“You lost the crazy people. They went to tech.” @ssankar explains how the American defense industry was once built by founder figures and attracted obsessive engineers like Kelly Johnson, who built 41 aircraft in his lifetime and treated engineering like an artistic pursuit. After the Cold War, the industry consolidated from 51 major defense primes to 5 and shifted toward conformity and financial engineering instead of real engineering. As bureaucracy crept in, the system calcified. Colossus Members have early access to Shyam’s new conversation with @patrick_oshag on @InvestLikeBest, where he explains how that shift reshaped the defense industrial base and why he believes America needs to “get a little crazy back” to rebuild its industrial strength. Members can listen now in their Private Audio Feed. Subscribe here:

My conversation with John Arnold (@johnarnold). Few people I've spoken with have as wide a view of the global system as John. He was one of the most successful energy traders of all time, and after stepping away from markets he built a foundation devoted to solving America's most critical systemic problems in a principled way. John's recent trip to China was the catalyst for this conversation, and I feel lucky we all get to learn from him. We discuss: - His trip to China and what it taught him about robotics, AI, and EVs - What it takes to be the best (and what it costs) - Building the best seat in the market - The state of energy markets today - NIMBYism as the impediment to progress - What he thinks about the wave of nuclear startups - Fixing America's broken systems: healthcare, criminal justice, education, and journalism Enjoy! Timestamps: 0:00 intro 0:45 China’s Rapid Transformation 3:53 Lessons from the Chinese EV Market 6:12 Robotics 11:22 The Discipline of an Elite Trader 15:42 Leveraging Scale and Proprietary Data 17:36 Lessons from the Baseball Cards 21:15 Trading Natural Gas and Market Dynamics 25:34 Innovation in the Modern Energy Sector 27:02 High-Level Goals of the U.S. Energy System 32:59 Overcoming NIMBYism 36:10 The Challenges of U.S. Transmission Lines 37:55 The Future of Nuclear, Fusion, and SMRs 44:00 The Economics of Solar and Battery Storage 48:28 Data Center Demand 50:28 Housing Reform 53:32 Rethinking the Role of Philanthropic Foundations 57:05 Improving the Criminal Justice System 1:01:58 Privacy and Security 1:05:03 Education and Life Outcomes 1:06:41 The Promise and Pitfalls of EdTech and AI 1:09:12 Identifying Market Failures in Healthcare 1:12:10 The Role of Regulation Across Different Systems 1:14:06 Journalism as the Fourth Estate 1:16:41 The Kindness of Hard Truths