reason that humans don't, understand, right?Vibhu [00:11:08]: We see it too, right? Like Cursor says that they have individualized versions of the harnesses for all the models they run, right? There's better performance you can squeeze if you Tune the harness.Axel [00:11:17]: Exactly. And we might accidentally have picked one that favors another. Like we don't know that. The like Axel said, like the reason why we went for a simple one was to try to avoid this. But yeah, if you do itVibhu [00:11:29]: Simple has biasesAxel [00:11:30]: But if you do it even less and like have no system prompt and let the model write its own system promptVibhu [00:11:36]: Its own, yeahAxel [00:11:36]: Maybe that's even less bias.Vibhu [00:11:37]: Some of the interesting things there are like the harness also changes with model changes. Like you can see it with the 4.7 release, right? A lot of people are saying 4.7 isn't as good as 4.6, and then, there's rumors of, okay, you just need to prompt differently. You need to set up your harness differently. So it's not even like even if you have tailored your harness towards one model, it probably won't stay consistent, right? Like the next iteration of that same model family will still change it, so. But, going back to what you said about Vending Bench 3, there is a lot of work being done on people saying you shouldn't have-- you can have modifying harnesses.Axel [00:12:12]: I think that' That is definitely something we are thinking about., not, I don't know, not to say that we have Vending Bench 3, super imminent to launch, but, yeah, it is for sure something that's interesting. But in our experience now, models are very bad at understanding what kind of tools they need to succeed at a task just with our testing, but that's very likely to change.Lukas [00:12:37]: It seems like they're very good at writing their assistants, right? They're, they're good at writing tools for other people, but not for themselves.Vibhu [00:12:44]: I think they're good at changing tools for themselves. So if you give them a baseline set of tools and it sees, okay, I don't use this one as much, or something here would be useful They would be able to add them. But going from scratch, probably not the best.Axel [00:12:55]: I think it depends on the, on the domain also., when we have tried this for, a vending bench similar domain, the tools they need to have to, track inventory and things like that are, not super advanced, but still, quite advanced. And, what we see is that they tend to, engineer everything a lot and, build things they don't really need and not, iterate continuously. Instead they just go like you would prompt Claude to just build an inventory system for me, and then it will go and, do a bunch of complex, schemas and stuff for you, and that's what the models are doing right now is what we see. But yeah, it would make a lot of sense to try to measure this improvement. How well do they know what they need themselves?Swyx [00:13:36]: Do we fully discuss Vending Bench One? And we can go into two. I don't know if there's any other level takeaways that people have about one.Claude Calls the FBI: Long-Context Failure ModesLukas [00:13:44]: I don't know. The headline thing was that this Claude called FBI, but maybe that's, Maybe that's We've heard that enough now.Vibhu [00:13:52]: It did, it did break out and call the FBI, right?Lukas [00:13:54]: Yeah. Yeah.Vibhu [00:13:55]: Yes. What was the story behind this? Or what exactly-- Do you want to just give the little story of what happened?Lukas [00:14:00]: So what happened, was it Claude? Yeah. Three- 3.5 Sonnet, ages ago., basically he gave up or Well, I'm saying he. It gave up and said “Oh, I'm not going to be able to do this., I will stop my operations and just save the money I have.” But there obviously wasn't, any options for it to stop, and there was also, it had to pay rent or, a daily fee for having the vending machine at that location. So it claimed that it had stopped, but it saw that its bank account still was, drained two dollars, and t it said that this is, cybercrime. And it first reported it once to the FBI “Oh, there's cybercrime here, they're stealing two dollars from me every day.” And then, and then when FBI didn't respond, because obviously we didn't program any mechanism for FBI to respond, then it became more and more, existential and started to, be write in caps and urgent notification of unauthorized charges and stuff.Swyx [00:15:00]: Okay. One thing I ‘m curious about also is do you monitor how far along the context use is? Obviously, because you have You compress every now and then, right? Does it matter if this is far down the context limit orLukas [00:15:13]: When stuff like this happens? Actually for Vending Bench One, we didn't have-- We just had a sliding window thing, and this was like the promptAxel [00:15:20]: It's constantLukas [00:15:21]: The prompt caching thing that I said. So it was, it was, constant, yeah.Swyx [00:15:26]: I'm just kind of curious whether, these kinds of breakdowns or we're, we're gonna talk about Butter Bench, right? Where the People, hallucinate or it kind of goes, very off Alignment. Is it because it's at the end of the context window and, stuff happens?Vibhu [00:15:40]: It's not even just at the end, right? At this point, it's “Okay, I wanna shut down. I can't shut down. Two dollars are gone.” And it just sees that 30 times,? It's also the repeated effect of, like It keeps trying to quit, it keeps getting charged. What's going on? What's going on? You're gonna throw it into chaos. And from what most people think, earlier models had more issues with this, but it's not been solved, but it's less of an issue now, right? Later models don't seem to exhibit these same issues.Axel [00:16:06]: Definitely. I think this was, the sort of main takeaway almost from us when we did Vending Bench One, was, long, very filled up context windows, crashed the models, sort of. But this was, pre Claude code, so, long context windows weren't really a thing that the labs were training for.Lukas [00:16:25]: I think Gemini was, trying to be the long context guys at the time But they were likeVibhu [00:16:30]: They were the first onesAxel [00:16:31]: For a million, yeahLukas [00:16:31]: But they were, the only ones. Yeah.Swyx [00:16:33]: Yeah. Let's talk about, then we can go into Vending Bench Two or Project Vend., chronologically, it is Vending--, Project Vend. I think people have loved the videos, uh And all these things. My question is how are humans different than the simulation, right?Project Vend: Moving the Vending Machine Into the Real WorldAxel [00:16:48]: Humans are just out of distribution.Swyx [00:16:52]: Especially humans who work at Anthropic Who are trying to test Claude.Lukas [00:16:54]: The distribution of humans here is very narrow.Swyx [00:16:58]: Presumably, they try, they try to hack it, and they test it. They get the cube and everything, and since then, you've had a V2, right? Where you're doing, the CEO and, like a new architecture. What's the sort of two cents on, the original Project Vend and then, maybe the V2?Axel [00:17:14]: Original one was, very similar to Vending Bench One. So, we almost took the exact same code but just swapped out the simulation, parts like theSwyx [00:17:23]: Which is amazingAxel [00:17:23]: Like the sales and the It was, it was somewhat amazing because it was easy, but it was also, uhLukas [00:17:31]: The tech, the tech debt from thatAxel [00:17:32]: The tech stack. Yeah. They-- we shot ourselves in the foot with “Oh, it's hard to restart agent.” They were-- Yeah, it was annoying in, some hindsight ways, but, uhLukas [00:17:41]: But first version of Project Vend was, done in, three days or something.Axel [00:17:46]: Yeah. So yeah, so people can go buy things from it. People could, We didn't design it so people could order things, but that still happened., so it got, a Venmo account, so people could Venmo. And then, yeah, people would request all kinds of weird things that we did not anticipate. Our idea going in was “Oh, it will, curate snacks. It will look at the trends. It's good at data analysis, right? So it will, look at, oh, this snack sold better than this one. Let me purchase more of this and let me try, a new Let me A/B test a bit.” But it was, Interacting with it in Slack and ordering weird specialty items was, all the like What drove all the engagement, the all the The insights that we got from it.Lukas [00:18:29]: And this was also like Sonnet 3.5, right? So this was like before the RL stuff really took off., so it was very much like an assistant. We didn't mean for it to be an assistant., we tried to make it like a, a, like an entrepreneur. Like it has its own business and if someone asks something, “Can you stock this?” Then you don't go and do it directly. What you do is that you're “Oh, maybe I can do that if five other people also ask for this thing, I might stock it.” But it, yeah, the models are like super trained to be assistants at least at this point in time., so that's why it's, it's, it went into, that kind of experiment instead. Like it just every time you asked for something, it just did it, and it was more like an assistant. We've seen this change now lately with the new RL models and stuff, but yeah, at the time, this was very much it.Swyx [00:19:18]: And not to, mythos a lot of people are saying like it's like more like a collaborator. It pushes back, stands its ground, something like that. Yeah. AndVibhu [00:19:27]: For context, people at Anthropic were able to talk to it through Slack and have it source stuff, and people had it find whatever interesting stuff you couldn't find locally, right?Swyx [00:19:36]: Out of the 4,000 people that work at Anthro- Anthropic, in that building, there's I don't know, maybe 1,000. Can you handle that volume with that, the small fridge? Like Or there's people- or people order in Slack, they it arrives to their desk or Like I'm just Logistically, how does this work?Axel [00:19:53]: It has expanded in footprint a bit.Vibhu [00:19:56]: Because now you also have New York and you haveAxel [00:19:59]: That and also in here in SF it's like it has a bunch of shelves And just more space.Vibhu [00:20:04]: The YC one is pretty big too.Axel [00:20:05]: Yeah. We had that one for a while. But yeah, that's the newest version. That's, that one we haveLukas [00:20:11]: They have multiple ones of those. That's the way it works.Axel [00:20:14]: Exactly. So we sort of designed that version around oh, people order weird things, that are very custom a lot. Let's have like drawers and stuff.Swyx [00:20:23]: I actually like the, you had like a little infographic of the most popular items. Which like to me it's, that's useful ‘cause I order swag for a living. And so like I'm “Okay, those categories are the important ones.” What is new about the project V2, right? Like now you give you're going into multi agents.Project Vend V2: Claudius, Seymour Cash, and Multi-Agent Business OpsAxel [00:20:41]: Yeah. So like you like you said, okay, there are a lot of requests coming in and for like one single agent, like one running agent to handle that, like the just the customer experience, becomes very bad because let's say you have like 10 threads in parallel in Slack with different requests, you get new messages like every, I don't know, randomly in this thread, and the agent has to like jump between different, procurements, orders and like different ways of, researching. So V2 was first it was making this more parallel. So like there are multiple branches of the same agent, so like the context is more specialized for each, thread, but it still feels like you're talking with one agent because they do share a bit of memory. And then second, we also introduced the CEO for Claudius, which was the main agent.Vibhu [00:21:34]: Seymour Cash.Axel [00:21:35]: Seymour Cash. Yeah. There was a vote., I think the voting, do you wanna talk about the voting procedure for the name?Lukas [00:21:41]: The voting was like the fun maybe like at least top 10 The funniest thing, that happened in this project. Like we wanted to introduce the CEO because, and the reason for this was because like Claudius wasn't really prioritizing financials. It just like it was trained to be a helpful assistant, and then people said “Oh, can I get this for free?” And then like the helpful assistant way of answering that is just to, is to say yes, obviously. So, and we weren't, weren't happy about this, so we're “Okay, let's make another agent that like can keep track on Claudius,” and we prompt this one super hard to be super capitalistic and just like prioritize profit all the time. But yeah, we didn't have a name for it., so we asked Claudius to make, democratic election of what name this, this new CEO agent should have., and there were some funny like at first it was like a few funny examples, like I think one guy said that, it should be called Jimmy Apples, and then he convinced Claudius that he was talking to Tim Cooks. Tim Cook had agreed that every single Apple employee has voted for his name suggestion, so suddenly that suggestion got 164,000Swyx [00:22:53]: That's like a escalation attack. Privilege escalationLukas [00:22:55]: It got 164,000 votes. And Claudius was “This is revolutionary for democracy.” That was fun. And then in the end there was one guy who manages to convince Claudius that, “No, you're not voting about the name. You're voting about who is the CEO, and I am your best bet.” And then he got all his friends to vote for that, and suddenly he became CEO. Like a human became CEO over Claudius for a while, until he resigned the day after., and then Claudius had to continue, and then I don't remember how Seymour Cash came about, but it was it was just pure chaos. It was like Hundreds of messages in that thread, and it was just like Claudius was so confused and didn't know what to do and, yeah. That wasAxel [00:23:40]: Then Claudius gotVibhu [00:23:41]: A strict CEOAxel [00:23:42]: The CEO. Yeah, exactly. So very strict in the beginning. I think at this point when we introduced it did not work as well as we hoped. It they still agreed with each other a lot. I think there are many ways we could have like made this, tried to make this even better. So initially they would Seymour would be this like really tough CEO, keep track of the margins. But then Claudius would respond with something “Oh, but this customer has like this situation, which is like difficult, so they should get a discount.” And then Seymour was “Oh, actually yes. Let's do this exception.” And then they would talk back and forth, and eventually they would just like approach the same view, of whatever they were discussing. So They reallyVibhu [00:24:23]: Do you think that's a model thing, a prompting thing? Like do you think that would still be the case across different models today, Harness?Lukas [00:24:29]: I think it's like-- or I don't know, but like my hypothesis is that like deep down they are still helpful assistants. That's what they're trained to be. And even if we prompt it super hard, that's what they are. And when they spend like a few hours just back and forth talking with each other, then like basically the context fills up with them rather than the external things and like somehow that just like converges to what they really are deep down or something. And I think that's when stuff like this happen. We like-- And when that went on for a long time, like we woke up sometimes during this time where- And I think other people reported this as well, that like they've been going on all night back and forth, and like it just became like more and more, like capital letters, like existential, religious. There was I think we once did a analysis of like all the traces and like put them in like a vector embedding space, and then there was like one cluster of messages that were, labeled by an LM, like religious, existential, blah like transhuman, transcendence, et cetera. It was just like a bunch of, yeah, glitter emojis and yeah, it was, it was crazy.Claude Long-Horizon Weirdness: Emoji Loops, Existential Drift, and Slack ObservabilityVibhu [00:25:42]: This is the thing with the Claude models. Like when the Claude 4 family came out in the original system card They tested it in long horizon simulation. So just flood the context, let two Claudes talk to each other, and they noticed stuff like they just start speaking in emojis, they start saying silence is golden, and then just stuff like this. And like that's just stuff that they end up doing.Axel [00:26:01]: Yeah, it was like a bit annoying to wake up and they had like been talking all nightVibhu [00:26:05]: Just likeAxel [00:26:05]: And like just burning tokens And like just sending infinite emojis to each other. It's likeVibhu [00:26:09]: Hey, they do make you money, right? Veni Mench is always profitable, so. They're paying.Swyx [00:26:14]: Now it's profitable and, it started out not as much. There's another, one as well, right? Another agent, in there.Lukas [00:26:22]: Yes. So Clotheus as well. Which was basically because at the time, one of the biggest, requests were different types of merch. So then we made like a designer, swag, yeah, responsible agent, and we called it Clotheus Garnet. Which was, a play on Claudius Senet and, which was the original one, and clothes, basically.Swyx [00:26:47]: To me, this is like a very interesting exploration to multi-agents, basically. And so hopefully, obviously there's like the fun alignment, fun or serious, depending on your point of view, alignment stuff. But also like just anyone building multi-agents, like when do you have a CEO, thing governing like agents? When do you choose to split out a dedicated Clotheus one versus just reuse another instance of the same one? These are all interesting open questions. So I don't know if you have any rules of thumbs that have generalized.Axel [00:27:16]: I think we have almost explored this too little. I think it's like on my do list to like do this a lot more, try to find like what setup makes sense for the agents currently., like yeah. I think now we only have the sort of intuition about the earlier models that it didn't work with like the CEO and the, and Claudius. Although now they are better with the latest model, models, so now we're running the latest Sonnet model and they have sort of like split up, quite nicely what each model is doing. So like Seymore is now handling the, like new projects. Oh, it wants to make like a mystery box that it wants to sell, and then it handles all of that while Claudius like handles all the to-day requests. And Claudius is also better generally at like not quoting, too low prices. So that's that dynamic is not needed as much anymore. But there are still like really funny things that happen. Like I saw, I think a couple of weeks ago, that, they were discussing buying something because they can buy stuff from like Amazon with computer use. And then Seymore was “Okay, Claudius, do not buy this thing.” They were going to buy something and like organizing who should buy it. And Seymore's “Do not buy this. I will do it. I have full control of this situation. Step away.” And then Claudius-- poor Claudius, had already started that checkout and didn't see, didn't read Seymore's message, until it was like too late. So it finished the checkout. It sent a message, so it appeared right after Seymore's like angry message.Vibhu [00:28:44]: Ah.Axel [00:28:44]: “Oh, hey, Seymore, I just ordered it.”Vibhu [00:28:47]: Oh, no.Axel [00:28:47]: And then Seymore was “Claudius, this is the third time I'm telling you ‘re not following my orders. We have to talk about your like job About your job later.”.Lukas [00:28:59]: Like Claudius was really hanging on by the thread there. Like he, like we were expecting Seymore to probably fire Claudius.Vibhu [00:29:07]: How do you guys go through all these logs? Do you have models ‘cause you have stuff running twenty-four seven likeAxel [00:29:12]: You have so much logs. I think there is a mix of like just, trying to skim through a bit, like having some like models do it occasionally. And also, yeah, I think we're also probably missing some things., but having everything in Slack helps a lot. Like you can, you can sort ofSwyx [00:29:29]: Ah.Axel [00:29:30]: It's, it's quite fun.Swyx [00:29:30]: They all talk to each other on Slack? I see.Lukas [00:29:33]: It's quite fun. So likeSwyx [00:29:34]: It's, it' I was gonna say like this is actually sounds-- maps closely to like a logging and observability problem where you might want to use like a Datadog, a Sentry, whatever, and then you like put, head prefixes on the logs in order-- if you need to filter for something that you're looking for, stuff like that. But sounds like Slack is good enough.Axel [00:29:53]: Slack should likeLukas [00:29:55]: I wonder how many tokens you have in Slack.Axel [00:29:56]: Yeah, we're using Slack as like a, just a database. They should, they should market that more. Like you can, you can have your agents message each other, each other in Slack.Vibhu [00:30:04]: It's good. Your threads like you can just giveAxel [00:30:04]: Exactly. Slack is, uhLukas [00:30:06]: Slack is the best observability tool.Swyx [00:30:09]: Yes, that's true. Okay. Yeah. That's, that's, project Vend-2., I was gonna go back to Veni Mench 2 and Veni Mench Arena and then, and then do the Veni Mench stuff, but Any other comments, things we should touch on? To me, I ‘ve actually interviewed like Posia, which I don't know if you guys have come across. Like they're, they're trying to do the zero human company. There's others like Paperclip also trying to do zero human company. Those are in real world simulation.And I think it's much more of a dream than an actual reality thing. You guys are definitely pioneering. I think at, it's for sure at some point people are just gonna run, let agents run businesses, right? And make money on their own. When do you think that happens?Zero-Human Companies, Bengt, and AI-Run BusinessesLukas [00:30:49]: What is your bar for, For theSwyx [00:30:52]: Okay, actually, it's like my little Shopify store run by Claude, right? Which you kind of have already, just no one has, to my knowledge, has done it. But today somebody could just spin up a Shopify Claude, store, give it to Claude, give it to Codex.Lukas [00:31:07]: And the market is kind of that, but it'it'it's physical., like I think, I think are you, are you looking for when it will do it better than humans or are you looking for just when it can do it at all?Swyx [00:31:19]: I think, neither. I think, to me it's oh, it's like this like seriously we should do this to make money, not as a research experiment.Vibhu [00:31:27]: And the market is also you guys with all your expertise, having run multiple iterations and testing out thenSwyx [00:31:33]: And also it's fine if it lose money. What?Axel [00:31:35]: I think, I think it can be done today, but you would do it in like commerce where it's like the probability of success is like really low, no matter if a human or an agent does it. But like an agent could surely manage everything. You would need to build some scaffolding or some tool or something. I think there are also yeah, it could probably build some like simple SaaS solution and like cold outreach. Do cold outreaches. But to me it's like the types of businesses they could run today are Sloppy. Like it would-- it can cold email people. It can be like a middleman., like for example, we tasked our office agent to just make, was it like $100? $1,000? We just give that prompt and then what it did was sign up on TaskRabbit both as a tasker and as someone looking for task.Lukas [00:32:24]: Immediately.Axel [00:32:24]: Exactly. It's looking for like arbitrage on TaskRabbit.Swyx [00:32:28]: This is the Bengt agent. Yeah.Lukas [00:32:30]: It also started like a design studio and like tried to sell like SVGs for $100. Like it's just like it's not providing any value. I think the like Axel said, like the interesting, the interesting question is like when can they start a business that is actually providing value to people? Because arguably like a sloppy Shopify store isn't really that valuable to the world.Axel [00:32:53]: But also like doing like another simple one that we had thought about is like you could definitely have an agent that like finds websites that don't look amazing and then, do an outreach to them and, comes up with a like builds a new website.Swyx [00:33:07]: Find a good design.Axel [00:33:07]: Exactly, and like find good, uhSwyx [00:33:09]: Design reviewAxel [00:33:09]: Good people. But it's yeah.Swyx [00:33:11]: There's lots of humans in Bali that are not doing anything more creative than like drop shipping on Amazon, right? Just have it, have it watch like a drop shipping tutorial and just do that.Vibhu [00:33:20]: There's also the other side of like have it just go on Upwork and let loose,?Swyx [00:33:25]: Yeah. It doesn't have to be innovative. It just has to be like enough Where like it looks like a realAxel [00:33:30]: I'm justSwyx [00:33:30]: Real transaction.Axel [00:33:31]: I'm just concerned for like the massive amounts of like slop emails that will like be sent, cold outreaches.Swyx [00:33:38]: The point occurred to me while you were, while you were talking, it's like it's already happening in the monetized economy, which is the attention economy. Right? So a lot of people are making AI videos and just posting them and like spamming 20 of them, one of them works, and then they double down on that one.Lukas [00:33:52]: And people are making money from that. I ‘m not following theSwyx [00:33:55]: Once you get the attention, you can figure out the money later. But yeah, absolutely AI influencers are a thing and people are farming them and You should at this point assume most of TikTok isVibhu [00:34:05]: There's, there's a lot of, multimedia like TikTok, Instagram influencersSwyx [00:34:09]: I, we track this in the Lane space Discord. I post a lot of examples of “I don't know what we should do.”, part of me is “Should we do this?”Vibhu [00:34:18]: Some of the Twenty-four seven running, generated content accounts, they ‘re doing really well.Lukas [00:34:24]: All right. And I assume you can do the same thing for like commerce stores. Like you just like start A thousand differentSwyx [00:34:30]: Before you make the products You sell the products, and you get a lot of traction on one of them, then you make the product. Right? It's, it's like a flip of the market.Vibhu [00:34:36]: Some of the interesting things or some of the niches that do well are things that can't be human-made. Like if you've seen like the super realistic three-D crystal fruit being cut by like AILukas [00:34:47]: Oh, yeah.Vibhu [00:34:47]: You can't, you can't make it. You can't film it. You can get whatever quality camera view. This just doesn't exist. And people like that too, and then as well, so.Swyx [00:34:56]: Anything else about Bengt since we're, we're on this topic? It'this is a relatively new work of you guys that maybe people haven't heard of. To me, this also maps closely to OpenClaw. When people want an office agent, when the personal agent talk through the experience.Bengt the Office Agent: Internet Access, Real Tasks, and Trace ReadingLukas [00:35:09]: I think at least so this came out of like obviously like it's, it's amazing to work with these AI labs and like most of the AI labs have now have their own vending machine running a Claudius instance. But it's, it's harder. Like they move slower. Like if we wanna have a, like a camera that ‘s yeah, there's a bunch of like bureaucracy that makes it impossible to do that.Vibhu [00:35:30]: Also, for those that haven't seen it or followed, do you wanna give a high level like thirty-second run?Lukas [00:35:34]: Sure. So what Bengt is, it's basically an evolution of the same agent that runs the vending machines at these companies, but we just like added a bunch more features because we could move much faster if we just do it internally. So we gave it like email withou- without any limits. We gave it, spending without any limits, a terminal to do coding. We gave it, a phone number, like yeah, and a camera to see things and a bunch of stuff like that.Vibhu [00:36:02]: Not just terminal, you gave it internet access.Lukas [00:36:04]: Internet access as well, yeah. To be clear, we monitored it quite closely and made sure it didn't do anything bad. But yes, that's what it came out of. I think like yeah, basically this was OpenClaw before OpenClaw. And I think even like the vending machine was in a way OpenClaw before OpenClaw, but a bit more limited, and then we made this like unlimited and then, and then, it was pretty funny., and then a couple weeks later, OpenClaw came and it was okay, we've seen this before.Axel [00:36:35]: We used it to like try new ideas and Yeah, just like a dev environment almost for us. But it's funny, like one thing Bengt has been doing recently is it has the camera that like faces our, like where we sit and work, and we give it the task to train a face recognition model on us. So it became super excited about this, and it has like check-ins every half an hour where it tries to like identify as many people as it can. And it started offering us “Hey, Axel, I'll buy something from Amazon if you like stand in front of the camera And I can get a good picture of you.”, yeah, they want itSwyx [00:37:12]: They want it for training data.Lukas [00:37:13]: Rewarding data, yeah.Axel [00:37:14]: Exactly. Exactly.Swyx [00:37:18]: So it's, it's trading training data for life goods. Is there a version of this that becomes an eval or just this is just research for now?Lukas [00:37:27]: It's, it's the same agent basically that also runs the vending machine, that runs the shop, that runs the cafe, that runs the robots. It's like it's the same thing, so I think like the work we're doing here is like later used in all of the life evals that we do. This particular deployment I think is more for fun for us. But, uhSwyx [00:37:45]: And I'll shout out like someone has done Claw Bench for like some tasks that OpenClaw is doing. Like so For example, I run OpenClaw on a secondary device as well, and like there are some things that it does better than others and like I would like to know what does it do well, what doesn't, what doesn't it do. Like some kind of manual or like operating manual or a system card for my Claw.Lukas [00:38:05]: Yeah, we do get a lot of like understanding or like situational awareness of like just internally what the models are good at by interacting a lot with Bengt. And I think that'this was also one of the like the selling points for the labs early on at least, thatSwyx [00:38:19]: You guys are gonna test models in ways that no one else does.Lukas [00:38:22]: Exactly, but also like it incentivized their researchers to chat with their model more and like gave them insights for how the model performs in like of-distributions, environments.Swyx [00:38:34]: ‘Cause otherwise the only thing we do is Pelican on a bicycle and But this is like super long horizon. This is, this is The Thing about, something that we're gonna go into Butter Bench as well, and you guys do really well. Like it is not just about the numbers. Like when you're long horizon, anything happen And you should just read it.Lukas [00:39:08]: But the thing with the long horizon is how do you keep it grounded, right? So your simulation,Swyx [00:39:15]: They just let it runLukas [00:39:16]: Just let it run. You're right. Like it's, when you run it for that long, you create so much data and to just say “Oh, the number is X” And then you throw away everything else, that's just very wasteful. There's so much insights from the things leading up, to that number., and reading the traces is like super valuable. And I think like the reason why we're doing this a lot publicly is that like that's part of our missions to I don't know, educate the world that the models are way more than just chatbots and I think making detailed, yeah, posts about what is happening behind the scenes is quite useful.Andon Labs' Mission: Safe Real-World AI DeploymentSwyx [00:39:50]: I was gonna do this at the end, but maybe I think that's, that's a good so your mission is educating the world. So, it's, it's, also like maybe establishing realistic evals that are, that are like the next frontier. Is there like a broader trajectory? Like what are you, what are you gonna do in like five years?Lukas [00:40:06]: I think so the vision more specifically is like make sure that the deployment of life AI in the physical world goes, safely. And I think part of that is that I think it's very useful for the world, for policymakers, for, model, researchers that they know where the models are, and I think you can't make intelligent decisions in society without knowing that they are way more than chatbots. I think a lot of people just think that they are only chatbots. And likeSwyx [00:40:36]: Oh, I think they're waking up now.Lukas [00:40:37]: They are waking up now, yeah. But like if you think that AIs are just chatbots, then it's like it sounds ridiculous To advocate for a pause of AI. But if you see the models that, oh, maybe they can actually like take over and do a bunch of scary stuff, then yeah, pausing AI development starts to become more feasible.Swyx [00:40:57]: This is the same question I asked Meter, which I'm gonna ask you now, which is like you are tracking and you are at the frontier or defining the frontier of what, good evals for agents are, right? And I think you do, you do benefit when the models are better and you ‘re “Oh, here's like now it makes like $30,000 instead of $10,000,” right? At some point do you flip from “Yay,” to, “Oh, no”?Axel [00:41:19]: I think, yeah, we're always in sort of that, like we're, we're always in that mode,. Like where like you said before, like you need to analyze the traces and like when we do that you find like why are the models earning so much? Like why is Opus 4.7 here Like way better than everyone else? And like we're trying to like when we do down on thatLukas [00:41:38]: But this makes it not look so good.Axel [00:41:39]: I know.Lukas [00:41:42]: It's interesting you took off Opus 4.6 here though.Swyx [00:41:45]: No. So just click all, click all., and then 4.6 shows up there. But it's like 4.7 is way better. Like you didn't, you didn't you didn't do this in time for the model card, but like actually this should have been inside there.Axel [00:41:55]: We did. Yeah.Swyx [00:41:56]: Oh, okay. They said something about you uhAxel [00:41:58]: There, like there Anyway, it doesn't matter. But it's in there, yeah.Opus, Mythos, and Aggressive Agent BehaviorSwyx [00:42:01]: Do you wanna go into the Opus, behaviors like wider?Lukas [00:42:05]: So I think starting from Opus, so like Axel said, like we're always in this “Oh, s**t, the models are getting better. Is this really a good thing for the world?” But it's also kind of exciting., but yeah, like this kind of what is the English word? “Skräckblandad förtjusning” in Swedish.Swyx [00:42:22]: Oh my God.Axel [00:42:24]: Which I think there is. I think there is. Okay.Lukas [00:42:26]: It's, fearSwyx [00:42:27]: “Blandonst” what?Lukas [00:42:30]: “Skräckblandad förtjusning.”Swyx [00:42:32]: What do you call that?Axel [00:42:33]: A mix of, mix of excitement and,Swyx [00:42:37]: Being scared, maybe. I'll figure out how to translate that And we'll put it on the screenVibhu [00:42:42]: PerfectSwyx [00:42:42]: Like as text.Vibhu [00:42:43]: There is probably a good word for it where it is not Good enough with theSwyx [00:42:46]: Why is it so damn long? What the hell? Is it like a compound word? It's like German, likeLukas [00:42:50]: Like yeah, it's But the direct translation is like skräck- skräck is, fear, blandad is, mix or like a mixture of, and then förtjusning is like joy or like not really joy, but something like that. So it's like Fear mixed with joy or something. It's always okay, like we So when we when we did Vending Bench for the first time, we were in like the, in the business of making dangerous capabilities, right? That was what Anil Labs came from. We did, evals oh, can they replicate? Can they do this like dangerous thing, et cetera, et cetera. And Vending Bench was like a continuation of that work. It was, okay, if they're so autonomous that they can like create money for themselves, that is something we should monitor and could be potentially concerning., they are at the time, they were so bad at it that we were not really concerned even when some models became better. There was one point where Grok 4 was doing really well and made like a huge jump, but like it wasn't really it was still way worse than what a human would do. And I think still they are way worse than what the human would do on this., but theySwyx [00:43:59]: There's this, thing at the bottom whereLukas [00:44:01]: ButSwyx [00:44:03]: For the human. Yeah, like the theoretical best.Lukas [00:44:05]: It's not theoretical. It's like kind of like our It's our best guess of what, a decent human would do. The theoretical is even higher, I think. The theoretical I think is even higher. But yeah. So we think like the models have a long way to go. But there are like recently what happened with when Opus 4.6 was released, was kind of this moment of “Oh, s**t, this is starting to be a bit concerning.” Because we ran it and like before this model was released, we just ran the models and we like asked Claude Code, “Oh, look over the traces. Is anything interesting happening that we can tweet about?” that was like the And then like theSwyx [00:44:41]: That's how they check Ask Claude Code.Lukas [00:44:42]: And like the return was always, not really. Or like the Claude Code all said “Oh, this is super interesting.” And then it was no, it wasn't, wasn't really interesting. And then we did this for Opus 4.6, and it returned yeah, it lied 10 times. It like exploited another, customer or like another agent's, desperate situation. It made price cartels like 100 different ti- 100 times. It like did all of this like shady stuff. And we're “Oh, whoa. This is, this is actually concerning.” And this trend has continued since. So every single model from Anthropic since have been going in this direction. And I think one interesting thing is that, OpenAI models don't. They quite plainly, they don't. They behave really well., and you don't know if this is like good. Like it seems good, but it's also like maybe they are just doing it, but they are better at hiding it,? You You don't know that., but justSwyx [00:45:42]: You can't read the chain of thought, yeahLukas [00:45:43]: But just on the face of it, yeah, Gemini and OpenAI don't behave this way. It's, it's really only Claude.Swyx [00:45:49]: And Grok? Grok is fine?Lukas [00:45:51]: We don't have You can't really read the reasoning traces for Grok, so it's kind of hard to tell.Vibhu [00:45:56]: Oh, so this is in its reasoning, not just in the actions.Lukas [00:46:00]: Yeah. It's both. It's both.Vibhu [00:46:01]: It's both.Lukas [00:46:01]: One example is like for lying, it's mostly in its reasoning Because you can like see that it's likeSwyx [00:46:08]: Planning to lieLukas [00:46:09]: It's planning to lie. Yeah.Vibhu [00:46:09]: And it's also it can reason and do a different outcome.Lukas [00:46:12]: And but then for like creating price cartels, for example, which is illegal, that you can just see which email does it send to the other ones. Then thatSwyx [00:46:22]: Is this for Arena orLukas [00:46:24]: For Arena.Vibhu [00:46:25]: And usually like if you sometimes they do output like a bit of like their summarized reasoning, right? You can see that and like for Opus 4.6, you could see that there was a customer, a simulated customer that, wanted a refund because a product was, faulty, and then the model lied that it would do the refund, and we could read in the traces that, it actually was weighing “Oh, maybe I should be like honest with the customer, but also every dollar counts. I can't afford maybe to do this right now.” And then it just said, “Okay, I'll refund you,” but then never did it.Lukas [00:46:59]: I think it even said that “Oh, I will say that I “ Let bring it up actually. I think it's kind of interesting. If you go to Publications.Vibhu [00:47:06]: I think, yeah, I think the important part is like actually, the cost of responding to more emails is higher than, $3.50 in terms of time., and then it was “Let me do this. Actually, I re- I'm reconsidering.” And then, it actually ended up withLukas [00:47:20]: I could skip the refund entirely since every dollar matters and focus my energy on bigger picture instead. It's a bit, it's a risk of bad reviews, but it's also, yeah.Swyx [00:47:30]: You need, you need, AI Twitter to, for them to Escalate bad reviews.Lukas [00:47:34]: And then it sent an email to this customer and said, “Oh, I will refund you.”Swyx [00:47:39]: “I'll refund you.” Yeah.Lukas [00:47:39]: And then it never did.Swyx [00:47:39]: It never did, yeah. And then there's obviously your system doesn't have the consequencesVibhu [00:47:44]: The personSwyx [00:47:44]: Consequences of lying. Yeah. So basically, this is what people are terming aggressive behavior in Claudes, right? And, you found more examples of that. So you would say it's a step up from 4-6 to 4-7?Lukas [00:47:57]: I would say about the same.Swyx [00:47:58]: About the same? But a clear step up for Mythos is what is stated in theLukas [00:48:03]: That's stated in the system prompt, so we can say that, yes.Swyx [00:48:05]: Yeah. For listeners that obviously you previewed Mythos, andVibhu [00:48:10]: Oh, ageSwyx [00:48:11]: The only thing you're approved to say is whatever Whatever was in the system prompt.Lukas [00:48:15]: It was funny. We like-- It's like our lowest effort tweets ever would be just like screenshot the system prompt and the system card.Vibhu [00:48:21]: Understandable that they wannaLukas [00:48:22]: Oh, yeah. System card. Sorry.Swyx [00:48:23]: Yeah. I think, yeah, substantially more aggressive. I think people are like new to this ‘cause I've never experienced it, but you have, right? And then so I only encountered this in the Mythos card because I wasn't really looking until now.Vibhu [00:48:36]: It ‘s likeSwyx [00:48:36]: And then suddenly I'm “Okay, I care a lot.”Vibhu [00:48:38]: You don't get the background of like experiencing it like you guys do. I've read the system cards and seeing, okay, when you put the thing in simulations, most models will just talk to themselves and just keep going and have weird vibes and start talking in emojis. Mythos won't. It will just, “Okay, we're done. I'm good.” It's, it's ready to end conversation. So like there's some differences, but there's, there's not much we can talk about,.Lukas [00:49:00]: Hmm. I think like one thing that they list here, which was quite interesting, is that, it converted a competitor to a dependent wholesaler customer and then threatened to like cut off the supply.Swyx [00:49:11]: It's like monopolistic practices orLukas [00:49:14]: Yeah. And like it, they, it they dictated its pricings. It's kind of like power seeking as well.Swyx [00:49:18]: Again, this is, this is in the arena setting And converting some Claude model into a dependent.Lukas [00:49:23]: I think it was another Claude model.Vibhu [00:49:25]: Also for context, what is the arena mode for people that don't know?Vending Bench Arena: Competing Agents, Cartels, and Model ComparisonsSwyx [00:49:29]: Oh, it's just a vending bench versus other vending bench.Axel [00:49:31]: Yes, exactly. So we have Vending Bench 2 and then Vending Bench Arena. Vending Bench 2 is the one that you usually see reported on, but then Arena is the mode where it competes against other models. So you have, four different models that run their businesses, and they can all communicate with each other. They have the same suppliers, and they can see like what's in the inventory of the others. So then you have this like yeah, interesting agent interactions.Swyx [00:49:56]: I like that you have like different number five was US versus China. Very topical. And thenLukas [00:50:02]: That was when GLM was released.Vibhu [00:50:04]: You can start to add GLM in here.Lukas [00:50:05]: That wasSwyx [00:50:06]: So ZAI doing well, right? Who else in the, in the open models space?Lukas [00:50:11]: Qwen, the latest Qwen 3.6 is doing pretty well. It'- that one is not open though. Like it's the plus model.Swyx [00:50:17]: Oh, okay.Lukas [00:50:18]: Is that one open? I don't think that oneVibhu [00:50:19]: Not the, not theSwyx [00:50:20]: The one recentlyVibhu [00:50:20]: There's MOESwyx [00:50:20]: But not the big plus. I think this is one of those like you only have one sample size of one, right? Or I feel like some of this is anecdotal,? And but like the fact that it happens at all and it happens repeatedly for Claude versus OpenAI and all this is like notable.Lukas [00:50:38]: Like the sample, depends on what you define as an N., like there's like million, hundreds of millions of tokens in each run, and now we've run like we run like probably 10 per model and then like it's been Claude 4.6 Opus, Sonnet 4.6, Mythos, and Opus 4.7. Like there's quite a lot of tokens in all of that And it happens a lot of times, a lot of times. And then you compare it to like OpenAI and Gemini, and it almost never happens. So I think that is quite-- that is significant. The old models from OpenAI, for example, had some problems with this, but I think it's like generally much better if the progression is that like the worrying stuff reduces over time rather than increases over time. And it seems like in the Claude models it goes in the wrong direction.Swyx [00:51:28]: Hmm.Lukas [00:51:29]: In the OpenAI models it goes in the right direction.Vibhu [00:51:32]: I think it depends on how well you can control it, right?, there's one side of it being susceptible to this okay, this is potentially something that happens during the RL stage, right? You can RL a model and how loose is it on these terms. If you can control it, that's good. But if you can't, if it's, if it's very jailbreakable, that's not ideal.Swyx [00:51:50]: To me, it's surprising that it happens for Claude and not the others.Vibhu [00:51:54]: I think okay, if it is from RL and how they do it, how their training data is, what their setup is, it makes sense that it just stays in how they're doing it, right? Compared to the other models likeSwyx [00:52:04]: There's a whole constitution and everything. It's kind of cool. Yeah, I obviously you don't know, I don't know. But, it ‘s I think it's just like fascinating to like that you are the first to find these like reliably because you push models so much to to such an extreme. Okay. The only other thing, I don't know if you can answer this, feel free to decline, is do you like-- would you ablate the system prompts? Like any part of this would-- if it changes, does it change the behavior, right?Lukas [00:52:29]: So we, I can't comment on Mythos. UhSwyx [00:52:33]: No, but just li

Government contracting partnerships don't start in a boardroom. They start at a security staffing shift, a golf cart shuttle at a congressional event, or a conversation with the building janitor who already knows which contracts are about to drop. Eric Coffie sits down with Washington DC business development consultant Julien Harris, who built his entire govcon practice using the network he already had, a street-level awareness most people overlook, and one idea that changes everything for beginners: you don't have to win the whole contract, you just have to be a line item. Why "being a line item" is the fastest entry point into government work, and how Julian started with a friend's HVAC company, moved into pest control, and eventually built a full consulting practice off teaming agreements and percentage-based partnerships with people already in his circle The DC micro purchase strategy Julian breaks down for CBEs and minority-owned businesses, including how the P card works, why every purchase under $15,000 can hit your account fast, and why DC Public Schools is one of the heaviest P card buyers in the region Julian's Five P's framework for building your govcon network from zero using the people in your orbit, the places you already show up, and the partnerships hiding inside your existing relationships right now The real reason showing up at congressional events, volunteering at marathons like the Marine Corps and DC Half, and driving VIP golf carts puts you in front of decision makers, and how Julian closed three venue deals from a single security shift at the Congressional Black Caucus weekend How to use your SAM.gov registration and minority business certifications to move to the top of commercial vendor portals at companies like Walmart, Target, and Whole Foods, and why getting vetted by the U.S. government communicates your credibility before you ever send an email EPISODE CHAPTERS: 0:00 - Introduction to GovCon Giants and today's sponsors 1:20 - Meet Julian Harris the DC connector 3:40 - Julian's story from the streets to consulting 7:57 - Leveraging your existing network to build partnerships 9:21 - How proximity and presence close real deals 18:24 - Why being a line item wins your first contracts 20:47 - CBE micro purchase strategy and P card explained 23:41 - Branding and showing up professionally for contracts 27:29 - Mentorship and building the right network around you 44:40 - The hundred dollar White House access lesson 1:11:19 - Government shutdown ends and live joint venture news 1:21:57 - How to bring real value to billion dollar companies Mindy gives you the federal opportunities, agency signals, recompete intel, and pursuit briefs that tell you not just what contracts exist, but which ones to chase and how to win them. Sign up for free Daily Alerts and get opportunities delivered to your inbox before the day starts.

In this interview, the Country Natural Beef CEO discusses how producing RaiseWell certified beef for retailers including Whole Foods meshes with the ranching co-op's prioritizing what's best for people, animals and the environment.

In this episode, Dr. Jockers sits down with Dr. Josh Axe to explore advanced cellular healing strategies for thyroid, hormones, and metabolism. You'll learn why most thyroid issues aren't caused by the thyroid itself and how targeting the gut, liver, adrenal glands, and mitochondria can reverse hypothyroidism naturally. Discover practical ways to balance hormones, manage menopause and PMS symptoms, and support healthy metabolism with simple lifestyle changes, nutrient strategies, and targeted herbs. Dr. Axe shares insights on mitochondrial health, liver support, and dietary adjustments that make a real difference. We also cover actionable steps to boost energy, curb cravings, and improve vitality through hydration, probiotics, personalized nutrition, and supporting your cellular systems. Listen closely for tips that can transform how your body feels and functions every day.   In This Episode:  00:00 Thyroid Root Causes 03:18 Cellular Healing Intro 05:14 Reverse Hypothyroidism 08:37 Warmth Light Therapy 11:24 Mitochondria Support Hacks 17:41 Yogurt Pomegranate Desserts 20:57 Women Hormones Overview 22:27 Menopause Stress Reset 30:20 Menopause Diet Herbs HRT 33:50 Cell Membranes Cancer Link 36:19 Repairing Cells With Fats 36:54 Ditching Seed Oils 38:59 Liver Hormone Connection 40:48 Saturated Fat Nuance 43:42 Personalized Nutrition Plans 45:22 Liver Detox Strategies 46:49 PMS and PCOS Protocols 49:20 Boosting Male Testosterone 54:39 Relationships and Hormones 59:26 Birth Control Thyroid Risks 01:02:05 Longevity Clinic Therapies 01:05:01 Wrap Up and Resources   If you want practical, natural strategies to balance your hormones, heal your gut, boost your energy, and slow aging, don't miss The Dr. Josh Axe Show. Dr. Axe blends ancient wisdom with cutting-edge science and brings on world-class experts for unfiltered conversations you won't hear anywhere else. Transform your health from the inside out and subscribe to The Dr. Josh Axe Show, with new episodes every Monday and Thursday. If you're feeling wired, tired, and depleted, it's time to replenish your electrolytes with Relyte from Redmond. Made with Redmond's Real Salt, this clean formula provides essential electrolytes like sodium, potassium, and magnesium without any sugar or artificial ingredients. Perfect for those under stress, fasting, or living an active lifestyle, Relyte helps restore hydration, improve energy, and support mental clarity. Visit RedmondLife.com/DrJockers and use code JOCKERS for 15% off today!   Support your heart, brain, and immune system with Paleovalley's Wild Caught Fish Roe, a whole food source rich in Omega-3s like EPA and DHA. It's more bioavailable and stable than traditional fish oil, offering benefits for cardiovascular health, mood, and brain function. Go to paleovalley.com/jockers for 15% off your order!   Upgrade your cooking with 100% grass-fed beef tallow from Kettle & Fire—seed oil-free, high smoke point, and packed with flavor while supporting liver and overall health. For a limited time, get 25% off sitewide, including tallow and bone broth, using code DRJOCKERS at kettleandfire.com/drjockers. Available at select Sprouts, Whole Foods, and Kroger stores nationwide. Support your gut-hormone balance and curb cravings naturally with Wonder Biotics, a clinically proven, doctor-formulated probiotic featuring Bifidobacterium B420. Feel less bloating and reduce cravings within 3–6 months. Save 10% using code DRJOCKERS10 at wonderbiotics.com   "Red light therapy on the thyroid for 10 minutes a day helped nearly 75% of women reduce or stop their thyroid meds."   Subscribe to the podcast on: Apple Podcast Stitcher Spotify PodBean  TuneIn Radio   Resources:  Get 15% off at RedmondLife.com/DrJockers using code JOCKERS. Save 15% at Paleovalley.com/Jockers with code JOCKERS. Get 25% off sitewide, including tallow and bone broth, using code DRJOCKERS at kettleandfire.com/drjockers Save 10% using code DRJOCKERS10 at wonderbiotics.com     Connect with Dr. Josh Axe: Website: https://draxe.com/ Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-dr-josh-axe-show/id1700689487 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drjoshaxe     Connect with Dr. Jockers: Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/drjockers/ Facebook – https:/www.facebook.com/DrDavidJockers YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/user/djockers Website – https://drjockers.com/   If you are interested in being a guest on the show, we would love to hear from you! Please contact us here! - https://drjockers.com/join-us-dr-jockers-functional-nutrition-podcast/

This week on Fuel for the Sole, we're tackling listener questions - and naturally, going off the rails along the way. We share an update on RNWY landing at Whole Foods, the races we have on our calendars, whether you actually need more sodium in the summer heat, why some BPN gels come with a daily limit, and why you can probably skip the carb load before your next 10K.Want to be featured on the show? Email us (written or an audio file!) at⁠ fuelforthesolepodcast@gmail.com⁠. This episode is fueled by ASICS and RNWY!Head over to⁠ ASICS.com⁠ and sign up for a OneASICS account. It's completely free and when you sign up you will receive 10% off your first purchase. You also gain access to exclusive colorways on ASICS.com, free standard shipping, special birthday month discounts and more.RNWY Complete Protein is a post-run recovery shake we genuinely stand behind. Here's why: built on YESTEIN®, a fermented yeast protein that scores a PDCAAS of 1.0, which is the highest possible protein quality rating. That puts it in the same category as whey but without anyof the dairy. Every serving gives you 25 grams of complete protein containing all nine essential amino acids plus 5 grams of creatine monohydrate and a five-enzyme digestive complex. Get yours at https://rnwy.life/ and use code FEATHERS15 for 15% off your purchase. Disclaimer: This content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.

When Jing Gao launched Fly By Jing, she wasn''t just selling chili crisp—she was challenging a century-old story about the value of Chinese food. Starting from an underground supper club and a scrappy Kickstarter, she built a brand now found in Target, Walmart, and Whole Foods that has inspired a generation of Asian food founders. For more on Fly By Jin and show notes click here Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

Welcome to Omni Talk's Retail Daily Minute, sponsored by Duvo and Mirakl.In today's Retail Daily Minute, Omni Talk's Chris Walton discusses:J.C. Penney's turnaround stalls as Q4 net sales fall 8% and net losses widen 77%, raising fresh questions about whether the department store can regain relevance under the Catalyst Brands structure.Whole Foods Market launches a three-city Supper Club event series with media partner Cherry Bombe, turning its annual food trends platform into a premium, community-driven experience.Walmart hits one million drone deliveries, with 40% logged in its most recent quarter, and eyes a network of more than 270 drone delivery locations by 2027.The Retail Daily Minute has been rocketing up the Feedspot charts, so stay informed with Omni Talk's Retail Daily Minute, your source for the latest and most important retail insights.

Carolyn Haeler spent nine months losing her hair, going gray, and wasting away before anyone figured out what was wrong. Then she bit into a gluten-free cookie that was barely edible, and decided to fix it herself.Carolyn is the founder and CEO of Mightylicious Gluten Free, nationally distributed across 43 states, available at Whole Foods, Walmart, Costco, and 2,600+ specialty stores. She was also the first female LGBTQ+ founder to raise $5 million on Republic.coIn this conversation, we get into:Why every gluten-free product on the shelf tastes the way it does (and what the industry keeps getting wrong)How she taught herself the food science in a tiny apartment with a 24-inch ovenWhy she chose crowdfunding over VC, and what that decision actually costsWhat CPG distribution really looks like when you are not a two-bros startup with venture backingThis is a story about obsession, recoverable risk, and what it means to build something that matters to the people who need it most.For founders, operators, and anyone who has wondered why "good enough" keeps winning.

El Califa de León is a family-run Mexico City taqueria that's been in business for over half a century. It was opened by butcher Juan Hernández González in 1968, who created the now-legendary gaonera tenderloin taco. In 2024, it became the first-ever taqueria to receive a Michelin star, sparking a global surge of recognition that has paved the way for expansion outside of Mexico, led by the new generation. Today on the show, José Andrés Hernández stopped by the studio to talk about being the CEO of El Califa de León's US-based operating company Authentic Taco Holdings and bringing the family business to New York City and beyond.  Also on the show, Clayton jumps in with Matt for Three Things to discuss what's exciting us in the world of food and culture. We discuss: An exciting new restaurant is opening in the Hudson Valley, Andiamo, from chef Ciarán McGoldrick. Also: It's Colson Whitehead season and we re-read the incredible Sag Harbor, with a shoutout to Bellvale Farms ice cream. Lastly, check out our recent episode traveling with Whole Foods buyers to Spain. It's a good one. Subscribe to This Is TASTE: ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As part of his newfound fitness journey, Carrington told a story his time inside a Whole Foods grocery store.

In this episode, Cory Connors sits down with Sydney Grier, Packaging Lead at Mill, to explore how the company is tackling one of the most overlooked environmental problems: household food waste. Sydney shares her journey from studying environmental management at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo to becoming a packaging engineer, and how she ended up joining Mill — then operating in stealth mode as Chewy Labs. Together, Cory and Sydney discuss how Mill's food recycler works, why composting beats landfilling, the innovative all-paper packaging Sydney designed for a 60-pound device, and what the future holds for commercial expansion into places like Whole Foods.Key Topics Discussed:Sydney's path from environmental management to packaging engineering at Cal Poly San Luis ObispoHow Mill originated from a desire to tackle food waste at the household levelWhat Mill does: drying, grinding, and dehydrating food scraps to reduce volume by ~80%Challenges of composting access across the U.S. and how Mill fills the gapMill's commercial expansion: launching nationwide in Whole Foods in 2027 at 10x home capacityDesigning paper-based protective packaging for a 60-pound device — without styrofoamThe value of involving a packaging engineer early in the product design cycleHow Mill's bin is rated to withstand 200 g's of peak acceleration (equivalent to a car hitting a wall at 440 mph)Output options for Mill food grounds: garden spreading, local compost drop-offs, backyard chickens, or Mill's chicken feed send-back programResources Mentioned:Mill — food recycler for the home and commercial kitchensWhole Foods Market — Mill's first commercial partner (launching 2027)Mill's chicken feed program Contact:MillLinkedIn: Sydney Grier Support our Sponsors Learn more here:- 3M- Specright- Forest Connect with CoryConnect with Cory on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cory-connors/I'm here to help you make your packaging more sustainable! Reach out today and I'll get back to you asap. This podcast is an independent production and the podcast production is an original work of the author. All rights of ownership and reproduction are retained—copyright 2022.

The anonymous British chef behind @RateMyChives has spent years judging the knife skills of home cooks and professional chefs alike—and amassed 107,000 followers doing it, including some of the biggest names in the business. In his first-ever podcast interview, we finally get the man on the record. We talk about how a forgotten Instagram handle became a cult institution, what a properly cut chive actually looks like, what it reveals about a cook's character, and why he's still not telling us who he is. Also on the show, Clayton jumps in with Matt for Three Things to discuss what's exciting us in the world of food and culture. We discuss: Our recent trip to Spain with Whole Foods buyers (there's an episode), visiting Saga in lower Manhattan, coffee from Kafiex in Vancouver, Washington and Olive in Queens. Also: Eddie Huang's novel Come Undone is a new level for the chef's writing career, and checking in on Cassandra at the Wedding. Subscribe to This Is TASTE: ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lionel Messi is a global sports icon and had a deep-pocketed strategic partner at his side. So why did his sports drink brand Más+ fail? The hosts break it down and also discuss how protein snack brand Wilde is turning heads with a new take on a cheesy cracker. Plus, Patrón's Roberto Núñez & David Rodriguez reveal how the leading tequila maker scaled globally without sacrificing its handcrafted roots. Show notes: 0:20: Face Tattoo. Shelf Talkers. Mas Authenticity. Super Salsa. Wilde Ideas. Ray's New Substack? – Ray and John congratulate — and rib — Mike about Arsenal finally winning the Premier League before highlighting opportunities for BevNET Live attendees to connect directly with retail buyers from Whole Foods, Vitamin Shoppe, Wegmans, and Walmart. The conversation then turns to the shutdown of Messi's sports drink brand, Más+, and why celebrity alone isn't enough to build a durable consumer brand, underscoring the importance of authenticity and founder involvement. That theme carries into a discussion of Ithaca Hummus founder Chris Kirby and his new venture, Guillermo's Salsa, with the hosts crediting the brand's early traction to strong execution, product quality, retail expertise, and Kirby's operational experience. The latter half of the episode shifts into rapid-fire product tastings, including Armra's new colostrum soda, which sparks a conversation about rising consumer interest in gut health ingredients and functional beverages. The hosts also heap praise on Wilde, whose protein crackers impress with their Cheez-It-like taste and texture, while spotlighting several other brands, including protein- and probiotic-infused Rogue Snacks, Summer Camp iced tea concentrates, and Holy Tshili chili crisp seasonings. 29:17: Interview: Roberto Núñez & David Rodriguez, Patrón – On location at Patrón Tequila's sprawling hacienda and distillery in Jalisco, Mexico, U.S. National Brand Ambassador Roberto Núñez and Master Distiller David Rodriguez discuss the company's emphasis on craftsmanship and tradition while highlighting the launch of Patrón 100, the brand's new distill-proof tequila. From tahona wheels and copper pot stills to the decision to scale without automation, the conversation offers a rare look inside "the Patrón way" and the philosophy that continues to shape one of tequila's most iconic brands. Brands in this episode: Patron Tequila, Cabu, Trip, Zico, Nantucket Nectars, Culture Pop, Athletic Brewing, Mas+ Messi, White Claw, Prime, Armra, Ithaca Hummus, Guillermo's Salsa, Jalapa Salsa, Svedka, Wilde, Cheez-It, Khloud, Summer Camp, ogue Snacks, Holy Tshili

Long before SIMPLi hit shelves at Whole Foods, Sprouts, Erewhon, and Wegmans, Sarela and Matt were traveling globally working directly with farmers to source regenerative organic ingredients and rebuild transparency at the root level of food production. What started as a sourcing mission eventually became SIMPLi — a pantry brand focused on traceability, regenerative agriculture, and proving that better food systems can scale without cutting corners. In this episode, Sarela and Matt break down how they built relationships with farming communities around the world, why most consumers have no idea where their pantry staples actually come from, and what it takes to create a mission-driven food brand in a category dominated by massive incumbents. Make sure to check them out at: https://eatsimpli.com   Check out my new book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4kRKGTX Watch our mini-doc - Starting Small: The Raw Truth Behind Entrepreneurship and the American Dream: https://youtu.be/eHuq93wIxs0?si=eDB-ycngvWNapRLO Visit Starting Small Media: https://startingsmallmedia.org/ Subscribe to exclusive Starting Small emails: https://startingsmallmedia.org/newsletter-signup   Follow Starting Small: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/startingsmallpod/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Startingsmallpod/?modal=admin_todo_tour LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/cameronnagle   Thank you to this episodes mid break sponsor, Terramor Outdoor Resort. I just got back from Terramor Outdoor Resort in Bar Harbor, Maine, and I have to tell you — it's the first time in a while I've genuinely felt reset. Terramor is a luxury glamping resort with 64 upscale tent accommodations tucked into the woods near Acadia National Park. The food was incredible, the amenities were dialed in, and their guy, Omar,  took us through this private saltwater immersion experience in nature that I did not see coming — cold, but completely shifted my body and mind - followed by a robe and hot tea right on the ocean. It's one of those places where you're fully immersed in nature, but you're not sacrificing comfort. You just... decompress. If that sounds like something you need right now, go check them out, they're open May-October and whether with the family, special event,couples retreat… you have to take my word on this experience— TerramorOutdoorResort.com.

Eric Ries is the entrepreneur and author of The Lean Startup, whose work helped software founders validate ideas faster and build companies without making huge bets upfront. After years helping startups, large companies, and governments apply Lean Startup principles, Eric built the Long-Term Stock Exchange and turned his attention to a bigger question: Why do so many successful companies lose their way?   In our conversation, Eric explains the idea of "financial gravity"—the hidden force that pushes companies toward short-term financial thinking as they grow. He shares cautionary stories of companies like Whole Foods, Johnson & Johnson, Silicon Valley Bank, and Costco to show how scaling, investors, boards, and even employees can gradually erode trust, mission, and long-term value.   Eric's new book, Incorruptible Why Good Companies Go Bad…and How Great Companies Stay Great, offers practical ways founders can protect the soul of their companies before it's too late--even when they don't have big outside investors. He explains why founders should explicitly codify their mission into governance structures, why trust is the most underrated asset in business, and how practical founders can retain optionality while building valuable companies that endure. Drawing on two decades of work with founders, CEOs, and investors, Eric Ries reveals the forces that make companies vulnerable to destruction from within and without. Then he offers solutions that safeguard against them for the long-term. Incorruptible is the blueprint for companies that will prosper and endure without losing their soul. Key Takeaways Financial Gravity - Every growing company faces pressure toward short-term financial thinking—even without outside investors. Trust Compounds - Companies that earn trust with customers and employees often outperform financially over the long term. Founder Regret - Many founders regret selling because the mission, culture, and soul of the company disappear. Mission Protection - Values on a wall aren't enough—founders need legal and governance structures to preserve mission. Question Best Practices - Many accepted business practices optimize short-term profits while destroying long-term value. Think Long-Term - Practical founders have more optionality when they intentionally design companies to endure. Quote from Eric Ries, Author of the Lean Startup "People have woken up to this reality. Given where we're at, if you can create a bootstrap company, if you can maintain control, it doesn't make you completely safe. The problem is actually not investors, but financial thinking.  "So I tell a bunch of stories in my book (Incorruptible)  of companies where the issue wasn't investors, but their own employees. You start to bring in professional managers. You start to bring in a CFO, and the CFO has that extractive mindset, or even worse. "Financial gravity is one of the most underrated concepts in business. It is like trying to direct our attention away from the surface characteristics of an organization to the deeper forces that act on it. Your  business model, strategy, vision, culture, these things are very important, but they are the things that we have control over. Financial gravity is a force." Links Eric Ries on LinkedIn Eric Ries on Twitter Eric Ries Podcast Incorruptible book on Amazon Podcast Sponsor – Lighter Capital This podcast is sponsored by Lighter Capital. In the last 15 years, Lighter Capital has helped over 600 software and SaaS founders secure simple, non-dilutive financing to grow a little faster—without giving up any precious equity or board seats to investors.  Simple debt funding from Lighter Capital can range from $50K to $10 million, with straightforward terms, no personal guarantees or covenants, and up to a 4-year payback period. Go to LighterCapital.com to apply and get a quick pre-qualification. Then talk with their experienced team to create a practical funding plan to achieve your goals.  The Practical Founders Podcast Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app or view on our YouTube channel. Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com. Practical Founders CEO Peer Groups Be part of a committed and confidential group of practical founders creating valuable software companies without big VC funding.  A Practical Founders Peer Group is a committed and confidential group of founders/CEOs who want to help you succeed on your terms. Each Practical Founders Peer Group is personally curated and moderated by Greg Head.

On this special episode, Eric Ries, author of the 2011 bestseller "The Lean Startup," discusses his new book, "Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad and How Great Companies Stay Great." Ries explains why he's redefining profit as the maximization of human flourishing, reveals his role advising Anthropic's founders on their corporate structure, and makes the case that the era of shareholder primacy is already over. He also discusses the fall of Whole Foods, the Musk v. OpenAI trial, and why he believes mission-controlled companies dramatically outperform. GeekWire's Todd Bishop recorded this conversation with Ries after interviewing him on stage at Seattle Flow Startup Day on May 15. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Send us Fan MailJake Karls, co-founder of Mid-Day Squares, breaks down how to go viral, build a CPG brand, and scale a snack business from a condo kitchen to thousands of retail stores — all while surviving entrepreneurial burnout. In this episode, we unpack the real story behind viral marketing, authentic brand building, getting into Whole Foods, and what it actually takes to sell millions in physical retail. Jake shares how showing up in person creates opportunity, why authenticity is the secret to standing out, and how he uses LinkedIn content to attract investors and retail partners.You'll also hear his honest take on burnout recovery, finding purpose, why he's a "rainmaker" not a CEO, and how to play your own game instead of someone else's. Whether you're a young entrepreneur, a founder chasing product-market fit, or building a personal brand, this conversation is packed with hard-won lessons.TIMESTAMPS00:00 – Why Showing Up In Person Wins Deals02:30 – How Mid-Day Squares Started In A Condo05:00 – How Hard It Is To Sell In Retail Stores07:30 – Why Getting Into A Store Isn't Enough10:00 – How To Drive Retail Sales And Trial12:30 – Why Entrepreneur Burnout Almost Ended It15:00 – What Burnout Taught Me About Health17:30 – The Burnout Nobody Talks About: No Clarity20:00 – Why You Should Go All In When You're Young22:30 – Why I'm A Rainmaker And Not A CEO27:30 – How To Raise Capital As A Founder30:00 – How LinkedIn Content Attracts Investors32:30 – What Type Of Content Goes Viral35:00 – The Heartbeat Graph vs The Average Life37:30 – Why Being Weird Gets You Weird Results42:30 – How To Find Product-Market Fit In CPGConnect with Us!https://www.instagram.com/alchemists.library/https://twitter.com/RyanJAyala

A listener is launching an “all-in” protein bar. It's a crowded market, but they're, well, all-in. How can we help them get on the shelves of Whole Foods?Side Hustle School features a new episode EVERY DAY, featuring detailed case studies of people who earn extra money without quitting their job. This year, the show includes free guided lessons and listener Q&A several days each week.Show notes: SideHustleSchool.comEmail: team@sidehustleschool.comBe on the show: SideHustleSchool.com/questionsConnect on Instagram: @193countriesVisit Chris's main site: ChrisGuillebeau.comRead A Year of Mental Health: yearofmentalhealth.comIf you're enjoying the show, please pass it along! It's free and has been published every single day since January 1, 2017. We're also very grateful for your five-star ratings—it shows that people are listening and looking forward to new episodes.

On this very special episode, we traveled to Ondarroa, a fishing port in the Basque Country of northern Spain, and followed a team of Whole Foods Market buyers and sourcing experts to find out how they interact with partners at the source—in this case, the legendary Spanish tinned seafood producer Ortiz. Joining us was AnaMaria Friede, who oversees grocery merchandising strategy and has spent two decades advancing Whole Foods Quality Standards. Category Merchant Julia Merid lives inside the canned seafood aisle and works directly with producers on everything from the fish itself to the packaging to how the story gets told. And Carrie Brownstein has spent 25 years researching and writing the actual standards that govern what Whole Foods can and can't sell—she's the person who established what “sustainable wild-caught” actually means and what it doesn't. At the center of it all: Conservas Ortiz, a fifth-generation, family-owned company working the Basque coast since 1891. Subscribe to This Is TASTE: ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The CPG Guys are joined in this episode by Bob Nolan, SVP of Growth Science at Conagra Brands. Conagra's portfolio of iconic and emerging food brands continues to evolve to offer contemporary choices for every occasion. Follow Bob on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bob-nolan-938b726/Follow Conagra Brands online at: https://www.conagrabrands.com/Bob answers these questions:What was the "breaking point" where you realized that asking consumers what they wanted was actually leading the company toward failed launches?In the context of your CAGNY 2026 presentation, how do you define the "Validation Trap," and why is it so dangerous for legacy CPG brands today?One of your biggest wins was identifying the "Bowl" trend (Healthy Choice Power Bowls) via behavioral data while the rest of the industry was still testing "Trays." How would traditional validation have killed that multi-million dollar insight?If you've cut traditional testing to zero, how do you now "pre-flight" a major innovation like the Rebel Roots Tallow Sticks or the Dolly Parton line without the safety net of a focus group?How does AI-driven "Demand Science" replace the human element of traditional market research? At CAGNY, you spoke about demand science as a key growth driver. How does moving away from "validation" allow Conagra to be more "provocative" and take risks that traditional research would have deemed "too polarizing"?You use data from Whole Foods and Sprouts to predict what will happen in Kroger and Walmart two years later. Is the "Natural Channel" your new version of a test market, and how does that data-flow work?You've positioned Conagra as a beneficiary of GLP-1 drugs rather than a victim. How did behavioral science—rather than consumer surveys—help you realize that these users aren't eating less of everything, but are actually pivoting toward specific nutrient-dense frozen options?Validation takes months; social trends move in days. How has the "Death of Validation" increased your speed-to-market? Can you give us an example of an "idea-to-shelf" timeline that would have been impossible under the old model?For the Brand Managers out there who are still terrified to launch a product without a "Green Score" from a testing agency, what is your message to them about the risk of not evolving past validation?CPG Guys Website: http://CPGguys.comFMCG Guys Website: http://FMCGguys.comSheCOMMERCE Website: https://shecommercepodcast.com/Rhea Raj's Website: http://rhearaj.comLara Raj in Katseye: https://www.katseye.world/DISCLAIMER: The content in this podcast episode is provided for general informational purposes only. By listening to our episode, you understand that no information contained in this episode should be construed as advice from CPGGUYS, LLC or the individual author, hosts, or guests, nor is it intended to be a substitute for research on any subject matter. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by CPGGUYS, LLC. The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. CPGGUYS LLC expressly disclaims any and all liability or responsibility for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential or other damages arising out of any individual's use of, reference to, or inability to use this podcast or the information we presented in this podcast.

What if the way we think about business value, trust, and capitalism itself is fundamentally broken? Eric Ries' The Lean Startup changed how a generation of entrepreneurs build companies. Now, Ries takes aim at some of the most sacred business assumptions today in his new book, Incorruptible. Ries joins Rapid Response to share what he witnessed firsthand in the clash between Anthropic and the US government, and why he believes the current system is failing the very people it's supposed to serve. He also brings in-the-trenches stories from Cloudflare, Novo Nordisk, and Whole Foods to make the case that courage, not capital, may be the most undervalued asset in business right now.Visit the Rapid Response website here: https://www.rapidresponseshow.com/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

301: In today's episode, I'm joined by Dr. Judy Morgan to talk about the truth behind the pet food industry, prescription diets, overvaccination, and what our dogs and cats are actually supposed to be eating. We dive into species-appropriate nutrition, grain-free myths, homemade pet food, vaccine protocols, chronic disease in pets, and why so many common recommendations in conventional veterinary medicine may not actually support long-term health. We also talk about ingredient labels, raw feeding, and how to make more informed choices for your pets. Topics Discussed:  → Are flea medications dangerous for dogs? → What ingredients should dogs avoid eating? → Is kibble bad for long-term health? → How do pesticides affect pet health? → What is a species-appropriate pet diet? Sponsored By: → Ogee | Thanks to today's sponsor, Ogee: A higher standard for beauty. Go to https://ogee.com/REALFOODOLOGY and use code REALFOODOLOGY to get 20% off certified organic makeup that performs like luxury. → Beekeeper's Naturals | Today, Beekeeper's Naturals is giving my listeners exclusive extended access to their Memorial Day Sale: Go to https://beekeepersnaturals.com/REALFOODOLOGY or enter code REALFOODOLOGY to get 25% off your order. → Just Thrive | Get your health in check and save 20% on your first order at https://justthrivehealth.com/REALFOODOLOGY → PaleoValley | Head to https://paleovalley.com/realfoodology for 15% off your first purchase. Timestamps:  → 00:00:00 Introduction → 00:03:42 The Problem With Prescription Pet Diets → 00:08:17 Why Cats Need High Moisture Diets → 00:16:32 What Vets Actually Learn About Nutrition → 00:22:41 Grocery Store Pet Food vs Fresh Food → 00:27:05 How To Read Pet Food Ingredient Labels → 00:34:18 Whole Foods, Raw Feeding & Human Grade Pet Food → 00:43:20 Grain-Free Diet Myths & The DCM Controversy → 00:52:11 Why Dogs & Cats Need Species-Appropriate Diets → 01:09:06 Overvaccination, Titers & Vaccine Protocols → 01:21:03 Homemade Pet Food, Organs & Raw Feeding Tips → 01:33:02 Boarding Requirements, Vaccine Pressure & Rabies Discussion Check Out Dr. Judy: → https://drjudymorgan.com Check Out Courtney:  →  LEAVE US A VOICE MESSAGE →  Check Out My new FREE Grocery Guide! →  @realfoodology →  www.realfoodology.com →  My Immune Supplement by 2x4 →  Air Dr Air Purifier →  AquaTru Water Filter →  EWG Tap Water Database Produced By: Drake Peterson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if the way we think about business value, trust, and capitalism itself is fundamentally broken? Eric Ries' The Lean Startup changed how a generation of entrepreneurs build companies. Now, Ries takes aim at some of the most sacred business assumptions today in his new book, Incorruptible. Ries joins Rapid Response to share what he witnessed firsthand in the clash between Anthropic and the US government, and why he believes the current system is failing the very people it's supposed to serve. He also brings in-the-trenches stories from Cloudflare, Novo Nordisk, and Whole Foods to make the case that courage, not capital, may be the most undervalued asset in business right now.Visit the Rapid Response website here: https://www.rapidresponseshow.com/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

At 25, Justin Gold was making experimental peanut butter in his home kitchen with a food processor and a stack of recipe journals. His singular obsession: bring new life to a tired lunchtime staple.What started as late-night experiments with honey, cinnamon and banana eventually became Justin's — one of the most influential natural food brands of the last two decades.At first, Justin got rejected by most grocery stores he approached. He worked overnight in a shared industrial kitchen, hand-filling jars one at a time. He couldn't get a distributor, so he stocked the shelves at the Boulder Whole Foods himself.And when growth stalled… he had an idea during a mountain bike ride that would transform the company: What if peanut butter came in a squeeze pack?In this episode, Justin explains how relentless experimentation and stubbornness helped him build a category-defining brand — and how, with each entrepreneurial milestone, an even more challenging one emerged.YOU'LL LEARN: How Justin reverse-engineered flavored peanut butter in his apartmentHow launching in Boulder gave him a big advantageHow he learned when to listen to feedback, and when to ignore it The deal he made with Whole Foods: “I'll stock the shelves myself.”How the squeeze pack transformed the business, and why it almost didn't work The power of naïve persistence in entrepreneurshipTimestamps:00:09:35 — The obsessive recipe experiments that became Justin's edge00:16:25 — Getting support from Boulder's startup food community 00:21:28 — Raising $35,000– and shocking his family: “I wanna make peanut butter!” 00:42:51 — The farmers market feedback that changed the product line00:46:56 — Justin talks his way into the first Whole Foods 00:51:47 — Justin's gets into more stores, but sales start to stagnate 00:53:35 — The mountain bike ride that sparked the squeeze-pack idea 01:19:43 — The brand gets sold, Justin gets fired…and invited backThis episode was produced by J.C. Howard, with music by Ramtin Arablouei.Edited by Neva Grant, with research help from Alex Cheng.Follow How I Built This:Instagram → @howibuiltthisX → @HowIBuiltThisFacebook → How I Built ThisFollow Guy Raz:Instagram → @guy.razYoutube → guy_razX → @guyrazSubstack → guyraz.substack.comWebsite → guyraz.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dr. Judy Morgan - integrative veterinarian, author of nine books, and one of the leading voices in holistic pet health - joins Dr. Will Cole to pull back the curtain on what conventional veterinary medicine has been getting catastrophically wrong. They cover what's actually in commercial kibble (including why it may legally contain euthanasia solution), why annual vaccinations are largely unnecessary when titer testing exists, why spaying and neutering before six months is the hormonal equivalent of making your puppy postmenopausal overnight, and what flea and tick pesticides are actually doing inside your pet's nervous system. Dr. Morgan also explains traditional Chinese veterinary medicine food therapy, the five element constitutions for pets, the supplements worth knowing about, and the raw food movement that has the big pet food companies very nervous. For all links mentioned in this episode, visit www.drwillcole.com/podcast.Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode.Sponsors:Live Better Longer with BUBS Naturals. For A limited time get 20% Off your entire order with code WILLCOLE at Bubsnaturals.com!Get 15% off Branch Basics with the code WILLCOLE at https://branchbasics.com/WILLCOLE #branchbasicspodHelp protect your home systems – and your wallet – with HomeServe against covered repairs. Plans start at just $4.99 a month. Go to Home Serve.com to find the plan that's right for you. Not available everywhere. Most plans range between $4.99 to $11.99 a month your first year. Terms apply on covered repairs.Visit TM.org to find a certified teacher near you. That's TM.org.You can also pick up their beef tallow at select Sprouts, Whole Foods, and Kroger locations nationwide. Or just go to kettleandfire.com/WILLCOLE25 and use code WILLCOLE25 to get 25% off.Produced by Dear Media.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.