The Gods Must Be Crazy Podcast: A Satirical-Scholarly Autopsy of American Capitalism's Death Sprint-Dispatches from the Chinese AI Century's Frontline

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Wall Street's priests told us offshoring was "win-win." Now McKinsey is laying off 10% of its workforce and China controls 90% of our rare earths, 80% of our solar panels, and the magnets in our F-35 fighter jets.

Whoops.

In this conversation with SBA lending expert Ray Drew, author Saji Madapat (The Gods Must Be Crazy II: A Rooseveltian Renaissance for Trump 2.0) unpacks the civilizational comedy of errors that turned American capitalism into a quarterly strip-mining operation—while China farmed for 2049.

We discuss:

00:00 Introduction: The $63 Trillion Heist

01:08 From "Cyber Coolie" to Boardroom Strategist

02:49 The "Hunter" Mindset: Why CEOs Strip-Mine Companies

06:24 The Quarterly Trap: Why Going Public Hollows Out Innovation

07:50 90 Days vs. 90 Years: China's "Farmer" Strategy

10:01 Root Causes: Milton Friedman, Ivy League Schools, and Short-Termism

12:39 Competing Against the State: The $63 Trillion Disadvantage

15:36 The Roosevelt Solution: A New Square Deal for SMEs

18:14 Lawyers vs. Engineers: Why Washington Misses the Point

21:14 The Fall of GE: Swimming Naked When the Tide Goes Out

23:20 Outsourcing National Strategy to TikTok Algorithms

25:05 America's Halftime: How We Engineer a Comeback

This isn't left or right. It's just forward.

🔗 RELATED CONTENT:

Read the book Wall Street's lawyers are definitely not concerned about:

► 📚 The Gods Must Be Crazy! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FFX51PL3

📺 The Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcA7B8zy3sQbgU81qw2UNsR7ztFgbp-zT&si=q_YBwegceW8LSFwB

📢 Join the conversation: https://www.theyyam.us/podcast

🌐 Strategic consulting: https://www.theyyam.us/about

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/goodtogreat/

#ChinaStrategy #SmallBusiness #Geopolitics #EconomicPolicy #RooseveltRenaissance

The Gods Must Be Crazy Podcast: A Satirical-Scholarly Autopsy of American Capitalism's Death Sprint-Dispatches from the Chinese AI Century's Frontline

Corrections:

The communist government came into power in Kerala in 1957, not 1954.

I made a mistake with the number of gods (Muppathimukkodi (33 Crore) daivangal is a common phrase in Malayalam; “the Vedas, the term “33 koti devata.”)

Origin of the “33 Crore Gods” Idea:

• The common belief that there are “33 crore” (330 million) gods in India stems from an ancient Hindu text; the original Vedic tradition refers to 33 ‘koti’.

• The Sanskrit word ‘koti,’ which can mean both ‘type’ and ‘crore’ (ten million).

On this poignant 9/11 anniversary, I had the profound honor of joining Rick DellaRatta on The Jazz for Peace Podcast—a humanitarian artist whose peace-building mission earned personal endorsement from President Barack Obama.

00:00 Introduction: Jazz for Peace Meets Geopolitics

01:18 The Underrated Power of Music Diplomacy

03:13 God's Own Country: Kerala, Literacy, and Communism

06:40 Rick’s Nepal Story: Art, Cubism, and Connection

12:35 The "Cyber Coolie" and the Y2K Armageddon Code

14:28 The Sickening Reality of Financial Engineering & 2008

16:31 Bottom of the Pyramid: The Mystery of Capital

19:57 Writing "The Gods Must Be Crazy" & Surviving Cancel Culture

24:26 Big Tech Censorship & The Arbitration Trap

28:18 Shadowbanning and the 96% Peace Proposal Vote

34:36 The Cost of War vs. Education & Debt Relief

40:50 Musical Performance: "In the Ghetto" (Elvis Tribute)

48:02 AI, Job Loss, and a "Trickle-Up" Economic Solution

58:02 The Knowledge Economy: GI Bill vs. Modern Cuts

01:00:46 The Capitalistic Fractal: Profiting from Problems

01:03:00 Roosevelt's Legacy & The Hunter vs. Farmer Mindset

01:06:51 "The Gods Must Be Crazy II": Where to Buy the Book

📚 Amazon Best Seller: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FFX51PL3

"By bringing Israeli, Palestinian and American Jazz musicians together, Rick DellaRatta and Jazz for Peace have used the transcendent quality of music to promote peace and unity... the forces that unite us are far stronger than the forces that divide us." - President Barack Obama

Episode 46 weaves an extraordinary tapestry of East meets West. From Marx in Kerala's communist classrooms to the C-suites of Fortune 10 giants. From ancient Theyyam rituals to cutting-edge AI architectures. Across 40+ countries and three decades, my journey reveals the hidden patterns behind the rise and fall of empires—delivered with humor that makes geopolitics surprisingly entertaining.

This conversation sparked something magical: Rick's soul-stirring rendition of Elvis Presley's "In The Ghetto," connecting Memphis blues to global social justice through the universal language of music.

As a Clinton Global GIFT Fellow, Big Four transformation architect, and Kala Sreshta laureate, I offer a unique lens—part mystic, part management consultant—to decode our beautifully complex world.

🔗 RELATED CONTENT:

Read the book Wall Street's lawyers are definitely not concerned about:

► 📚 The Gods Must Be Crazy! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FFX51PL3

📺 The Playlist:...

The Gods Must Be Crazy Podcast: A Satirical-Scholarly Autopsy of American Capitalism's Death Sprint-Dispatches from the Chinese AI Century's Frontline

00:00 Introduction: Saji Madapat on The Brand Called You

00:58 Roots of Rebellion: Growing Up in "God's Own Country"

02:24 The Tiger Ride Begins: From Mumbai to Y2K "Cyber Coolie"

04:11 The 2008 Turning Point: Victim of Financial Engineering

06:08 Hunter vs. Farmer: A Contrarian Worldview

08:08 Giving Back: Bridging Ancient Gods & Business Strategy

10:06 The Role of Humor in Geopolitics

11:42 Cyclical History: What Roosevelts & Theyyam Gods Teach Us

13:38 From the Cradle of Communism to the Catacombs of Capitalism

16:10 The Chinese AI Century & The 2049 Vision

18:27 Myth as History: The Ultimate Management Case Studies

20:07 Surviving the AI Era: Unlearn, Create, & Tell Stories

Confession of a “Monkey-Trapped” Prodigal Son: Why I Left Wall Street for a 5,000-Year-Old Startup

🐒 The monkey won’t release the banana.

The corporate slave won’t release the salary.

They called me crazy for leaving the Big 4.

Crazier for choosing Theyyam over Tesla.

Now watch who’s laughing.

The Confession That Changes Everything

I spent 30 years as a “financial termite” inside global capitalism—earning seven figures and advising Fortune-10 leaders.

Then I came home.

Not with more wealth,

But with a question that refused to leave me:

If corporations die in 18 years, but Theyyam has survived 5,000… who failed—me, or the system that trained me?

The Journey of a Prodigal Son

I was born in Marxist Kerala, where capitalism was a sin and money was considered filthy.

Then liberalisation hit.

99% literacy in “God’s Own Country” quietly created an army of “cyber coolies” for Silicon Valley.

I became one of them.

And nobody told me it was a trap.

Wall Street taught me to multiply money.

Theyyam taught me to multiply meaning.

When a Kerala son walks out of the golden cage of global capitalism and into Theyyam’s sacred flames, the world doesn’t need to listen because he “succeeded”.

It needs to listen because, for the first time, he failed in the right way.

Act I: From Marxist Classrooms to Fortune-10 Boardrooms

My “ordinary world” was a paradox: democratically elected communists, 99% literacy, and almost no industry.

From there, I rode the early waves of liberalisation:

Y2K turned Indian engineers into cyber-coolies for Western systems.

I moved from Kerala to Mumbai, then to the U.S., advising leaders across 40+ countries.

I learned how incentives, not intelligence, truly run the world.

On paper, it was a textbook success story.

Inside, something was rotting.

Act II: The Monkey Trap (At 18:20 in the interview)

A monkey grips a banana through a small hole in a coconut.

The only way out is to release the banana.

But the monkey won’t. Trapped by its own attachment.

For 30 years, I was that monkey.

The Fortune-10 salary was my banana.

The title, the status, the airline miles—they became my prison bars.

Then reality intruded:

Cambodia’s killing fields.

The 2008 financial collapse.

The “bottom of the pyramid”: billions living on roughly $2 a day.

Those experiences taught me more economics than any Ivy League syllabus and forced new questions:

Why do Indian women holding 25,000 tons of gold understand value better than central banks?

Why do farmers (East) outperform hunters (West) over 5,000-year timelines?

Why do...

The Gods Must Be Crazy Podcast: A Satirical-Scholarly Autopsy of American Capitalism's Death Sprint-Dispatches from the Chinese AI Century's Frontline

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Welcome to the most uncomfortable boardroom conversation you'll never be invited to attend.

🎯 THE SETUP: What happens when a sustainability pioneer (Dr. Enock Ebbah), who's watched 3,000 companies optimize themselves into oblivion, meets a contrarian investment analyst who thinks American capitalism is cosplaying as a successful economy?

🔥 THE PUNCHLINE: A 90-minute masterclass in why your company's "strategic planning" is actually strategic suicide.

In This Episodic Tragedy, We Dissect:

• Why Boeing spent $43B on buybacks then needed $62B in bailouts (spoiler: Milton the Trickster Economist was driving)

• How 247,000 tech workers became "efficiency gains" while China quietly hired them all

• The Memphis Paradox: When $8K in home fixes saves $48K in healthcare (but nobody can do the math)

• Why insurance companies now price climate change better than your sustainability department

• The "Farmer's Dashboard" that measures what ACTUALLY matters (hint: it's not this quarter's EBITDA)

Meet Our Allegorical Cast:

🎭 Milton the Trickster Economist - Who'll explain why eating your seed corn is "maximizing shareholder value"

⛪ McKinsey the Priest - Blessing your layoffs with PowerPoint sacraments

🌾 The Chinese Farmer - Quietly planting while you're tweeting about disruption

🏹 The American Hunter - Killing tomorrow to feast today

Most Controversial Claims:

• "Sustainability isn't about saving polar bears—it's about not becoming one"

• "The first metric that moves boards? When insurance premiums spike 300%"

• "We're burning furniture for warmth and calling it innovation."

WARNING: Contains dangerous levels of truth, potentially fatal doses of irony, and a 90-day transformation blueprint that your CFO will hate but your grandchildren will thank you for.

📚 Based on insights from "The Gods Must Be Crazy II: A Rooseveltian Renaissance for Trump 2.0" https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FFX51PL3

🎙️ Part of the Sustainability Transformations podcast series

• The Gods Must Be Crazy Podcast: A Satirica...

Timestamps:

00:00 Quarterly Capitalism vs. The Centennial View

00:48 Introduction: Beyond Extraction Culture

02:01 Hunter Economy vs. Regenerative Farmer

05:51 The Intrusion of Short-Termism: From Roosevelts to Cowboy Culture

09:24 Why

The Gods Must Be Crazy Podcast: A Satirical-Scholarly Autopsy of American Capitalism's Death Sprint-Dispatches from the Chinese AI Century's Frontline

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FFX51PL3

I need to confess something.

I spent 30 years as a Fortune 10 systems architect—designing the very extraction machines hollowing out our economy. Monday morning, I helped a client fire 10,000 people. Friday afternoon, they hired my firm back at triple the cost. The CEO got a $20M bonus. The stock went up.

I was building sophisticated lies. So I burned it all down.

In this conversation, I reveal:

→ My contrarian 5-step formula for building enterprises that survive (2008, COVID, and whatever's next)

→ Why "lean startup" is building on quicksand—and what to build instead

→ The real reason 90% of startups fail in two years (hint: it's theater, not business)

→ Why I hire farmers, not hunters—and why patient capital beats VC money

→ The Cambodian proverb that changed everything

Don't build unicorns. Build camels—enterprises that endure deserts and storms.

The question isn't whether you'll be successful. It's whether your success will matter in 50 years.

CHAPTERS:

00:00 Intro: The Truth About "Faking Success" in Business

02:26 Soul Searching: From Corporate Layoffs to the Killing Fields

03:30 The 5 Principles: Why You Should Build a Camel, Not a Unicorn

08:59 The VC Trap: Why You Don't Need Investors to Start

13:13 Silicon Valley’s Bias & The Farmer Mindset

15:33 Book Reveal: "The Gods Must Be Crazy II"

17:31 The Exponential Age: From Y2K to Generative AI

22:22 Adapt or Die: Why You Must Embrace AI Workflows

23:26 The AI Energy Crisis: Data Centers & Power Consumption

28:01 The Manufacturing Shift: How the US Lost IP to China

33:21 Can Manufacturing Return to the US? (The Role of Robotics)

36:13 Financial Health: Solve Real Problems, Forget the Exit Strategy

39:21 Connect with Saji Madapat

🔔 Subscribe for more contrarian business wisdom

🔗 RELATED CONTENT:

Read the book Wall Street's lawyers are definitely not concerned about:

► 📚 The Gods Must Be Crazy! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FFX51PL3

📺 The Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcA7B8zy3sQbgU81qw2UNsR7ztFgbp-zT&si=q_YBwegceW8LSFwB

📢 Join the conversation: https://www.theyyam.us/podcast

🌐 Strategic consulting: https://www.theyyam.us/about

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/goodtogreat/

💬 Drop a comment: Are you building a unicorn or a camel?

#Entrepreneurship #StartupAdvice #BusinessStrategy #SiliconValley #Leadership

America is sleepwalking into a century of humiliation. Here's the wake-up call we desperately need.

In this urgent analysis, I break down the stark reality of US-China competition that mainstream media won't tell you:

The Shocking Numbers:

🔴 For every 1 American STEM graduate, China produces 8

🔴 US infrastructure spending: 2% GDP | China: 6.7% GDP

🔴 US dollar down 10% as BRICS nations abandon dollar trade

🔴 China's DeepSeek AI outperforms US models at a fraction of the cost

What You'll Learn:

✅ Why China is teaching AI in elementary schools while we debate basics

✅ How Chinese TikTok feeds education while ours feeds outrage

✅ The "Century of Humiliation" scenario America faces

✅ Roosevelt's blueprint that can save us (if we act NOW)

This isn't fear-mongering. It's pattern recognition.

We've been here before. In the 1900s, the Roosevelts faced similar challenges and transformed America through bold investments in infrastructure, education, and research and development. We need that same long-term thinking TODAY.

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00:00 Intro: Why America is at an AI Disadvantage

00:04:04 Guest Introduction: Saji Madapat

00:04:40 Hunter vs. Farmer: The Short-Term Mindset Problem

00:10:46 The Big Question: Who is Winning, US or China?

00:11:55 De-Dollarization, BRICS, and Economic Warfare

00:20:45 The Decline of American Soft Power & Alliances

00:26:12 Historical Lessons: How Roosevelt Fixed the Gilded Age

00:30:16 Infrastructure Reality Check: High-Speed Rail vs. Potholes

00:37:50 The Tale of Two TikToks: Engineering vs. Algorithms of Rage

00:44:09 The "Magnificent 7" vs. State-Owned Enterprises

00:47:10 Solutions: We Need a Modern "Square Deal" and GI Bill

00:52:47 The STEM Crisis: 4 Million Chinese Graduates vs. US Decline

00:59:42 Avoiding America's "Century of Humiliation"

01:04:10 Book Spotlight: "The Gods Must Be Crazy"

01:08:55 Conclusion: Turning Shame into Fuel

🔗 RELATED CONTENT:

Read the book Wall Street's lawyers are definitely not concerned about:

► 📚 The Gods Must Be Crazy! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FFX51PL3

📺 The Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcA7B8zy3sQbgU81qw2UNsR7ztFgbp-zT&si=q_YBwegceW8LSFwB

📢 Join the conversation: https://www.theyyam.us/podcast

🌐 Strategic consulting: https://www.theyyam.us/about

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/goodtogreat/

Share this video if you believe America deserves better than ADHD governance.

#USChina #AIRace #Infrastructure #Education #Roosevelt #AmericanRenewal #EconomicStrategy #FutureOfAmerica #GeoPolitics #StrategicThinking

Is the US focusing on "fluffy" AI while China builds the future? On this episode of The Chicken Coupe, we sit down with author Saji Madapat to discuss his journey from "God's Own Country" (Kerala, India) to the US tech sector. We dive deep into the stark differences between American and Chinese approaches to Artificial Intelligence, the crisis of shrinking attention spans in schools, and why he believes the "new world order" is being written while we aren't looking.

Timestamps:

00:00 - Welcome to the Chicken Coupe

00:29 - Saji’s Journey: From the Cradle of Communism to the Catacombs of Capitalism

04:00 - Y2K, The Dot-Com Bubble, and the Rise of "AI Slop"

07:12 - AI as a Mirror: Amplifying Creativity vs. Generating Fluff

09:55 - When AI Goes Wrong: Taco Bell & Rogue Drones

11:50 - The Death of the Professional Class: Education & Coding in 2030

16:40 - The Elephant in the Room: Is China Mopping the Floor with US AI?

19:25 - The STEM Gap: 200k US Grads vs. 8 Million in China

25:05 - The Attention Span Crisis: Literacy & 24-Second Content

27:04 - Shock Therapy: Comparing the GI Bill to Modern Education

30:50 - The Debate on Banning Cell Phones in Schools

35:52 - Economic Despair: "Homeless & Horny" for the American Dream

40:32 - The Future of Relationships: AI Girlfriends & Household Robots

42:26 - AGI: When AI Becomes Smarter Than PhDs

44:15 - Outro & Final Thoughts

🔗 RELATED CONTENT:

Read the book Wall Street's lawyers are definitely not concerned about:

► 📚 The Gods Must Be Crazy! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FFX51PL3

📺 The Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcA7B8zy3sQbgU81qw2UNsR7ztFgbp-zT&si=q_YBwegceW8LSFwB

📢 Join the conversation: https://www.theyyam.us/podcast

🌐 Strategic consulting: https://www.theyyam.us/about

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/goodtogreat/