"Bourbon is the drink of freedom." We asked Rep. Andy Barr (@RepAndyBarr / @barrforsenate), a six-term Kentucky congressman now running for the Senate, to rank a bourbon drinking contest: Marco Rubio (@marcorubio), Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders), JD Vance (@JDVance), Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) and AOC (@AOC). AOC? "You served bourbon, and I drink bourbon." Last place? Bernie "just doesn't seem like he's very fun." Full episode of Forged in America: bourbon diplomacy, coal vs. AI power, what $40T of debt does to your mortgage, and why a job is more than a paycheck. • Henry Clay's rule: Kentucky bourbon "lubricates the wheels of government" • 290 power plants retired "exactly at the time when AI data center electricity demand is skyrocketing" • What he asked Kyrsten Sinema (@kyrstensinema) about coal and AI • The debt hits "the 30 year fixed rate mortgage," your credit card and your truck loan • "We need to create taxpayers" • AI's job boom: "We're gonna need more welders and builders" • A job "gives your life meaning and purpose" • Lightning round: bigger threat, China or the national debt? "National debt" Timestamps: 00:00 Cold open 01:46 Why is socialism getting traction? 03:28 Why young people feel behind 05:58 Ravin's story: 20 years a Democrat 10:15 Cold, hard truths: prices send signals 11:52 Rich countries use more energy 12:35 Voter ID: "easy to vote… hard to cheat" 17:58 $40T of debt and your mortgage 20:35 Why the debt "doesn't sell" 24:06 AI and jobs: welders and builders 25:51 How to turn down the heat in Congress 28:11 The one-word answer: bourbon 31:10 Sinema, coal and AI power 34:49 The Mississippi reading miracle 36:24 What do you tell an 11-year-old with a dad in jail? 38:42 A job gives your life meaning 39:20 Stop looking down on welders 42:00 The 1976 map and no bailouts 48:49 Lightning round 53:10 What gives him hope: Service Academy Day 55:11 Bourbon drinking contest Who are you picking to finish last? @ForgedUSAPod @RavinGandhi1 #ForgedInAmerica #Bourbon #Kentucky

"Some of the best founders I've met are actually sociopathic." Alex Rampell started as an entrepreneur, became a VC, and now runs the apps business at a16z. He says almost all venture returns go to two kinds of founders: "freshmen" who know nothing and "seniors" who've done it before. The people who don't know what's "impossible" are the ones who go do it. Full episode of Forged in America: how a16z picks founders, why AI creates jobs instead of killing them, and why America keeps winning. • Why a $100B fund wants founders who are the Count of Monte Cristo, out for revenge or redemption • The lump-of-labor fallacy: why the AI doomers get the economics wrong • Airbnb's seed was $600K at $2.4M. Bad markets make better VC returns • "Venture capital is a terrible drug for 99.999%" of businesses • "A lot of universities need to fail" • Lightning round: the biggest tell a founder is full of it? "They annualize their last hour of revenue" Timestamps: 00:00 Cold open 01:59 Freshmen, sophomores, juniors, seniors 08:34 Lump of labor: why AI won't take all the jobs 12:50 AI: no need to be a nepo baby to make your movie 13:41 The Count of Monte Cristo founder 20:50 The best founders are sociopathic 28:15 Airbnb's seed round and bad-market returns 32:06 VC is a terrible drug 33:45 Why America wins: a culture that rewards failure 39:46 A lot of universities need to fail 45:53 Pro little tech: data centers are buildings with computers 55:16 Bitcoin, the shared delusion 56:59 Lightning round @arampell @a16z @Airbnb @ForgedUSAPod @RavinGandhi1 #ForgedInAmerica #VentureCapital #AI

Tyler Hassen was the senior DOGE official at Interior under Doug Burgum. He went through $36B of spending contract by contract. Then he proposed a 30% budget cut, and Congress said nope. Full episode of Forged in America with Tyler Hassen: inside DOGE, Elon in the room, waste vs. fraud, and why $100T of debt is coming if Congress doesn't get serious. • $830M for customer-satisfaction surveys nobody was reading • $4.2M to assess groundwater in Mauritania. "I didn't get one good reason" • Signed off on every contract over $50K, on his weekends with a Starbucks • 5,000 HR, IT and comms staff for 65,000 employees • The "$9B to not work" headline? In business that's called severance • "Don't just drain the swamp, flood it with talent" • Lightning round: $1.5T of waste in the budget, over or under? "The over, easily" Timestamps: 00:00 Cold open: the $830M survey contract 01:04 Tyler joins 02:41 Why he joined DOGE 03:33 Day one at SpaceX: suit vs. hoodies 04:36 "A hatchet to the government"? Contract by contract 06:23 $4.2M Mauritania groundwater / $50K sign-off 07:51 Why DOGE didn't find $2T 08:44 30% cut, Congress said nope 09:23 $830M surveys nobody read 10:59 Ted Cruz: no line item called fraud, waste & abuse 12:35 Drain the swamp, flood it with talent 15:04 Fairest criticism: we didn't tell our story 17:32 5,000 HR/IT/comms for 65,000 people / the $9B "severance" 21:45 $40T to $100T of debt 22:58 Elon inside DOGE 31:42 Big Balls and America.gov 40:01 Lightning round 41:49 Biggest misconception: 20 women at DOGE 42:39 Interior's balance sheet: $30T in assets @TylerHassen1 @ForgedUSAPod @RavinGandhi1 @SecretaryBurgum @DOGE #ForgedInAmerica #DOGE #InsideDOGE

Jason Wilk watched Dave go from ~$4B to under $60M—and clawed it all the way back. What a story of grit, determination, and perseverance in building a leading fintech serving millions. Full episode of Forged in America with Jason Wilk — the SPAC crash, a 100x rebound, AI underwriting, Mark Cuban, and dinner with SBF in the Bahamas. • At the low, his stake was worth less than his house • Cut costs, kept the team, rebuilt around profitability • ~100x from the bottom stock price • Cash-flow data + AI beating FICO-style underwriting • Would avoid VC if he started over; still glad he went public • Lightning round: billionaire on paper vs surviving the crash Timestamps: 00:00 Cold open — lost 99% of net worth 01:07 Jason joins / Dave’s mission 02:40 How he persevered after the 98% collapse 05:40 Patience to profitability / 100x rebound 09:30 Cash-flow underwriting vs FICO 20:10 AI and LLMs at Dave 24:20 SPACs, going public, written off below cash 32:40 Meeting SBF / FTX debt 43:50 Billionaire on paper vs clawing back 46:10 AI and jobs @jasonwilk @dave @ForgedUSAPod @RavinGandhi1 @mcuban #ForgedInAmerica #Dave #Fintech

Michele Tafoya left 5 Super Bowls and the NFL sideline to run for U.S. Senate in Minnesota. Full episode of Forged in America with @Michele_Tafoya — fraud, ICE, the American Dream, and why she says “forget Trump” and look at the next six years. • Dad (son of immigrants): “you won the lottery by being born in America” • Even Walz & Flanagan admit fraud — DOJ figure closer to $9B • Local police “told to stand down” during ICE chaos • “If you think I’m just gonna be a rubber stamp for Trump, you’re incorrect” • Lightning round: Brady, Watt ticket, Adam Silver + Caitlin Clark MVP Timestamps: 01:05 Intro — Michele joins 02:50 Why politics / “won the lottery” 04:51 Minnesota fraud / Nick Shirley / $9B 06:49 Walz out — Flanagan wants a promotion 07:21 Can a Republican win Minnesota? 12:22 Forget Trump — 6 years vs Flanagan 20:38 ICE, Save America Act, voter ID 22:07 Police stand-down orders 26:14 American Dream still alive 31:39 “Socialism is cool” — how do you resist? 35:33 First Senate move: knock on 99 doors 39:09 Lightning round 40:37 WNBA / Adam Silver / Caitlin Clark @Michele_Tafoya @ForgedUSAPod @RavinGandhi1 @GovTimWalz @CaitlinClark22 @IndianaFever @WNBA @NBA #ForgedInAmerica #MicheleTafoya #Minnesota #Senate

Shane Neman has done over $1B in deals. He was early in SpaceX, Figure AI, Anthropic, Neuralink and Liquid Death. When he showed Figure's robot to every robotics expert he knew, all of them said the actuator would never work. He invested anyway. "When you have that kind of consensus in a field that something's impossible, that's what deep tech is." His other rule: the founder has to be polarizing enough that you either think he's bananas or the next Elon. If everyone agrees, there's no asymmetry left to capture. Ravin Gandhi and I spent an hour with him on Forged in America...key points below: 0:00 Every robotics expert said Figure would never work. That was the signal. 2:18 The habits that make you a great founder are the ones that make you a bad investor. 3:12 The test he runs on every founder: will this person ruin their life for this company? 4:08 "A lot of VCs are bullshitters." What actually gets him in the door. 5:09 The Figure story: a robotic arm that half worked, on a Zoom he thinks belongs in a museum. 6:23 Brett Adcock put millions of his own money in. That alignment is rarer than people think. 9:03 What deep tech actually means, and why experts are the last to see it. 11:00 He dropped out of medical school in 1998 because his roommate at Goldman was living better. 11:45 His father died at 44 when Shane was 13. "That became my measuring stick." 13:40 The wire hits after his first exit. One day of euphoria, then nothing. "Total anticlimax." 15:15 Why abundance scares us more than scarcity: what happens to purpose. 17:20 AI will either make you the smartest generation or the dumbest, depending on how you use it. 18:00 SpaceX: he thought it was too expensive every single time, until a private tour changed his mind. 19:55 "Magic" is the word he and Josh Wolf both use. It's what lets you ignore the price. 22:13 Why founders must be storytellers, and why AI can't teach it. 23:52 He tells founders their pitch sucks and sends them to improv class. The coachable ones take it. 26:47 Convoy went from multi-billion to zero. "If I killed myself with regret I'd be dead by now." 30:35 Quantum: if you need a quantum computer to defend against a quantum computer, it's already too late. 34:43 Alex Honnold's brain in an MRI, and the traits that get you selected for extinction or greatness. 37:44 The barbell: deep tech on one end, "forever businesses" on the other. You'll still take vitamins in 20 years. 39:18 Lightning round. SpaceX or Figure? Figure. Elon or Sam Altman? Elon. Bitcoin or gold? Bitcoin. 41:46 Brilliant asshole founder or likable average one? "Asshole, all day long." 42:09 Amazing founder + mediocre idea, or the reverse? Founder, 100%. 43:11 What hurts more: losing $1M or watching something you passed on hit a billion? The pass. 43:34 Nightclub promoters or VCs, which has more bullshit? His answer is better than you'd guess. 47:16 He has now outlived the father he lost at 13. What that does to how you spend a day. 48:14 The gratitude ritual he runs with his kids in the car every morning. 49:18 What actually scares him about the next 10 years. 55:34 Book: Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman. He also has the memento mori tattoo. @shaneneman @RavinGandhi1 @ForgedUSAPod @SpaceX @Figure_robot @AnthropicAI @neuralink @LiquidDeath

Andreas Stamatakis turned down multiple Ivy League admissions for a full ride to Stony Brook. Now he's one of the most-watched Ivy admissions advisors in the country, and his advice is free. His rule: Go Ivy or Go Free. Paying $400K for a second-tier private school is a scam. You're buying a credential, and if the name doesn't carry weight, the education is on YouTube. His most controversial take: telling eighth graders to finish Algebra 1 and take the SAT seriously. It got him half a dozen death threats reported to the police. His least controversial: if you could guarantee your kid Harvard, $10M at 30, or a happy marriage, take the marriage. He knows people worth far more than $10M. It doesn't help one lick. Ravin Gandhi and I spent an hour with him on Forged in America. Where to jump in: 0:00 "If you're paying $400K for Northeastern, you're being scammed." 2:51 Go Ivy or Go Free. The degree is a credential; the education is on YouTube. 5:19 Harvard went from 10K applications to 60K. Admissions became an attention game. 6:12 Can he get an average smart kid into an Ivy? "If they do what I ask, generally yes." 7:00 The SAT got easier in 2015 and again in 2023. His software adds 200+ points. 8:30 The kid who set up beehives around New Orleans and ended up at Dartmouth. 9:03 Ravin's pushback: what happens when the beehive story ends and it's just the name on the resume? 12:30 The Algebra 1 death threats. 13:26 40% of Stanford students get extra time on tests. "Obvious fraud." 16:16 Talents over passions. Passion isn't real yet at 14. Let the dopamine from winning hook the kid. 20:40 The kid who skipped college for a Ferrari repair apprenticeship and now runs the best shop in the Northeast. 21:51 When an Ivy is worth it: fields with no objective measure of competence (banking, consulting, law, med). 24:19 The Columbia theater master's lawsuit, $400K of debt at 22, and Social Security as a "vampire tax." 29:13 Ravin's cousin at Redpoint: "math all day." Technical skill plus EQ is what the world selects for now. 38:55 "We have shitty elites." Where is Sam Altman's Carnegie Hall? 43:44 2026 is the easiest year in history to start a business. The employee-for-life world is dead. 45:49 Colleges have maybe a 20-year horizon. 47:19 Lightning round: Stanford over Harvard. Best Ivy: Princeton. Illinois for free over MIT at $100K. 48:25 Most overrated part of an application: the SAT. Most underrated: recommendation letters. 49:19 Test-optional admissions: "one of the dumbest mistakes I've ever seen." 49:32 Mom emails the admissions office: immediate rejection. 51:05 Harvard, $10M, or a happy marriage. 52:04 Should parents help with homework in high school? Yes, and often. 54:07 Alpha School: the most promising attempt to fix education he's seen. 56:31 The most underrated thing you can do for a teenager: take them to church. 58:07 Book: How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big. @ivy_roadmap @RavinGandhi1 @ForgedUSAPod @stonybrooku @Harvard @Stanford @Princeton @Dartmouth @MIT @GeorgiaTech @UofIllinois

In April 2019, at 36, Roy Altman became the youngest federal district judge in the United States. At 8, he stood on a Civil War battlefield in the snow and told his dad it was beautiful. His dad said: "600,000 men died here so people who were slaves could be free. That's what a free democracy demands." That's why a Venezuelan immigrant kid who got laughed at for asking for a crayon in Hebrew now swears in 200 new American citizens at a time. In between: football and baseball at Columbia. Projects editor of the Yale Law Journal at Yale Law School. Federal prosecutor honored twice with the Justice Department's highest award. Author of the bestseller Israel on Trial. Ravin Gandhi and I spent an hour with him on Forged in America. Where to jump in: 5:32 The crayon. Spanish, then Hebrew, then the whole class laughing. 6:37 "The only hearing in federal court where everybody goes home happy." 8:38 Miami football in August. Moldy pads. If the QB complains in the huddle, ten guys quit. 10:00 "You dig from that well you built when you were 10." 11:22 The battlefield story in full. 14:04 Why 12 random jurors beat a room of experts: 300,000 years of evolution. 17:11 Your phone breaks every rule humans built for judging truth. 21:12 Tocqueville: the jury box is where America trains free people. 22:25 Ravin makes a judge defend his own lifetime appointment. He flips it on him. 24:35 A law firm raises $50K for a judge, wins, then appears in front of him. The elected-judge problem. 27:11 80% of the world's lawsuits are here. Is loser-pays the fix? 31:14 "My decisions don't have to do with what's right and wrong." Even a stupid law stands. 39:17 The genocide claim, tested like a courtroom case. 44:02 Why Modi flew to Israel with war days away. 46:45 Criticism vs. antisemitism, and the one phrase that "reveals the game." 51:26 Is the American Dream dead? Ask the guy living it. 52:39 We ask when he's running. He says never. We say 12 years. Senator Altman. @RoyKAltman @RavinGandhi1 @ForgedUSAPod @Columbia @YaleLawSch @YaleLJournal @TheJusticeDept

"You all want to be the CEO. But when it comes to your own life, you're a janitor. You have no idea what you're running. You don't know your market, which is yourself." That's @taltsfany, CEO of the @AynRandInst, three minutes into one of the best conversations @RavinGandhi1 and I have had on the Forged in America pod. The premise: we are the richest, safest, most entertained people in human history. 40% of American high schoolers report persistent sadness. Young Americans rank 62nd in the world for happiness. Tal's explanation is one sentence. "They don't understand what happiness is." He's not a career academic. He was a VP at a $3.5B company @Amdocs , closed the last page of The Fountainhead at 40, quit, and went from 5,000 direct reports to zero. On @elonmusk, who a lot of people assume is the Randian hero: "He thinks in first principles to build a rocket. But what is true, what is right, what is happiness? He doesn't have the first clue." The one modern figure who was, in his view: Steve Jobs. And we asked what Rand would make of @realDonaldTrump: "Anti-intellectual, anti-principled, extreme pragmatist, collectivist, narcissist, irrational person. At the head of the United States." Then we asked about @KamalaHarris. "Even worse." Full episode below. 00:00 Cold open 02:30 CEO of your company, janitor of your own life 04:44 The lawyer who actually wanted to train dogs 06:50 Why Rand is the most misunderstood thinker of the 20th century 10:32 Where is John Galt? (Miami, apparently) 11:58 Three numbers on American unhappiness 12:29 What the education system gets wrong 13:23 Is Elon Musk a Randian hero? 14:56 The one modern figure who was: Steve Jobs 16:26 Assume positive intent (I push back) 16:56 Quitting a $3.5B company at 40 18:07 Empathy, altruism and the political divide 21:27 "If you create a business, that is your charity to us" 22:03 How Tal reads a stranger in 10 minutes 23:44 Raising kids as valuers: a character designer, a pastry chef, a philosopher 28:06 What Rand would say to an 18-year-old Mamdani voter 31:35 Value density: the metric that beats revenue and profit 37:25 "They say it was okay. And then they die." 41:11 Lightning round: UBI, taxation, healthcare, religion, billionaires 47:30 What Rand would think of Trump. And Kamala. 48:31 AI, jobs, and why we're always alarmists 51:17 Ravin reads Kahlil Gibran @ForgedUSAPod

@Ravin Gandhi's high school report card. All AP and honors classes. D. F. F. D. D. C. D. D. I got my first internship because David Shore told hundreds of kids to call him, and I was the only one who ever did. Two roads. Same country. The full hour on Ep 52 of Forged in America: 02:52 — Is the American dream dead. Neither of us wanted to blow smoke, so we told our own stories instead. 07:28 — How I got my first internship. My mom was David Shore's doctor. He told hundreds of kids to call him. I was the only one who did. 13:52 — Quit banking in October 2003, walked away from a bonus four months out, moved back in with my parents. 14:11 — Why Kenosha. Chicago licensing capped a store every four blocks, so we crossed into Wisconsin. Seven days a week, eight to eight, driving up to open and back to close. 18:16 — The light bulb. Applications started arriving online before we had planned for it. 19:28 — Why we won, and it wasn't being first. My brother quit Silicon Valley to come build the tech. 22:05 — What we called hiring everyone we grew up with: the Niles West Full Employment Act. 25:45 — The case that this is a good time to be 40. Dario is over 40. Altman is over 40. Musk is in his fifties. AI hands experience a new lever. 29:00 — The report card. Calculus: C, D, F, D. AP English: C, D, C, D. Physics: a C, then an F on the final. He scored a 5 on the AP exam in the same subject the same year. 30:24 — His mother's handwriting in the margin. Up, same, down, same. Five dollars if a grade went up, a dollar back if it went down. 31:26 — Why he did it. "I think I was just a dick." 32:58 — The origin. Skipped from kindergarten to second grade in 1978, half the size of his classmates, and got tired of being told he was smart. 35:17 — His 10th grader Grant, after hearing the excuses: "I think you have this backwards." 36:22 — "I know in a deep sense what it feels like when everyone around you thinks you are a loser." And why he calls it one of the best things that ever happened to him. 37:23 — What was actually going on. No library nearby in Waukegan, so he met the bookmobile and walked home with 15 books at a time. He just didn't do the assignments. 39:02 — Three businesses in high school. Throwing stars, fireworks, pirated video games. He learned gross margin, inventory and working capital before he learned to study. 40:20 — Rejected from Illinois as a physics major inside 12 hours. Admitted through the School of Leisure Studies because admissions were historically low that year. 41:29 — The catalyst. Three B's and a C freshman year. His parents opened it and felt nothing. Sitting alone he thought: you are so full of shit. 42:27 — The next day he bought a backpack, pens and a study guide. He had never owned a backpack. 43:18 — He aced the first exam he ever studied for, told the kid next to him that everything on it was just what the teacher said in class, and the kid said, "That's how school works." Straight A's for six of the next seven semesters after that. 44:33 — What his mom says she got right: "I did not crush you. I never made you feel worse than your sister. I never compared you." 46:11 — Chips on shoulders put chips in pockets. 50:22 — Munger's rule we keep coming back to: be dependable, and keep your own expectations low. 52:09 — What we'd actually tell a 24 year old who can't make ends meet. 54:53 — The one piece of career advice I'd defend anywhere: be close to the knowledge center. Be in the room with people further along than you. 59:04 — Decisions made under pressure reveal character. His 86 year old father is the proof. Links below. @RavinGandhi1 @ForgedUSAPod #AmericanDream

Tom Hayes has averaged over 40% a year for three years and owns none of the AI trade. "If they miss by 1%, these stocks will not go down 1%. They will go down 70%." Then Ravin Gandhi asked whether Berkshire beats the S&P over the next 10 years. "No. It's done." Full hour with @HedgeFundTips on @ForgedAmerica with @ravingandhi1: THE AI TRADE 26:43 — Why he owns none of it. Not bearish, just outside the framework where he can price the downside. @NVIDIA, @Tesla, @SpaceX, @AnthropicAI at a trillion: all passes. 02:33 — The hyperscalers are boxed. Unfunded commitments, negative free cash flow, debt issued at low yields that now has to be refinanced high. "Owners will be patient to the extent that the narrative stays intact." 21:30 — The 2000 analogy. The internet did change the world. Global Crossing and WorldCom still went to zero. "The people that are investing all the money are not going to be the core beneficiaries." 22:20 — The tell. Bezos is raising $100B to buy industrial and manufacturing businesses and apply AI to them. He is not raising it to fund AI startups. 53:33 — Who actually wins. "More likely than not, the biggest winner of the AI narrative you haven't even heard of yet." 1998 search was Excite, Lycos, Ask Jeeves, Yahoo. @Google IPO'd in 2004 and took all of it. 48:43 — @MicronTech: "I think Micron's going lower. The institutions that got caught with their pants down in July will use this dead cat bounce to get liquidity and get out." 49:41 — Where he thinks the money goes instead. China outperforms the US. International beats domestic. Small cap beats large. Value beats growth. "That's not a political statement, that's a business statement." @AlibabaGroup is a position. BERKSHIRE 57:22 — "No. It's done." Law of large numbers, nobody left to run the portfolio, and a breakup that gets forced about two years after Buffett is gone. That's when holders get paid. 1:02:31 — I raised the @theallinpod argument that Buffett had an inside edge. @chamath is a monster, per Tom, and also wrong here. An information edge is worth a quarter or a trade. It does not explain a 20 year hold on American Express. THE PLAYBOOK 05:08 — Turnaround Tom, decoded. @WellsFargo at a 50% discount to tangible book in 2020. @exxonmobil at $33 when oil went negative. @Google and @amazon at 50% off in 2022. Never the leveraged junk. Always the best asset in the most dislocated sector. 10:19 — The @PayPal thesis. Down 80% from the 2021 peak, ~$6B of free cash flow this year, all of it going to buybacks, roughly 15% of shares retired. @Venmo growing 20%. Bought at a 17% free cash flow yield. 14:36 — "Stripe is boxed." Why @stripe can't IPO into a neighborhood where the comps just blew up. 15:55 — The part no sell side analyst models: 439M active users, 30 years of purchase data, and an ad business Tom thinks is worth $2B of free cash flow over three years. 28:10 — The trade that nearly broke him. @Range_Resources from $90 to $11. He bought at $11. COVID took it to $1.16. Reserves never changed. He averaged down to $4.10. It went to $45. 30:00 — I bought PYPL while we were recording. Ravin has the text. 32:30 — Why @intel at $19 was not a hard call. One other producer of leading edge chips on earth and a national security problem. "You don't have to be Elon Musk to figure that one out." 46:27 — Best stock to own for 5 years: @DentsplySirona (XRAY). Down 85-90%, US dental visits still below pre-COVID. "That can only go so long before teeth start falling out." Also long @canadagoose on the China recovery. THE MINDSET 25:30 — "You don't see many people win gold medals in the Olympics in two different sports." Entrepreneurs win with massive action. Investors win with massive inaction. 34:45 — Bezos asked Buffett why nobody copies him. "Because no one wants to get rich slowly." 38:07 — How the fund actually got built. Semi-retired and bored, a friend told him to post his research on LinkedIn for the pressure. A Fox Business producer found him. Then a podcast. Then a cold call from a guy in Woodside. "Put out value with zero expectation of return." All opinion, not advice. Links below.

Gen Z says it takes $588,000 a year to be "financially successful." Baby boomers said $100,000. Episode 50 of Forged in America: me and Ravin Gandhi got Tom Gimbel back for a second round, and he did not hold back. Tom built LaSalle Network into a $100M staffing business and has placed thousands of people into jobs, so he has actually seen what young workers expect walking in the door. His answer to the $588K number: "They need a kick in the ass and a slap on the back of the head." Then he explained the whole generation in one metaphor, and it is better than any theory I brought to the table. He calls it the sliced watermelon theory: "I could have sliced watermelon in my office every day and people would come in and eat it. I put a whole watermelon on the counter, no one slices it up themselves. They say where's the watermelon?" 46% of Gen Z's food budget now goes to restaurants instead of groceries. Then the same generation says the system is rigged. The line from the episode that says it all: "I should have what my boss has today. I shouldn't have to earn it." But this is not a get-off-my-lawn episode. Tom's actual read on the economy is bullish: the labor market is the economy, and this is the best entrepreneurial window since the late 90s. My advice for every parent listening is in there too. Get your kids' hands dirty with AI. Free model or 19 bucks a month, it does not matter, just start. Full episode is out now. Link below. Timestamps: 00:00 Cold open, the $588,000 number 01:14 Welcome and guest intro, Tom Gimbel of LaSalle Network 02:05 The chart: what each generation says "financially successful" costs 03:35 46% of Gen Z's food budget goes to restaurants 04:35 The sliced watermelon theory, better than the Fourth Turning 05:33 My 15 year old's summer: a failed AI website and 6 weeks of a real job 06:55 The economy, two bullish charts and two ugly ones 08:23 Tom: the labor market IS the economy, and this is the best founder window since the late 90s 11:37 The Aschenbrenner blowup, the railroad buildout analogy, and why it was a leverage problem 15:59 Get your hands dirty with AI, and the AI camp vs sports camp kid gap 17:16 Politics, the DSA platform, and what "abolish the Senate" actually means 19:52 Mamdani's city-run grocery stores and why cheap groceries are the most dangerous thing on the ballot 22:24 "Socialism is parenting and giving your kids everything they want" 43:46 Rubio over AOC, every day of the week and twice on Sunday 45:02 How you actually make young people optimistic again 57:37 The Fauci diary, five contradictions, side by side 1:04:15 Deborah Birx admits blue states overclosed because of the election @TomGimbel @RavinGandhi1 @ForgedUSAPod Full episode links in comments below.

59% of America's billion dollar startups have at least one immigrant founder. New episode of Forged in America: me and Ravin Gandhi sit down with Stuart Anderson of NFAP to actually talk about immigration instead of screaming about it. Andy Grove got rejected the first time he applied for refugee status after fleeing Hungary. He went back, made his case again, and got in. He went on to build Intel. India has produced 96 billion dollar company founders in the US. Israel is right behind it, with a population under 10 million. The line from the episode that says it all: "We have to avoid an open border, but we also have to avoid ICE shaking down the guy you've known for 15 years and deporting him." Full episode is out now. Link below. Timestamps: 00:00 Cold open, the 59% stat 01:04 Welcome and guest intro, Stuart Anderson of NFAP 05:13 Border chaos, ICE, and the legal immigration debate 08:59 What Stuart would tell the White House to do right now 13:11 The welfare fraud question and the legal immigration backlog 18:26 Why immigrants build a disproportionate share of unicorns, the Andy Grove story 23:49 Musk vs The Economist, and the UK grooming gang scandal 32:25 The Indian immigrant success story, and Israel's outsized founder rate 38:05 The fix Stuart proposes, legal immigration reform and a possible amnesty compromise 41:04 Why immigrants are up to 6x more productive in the US than at home 49:01 Alfred Rascon: "I was always an American in my heart" xitter.cf/NFAPResearch/status/20… @RavinGandhi1 @ForgedUSAPod @NFAPResearch Full episode links in comments below.

🚨 POD UP! Arjun (JJ) Desai joins Forged in America. Al and Ravin sit down with JJ (Stanford-trained physician, Founder/CEO of Lotus Neuro, $50M raised) for a deep dive on the future of brain science. His prior healthcare start-ups have raised over $1B. -- The Emotional Case for Focused Ultrasound -- Can Ultrasound Crack Glioblastoma After 35 Years of the Same Treatment? -- Rewiring Addiction: Ultrasound on the Nucleus Accumbens -- Why Eli Lilly Paid ~$3B for a DMT-Based Depression Drug -- The Joe Dispenza Meditation Study (Published in Nature Communications) -- Full-Body Cancer Scans: Overdiagnosis Risk or the Future of Prevention? -- Is IQ Real? Why EQ Might Matter More for the Next Generation (0:00) A Parkinson's patient hadn't held a steady glass of water in 15 years. After treatment, he drinks one — and the room cries (4:00) What focused ultrasound actually is, and how it targets a spot smaller than a millimeter with no scalpel (7:30) Glioblastoma has been treated the same brutal way for 35 years; how ultrasound "decloaks" the tumor and opens a window for drugs to get in (11:35) Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute used ultrasound on the brain's addiction center to blunt opioid addicts' reaction to their own drug of choice, in real time (18:30) Eli Lilly's ~$3B bet on a DMT-based depression treatment, and why JJ calls SSRIs "the mustard gas of psychiatry" (22:25) The Joe Dispenza meditation study: 7 days of intensive practice measurably shifted participants' gut microbiome and brain scans (45:20) The full-body scan debate: JJ worried about overdiagnosis and system burden, Ravin's had 3 friends catch real cancers from scans (49:53) Is IQ real? Why JJ is betting on EQ over IQ for the next generation @RavinGandhi1 @ForgedUSAPod @INSIGHTEC @LLY Full episode 🔗 in comments.

Congressman Dan Crenshaw lost a House seat he was up 30 points in. He's not blaming Trump, he's blaming the business model of modern media. New episode of Forged in America, unfiltered on his way out the door: [9:17] "It's a business model in politics these days... you have to be increasingly more inflammatory to get engagement." A quarter truth + a quarter truth + a quarter truth ≠ a whole truth. Online, it works like one anyway. [8:12] The stock trading conspiracy that helped sink him: the real number was ~$45k in gains over 7 years, not millions. He's still a co-sponsor of the bill to ban Congress from trading individual stocks. [41:06] On Trump's Iran strategy, from a former Navy SEAL: "Trump does not do things proportionally... you have to hit them 10 times harder. They only understand strength." [49:41] On Tucker Carlson and Qatari money: "Tucker's totally lost his way... I don't know what other reason besides money." Also in this one: the SAVE Act, killing the filibuster, whether AOC wins in 2028, and rising antisemitism on both the left and the right. @DanCrenshawTX @RavinGandhi1 @ForgedUSAPod @AOC @realDonaldTrump @TuckerCarlson @NavySEALfnd @NavySEALMuseum @ShawnRyan762

Pete Kadens came back for round 2 on Forged in America — and he still didn't dodge a single question. Co-founder of @GTIGrows and @HopeChicagoEdu, 7,000+ jobs created, $4B+ in shareholder value, back to defend his vision for where the Democratic Party should go. This round also gets into markets: Pete's bearish call on AI, why cannabis stocks are down 70-90% in five years, and whether Elon Musk is a monopolist or a decarbonization hero...and don't forget about the Trump accounts. Key moments, with timestamps: 3:52 — Pete's 2028 Democratic platform: builders over bureaucrats, stakeholder capitalism over socialism 9:15 — NYC DSA's 15,000 members and 90,000 volunteers: fringe outlier or where the party is headed? 14:58 — The Gallup number that stopped us cold: Democratic pride in America has fallen to 36% 20:20 — Texas's school-funding fix, and why wealthy districts don't need rock climbing walls 35:01 — The one time Pete ever voted Republican: to vote out Kim Foxx 38:58 — Elon Musk: decarbonization hero or monopolist villain? 43:36 — Cannabis stocks are down 70-90% in five years. Is rescheduling the catalyst? 49:05 — Pete's bearish AI call: idle time plus no money means the market craters 1:03:29 — Lightning round: 2028 picks and more Missed round 1? Start here: xitter.cf/goldstein2002/status/2… @RavinGandhi1 @ForgedUSAPod @realDonaldTrump @POTUS @altcap @theallinpod @Jason @elonmusk

A top hip surgeon just told us the single biggest lever for American health and lifespan isn't a drug, a robot, or an app. It's banning refined sugar. "You would see the biggest impact on health span and lifespan of any intervention I can think of. Far better and far bigger than fluoride in the water or GLP-1s in the water." — @BenjaminDombMD Ravin Gandhi (@RavinGandhi1) and I spent an hour with Dr. Ben Domb (Princeton athlete → Johns Hopkins, 500+ published papers, first surgeon in the US to do outpatient robotic hip replacement, NBA/NFL team physician) for episode 45 of Forged in America (@ForgedUSAPod). Some of what he told us: → GLP-1s are real, but not magic. For the right patient, losing 100 lbs can add 10 years of life and 20 years of health span. It can also trigger a second-order epidemic: osteoporosis, plus a spike in sports injuries as people get more active again. → Elon says robots replace surgeons in 3 years. Domb: "I'd love to bet him $1 trillion." The tech might be ready; the regulatory and liability system isn't. His question: if something goes wrong, who gets blamed — the surgeon or the robot company? → Peptides (BPC-157 and friends): "Ask anybody what a peptide is and they'll give you a nonsensical answer, because nobody knows." Zero FDA oversight, minimal research. His word for the space: scary. → 95% of a patient's outcome is set before they walk into the doctor's office — by their mindset. Placebo isn't noise to control for. It's a lever to pull. Full episode 🎧👇 (links in reply) ⏱️ Timestamps: 0:00 – "Make refined sugar illegal" (cold open) 3:40 – Elon's 3-year robotic-surgery prediction 4:00 – "I'd love to bet him $1 trillion" 6:12 – Robots vs. surgeons: "who are you going to blame?" 8:10 – GLP-1s enter the conversation 10:06 – The osteoporosis trade-off 10:34 – The uptick in sports injuries 11:37 – Why 95% of a patient's mindset is set before they see a doctor 18:27 – "100 lbs on GLP-1... 10 years to their life" 20:12 – The refined-sugar-ban thought experiment (full version) 25:36 – Why the placebo effect "worked" in most trials 44:15 – Peptides: "nobody knows what peptides are" 44:47 – "A very scary, unregulated area of medicine"

IEQ manages nearly $50B of investor capital, and Rob Skinner just told us the one asset he wouldn't touch for the next 10 years. It's not what you'd guess. Rob Skinner (IEQ Capital) on Forged in America: 4:59 — Nvidia was $45B. Intel was $400B. Now it's flipped: $4T vs $400B. 27:43 — "If you chart founder-led public companies versus non-founder-led, the outperformance is extraordinary." 32:41 — On Trump accounts for kids: "I got emotionally moved... this is generational policy." 41:05 — The one thing that could derail the AI bull run: China. 45:35 — The asset he wouldn't touch: shorting stocks. Full episode out now ⬇️ @RavinGandhi1 @goldstein2002 @ForgedUSAPod

By popular demand, we had Pete Kadens join us for a broad discussion on Forged in America. Co-founder of @GTIGrows and @HopeChicagoEdu, 7,000+ jobs created, $4B+ in shareholder value. Thanks for coming on and not dodging a single question, Pete. Key moments, with timestamps: 3:54 — Why socialism is gaining ground in the Democratic Party after last week's NYC primary 12:50 — The case against "nanny state" incentives, and why tenure breaks merit in education 19:15 — Ravin drops a Charlie Munger line on welfare policy: "Show me an incentive, I'll show you an outcome" 20:15 — HOPE Chicago scholars out-persisting their white suburban peers once debt, isolation, and trauma are removed as barriers 33:52 — The "miracle in Mississippi": a third-grade reading gate that drove a real turnaround 37:34 — Pete's prediction: roughly 200 colleges closing a year by 2028 39:18 — The IRS says college grads earn $1.7M more over a lifetime. Pete thinks that stat is aging out 58:15 — The Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade, and a coming conservative era 1:01:19 — Lightning round: 2028 picks, favorite conservative commentator, and bicep measurements @RavinGandhi1 @ForgedUSAPod @CharlieMunger00

He quit his W-2 on September 30, 2013 with $30K in angel capital. No computers. No health insurance. A row of desks. He was terrified to lose someone else's money before he'd made them any. Today Morning Consult interviews 35,000 people daily across 48 countries. $100M+ revenue. $1B+ valuation. Ep 43 of Forged in America episode is up with Michael Ramlet, co-founder & CEO. We discuss: - The $250B market research industry still running on 1970s tools — and why executives are flying blind - 5 years bootstrapping without a dime of VC: “you’re operating without a net” - Why data doesn’t replace leadership — Obama, Trump, and the limits of polling - The “There Will Be Blood” investor slide that defined their entire strategy - SaaS is out. Usage-based is back. They were early and almost penalized for it. - AI deep research agents doing multi-step orchestration no human analyst can match - Co-founders aren’t optional. The loneliness will break you. - His biggest stress at $1B+ valuation: same as day one — “Are we moving fast enough?” Timestamps: 0:54 Intro — Morning Consult’s $1B story 2:58 What they actually do (seventh grader version) 4:02 The $250B industry running on 1940s methodology 5:15 The data collection unlock that made everything compound 6:52 Apple, TikTok, Netflix, Amazon — and why even they’re flying blind 8:25 Political polling: just the tip of the iceberg 9:43 Bootstrap origin: $30K, no computers, no health insurance 13:01 Why data is a baseline, not an answer 16:16 “There Will Be Blood” — the refining thesis that won 17:48 Path to IPO: you need $500M+ revenue (and that bar keeps moving) 18:03 SaaS vs. usage-based — and why AI changed everything 21:43 Trump 2016, Obama 2008, and when you ignore your own data 24:18 Neural nets 20 years ago vs. LLMs today — timing is everything 25:08 Co-founders aren’t optional. It’s just too lonely alone. 26:18 Biggest stress at $1B: “Are we moving fast enough?” 30:27 Raise less, pick better investors — success is what you do with the money 30:47 2026 midterms: 5-seat margin, generic ballot, and what history says 33:48 Book rec: Chernow’s Titan — why Rockefeller chose refining over wildcatting @ravingandhi @MichaelRamlet @MorningConsult @ForgedUSAPod