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Tactical Wealth is the show built to empower the military and veteran community to take control of their financial future.
From navigating the military to civilian life transition, to launching businesses, growing your income, and building long-term wealth, each episode brings you real stories and actionable insights from those who’ve gone from boots on the ground to building lasting wealth.
Hosted by Kaj Larsen, former Navy SEAL, award-winning journalist, and mission-driven entrepreneur. Kaj successfully co-founded a financial technology company and sold the company in 2024. The podcast features hard truth conversations with successful veteran entrepreneurs, CEOs, and top financial experts.
Whether you're still in uniform or already charting your next chapter, this podcast gives you the tactical tools to lead with impact in your finances and beyond. Let’s get tactical.
Tactical Wealth is a Gebbia Media production, brought to you by Siebert.Valor, a military-focused initiative from Siebert Financial. The Tactical Wealth podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Siebert Financial. This podcast does not constitute investment advice, an offer to sell, or a solicitation to buy any securities. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Listeners should consult a qualified financial professional before making any investment decisions.
For more information and disclosures, please visit siebert.com/disclosures.
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;25;08
Unknown
The two emotions of an entrepreneur are agony and ecstasy. And that's it. It's encouraging veterans to take the risk. If the startup doesn't work, you get another job.
00;00;25;10 - 00;00;45;28
Unknown
Some people wait for opportunity. Others fight for it. Welcome to Tactical wealth. The show. Were disciplined service and real world experience become pathways to financial power. I'm your host, Kaj Larsen. On each episode, we bring you the stories and the wisdom of those who have gone from boots on the ground to successful careers, from military to wealth and how they've done it.
00;00;45;28 - 00;00;56;10
Unknown
So you can apply those insights to your own mission and your own life. This is tactical wealth, from military to money.
00;00;56;13 - 00;01;23;28
Unknown
So before Craig, you were this incredibly successful inspirational capital allocator. How did you come to be sitting in the seat? Where did where did it start? Where are you from and how did you originally get interested in military service? So, I come from a military family. I my father was a Air Force colonel, intelligence officer. Both my brothers went to West Point, and my mom was a Department of the Army civilian.
00;01;24;01 - 00;01;48;11
Unknown
Wow. So I like to say that we don't have family reunions. We have family formations. Yeah. You were born into it. I was born into it. And now my parents divorced. But watching my my two older brothers, West Point, I thought, okay, cool uniforms, Army, Navy, football, parades, pretty girlfriends. These rings and cars, they teach leadership there sounds like a fit for me.
00;01;48;13 - 00;02;28;24
Unknown
And so I followed that path. I had actually gotten in the Air Force Academy to my father was a little disappointed. He's like, what are you doing? It's such a better life in the Air Force. I said, I it's I'm in the people business. Not that they aren't, but the Army is such a pure people play that that I, that I went and what's interesting you may have heard this about West Point, but on reception day when you show up, they give you the raw, raw speech of a West Point and they say, family, you have 60s to say goodbye to your soon to be new cadets.
00;02;28;26 - 00;02;57;00
Unknown
And they say friends and family this way, cadets this way. So big hug, walk outside the door and there were fire breathing dragons waiting for us. And just get on the bus. Don't talk. Follow instruction. Next thing you know, you know the deal. All the hair is off. Doing pull ups, getting shots, and a couple of weeks in, I'm like, this place sucks.
00;02;57;00 - 00;03;15;10
Unknown
I don't know if I can say that. I'm like, oh no, I don't think I understood that. Even though it was called cadet Basic Training, I don't think I had processed what I was getting myself into. I was 17 year old kid, surfer kid from California, showing up at a service academy. No, this place sucks. You're like, what?
00;03;15;11 - 00;03;34;18
Unknown
Train just hit me 100%. I finally two weeks in, I called my brothers after waiting in line for phone booth, and I say, you guys didn't tell me anything about this place. And they said, well, we we thought if we told you too much, you might not want to go. Yeah. And I thought, well, if they can get to it, I can get through it.
00;03;34;18 - 00;03;58;12
Unknown
And then truthfully, I had the, the most incredible experience there. Yeah. It's amazing. You know, I've actually had so many Service Academy alumni on the show. But your description is so poignant. I had forgotten about that moment. It was 31 years ago. Until just now when you described it. And to be a young man going off to a service academy the first time you're separated from your family is hard.
00;03;58;17 - 00;04;24;04
Unknown
That moment is jarring. It is hard. You, even though you couldn't be surrounded by more, talented group of 18 year olds, there's a you do feel a loneliness in that experience. And then you fast forward for years. Then I was king of beast, one of the two kings. So I was the senior cadet running basic training four years later.
00;04;24;04 - 00;04;26;16
Unknown
So.
00;04;26;18 - 00;04;50;02
Unknown
Then I was like the king of the suck at that point, so to speak. But I tried, I, I tried to be relatable. Yeah. That's amazing. And and also, you know, you had, you know, a priori knowledge of the experience and yet still, you had all of the challenges and then you had to persevere and get through and find, find a way to come out on top of that process.
00;04;50;08 - 00;05;21;02
Unknown
Yeah. And, and, and West Point actually had a, a bit of a pivot, an evolution when I was there. They, we were the last class under the fourth class system, which was was sort of famous for the square meals, square meals pinging, walking against the walls, hands up going downstairs and a fair amount of hazing. And they really that's where they began to evolution into more positive leadership and less than negative leadership.
00;05;21;02 - 00;05;47;04
Unknown
So so that was the model I was implementing. Our classmates were when we were then seniors. Yeah. And it's funny, I think there's also this human dynamic that, I think it's part of the human survivability instinct is that we sometimes can, like, downplay the worst of it and remember the best of it. Maybe I'm just a attorney, optimistic 100%.
00;05;47;04 - 00;06;12;03
Unknown
It helps us get through those kind of experiences. Exactly. It, you know, childbirth, not that we can attest to it, but very similar. You forget all that pain. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm always saying I do buds again. Whatever. Oh my gosh that would you do buds again I mean listen I think and we'll talk about this later on.
00;06;12;06 - 00;06;38;16
Unknown
I think there are certain crucibles that you go through and you learn things about yourself that you will do whatever the mission requires. If the mission is important enough, you will figure out a way to persevere through adversity or challenges. Right? For me and for you, I suspect that our our true north, our our gun sights, we've shifted fire away from that mission of like of whatever that downrange service is or becoming a seal.
00;06;38;16 - 00;06;59;14
Unknown
Because we accomplish that, we have new missions, new missions in the private sector, new missions and building companies, new missions in creating inspirational models for people. But I think the same ability that got me through buds in the first place, I think I could flip that switch and turn it back on if the mission was compelling enough.
00;06;59;16 - 00;07;48;05
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, would you go be a fourth class at West Point again? I, I would, I would, I think the value you know West Point is the nation's premier leadership training ground. All the academies are for that matter. But I would say West Point, they focus on leadership more than anything else. And so now fast forward, partner with another West Point grad, Kelly Purdue, with an investment thesis quote, we invest in extraordinary leadership, having the leadership training at the Premier Place has sort of set me up for service entrepreneurship and then venture capital kind of answer the rest of that question.
00;07;48;07 - 00;08;09;21
Unknown
I don't know, I, I do fundamentally believe in what you're saying. That's what's past is Prolog. And for both of us, we had these formative leadership experiences earlier our career. And that set the template for how we would live the rest of our life and the things that were important to us 100%. I mean, look at you hear back in service.
00;08;09;23 - 00;08;45;20
Unknown
You're right. I mean, like, you continue to serve. Yeah. It's still it was already in your DNA. It just got you got injected more of it supersized and channel. Amazing. So when you graduated from West Point, did you select the intelligence community? I did with the with the caveat that they had a program called Branch Detail. So I went into armor tanks for three and a half years and then jumped over to intelligence.
00;08;45;20 - 00;09;10;18
Unknown
It was a little bit of armor, has a lot of lieutenant slots, intelligence has a few. Let's muddy your boots, get some good troop leading time, and then transition over to Intel. So I did go from armor to the National Security Agency. Right. And was Intel. Was it always in your gun sites? That was part of the goal when you were coming out of school?
00;09;10;21 - 00;09;33;19
Unknown
I want to say yes, but I'll tell you. Honest and kind of funny story. So my wife now we just celebrated 33 years together. Amazing. And we met at the end of our junior year. We both were in relationships at the time. We both from the Truman Scholarship, engaged month later, married a year later. Anyway comes August of their senior year.
00;09;33;21 - 00;10;02;28
Unknown
Time to choose your branch, she says. What are you going to do? I said, I want to be a helicopter pilot. I said, you get to wear a onesie. All these patches, you fly, you blow things up, land. You sleep in an air conditioned building like it's awesome. I think it's awesome. I just have to interject because I think everybody always thinks there's such like a strategic matrix to like military to the military decision making process.
00;10;02;29 - 00;10;22;16
Unknown
Like you and I were schooled in the MD, MP, the military decision making process. But as like young graduates at 21, we're picking our warfare communities. Like I was like, oh, I get to where UT t shirts and blow stuff up underwater. Sounds like the community for me. I meant so my wife Lawton hears that she's like, well, what else could you do?
00;10;22;16 - 00;10;53;02
Unknown
And I start to go down the list from, I could be a lawyer, I could be a doctor, I could do logistics, I could do artillery, I could do military intelligence. She goes, tell me more about that. I said, well, the summary is you tell the good guys where the bad guys are. And she goes, well, if everything you said, that seems like the most transferable, assuming I wasn't going to go to law school or be a doctor, and I said, all right, so I'm going to go armor.
00;10;53;05 - 00;11;14;12
Unknown
I want to get some money on the boots, you know, some good, good leading time and then Intel. So it was like, we negotiated this. And my wife, to be honest, she she was always she never drank the Army Kool-Aid. And the Kool-Aid at West Point is you go infantry. Of course, to this day she's like, that doesn't sound like a ton of fun.
00;11;14;14 - 00;11;42;19
Unknown
I'm like, well, I kind of kind of write about that. So anyway, so then then I, I went from tanks to National Security Agency, as you mentioned, mentioned. And as I got there to, to Fort Meade, they, they said, hey, we're going to, we're going to pull you over to this other group, which was sort of a nontraditional intelligence job, and we were doing offensive.
00;11;42;22 - 00;12;04;10
Unknown
Well, let me say, we were doing information operations, and it was basically the startup of cyber in the army, and we took soldiers at NSA that were doing offensive, defensive and exploitation missions, put them in a company called a Bravo company. And then I ended up, I was the operations officer, then the commander of that. And then it grew.
00;12;04;14 - 00;12;27;08
Unknown
Detachment between Gen easterly eventually stood up at the time, became a brigade and and so forth. So it's it's funny to reflect being on sort of the ground and what year was of Army. This was the end of 97 in 1998. And did you have, any sort of sort of tech background? I mean, you're coming from tanks, you went from text to tech.
00;12;27;11 - 00;13;01;15
Unknown
No, you have you have outed me properly here. But I said I have spent literally, like my whole career managing, you know, tech technically gifted soldiers and then and then civilians without having this deep technical background. But I think one of my superpowers is that I can take the technical and explain it non-technical, very digestible, which is a important skill often of leading these, these sorts of groups.
00;13;01;21 - 00;13;26;07
Unknown
But I think it's also I think that the time stamp matters here. This is 97. This is pre.com. This is not really on the public radar right now. It seems very obvious that US Cyber Command is going to be a thing. It probably was less obvious than it was. It was less obvious. But the the missions that we were doing were so compelling.
00;13;26;07 - 00;13;48;16
Unknown
It's so relevant to today that it really made sense that the Army decided to sort of package it up, separate a little bit, and then start to train this cohort toward that ultimate mission of cyber. And now it's, you know, it's it's it's a branch in the Army, right? Yeah. Right. Amazing. And what was that like, that sort of first experience in some way?
00;13;48;16 - 00;14;13;03
Unknown
You were an interpreter within the Army. You were doing a startup within the Big Green Machine, which can be this giant bureaucratic organization. What was that experience like, and what did you learn from? You know, it's interesting that you call it out like that. I hadn't really reflected that opportunity as an entrepreneurial opportunity, but it really was, and I think I was so drawn to that.
00;14;13;05 - 00;14;34;02
Unknown
I mean, ultimately, if you fast forward a decade, I left the service. Actually, the day I left was the day my service obligation was paid for having done a PhD. And I,
00;14;34;05 - 00;14;55;15
Unknown
You might think, well, why would you get out in your 17th year? And the reason is I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I wanted to scratch that itch. And I felt like in jobs like that very much, I was entrepreneurial. But then, you know, as you, as you progress, the you're it's tough to, like, see the needle, move the needle in the service.
00;14;55;16 - 00;15;12;07
Unknown
It just it just is I mean, the leadership opportunities are tremendous. But if you really want to put your hand on the needle and move the needle, you that's echelons above. That would have been another ten plus 15 years. And I don't want to be too dramatic because people like, wait, I'm moving needles. I'm I'm a lieutenant colonel.
00;15;12;07 - 00;15;35;02
Unknown
But I think everyone can kind of understand this. This is an aircraft carrier, so to speak, in the Army. And I really wanted to I felt like I could have an immediate impact in a smaller population. I say this all the time. There becomes a point in your operational career where you transition out. There's this sort of dull dreams of a military officer career, like from the 4 to 0 six level.
00;15;35;05 - 00;16;12;25
Unknown
And I always said what I was getting out similar, you know, I said the same thing. If I'm going to be mid-level management, I'm going to be mid-level management at Goldman Sachs. Right? Yeah. And the so I, I had envisioned this is a little bit going back to armor days, but I think you'll you'll appreciate this this scene where as an armor officer at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, I remember being in a latrine and looking down the trough, and I, I was a captain, and I literally saw the major and the lieutenant colonel all down the road.
00;16;12;25 - 00;16;31;10
Unknown
And I it was like, okay, I saw what my future looked like, at least in armor. And that is a little bit of the army. Like you, you get skills in that tradecraft. You return back to that tradecraft, return back to that tradecraft. And I was like, man, I don't at least I was going Intel anyway. It's fine, but I got it.
00;16;31;10 - 00;16;50;08
Unknown
I wanted to do something different. I want to hear about your transition, but I just, I'd love to hear briefly. I know you spent some time at JSOC, which is the tip of the spear of the the US military system. What did you what? I know, and I know you also did you deployed with with Jay.
00;16;50;11 - 00;17;18;23
Unknown
What was that experience like? Working with the best of the best. And how did that inform things that you would do later on in your civilian career? Well, I, I was truly, like, overwhelmed by the, the aptitude, the seriousness of that unit and, and what I, the way I deployed is general McChrystal. General Flynn had they basically formed a startup and it was called scope.
00;17;18;25 - 00;17;37;04
Unknown
And scope was this intelligence organization where they brought in various skills, they brought in signals intelligence, human intelligence. They brought in map experts, language experts. And the idea was that you put all these different.
00;17;37;06 - 00;18;03;15
Unknown
Let's call them sort of intelligence fruits. You mix the smoothie in. What we ended up learning was when so much of the regular Intel was saying, look here, scope was actually saying you should look over here. And, and so I then I immersed the scope and then I deployed forward to represent scope in Afghanistan. And so it was sort of brand new.
00;18;03;15 - 00;18;28;10
Unknown
I was like bringing the startup to Afghanistan. I was doing this under the leadership of a very dear friend, al Dealing Arno, who did an amazing job when he was leaving scope. And I remember going to the gym the first time and seeing feats of human accomplishment I had never seen before. I mean, you mean just like I'm like on the on the compound?
00;18;28;12 - 00;18;47;00
Unknown
Yeah. I'm like these guys, literally people are barefoot, right? Like, guys are working out barefoot. Yeah. I mean, I don't know, I have this hilarious story about Army, Navy that we can we can put a pin in it. In my experience with Admiral Harward that you would love. And we can come back to it if you have time.
00;18;47;00 - 00;19;10;22
Unknown
But they you just see a whole nother level. Yeah. Bob Harwood is the most competitive people on the planet, but oh, oh, it was goes right at it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, here's an example. This is a great this is not the story I was I was thinking of about about Bob. But I remember I was there on Thanksgiving of 2006 and they had posted Turkey Trot.
00;19;10;24 - 00;19;20;00
Unknown
So I'm thinking, all right, you know, it's a, you know, go out there, jog 2 to 4 miles and like build camaraderie.
00;19;20;03 - 00;19;40;14
Unknown
I think we fell in the formation at 8 a.m.. Admiral McChrystal had landed at like 530 in the morning. We line up, I said, hey, how far are we going today? This at eight miles first forward formation and then release back. I'm like, that is not a turkey trot. What are you talking like? But at that point it's too late.
00;19;40;21 - 00;19;59;17
Unknown
Now turn around. So we boom, we we go out, we hit the four mile mark, then we released back. And I think general McChrystal finished in the top three. Yeah I mean superhuman against the youngest. You know what I mean? Oh yeah. After being out till five in the morning. So, it truly an honor to see that caliber.
00;19;59;17 - 00;20;21;23
Unknown
And on the private side, I never, like, connected these dots. But if someone was not. Well, you've had this experience as a seal. If someone is not performing there on the plane, like tomorrow, they're out. And there was not like, well, let's put you on this, you know, performance improvement plan. Like it was like, this mission is too important.
00;20;21;26 - 00;20;47;01
Unknown
We're sending out by. Yeah, absolutely. It was like some real world this to that fascinating. And and what was it, about the specific nature of, of go that you thought gave it a competitive advantage? Like the intelligence community is filled with extraordinarily smart people. What was it about the structural nature of the organization that created a competitive advantage?
00;20;47;01 - 00;21;22;02
Unknown
I think they had just they they they put people in a room that had never, like, been together in a room infusing sort of open source information, like decades of maps and actually all these different versions of maps. And then, you know, taking these patterns of life that we would get, you would have seen elsewhere and then dropping those, all that intelligence into a room and having so many different perspectives on it, it really speaks to the leadership of general McChrystal, who he does not want, like, yes, men and women around him.
00;21;22;02 - 00;21;52;16
Unknown
He wants some some documented counter thoughts. And this is the sort of organization that was like, well, I know, I know, you think that that's where they are, but we we actually think over here. Yeah. I always thought this was one of the strengths of military veterans. Turning into entrepreneurs is that we have the ability to sort of call our babies ugly, vociferously argue our points, what have a competition of ideas.
00;21;52;17 - 00;22;14;03
Unknown
Because while the military is a hierarchy, when it good leadership makes it a meritocracy of ideas, when you have good leadership like general McChrystal, and the best ideas are then allowed to compete and win. And that's what I actually think makes for the best military organizations and the most effective ones. And it sounds like that's the culture that he was in, was definitely the culture.
00;22;14;03 - 00;22;23;26
Unknown
And, you know, when you see these, these four stars in particular, 3 or 4 stars.
00;22;23;29 - 00;22;56;18
Unknown
The the instinct to those who haven't been with that population before is probably you're envisioning like this general patent type figure, right? You know, loud, aggressive, throwing the cigar. But when you, you talk to someone like a, a general McChrystal, a general, Brian Fenton, a general drew poppies, Laura Potter I could go on Paul Nakasone. I mean, like, they are like thoughtful, humble.
00;22;56;21 - 00;23;19;01
Unknown
They're they're so strong of character. They can take these ideas even if they they didn't agree with them at the outset. And there's so nuanced that it's impressive. Yeah. To be around them and see it in action. I think there's one more lesson. And then I want to talk about your transition out of service. One more lesson to be extrapolated there.
00;23;19;01 - 00;24;01;06
Unknown
From what you're saying, is you're talking about these sort of domains, different domains of expertise coming together. You know, diversity has been like widely under assault in pop culture lately and for good reasons, because I think what has become commonly known as diversity is really foe diversity. But in my teams, and it sounds like in your teams, I have always tried to encourage diversity, but it's diversity of thought and ideas with the idea that steel sharpens steel, that if we can get this clash of ideas and I have, you know, if I have a army tank officer on the team and you have a Navy Seal on the team, and we come from two
00;24;01;06 - 00;24;23;17
Unknown
different perspectives, and I have a maritime domain of expertise and you probably know more about, you know, the density of soil for moving heavy vehicles than ever, and that we can cross-pollinate those ideas that we'll get the best plan of attack. And that's the kind of diversity that I've always believed in 100%. And we actually will encourage diversity of thought and opinion.
00;24;23;18 - 00;24;30;23
Unknown
Sometimes we'll talk and then it's like Kelly and I are talking, and then it's like, all right, pause.
00;24;30;25 - 00;24;52;01
Unknown
Angie, what do you think? Like, seriously, tell us what you think we did. And we we we tell them part of like when we're interviewing people, we're seeing the strength of character to be able to tell us something that we may not agree with. And so we call it out and say, give us the counterargument to this. Yeah, let's, let's, let's red team this all day.
00;24;52;02 - 00;25;10;13
Unknown
We don't we don't need all the the yes. Yeah. Yeah. So much of that so interesting. And I want to hear about how you use that in your, in your, your current role and in, in your current investing strategy. But what did you do immediately upon transition? You said you had this kind of, pinging desire to be an entrepreneur.
00;25;10;20 - 00;25;20;22
Unknown
How did you execute on that? I did, and what's crazy is, is I, I got out.
00;25;20;25 - 00;25;40;29
Unknown
And I joined with two West Point grads, Nicole Guy, Philip Kelly, and then we had decided to do a spin out startup, which I had been a part of ID, and that was Shawn Lane. And so I get out in the 17th year and everybody thinks I'm crazy. In the first I was about to pin on the tenant car was promoted again.
00;25;41;01 - 00;26;08;04
Unknown
I think about my family. They're like, what are you doing? All my friends are like, was there a scandal? I'm like, no scandal. I'm just a quitter, just a quitter. And literally two weeks after I get out, my wife gets diagnosed with breast cancer. Two weeks later, reconstruction surgery. Then she begins chemo. Fast forward, the startup now had 45 days of cash left in the business.
00;26;08;06 - 00;26;32;17
Unknown
I'm not telling my wife about this, by the way. So everything everyone had said like, are you sure you want to get out of this close? You can get all the benefits. And that's when I pulled together a meeting at the NSA. And this idea at the time, this startup, was to put the first cellular network ever on a battlefield, and we went to our point of contact in the Army and a say and said, look, we love these.
00;26;32;18 - 00;26;55;25
Unknown
These meetings are awesome. But if we don't get a purchase order, we are going to have business. She's like, I had no idea. Like, of course, what we need to do these things, let's do these things. And right as the plane was coming into a crash, we got some purchase orders and then the Army three star responsible for intelligence, saw this idea of sort of an internet of things with cellular, which did not exist.
00;26;55;25 - 00;27;22;22
Unknown
This is this is sort of like oh nine now we were still pushed to talk. We had this slide deck called swarm and General took it, came up with a new program called Trojan Swarm using the Trojan Communications Network. And then it was now we now the PowerPoint. We had the stress of turn the PowerPoint into product. And so we we made it through.
00;27;22;22 - 00;27;49;18
Unknown
But it was a nail biter. I mean, that's that's wild. And hence comes the first obstacle of entrepreneurship or specifically veteran ship. Because when you are in the military there is a safety net, right? Like in general, like even if you like overspend on all your credit cards and you know, you know, we're underwater on your 21% car loan on your Mustang.
00;27;49;19 - 00;28;25;03
Unknown
Right? There are there's a financial advisor who will come in your, you know, the money shows up your bank account, right? Your E7 sergeant major will come like, you know, organize your finances. Right. But when you when you go out into the vast void of veteran, you are really on your own. Without that safety net, there 100%. I mean, your story might be the most extreme I tell I want to I want to caveat it the way I tell it is extreme, but I also I also like to flip it a little bit and say, okay, let's assume we had to wind down the business.
00;28;25;03 - 00;28;44;09
Unknown
What would have happened? I would have gone into the job. So I tell the story like, oh my God, we're out of money. But what I, what I want to be sensitive to is, is encouraging veterans to take the risk. Because if it doesn't work out, if the startup doesn't work, you get another job. And so I it's mindful.
00;28;44;09 - 00;29;13;28
Unknown
It took me a few years to to hear myself telling the story, to say, well, I would have been okay and, and life would have gone on. Absolutely. And and I it's another sort of idiom parable that I always say when it, when it comes to building companies and building businesses like that, there will not only be challenges, you will not only be like eminent for striking bottom but the, the recipe and the solution is action, right?
00;29;13;29 - 00;29;20;12
Unknown
Like a shark. You got to keep swimming or else you die. Yeah, 100%, I mean.
00;29;20;15 - 00;29;42;14
Unknown
We had to be scrappy. And it was it was it was so scrappy. What we did keep that business going. And I think you nailed it. It's like the two emotions of an entrepreneur are agony and ecstasy and that's it. You know. So you manage to to to pull the plane up and and get and get on a better trajectory, a better glide path.
00;29;42;16 - 00;30;08;01
Unknown
What ultimately happened with that company? We ended up thanks for asking. We we the secret sauce. Our actual product was a software called perfects. And it was. It was what sort of glued these different communications networks together in the Army. G2 tenant Charles Anders said, I love the software, but I don't love the idea of having to license this from you.
00;30;08;04 - 00;30;29;28
Unknown
And we said, let's, let's make a deal. And so we made a deal and we sold the product to the to the Army. Basically, we exited the company to the Army. There are some tax benefits if you sell IP to the United States government. And then once they bought that product company, essentially we this was not analysis acquisition.
00;30;30;05 - 00;31;07;11
Unknown
We started a services company behind it, did then do the work on the product that they now had. Amazing and interesting outcome back at the beginning when you picked your co-founders. Yeah. What did you have a like a deep domain of technical expertise? I, you know, I would say my technical expertise was probably understanding the intelligence community architecture and the and the, you know, now say do w and Intel how arming NSA operate together plus working at a national agency.
00;31;07;12 - 00;31;30;27
Unknown
You you knew the problem set I knew right. In fact, it's I'm glad you said that because the office I left at the NSA was I went right back and said, how would you guys feel about a cellular network so that if JSOC rolls up some bad guys, they can use the cellular network to return immediately? They're not driving it back.
00;31;30;28 - 00;31;48;26
Unknown
They're not using push to talk. And I knew what the answer was going to be. They were like, of course we'd love that. So I mean, I'm always we were always drawn to founders solving a problem they know so intimately. And that was in my case, that was an example of that. And how did you select your your co-founders for that company?
00;31;48;28 - 00;32;14;13
Unknown
I knew so I know you knew the relationship with this Sean Lane, his name and and Shauna's. I call him the most knowledgeable person on sort of Intel community Army architecture. Talk about technical chops. He's you know, he's like the 5% body fat guy when it comes to muscle about the Intel architecture and do w. And we had built a friendship.
00;32;14;13 - 00;32;36;29
Unknown
And so we were very simpatico. And we still are to this day. In fact, this may freak you out. Don't be freaked out. But like I've named at least Slayton one of my pallbearers. Yeah, and he's one of them. That's how that's how close we we became a time and and I felt very fortunate. Plus Guy and Nick were were great.
00;32;36;29 - 00;32;53;16
Unknown
Our other founders. So it was really the small group by the way. Not freaked out at all, you know. Yeah. People like barbs. You got it. You got to do some planning. It's either the sword bearer at your wedding or the ball bearer at your feeling. You know, I want them to know. Right, right. No, no. That's amazing.
00;32;53;16 - 00;33;11;16
Unknown
No, but what is interesting is I'm curious if you if you and your founders had a a a sort of domain like a an expertise in business, it sound, I suspect you were to keep the airplane metaphor going. I suspect you were more building the airplane while you're flying it, in terms of starting the business side of the house.
00;33;11;17 - 00;33;31;19
Unknown
No, I mean, it's it's a great comment. And we did. We brought in the friend Chris Sweet, who was the not the military, who was the CFO, who did bring all this business expertise to us. He probably just to the point that exactly this gets to the point of like teamwork and military and knowing what you can do and what you can't do.
00;33;31;20 - 00;33;57;19
Unknown
And Sharma's CEO, I was the CEO. We bring Kristen, we brought an ax Watson, who was like the tech Jedi. And that was the core team. And everybody complimented one another. Yeah, I always say this thing and you know all we are all disciples of Stan McChrystal to some degree, who believed in building great teams. And I think if he was sitting here in one of these chairs today, he would say that his real superpower is building great teams.
00;33;57;21 - 00;34;14;16
Unknown
Yes. I mean, in the Seal teams, if I meet another frog man walking down the street, like we don't say, like, are you a seal? We say like, oh, were you in the teams? Yeah. Because you have to have this ability to come together and then act as a force multiplier so that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
00;34;14;21 - 00;34;34;13
Unknown
And I think that's part of the secret. One of the challenges is when you come out of the military, your social network is often confined to who you know, which are other military dudes and due debts. So being able to reach out to expertise outside of the military can be a challenge for some veterans, I think.
00;34;34;14 - 00;35;00;17
Unknown
I think it's you're exactly right. And over time now you see this, the coming together of sort of the public and the private. And in fact, if you this may sound random, but if you look at where the Army put Army Futures Command, the newest four star command, which was now like six years ago, they chose Austin, Texas, in an Amazon like search, like around the country.
00;35;00;17 - 00;35;23;08
Unknown
And they chose it because they wanted this was Ryan McCarthy and Eric Wesley at the time, said Three star. They wanted soldiers to literally bump into entrepreneurs, and it was the capital factory in Austin. And they all they've all said this. That's why Austin won one is because they wanted that, those wonderful collisions to happen. That's amazing. That's amazing.
00;35;23;08 - 00;35;47;09
Unknown
And just coincidentally, General Richardson, who's a friend of mine, sits on the board of our company. Yes. Her husband. Yes. Jim Richardson was obviously deputy at our futures command. Know them both? Yeah. No. And both their I mean that let me talk about the power couple of power couples. But we always say what when when General Richardson joined our board you know we got seven stars instead of four.
00;35;47;11 - 00;36;11;21
Unknown
You know, because this. Yeah. Exactly. They in fact today, literally after this, I have a call with Mike Murray. Oh. Who was the who was the four star team with Jim Richardson. Amazing. Yeah. Amazing. Great. So a really great like after this wild and much pilloried by your family decision to get out of the military at 17 years.
00;36;11;21 - 00;36;31;11
Unknown
And for people who don't know, although I think it's fairly common knowledge, you know, 20 years is a military retirement. It's complicated because we have the TSP, but essentially there's this line of demarcation at 20 years. So people generally don't get out after 15 plus years. They wait till they're 20. So you you take this really bold step.
00;36;31;16 - 00;36;57;27
Unknown
You build a company, you have a great outcome. And then what's next? So then I want to I, one of my West Point classmates, Joseph, who was like entrepreneur through and through. This gets the idea of ride scout. We were at a at a party at a friend's house, Jason Dempsey's in Arlington, Virginia, and Joseph is talking about how he gets to the Pentagon.
00;36;57;27 - 00;37;26;06
Unknown
He says, sometimes I carpool, sometimes I take Metro, sometimes I'll I'll bike it, sometimes I'll take a car to go. And I have the spreadsheet, and then I sequence the day, the weather to organize my ride. I'm like, okay, that sounds like a company, Joseph. And so I sort of pulled him aside. I said, let's, let's pull the thread on this, and I'm going to let's open a joint USAA account.
00;37;26;08 - 00;37;41;28
Unknown
I'll put $5,000 in it. And then when you get to Austin, Texas, he was still in service. He was going to take over ROTC. And I said, you you suss out whether there's any there there with this idea, and he's like $5,000. I mean, it was like, yeah, no, it was like $1 million. He's like, I can't believe this.
00;37;42;00 - 00;38;06;18
Unknown
And then I just start seeing the bar at Jessica Hotel, the bar at Driscoll Hotel, like restaurant iPad, the the the bar on sixth Street. And Joseph says people like this idea. And so I put in some capital, which was initially called Going My way. And this gets to the point about early stage investing in pivots, which was going to like, offer this shared carpool.
00;38;06;21 - 00;38;27;08
Unknown
Eventually we changed the name to Ride Scout and we looked the non carpool options. And I said, you know this is too exciting. I'm going to I'm going to do this. So then I recruit my brother and then another colonel I served with at the NSA to take full command of the services company BT. S I said, I'm going to go do this ride scout thing.
00;38;27;12 - 00;38;29;28
Unknown
And so.
00;38;30;01 - 00;38;56;11
Unknown
Fast forward a couple years later, we sold out to Mercedes-Benz. So again, another one of those. Are we going to make it to payroll next month. Type journeys. And we eventually do. And I skipped a lot in there. We can maybe get in there but and turned out to be a great decision, great outcome, great outcome. Why was Mercedes-Benz a good acquisition?
00;38;56;13 - 00;39;26;06
Unknown
Why were they interested in your technology? Well, they had the same idea. They had a company called Movil Institute Guard that was trying to do the same thing, which is map your ground transportation. Like I'm going from here to Midtown. What are my options? Line them up by cost and by time. And they had the same idea. And so one of the stories, like I'll suss out a ride Scout, is we got word they wanted to bring movil to the United States.
00;39;26;08 - 00;39;48;10
Unknown
I'm like, oh man. And we're still like pretty small team. And so we came up with this, this campaign we called the Summer of 69. And on June 9th, six, nine of 2014, we said, we're we're opening 69 cities in the United States. And it was intended to freak them out, like, don't come over here, you stay right in Germany.
00;39;48;10 - 00;40;10;26
Unknown
We're going to stay here. And then like two weeks later, my phone rang and they said, hey, we want to talk about acquisition Mercedes. Dude, this is amazing. I think there's another little lesson embedded there that I'd like you to tease out for early stage entrepreneurs who are who are thinking about this stuff is there are very few like novel ideas under the sun.
00;40;10;27 - 00;40;38;00
Unknown
You know how like in our business, people are always making you sign all these NDAs and stuff. Especially like whenever I get a founder that's trying to make me sign an NBA, I'm like, okay, I'm happy to sign it. But I promise you, I've heard your idea before, right? It's it is. How much of what you find these days in entrepreneurship is about the IP or the idea, the ideation of the idea versus the actual execution?
00;40;38;03 - 00;41;05;11
Unknown
I mean, I think it's a combination of it's a D all the above. I mean, one thing I tell founders, just to put things in perspective, and this was one of the biggest shocks to me about the startup ecosystem in the VC ecosystem in our fund two. And now we're we're in our fund for our fund two, we triage 5901 deals and we invested in 18.
00;41;05;18 - 00;41;23;07
Unknown
That's like 0.25%. And what do you expect the hit rate on those 18 to be incidentally I mean we we plan for like not going to zero half in like the hit hit the grand slam 1 to 2, 1 to 2, 1 to 2. But I think the first part of your answer, I know we're on a site detour here.
00;41;23;08 - 00;41;43;28
Unknown
Yeah. The first part of your answer is more interesting. You vet 5000 companies to select. This is this is the buds of venture. This is the buds math of venture capital. Yes. You bet eight 5000 companies to select for 18 and fully expect nine of them to go to zero. Yes. And I and I use that. And you're good at this and I.
00;41;43;29 - 00;42;12;19
Unknown
Yeah. Well, you know, it's you don't even know if you're any good at it. So you've been doing it ten years now. We're coming up on the ten year mark. It's looking like we're pretty good at it, but that it's so important for the entrepreneurs to to know how they have to differentiate really on all these fronts as leaders with the idea and with the total addressable market, we see great ideas that are like great companies that I would want my own family like to do these things, but they're not venture businesses for sure.
00;42;12;21 - 00;42;35;02
Unknown
And so understanding the shock and awe of what they're up against to get our attention, I think it's helpful to know that. But I knocked you off your point a little bit. We were at this phase of the story where Mercedes was looking like they were going to come in as a competitive threat. Instead, you flip the script.
00;42;35;04 - 00;42;57;02
Unknown
You made it seem like you had a sort of quickly scaling defensive mode around your business that intrigued them as a buyer, and you ended up selling to them. That's right. Fascinating. And what what was really interesting is fast forward, after we do the deal, I joined. They asked me to join the corp dev team. And so I saw the memo on the acquisition.
00;42;57;04 - 00;43;23;14
Unknown
First of all, we could have got more money, but that's okay. Pigs and hogs, pigs and hogs. But what they they truly valued was the leadership team. And we had Joseph, West Point grad, me, West Point grad. We had the founding team, Steve Carell, John, other vets. Then we had this tech Jedi sleep mill brand, and they knew with that leadership team they they could they would get their money's worth alone.
00;43;23;21 - 00;44;02;18
Unknown
Yeah. And eventually they probably made an in-house corporate calculus that a sort of principle of German engineering efficiency, that it was easier to use this boots on the ground team that was already doing it. Yes, to outsource this market than it was to build it themselves. Exactly. Yeah. And the lesson that I was trying to get at that, I think is embedded in there is that very rarely do people have a novel idea when you start to forget that there was five video sharing services in the market when YouTube started, but YouTube ended up winning the day through a whole bunch of series of things.
00;44;02;18 - 00;44;32;16
Unknown
But you can't let necessarily somebody else doing it be the impediment for getting into the market. Not necessarily. You have to do a competitive analysis for sure. But, you know, there might always be a bigger fish. That is. And they're not it is possible to slay those Goliath sometimes, because sometimes for Mercedes-Benz or a Google right, or an anthropic, it's actually easier to to do an acquisition than it is to build it themselves.
00;44;32;18 - 00;44;36;25
Unknown
If you can demonstrate success. Yes. And.
00;44;36;27 - 00;44;41;01
Unknown
It's such a good point when we.
00;44;41;03 - 00;45;08;17
Unknown
People would often say, why isn't Google doing this? And we're like, I don't know, but they're not doing it until they did it. And so we were actually out in the Bay area raising money. When Google integrates Uber into the Google Maps. And we we got interviewed by tech reporter why we were there. And they say, how do you feel about now Google maps is multimodal.
00;45;08;19 - 00;45;33;15
Unknown
And we said it just validates our idea. And the next day they print the story. Ride Scout founders, founders not worried about Google's integration of Uber comma, but they should be you know, we're like, okay, now we understand how the press works a little bit. Right? So but but there was enough room. And you know, it was an amazing experience with them.
00;45;33;16 - 00;45;58;04
Unknown
Eventually that app tucked into another app, we did another acquisition and and then Mercedes said, we're going to we're going to focus on vehicles. We want to be a transportation company. We thought we wanted we wanted to be a mobility company, but we actually were going to go back to the cars. So anyway, it was and we that team, we remained so close.
00;45;58;07 - 00;46;21;28
Unknown
And so at this point in your career, you've so you've built, a reputation and you have been a sort of successfully exited serial entrepreneur. And then I assume that this is the point at some that you started to move into venture and doing some investing yourself. You were an operator for many years, and you decided to move on to the capital allocation side.
00;46;22;02 - 00;46;46;22
Unknown
Yes, I you know, I had developed a friendship with Kelly Perdue. So Kelly, I met and he's my co-founder and fellow GP at moonshots. After I had done a I was an active duty, did a PhD, Columbia, I was teaching at West Point and Kelly went season two of The Apprentice in December 2004. He's the Army guy in the show, the West Point grad.
00;46;46;23 - 00;47;04;10
Unknown
I'm at West Point. You know, we're all kind of watching this along with 30 million other people. He wins the show running away. And I literally you'll understand I got to sign the additional duty to bring him back to us. Right? I'm like, yes, sir. I bring him back, and then we become fast friends. And so that friendship stayed.
00;47;04;12 - 00;47;32;21
Unknown
And then when I left the military and started to make some money, Kelly would say, hey, look at this annual investment and look at this angel investment. And then I start writing checks. Then I get deals, and then I'm like, look at this angel investment. So we were we say chapter one was us, we were angels. And then chapter two, we formed John's Capital and started doing SPV special purpose vehicles and and bundling and then and really through another process with the Henry Crown Fellowship, which sounds a little wonky.
00;47;32;22 - 00;47;50;06
Unknown
We don't have to talk about it, but it was time to do a fun time to take this part time hustle and make it the main hustle. And at this point we had invested like just about $11 million. Most of it going into vets doesn't have to be vet most of it, and we were seeing high performance and strong returns.
00;47;50;06 - 00;48;10;04
Unknown
So we said let's let's raise fund one. And that was in 2017. So it all kind of happened to answer your question, just sort of like right. No. Organically sort of I mean, although you're you're an Intel guy, you had you recognized the human capital, you had these sort of you had your informal networks that you were able to leverage.
00;48;10;06 - 00;48;31;18
Unknown
And then more importantly, you had a couple proof of proofs of concept. Right? You were already information sharing with Kelly. You guys were going back and forth establishing trust and and mindshare in terms of investment thesis and philosophy. By the way, he's a smart guy. I also co-founded my company with an Intel officer, which I recommend to any veteran out there.
00;48;31;20 - 00;48;54;11
Unknown
That's awesome. There's a I think and you tell me if I'm wrong. I think intelligence officers can bring a rigor of analysis and discipline, to ideation that is for us, for me, was certainly really valuable in, in starting our company. Yes. I mean, Kelly and I interestingly, were both intelligence officers. Oh, double double I do 17.
00;48;54;16 - 00;49;16;17
Unknown
Kelly ended up doing three because at the time the Army he was class 89 was trying to like lighten the force load. So they were offering out. So we say together we were retired lieutenant colonel Army the colonel. Yeah. He's got the Ranger tab. I have the Bronze Star. We're like one uniform. It's a great single uniform. Yeah.
00;49;16;23 - 00;49;41;22
Unknown
So that's amazing. Amazing. And and and tell me about moonshots. Now, today, what do you invest in? What are you looking for? So we we are gentlest investors. Gentle people. Say what you invest in. We usually talk about what we don't invest in. And that is usually healthcare, healthtech, medtech, biotech. But and we don't do anything sort of like consumer packaged goods.
00;49;41;25 - 00;50;09;02
Unknown
So we we do truly believe in the thesis of extraordinary leadership because we at the, at the time of a seed company, it's about the only thing you can control. You don't have anything because you know it's going to change. Right. And we can and I know you know the story. I mean, you've had the experience with yourselves like was startup 1.0 what you exited or was it a one dot 5 or 2.0?
00;50;09;02 - 00;50;36;24
Unknown
It's a pivot. We know with certainty that on day one, what we're investing is probably going to evolve into something else. So we look at the leadership, and because we think that at the end of the day is most critical to a company's success. Yeah, you're you're kind of searching in that very those very early stages of company for like a, a founder market fit or even just like a character analysis of the founders and what, what traits are you looking for in the founders that you invest in.
00;50;36;27 - 00;51;06;11
Unknown
We you know, I would say one of the first things that we're we're looking for, listening for is, is getting at the teamwork. If if we hear a lot of the word, the letter I and we know that there's a we not saying that there's not an eye component to it, but if we're hearing too much, I it's a red flag for us just because we know based on our training, based on your training, you know army that teams ultimately when not individuals.
00;51;06;11 - 00;51;09;03
Unknown
And so.
00;51;09;05 - 00;51;31;07
Unknown
We will back a solo founder. We generally backed the founding teams. And we look for that for the we love the perseverance and the leadership Schlitz of the veteran. But we don't we don't believe that vets have a monopoly on leadership. And so we look at, you know, there are some categories we like. We like we like athletes.
00;51;31;08 - 00;51;58;01
Unknown
We like people who have overcome adversity, which a little bit gets to the diversity of our fund that that we do not have any mandate with respect to diversity by gender or race. But we have over the years, we have built this very diverse fund with people of color. Women in veterans and even veterans are considered diverse. Right?
00;51;58;03 - 00;52;17;22
Unknown
Well, certainly in the in the ecosystem by institutions there usually we are we're in the we're in the bucket because we're right. We're not we would say we wouldn't use the word diverse. We would use the word nontraditional. Nontraditional. Yeah. Most veterans didn't study comp sci at Stanford, right. They studied how to run a village shura in Afghanistan or Iraq.
00;52;17;23 - 00;52;48;11
Unknown
Yes. And sussing out sort of that, that that perseverance, that teamwork, that humility. We look for a lot. I mean, and if we go back to a general McChrystal and you think about the that humble servant attitude that he's always had, where it's not about me, it's about the team. And in this business, we so violently believe it's it's not about us.
00;52;48;16 - 00;53;13;10
Unknown
It's not it's not about moonshots, the VC, it's about those founders. We take care of those founders. They take care of everything else. No offense investors, but the founders of the priority. And so we like to tell their story. And, and just we're just fortunate to back them. And so I think that's one of the traits we bring from the military, we bring from leaders like general McChrystal to our tradecraft.
00;53;13;12 - 00;53;39;22
Unknown
And because you invest so heavily in the human dimension, what you would call Humint in your world. Yeah. How do you prevent yourself? I'm sure you bring all of the rigorous diligence, that you can to any investment that you make in your portfolio companies. But how do you prevent yourself as an investor from all of the cognitive bias that happens when somebody comes in and pitches you?
00;53;39;22 - 00;54;00;24
Unknown
And, I don't know, maybe maybe they're from your hometown. And so that gives you like a warm and fuzzy emotional feeling. Or they have a similar military background to you. So you feel like you understand that, as a on the investor side, are there a range of cognitive biases that you have to be aware of when evaluating companies?
00;54;00;26 - 00;54;24;01
Unknown
100%? I mean, it's a great question. We and one thing we'll catch ourselves because you'll hear it all the time. So I you know, I love these water bottles because, you know, my son or daughter plays soccer. And I love that this has a sensor that can be tracked. I thought you're and because we built them to look like grenades, which was I mean that is that is that is awesome.
00;54;24;01 - 00;54;52;26
Unknown
That is special. But I mean, who would have designed these I mean, who knows. Exactly. So we, you know, it it just all comes down to the we we say that we're we're good pickers. We try to avoid any of the bias. And we have to sometimes do a check and say, okay, even if my kids playing soccer need that, we got to look at the market space and we we tend and this is evolved over time a little bit.
00;54;52;28 - 00;55;12;08
Unknown
One of the we we do look for process. And I would say in fun one with some of our early investments, there was some of that like, oh my God, I love this, that he's just my heart. Like I just connect with him. And the one I'm even referring to was a was enlisted Intel. I'm like very simpatico.
00;55;12;10 - 00;55;39;11
Unknown
And we've had to like, back away from that a little bit to say who were the process. And you're like, well, what do you mean by pro? Those that understand sort of what they're getting into and what the VC ecosystem is like. And this is where vets, they have to understand our world. I gave you a data point about how difficult it is, but understanding how fundraising works and going back to our time in the service.
00;55;39;13 - 00;56;04;06
Unknown
Even if you love somebody, you might sense all our Army Navy experiences that 90% of your time will be on 10% or shoulders on the 10%, the 90% on those that don't know the system. So you're like, it's extra effort. And so now we've learned like, man, okay, we're not going to invest. But I'm going to tell this vet founder, here's some resources.
00;56;04;06 - 00;56;23;03
Unknown
Here's some people who might like this year. We we always try to it's a it's a no end because I joke that we say no for a living, which is pretty much true and provide some of the resources for them. Yeah. Amazing. And where do you see it going in the future? You're on fund for now, which is extraordinary.
00;56;23;09 - 00;56;43;24
Unknown
You say you're about to return fund one or you're in the process of returning. We've already returned all of the initial capital Plus on Fun one, and we still have two. We actually three companies, two of them definite moonshots. So we feel very strongly about fun one. Right now a top quartile fund should be top soon. Fund two we just had a fun one.
00;56;43;24 - 00;57;12;22
Unknown
We had an exit to Nvidia last year. We just had an exit a couple of months ago to CrowdStrike. And so fun. Two we just returned three quarters, some still in escrow. Back to those investors. Fund three is looking to use the technical term bananas like bananas. How good. We have lightning in a couple of bottles. And so now fund for we're part of this new special program which you may have heard of but it's called the Office of Strategic Capital.
00;57;12;22 - 00;57;34;01
Unknown
So the Pentagon stood up, called OSCE. Right. Yeah. Oh, I see it. Well, he now he's like, yes, he's he's taking it to, to new levels. It it was before Feinberg. But he he definitely is optimizing around this. And so the deal is that if I were telling my mother I say the Pentagon is sort of coming in as an op.
00;57;34;03 - 00;57;58;26
Unknown
They they lend us money and then we invest it as equity into the companies. And it has all these other benefits that come along with it. So we have a levered venture capital fund, which is pretty rare. And what that means is that the economics get really exciting for LPs and GPS. And to you being in this chair suck, you're back in service again.
00;57;58;29 - 00;58;27;27
Unknown
60% of the fund has to be invested in critical technology focused companies like AI, autonomy space, some of them very niche, like hypersonic directed energy. So the deal is help us. Hey, me Pentagon Craig Kelly, help us find great companies to strengthen our national security posture. In return, we're going to we're going to stack some chips on top of your investor chips, and we're going to give you a team, and we're going to give you top clearance.
00;58;27;27 - 00;58;45;00
Unknown
And we're going to give some of them benefits. So in summary, we really feel like this is a little bit of our life's work this fun for because of this new partnership was very, very hard to get to navigate our way through that. It was it was painful to show you the scars, but but we made it through.
00;58;45;03 - 00;59;13;21
Unknown
Yeah. I think what people outside of our small defense tech and even smaller veteran defense tech community might not recognize is that there's been this fundamental transformation of the system happening right now. Office of Strategic Capital. You saw it with the MMP programs. There is a the new direction. They have fundamentally, systemically changed the nature of the relationship between the defense industry and inside the walls of the Pentagon.
00;59;13;21 - 00;59;42;09
Unknown
And that's why you've seen this cross-pollination of top tier talent that previously resided, you know, on Page Mill Road in Palo Alto, top venture capital places and top technology places. And increasingly there is a much more open door, which was on a path that was prior to had been walked mostly by like the Raytheon's and and the giant defense contractors of the world.
00;59;42;10 - 01;00;07;28
Unknown
But because of this transformational my thesis editorial because we're at a transformational moment in warfare and we need the Pentagon to move at the speed of Silicon Valley and not the speed, the pace of government. At it's a whole new world. Yes. Which if you don't live in it, you might not be aware of, but it's I personally think it was extraordinary and necessary based on the velocity at which warfare is changing right now.
01;00;08;00 - 01;00;33;04
Unknown
It's really remarkable. I mean, if I were go back to the Wayback machine, even like 5 or 6 years, what we're seeing now was really what we were asking for then like, let's, let's team together. And I remember Doug Filippone of Snow Point making the comment. He goes, the the government tendency is if they see VCs going for cause, oh, this, this is the guy who's going to lead it.
01;00;33;10 - 01;01;00;11
Unknown
But yet there's this Joseph over here who's got a similar idea. He's a service, disabled, veteran owned small business out of North Carolina in a garage. This is the bias of the government. Back to like we talked about. Now the government would be like, wait a second. What what what's moonshots. Capital invested in what snow point. They they now we're teamed in in sharing the common interest of making these companies successful.
01;01;00;16 - 01;01;33;27
Unknown
I could not agree more. And I could not agree that it is a continuation of national service. It's it's extraordinary that you're doing that. I would argue that it is fundamentally necessary. So I'm super excited. It is super, super exciting for, for a whole bunch of reasons. And I continue, I definitely consider it continued service. And in fact, in, in some ways, it the sort of line becomes a little fuzzier between serving in uniform.
01;01;33;29 - 01;01;55;24
Unknown
And there are other ways to serve when you take off the uniform. And some of them are in building companies that, that support that your, your fellow warfighters and the people that you used to serve with so. Well, let me, let me take this moment to say this is going to resonate with you in the show.
01;01;55;25 - 01;02;21;08
Unknown
We believe the best way for us to help the military about our community is to build wealth in the military veteran community. Because that wealth spills over, they hire more vets, hire more vets. And so though we we support validate so many nonprofits, but we are laser focused on the returns not it's vet investors, vet founders, vet community.
01;02;21;10 - 01;02;43;02
Unknown
I mean, you don't have to be vet to be for us to back you, but what you're doing with tactical wealth is exactly the same thing you are. You help the veteran community by building wealth. And so many times I tell them like love all all the service you've done. Focus on wealth right now, like ruthlessly on you've given so much.
01;02;43;04 - 01;03;04;28
Unknown
You have you have made the American dream possible for so many people. Now it's time for you to participate in that American dream as a founder or even even as not, I mean, as as a citizen. Focus on the wealth. Then you can maybe come back to a little public service, but that that is the basis of, of severe valor.
01;03;04;28 - 01;03;25;22
Unknown
Here we are. That was the purpose of of this whole thing where we're sitting to help build wealth. And we don't really talk about that that much. It's almost like it's a, it's almost bad word like, hey, great. No no no no. Focus on wealth and take care of family. And then this spills out with all the things hiring bets given, event causes.
01;03;25;24 - 01;03;53;04
Unknown
I will say I generated the idea for my previous wealth building company, co-founded with Sean Bonner, also an Intel officer, at Fort Benning, Georgia. So thank you know, people don't always think of the RV as a, as a hub of entrepreneurship, but we are living proof that that is not true. And it certainly is not. And, you know, I love that you're doing that because oftentimes we're associated with like, yes, sir.
01;03;53;05 - 01;04;15;07
Unknown
Yes, ma'am. Like, but what we like is to be told to take the hill. We don't like to be told how to take the hill. And that really it's for the entrepreneur. We like the problem and we will figure out how to solve that problem. So I mean, we're problem solvers, I love it. We like to end the show with a section that we call rapid fire.
01;04;15;10 - 01;04;26;25
Unknown
I always say it's like shooting steel, right? You get instant feedback. Sure. So all right, so here we go. All right. Best investment you ever made. You.
01;04;26;28 - 01;04;57;11
Unknown
Probably in the engagement ring of my wife, but, I'm going to stick with ID me for now. We've been we've been long and ID me and some of the people who are watching this. No, ID me, we've been there since day one. There's still the, the the liquidity of an IPO or other. And but being a part of that journey and being a part of of Blake Hall, who is what he's supporting him and what he's done for the veteran community and beyond is truly is, is truly special to be part of that.
01;04;57;17 - 01;05;20;21
Unknown
And also an amazing example of what 1.0 version of your idea is, not the idea that comes out of the box. You know, I love that. You know that. Yeah, it really, really amazing entrepreneurial story. Dumbest financial mistake that you've learned from. I you know, I will say I had a little bit of the entrepreneur itch when I was in service and, and a lot of vets, you know, we love real estate.
01;05;20;21 - 01;05;47;18
Unknown
We're moving and we over indexed invest in real estate and but in particular investing in things places we didn't leave live. Excuse me. Which gets to the point about investing in things you don't know. The reason we don't vest in health tech is because we don't know that space. And so my wife and I lost a lot of money in real estate because of investing in areas that we didn't truly understand those geographies.
01;05;47;21 - 01;06;00;24
Unknown
Yeah. And not leveraging your competitive advantage, which is something, you know. Yes. Absolutely. Yes. All right. Military skill that you feel has been the most helpful in business.
01;06;00;27 - 01;06;32;27
Unknown
I think that, the humble servant leadership focused on the soldiers, so to speak. And I would sort of like, maybe drop a slash and just in service, it still carries over. You're doing it here today. Even our investing or driving returns and and, you know, helping people build wealth. But we really feel like that we are we are in service in this case to to our investors and so many of them being veterans, I love that.
01;06;32;29 - 01;07;05;19
Unknown
Is there a book that changed your mindset or influenced you deeply? You know, I've been reflected on my leadership, my own leadership over the last couple of years and reading Bernie Brown and Dare to Lead and her focus on vulnerability and authenticity. And I think I've, I think I was that leader. But but seeing her embrace it and and helping the readers embrace it, I think it it's allowed me as a vet to say, like my leadership style.
01;07;05;19 - 01;07;33;29
Unknown
I think going back to West Point when I was like, King of Beast was love, like leading with love. And I never would have used those words like an army, like I'm a leader with love. I would have said that. But when and and a friend of mine, Carlos. So it helped me connect these dots in the past that even go back to West Point that summer, my words were, you fire me up, class of 96.
01;07;33;29 - 01;07;56;26
Unknown
And so I've always this positive and and vulnerable and authentic self is is who I am today. Yeah. She has really been extraordinary at changing the cultural conversation especially. I mean, Renee Brown, she is an interesting person to reference coming from the hyper masculine communities that we came from, but it was probably words that we needed to hear.
01;07;56;26 - 01;08;19;00
Unknown
And you've seen an infusion of some of that language, even into the soft community of some of those ideas. And I think it's been really good and healthy for us as a community. It's allowed us to do things like acknowledge that we have invisible scars from war 100%. Yeah, amazing. How about morning routine? Do you have a habit?
01;08;19;02 - 01;08;43;07
Unknown
I like to start the day meditating in asana, my sauna at home, or a sauna, and I meditate. And then I'll usually listen to something sort of like a gym quick or something. Tony Robbins like like the, the the calm and then the. Okay, let's get focused for the day for about 20 minutes. I love that, I love that about you.
01;08;43;07 - 01;09;02;06
Unknown
I also like to start my day with a workout and then a morning sauna. I have a sauna that was built by a Shia, a former Shia fighter. So that's the Israeli Navy Seals, our our equivalent brothers in Israel. It's an all glass sauna, that sits on the river. It was inspired by a trip I took to Norway.
01;09;02;07 - 01;09;23;27
Unknown
So, this conversation has been amazing. This is not the end. This is more an invitation. Please come visit me in southern Florida, in Florida, and let's have a let's have a sauna together and continue to discuss these ideas for the military community. My my son, a mentor, was Laird Hamilton, who's this famous pro surfer from Maui.
01;09;23;28 - 01;09;44;10
Unknown
Good friend of mine. And he always calls the sauna the Truth Barrel. But I think you have spoken some incredibly true words here today, and I. And I thank you for your continued service, for the knowledge, that you were vulnerable enough to share with us today. And I think we're all better off. So how can people connect with you and your work?
01;09;44;10 - 01;10;09;22
Unknown
How can they follow along with what moonshots is doing? Well, thanks for asking. Gosh. Moonshots capital.com. Don't forget the s there. You'll see the portfolio. You can sign up for our newsletter. Not singular in our baby one. Absolutely. So moonshots capital.com. And then that you can sign up for our newsletter. We do it every month. And then we also have a a blog through medium called Leadership Prevails.
01;10;09;23 - 01;10;32;12
Unknown
And so a lot of our work writing about leadership, about VC and entrepreneurship is there. You can link that through the website as well. Amazing, amazing. Being able to continue that thought leadership, I think one of the biggest problems in the military veteran community is just there's this information gap, this asymmetry of information and, and helping bridge that gap as a service unto itself.
01;10;32;12 - 01;10;56;12
Unknown
So thank you. Well, it's a pleasure. Thank you. All right. Thanks for walking in with us today. Shout out to Siebert Valor and Siebert Financial for supporting our journey. We'll be back next week with another powerhouse conversation. More founders, more builders and leaders who are playing offense in life and in business. Make sure you're subscribed to our YouTube channel for exclusive content and extended cuts of your favorite episodes.
01;10;56;18 - 01;11;05;21
Unknown
Until next week. Stay tactical. Stay driven.
01;11;05;23 - 01;11;24;24
Unknown
Tactical wealth is a Gebbia media production brought to you by valor, a military focused initiative from Siebert Financial. The Tactical Wealth Podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Siebert Financial. This podcast does not constitute investment advice and offer to sell or a solicitation to buy any securities.
01;11;24;24 - 01;11;34;19
Unknown
Past performance is not indicative of future results. Listeners should consult a qualified financial professional before making any investment decisions. For more information and disclosures, please visit siebert.com/disclosures.