Nearly 2,000 years ago, Roman Emperor Hadrian built a wall to protect the empire's northern frontier. Today, another Hadrian is building something very different—but with a similar purpose: helping protect America by rebuilding its industrial strength.

Chris Power is the founder and CEO of Hadrian, an advanced manufacturing company using AI and automation to produce critical components for America's aerospace and defense industries. Born in Australia, Chris believes America is the greatest country in the world—and he's determined to help keep it that way.

His mission is to reinvigorate America's industrial base, starting with the Defense Industrial Base. Chris joins Mike to discuss manufacturing, national security, and why America's ability to defend itself ultimately depends on its ability to make things.

Because sometimes the best defense isn't another wall. It's the ability to make what you need, when you need it.

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Andy Stumpf knows what it takes to operate when everything goes wrong. A former Navy SEAL who served with SEAL Team Six, Stumpf spent 17 years in the military, including a tour as a BUD/S instructor responsible for training hundreds of aspiring SEALs. He was also shot at close range by an Iraqi insurgent with an AK-47—and somehow came back to serve again.

In this episode, Andy pulls back the curtain on the world of special operations and the psychology of becoming a SEAL. He reveals what he learned about the candidates who ring the bell, the methods he used as an instructor to get them to keep going—or make them quit—and what it really feels like when an AK-47 fragment shatters your sciatic nerve. It's a conversation about fear, pain, endurance, and the strange things that happen in your head when the stakes couldn't be higher.

Andy is the host of Cleared Hot, one of the most popular podcasts devoted to military life, special operations, and the people who have lived it.

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What happens when your son drops out of MIT at 19, starts a defense company in his twenties, and sets out to reinvent the way America builds weapons? If you're Tamara Thornton, you get a job.

In this episode, Mike sits down with the Head of Marketing and Communications at Mach Industries, Tamara Thornton, who also happens to be the mother of the founder and CEO, Ethan Thornton.

Ethan's decision to leave MIT and pursue his vision for Mach has led to a company now valued at $1.8 billion. But the story gets more interesting when you hear it from his mother—and learn what Ethan was like long before he became a CEO.

It's a revealing and often surprising conversation about family, ambition, risk, failure, manufacturing, and the remarkable journey from a kid who liked to blow stuff up to the leader of one of America's fastest-growing defense companies.

At the center of it all is a fascinating question: What happens when the son you raised becomes your boss?

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