April 26, 2026
Chinese Astrophysicists Posed as Janitors to Spy on SpaceX
A clip from our episode "The First Thing Built on the Moon Will Come from Austin | Jason Ballard & Will Hurd, ICON"
April 25, 2026
The Federal Government Spends $550,000 Per Bed
A clip from our episode "The First Thing Built on the Moon Will Come from Austin | Jason Ballard & Will Hurd, ICON"
April 23, 2026
EP 176: The First Thing Built on the Moon Will Come from Austin | Jason Ballard & Will Hurd, ICON
ICON has been telling the same story since 2018. Humanity has a construction problem that solving for regulations and supply-demand incentives alone won't fix. We need fundamentally new ways to build. Jason Ballard, ICON's founder and CEO, and Will Hurd, the former CIA officer, congressman, and OpenAI board member who…
April 20, 2026
Kids Should Love School More Than Vacation
A clip from our episode "Reinventing School Is Accelerating Austin's Talent Flywheel | Joe Liemandt, Alpha School"
April 19, 2026
If You Want Education Innovation, Austin Is It
A clip from our episode "Reinventing School Is Accelerating Austin's Talent Flywheel | Joe Liemandt, Alpha School"
April 18, 2026
If You Think the Old System is Ready for the Future, Alpha is Not Your School
A clip from our episode "Reinventing School Is Accelerating Austin's Talent Flywheel | Joe Liemandt, Alpha School"
April 15, 2026
EP 175: Reinventing School Is Accelerating Austin's Talent Flywheel | Joe Liemandt, Alpha School
Joe Liemandt built Trilogy, recruited 2,000 Ivy League graduates to Austin, and is now running what he considers the higher-leverage version of the same play, K-12 education. Our host, Jason Scharf, brings a perspective no other interviewer has. He is an Alpha School parent, and he uses that to ask…
April 3, 2026
AI's Speed Changes Everything
A clip from our episode "Innovation Ecosystems Are Inherited | Nait Jones"
March 30, 2026
You Paid $80,000 for Something AI Now Does for Free
A clip from our episode "The Western Canon in the Age of Vibe Coding | Carlos Carvalho, President, University of Austin"
March 26, 2026
Every Sci-Fi Weapon Showed Up at Once
A clip from our episode "We're Living Through the Cyberpunk Era of War | Jim Rebesco, CEO, Striveworks"
March 25, 2026
Would You Trust An AI Agent With Your Credit Card?
A clip from our episode "We're Living Through the Cyberpunk Era of War | Jim Rebesco, CEO, Striveworks"
March 24, 2026
EP 174: We're Living Through the Cyberpunk Era of War | Jim Rebesco, CEO, Striveworks
Directed energy weapons, autonomous drones, and combat AI agents are not just real. They are deployed. Jim Rebesco, cofounder and CEO of Striveworks, breaks down what's driving this moment, and the second and third-order effects most people aren't tracking yet. AI can't be bolted onto legacy systems and expected to…
March 21, 2026
Builders Go Where They Don't Need Permission
A clip from our episode "Innovation Ecosystems Are Inherited | Nait Jones
March 20, 2026
Austin's Innovation Story Is 60 Years Old and Nobody Knows It
A clip from our episode "Innovation Ecosystems Are Inherited | Nait Jones"
March 19, 2026
Why Spotify might be cooked unless they buy Suno
A clip from our episode "Innovation Ecosystems Are Inherited | Nait Jones"
March 18, 2026
EP 173: Innovation Ecosystems Are Inherited | Nait Jones
The hype that landed on Austin in 2021 was correct and at the same time ahead of the curve. Nait Jones, serial founder and former a16z partner who arrived in Silicon Valley in 2011 at the Web 2 moment and moved to Austin during the pandemic, argues that the fundamentals…
March 15, 2026
38% Can't Do Basic Math. They Still Graduate
A clip from our episode "The Western Canon in the Age of Vibe Coding | Carlos Carvalho, President, University of Austin"
March 12, 2026
He Is Building a University That Only Wants Lions
A clip from our episode "The Western Canon in the Age of Vibe Coding | Carlos Carvalho, President, University of Austin"
March 11, 2026
EP 172: The Western Canon in the Age of Vibe Coding | Carlos Carvalho, University of Austin
American universities stopped optimizing for students a long time ago. The University of Austin was built as a direct counter to that failure. Carlos Carvalho, its president, brings a statistician's precision to the diagnosis, tracing the causal chain from dropped standards to credential collapse while building an institution with no…
Feb. 23, 2026
You can just raise less
From our episode "Bootstrap vs. VC: Speed Costs Control | Rob Taylor, Silverton Partners"
Feb. 22, 2026
Where Does Control Lie in a VC Backed Company?
From our episode "Bootstrap vs. VC: Speed Costs Control | Rob Taylor, Silverton Partners"
Feb. 21, 2026
Why choose the VC path vs Bootstrapping
From our episode "Bootstrap vs. VC: Speed Costs Control | Rob Taylor, Silverton Partners"
Feb. 19, 2026
EP 171: Bootstrap vs. VC: Speed Costs Control | Rob Taylor, Silverton Partners
The decision to bootstrap a business or raise venture capital is not just financial. It is physics. You are choosing which system to operate within, which rules will govern your company, and whose incentives will shape your options at every inflection point. Rob Taylor has lived both realities. He spent…
