Edward Mehr, the visionary CEO of Machina Labs. Machina Labs, at the forefront of a new era in manufacturing, is revolutionizing the field with its groundbreaking Robotic Craftsman platform. Our discussion today will journey through Ed's experiences in founding Machina Labs, exploring how this innovative company is redefining metal forming technology and reshaping the future of manufacturing in the United States. This episode promises to be a treasure trove for those intrigued by the evolution o...
Feb 05, 2024•1 hr 2 min
We dig into our food supply chain (stuff chain) and where our agriculture products come from. Farmland financier, entrepreneur and investor, Artem Milinchuk helps us learn through his data-driven, bird's eye view of how the agriculture industry works. Artem is pioneering democratized farmland investments at FarmTogether. The company is building technology to enable every individual to more deeply engage with and participate in our food stuff chain. Artem helps us learn how food makes its way fro...
Aug 29, 2022•56 min
About This Episode Jason Kim leads one of the World’s most agile and innovative aerospace manufacturing companies. In this episode, we dive into how Jason and his team at Millennium Space Systems (a Boeing company) are pioneering digital-first, high volume manufacturing for small satellites. We also dive into Jason’s robust experience in the aerospace industry, ranging from his service in the US Air Force (thank you to all of the Veterans out there for your service!) to his time working across t...
Aug 11, 2022•48 min
This episode is all about the macro state of the manufacturing workforce. “If you don’t make stuff, there is no stuff.” – Elon Musk. All of the stuff we rely on and enjoy needs to come from somewhere… and someone . Manufacturing might otherwise be called: people and machines making the stuff that enables other peoples’ and machines’ high level of capabilities, flourishing, and freedom. In this conversation with Jake Hall, AKA ‘The Manufacturing Millennial’, we deep dive into his work using media...
Jun 02, 2022•1 hr 10 min
Episode title: Where Telecom Comes From with Michael Bloxton, CEO of Nebula Compute About This Episode Do you know where your cell service and internet come from? What does the physical infrastructure that lets you talk to your team, friends, and family on the other side of the world look like and how does it work? In this episode, Michael Bloxton joins us to explore how the bits that run our modern lives and businesses move around the world, and how the atoms of telecom infrastructure really ma...
Mar 25, 2022•1 hr 24 min
Energy production and independence are foundational to freedom and flourishing. As we learn from Ivan Gonick in this conversation, the United States power grid is extremely complex and fragile. Ivan is the CEO of Veteran Solar; in this conversation he breaks down how at home solar power systems work and why they are an excellent mechanism to build a more antifragile energy system. Ivan also shares insights about where solar systems come from – from the panels themselves, to auxiliary components ...
Mar 02, 2022•1 hr 5 min
In this episode serial industrial entrepreneur, Fred Horowitz, shares lessons that he’s learned through his robust manufacturing career and how he is navigating the rapidly evolving industrial landscape as a United States consumer goods manufacturing company. Fred is a deeply experienced CEO and founder of multiple, fast-growing consumer product brands. He is the current Chairman and CEO of A.P. Deauville and Partner at American Brand Holdings, LLC, the parent company of popular apparel brand, H...
Feb 14, 2022•53 min
About This Episode In this episode, Shelley Huff shares her frontline perspective on the transformation unfolding in the United States’ supply chains, particularly the shift from global, just-in-time, and fragile back towards local, safety stock, and antifragile (per Nassim Taleb's concept). Since we recorded this episode, Shelley moved from her role leading Serta Simmons as Chief Operating Officer to leading the organization as Chief Executive Officer. Before her current role as the CEO of Sert...
Feb 14, 2022•1 hr 2 min
About This Episode In this episode, we sit down with Lee Benson, a serial entrepreneur and industrialist who built, led, and exited Able Aerospace – a company he grew from 3 to 500 employees with 15 consecutive years of 20 percent compounded average annual growth. After selling Able Aerospace for 9-figures to publicly-traded Textron Aviation, Lee committed himself to helping other leaders achieve similar results. HE founded ETW, where he now helps senior leadership teams work better together at ...
Jan 05, 2022•1 hr 27 min
About This Episode In this episode, we sit down with Cam Adair, Founder of GameQuitters.com to break down how digital and gaming addiction are shaping our world and the Next Frontier. Gaming and more broadly digital addiction affects nearly all young people in today's world. After learning from this conversation with Cam, I believe that understanding gaming addiction is critical to understanding a wide range of significant global trends - including increased rates of mental illness, the United S...
Jan 04, 2022•1 hr 30 min
About This Episode Formally launching the Where Stuff Comes From series of the Next Frontier Podcast with this short meditation and essay. Resources Mentioned & Other Links of Interest Antifragile: Things that Gain From Disorder (Book) Thanks A Thousand: A Gratitude Journey (Book) The Substance Of Civilization (Book) Subscribe for More The world is changing rapidly and dramatically. We are ALL witnessing a collision of economic, political, technological, social, cultural, spiritual, and othe...
Jan 03, 2022•23 min
About This Episode A short solo riff giving clarity and focus as we explore the Next Frontier together and enter the new year. Resources Mentioned & Other Links of Interest The Fourth Turning (Book) The Changing World Order (Book) Russel Brand - The Great Reset: Conspiracy or Fact? (Video) Joe Rogan On The Metaverse (Video) Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse Presentation (Personally I find this development creepy) Elon Musk on AI (Video) The Singularity Is Near (Book) Subscribe for More The world i...
Jan 03, 2022•6 min•Season 3Ep. 1
About This Episode Ori Saar served in a wide range of innovation roles inside of the Israeli Defense Forces. This episode pairs well with our previous Defense Innovation episodes, #8 Brain ‘Beam’ Maue and #13 Prescott Pauling . We dive into Ori’s experience building innovation infrastructure for the Israeli Air Force and then for the Israeli Defense Force’s planning directorate. Next, Ori shares his take on what innovation really means and why defense innovation is so important. Since we recorde...
Oct 14, 2021•1 hr 37 min
About This Episode In this extremely timely episode, we sit down with Mike Howard, Chairman and CEO of Howard Midstream Energy Partners, to develop a deep understanding of where our energy comes from. Since we recorded this episode, the United States experienced a substantial cyberattack on of its largest fuel pipelines that should awaken the country and the world to the importance, criticality, and fragility of our energy stuff-chain. Scalable, reliable, resilient, and sustainable energy source...
Jun 14, 2021•1 hr 36 min
About This Episode Critical minerals are found in nearly every high-tech product we use today. For example, an iPhone is made of over 40 different elements found in dozens of different as-mined critical minerals (e.g. the rocks that come out of the ground). Right now the United States relies on our chief adversary, China, to supply nearly 100 of some of the most important critical minerals. Take for example, the rare earth metals, scandium, and graphite. In this episode I explore a key component...
Apr 29, 2021•1 hr 22 min
Right now, the most important geopolitical competition since World War II, is unfolding between China and the United States. As a result, we need to start to ask Where Does Our Stuff Come From? Asking this question and building an understanding of this great power competition is essential to safeguarding our most important innovation resource: our ability to actually produce stuff . In this episode, we explore some of the high-level strategic moves that are unfolding right under our noses in the...
Mar 22, 2021•1 hr 26 min
About This Episode Now more than ever, entrepreneurs, innovators, and industrialists must be equipped with the language of digital transformation. In this episode, Keith Gargiulo and I take a tactical approach to digital transformation. As a Vice President at PTC, one of the world’s leading digital transformation technology companies, Keith is one of the best people to help decipher and convey how you can implement digital transformation at all levels of your organization. Through the lens of di...
Dec 24, 2020•1 hr 18 min
About This Episode A core competency for any entrepreneur, innovator, or industrialist is not only the ability to efficiently and effectively communicate in a wide range of media formats, but to swiftly paint a thrilling, compelling, and visionary narrative for a range of different audiences (your team, your investors, and your customers). In this episode, Max sits down with Marrisa Brassfield to dissect how Marissa (1) built up her world-class communications superpowers, (2) curates a Ridiculou...
Nov 18, 2020•1 hr 8 min
About This Episode Prescott Paulin is a Marine Corps Veteran, entrepreneur, and United States Defense Innovator. We dive deep into how and why Prescott built the Defense Innovation Network to help companies improve their technology to benefit our military. Prescott also explains how thought models - John Boyd’s OODA Loop, Design Thinking, and many others - help him become a more effective innovator and entrepreneur. Next, we explore how Prescott’s family business, 300 Below, and his life-changin...
Oct 20, 2020•1 hr 21 min
About This Episode In this episode of the Next Frontier Podcast, Dan Kuschell shares unique insights into the psychology and marketing of entrepreneurship and innovation. We dive deep into mental models for succeeding as an entrepreneur, tools that Dan uses to thrive as a Dad and sports coach, and how Dan became an expert copywriter. Finally, Dan dives into one of the most often overlooked pieces of the innovation resource puzzle: how risk-taking innovators can start fresh with bankruptcy laws i...
Oct 07, 2020•1 hr 4 min
About This Episode This wide-ranging conversation with Eswar Anandapadmanaban takes us from his roots winning the Google Science Fair, to studying at the Massachusettes Institute of Technology where he invested time in a wide range of projects and internship experiences (at companies including NASDAQ and IDEO), through his award-winning mixed reality work for the US Air Force, and finally, back to his time driving MIT's premier global mixed-reality programs. Resources Mentioned & Other Links...
Sep 17, 2020•1 hr 16 min
About This Episode During her Bachelor’s degree, Gopika SenthilKumar founded the student product design organization, Insight Wisconsin, and drove the establishment of the multi-million dollar UW Makerspace. After graduating with a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Gopika is pursuing her combined M.D. and Ph.D. Beyond maker-centric innovation, Gopika shares her extensive in-lab research experience. Finally, we explore how Gopika built her public speaking sk...
Aug 07, 2020•1 hr 1 min
About This Episode In this episode Lennon Rodgers, Director of the Grainger Engineering Design Innovation Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Lennon shares how he pioneered the world-class design and innovation programs at MIT in Boston, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich; the Bern University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland, the Skolkovo Institute in Moscow, Singapore University of Technology and Design, and most recently, the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Througho...
Jul 31, 2020•1 hr 11 min
About This Episode In this episode, Max sits down with Brian “Beam” Maue, co-founder of AFWERX. This wide-ranging conversation dives deep into the frontline innovation happening throughout the United States Air Force. Beam details his innovation philosophy and how he goes about innovation empowerment while sharing hyper-exciting stories of innovation throughout the history of the United States Military. Finally, Beam elaborates on the incredible innovation resources available to entrepreneurs an...
Jul 03, 2020•1 hr 23 min
The Next Frontier Thesis Today’s front-line innovators, entrepreneurs, and creative core (all whom if not already will be tomorrow’s leaders) grow up and learn their craft, not through the traditional academic system (in which many are enrolled), but through a complex web of innovation-enabling resources and infrastructure. Over the past 20 years, since the dotcom boom, we’ve seen the rise of the novel, memetic innovation tools, infrastructure, and incentives. These innovation tools have helped ...
Jul 01, 2020•8 min•Season 2Ep. 1
Maker Community & Virtual Reality at NASA About This Episode In this episode , Max sits down with Taylor Waddell, a manager, designer, and student maker for the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Makerspace, and co-founder of 2twenty5, a Madison-based student-maker consulting group. Insights Shared What is a maker? How do you get better as a maker? What is a makerspace? How can maker students and the business community collaborate for networking and other opportunities? How businesses can tap...
Apr 14, 2019•56 min
Hackathon Strategies & Developing a Hacker Mentality Listen on Apple Podcasts About This Episode In this Episode, recent UW-Madison computer engineering graduate Spencer Fricke shares the wisdom and strategies he’s gained from participating in over 35 hackathons around the world. Spencer shares why — and how — he believes everyone can develop a hacker mentality. Highlights of the Episode Insights Shared What is hacking? The 3 aspects of the hacker mentality Who can hack? Why failure is an es...
Mar 10, 2019•14 min
Generative Design, Quantum Computing, & Mantis Shrimp Listen on Apple Podcasts About This Episode In this episode of the Next Frontier Podcast, Max sits down with his good friend Vlad Bouriakov, a Manufacturing Systems & Engineering Graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, specializing in generative design. Max and Vlad to discuss the potential of generative design, and how Vlad took a highly-strategic approach to refine his engineering acumen throughout his undergraduate...
Mar 01, 2019•1 hr 12 min
Space. Adrenaline and Policy: How Van Espahbodi & Starburst Accelerator are Changing Aerospace Investing Listen on Apple Podcasts About This Episode Max talks with Van Espahbodi about his career transition from a government career to the co-founder of the first aerospace accelerator (Starburst Aerospace Accelerator). Van also shares how one of his cars ended up in one of the “Fast and Furious” franchises and how his work with Starburst is opening new doors for innovation in the aerospace ind...
Feb 12, 2019•39 min
In this interview I dive in with Professor Michael Arnold, exploring how to optimally take leverage research opportunities and how he honed into his technical interest. Throughout the conversation, Professor Arnold provides some key insights into what it takes to bring research ideas to reality and make meaningful contributions, at all stages of your journey. We detail some techniques Prof. Arnold uses to invigorate the creative process, and the tactics he uses to take control of his time. Profe...
Jun 10, 2018•42 min
