S4:E93🎙️ LIVE with Tony Grayson!

Hi, I'm John Maxwell. When the top companies in the world are looking for trainers, speakers, and coaches, there's one name that stands above the rest, and that's Maxwell Leadership. Our certified team members have gotten proven results for companies all over the globe, and our reputation, I'm proud to say, is second to none. Some of our members have risen to the top of their profession, including the one you're going to meet today. I proudly introduce you to my friend Bob Fabien Zinga.

Welcome to the Leadership and Success Podcast with your host, Coach BZ. If you need to develop into a better leader, this podcast is for you. If you want to achieve a greater level of success, this podcast is for you. His mentor, Dr. John C. Maxwell, said it best: everything rises and falls on leadership. We hope to inspire you today and provide you with an insight that has the potential to positively impact the trajectory of your life. Welcome to the Leadership and Success Podcast.

Hello, my name is Tony Grayson, and I spent 20 years in submarines in the Navy, followed by 6 years in the technology sector. Since retiring, I have been searching for opportunities to help those military members transitioning and help those military members who have already transitioned. Until now, I've been helping a single individual at a time, but I thought it'd be better to start shooting some short videos to go through the lessons learned that I had so you don't have the same scars that I do and can learn from my mistakes during your transition. The first thing I want to talk about is don't sell yourself short. You all know more than you think and can achieve more than you realize. By transferring you all the time and teaching you new jobs, the military has prepared you well for learning a new job quickly and then knocking it out of the park. That same lesson learned can be followed on the outside. So are you worried that you don't know construction, but there's a particular job that you like that's in the construction industry? Prepping for deployment is no different. Have you found a product manager job in technology that you like, but are afraid you lack the technology experience? Most modern weapon systems are much more complex than what you would have to manage on the outside. All veterans know more and been through more than they think, so don't be afraid to apply for that dream job. Trust me, your enthusiasm, team-first mentality, and dedication will come through. If you're looking at opportunities for the tech sector, try the following hyperlink. If you would like to see some topics covered, please type them below in the comments section. Thank you for your time.

All right everyone, thank you so much for joining me for our third podcast today. I think, um, this This is the first time we have been doing 3 live podcasts on one day, but this is very, very important because I have a very, very special guest with me. But before we get started with the guest, let's do what we normally do, what is our tradition. Every time we meet, we have a moment of gratitude. It takes less than a minute, but we think about one thing that we are grateful for today. And as you know, part of the reason why I do this is because in the military, it's about 22, 21 people, veterans, every day commit suicide. And I think it's impossible to be suicidal while you have an attitude of gratitude. So if you want, you can close your eyes, uh, take yourself to your, um, uh, happy place. Take a deep breath if you must and think about one thing you are grateful for today. And I think, uh, today I am grateful for freedom. Uh, earlier today I was grateful for the weather. I was, uh, grateful for my family, but right now I am grateful for freedom. Freedom in the land of the brave, right? Home of the free. So tell us, let us know what you are grateful for. Type it in the comment. If you have a question for my guest, type it in the comment and let us know what city, what state you're joining us from, what country if outside of the US. And also please like the event and repost it in your feed and tag someone who might benefit. Okay, let me quickly introduce, uh, my, uh, guest. Uh, today we are going to have an extraordinary conversation with Tony Grayson, a retired US Navy submarine commander. He's recipient of the Vice Admiral James Bond Stockdale Award for inspirational leadership and now one of the top 10 data center influencers shaping the future of AI infrastructure. So without further ado, please help me welcome Commander Tony Grayson.

Hey, thank you, thank you. I haven't had anything like that before.

Thanks. Really, really glad to have you on board. We're going to be learning so much from your experience today, especially those aspirational leaders in the military, especially in the Navy. I guess To get started, what is one thing you are grateful for today, Tony?

I think it's definitely my family, just the support. Being in the military, you deploy a lot and they have to deal a lot without you and understand what you're giving up. So I think it's really my family support all through the years. It's still as critical today as it was when I joined the Navy, whatever it was, 30 years ago.

Yes, that is so important. At one point, I was afraid the Navy was going to issue me a new wife or something. But yes, it's Uh, it, it really means a lot, and those are the people we do everything, uh, we, we do. And, uh, what is one thing about you that most people may not know about?

Uh, I don't know, that, uh, probably I'm, I'm actually an introvert because I'm a new— so I think I come across as more of an extrovert, but I'm definitely more of an introvert.

Uh, wow.

Yeah, it is what it is. It's all where you draw your energy from.

True, true. Well, that is, that is a little bit surprising for, for, for sure. So let's set the stage, um, the, uh, ex— let's go back to the, to the beginning. So what inspired you, uh, your journey into the Navy, and what did you learn about leadership Nev?

Yeah, I think, uh, originally I grew up with my grandfather telling me stories about World War II. He was a Catalina pilot, one of those big slow MPA, Maritime Patrol Aircraft, planes. Uh, it was part of the Black Kite Raiders, was actually shot down and spent, you know, 14, 15 days in a raft before they finally got to an island. Um, but I think it's kind of hearing those stories and and understanding service before self and kind of how critical that, you know, part of that part of the Greatest Generation was. And then my dad was, was Air Force, and I, I wanted Navy originally, I wanted to fly, but then I kind of realized that, you know, the problem with aviation is the same problem with surface and everything else, that when you actually go out to sea, you weren't truly in command because your boss is right there, you can pick up a phone and ask them, all because of SAT-HI-COM and everything else. On a submarine, you just don't have that. You submerge and that's it. You got to make decisions by yourself and sit you in places that no one knows you're there about and you're front page of news if you get caught. So, um, I think that's kind of what really led me into it. And, and you actually get paid the most in the— I think probably Navy nukes are probably the highest paid out of any of the services.

Yeah.

Uh, out of anything.

There's a reason for that, because you guys are just crazy.

Well, we're definitely, we're definitely unique, uh, or either, you know, I think 50% of us are probably good-natured and everything, and 50% have zero personality whatsoever.

So that is amazing. Wow, somebody has to do it for, uh, sure. But, uh, as a submarine commander Every decision can mean life or death. So how did that environment shape your approach to leadership and decision-making under pressure? Now I have never served on a sub, but I have visited a few. I know space means everything, right?

But I think it's, you can, there's, you can get away with micromanaging so long. There is a point that it breaks though. Um, cause you can't be everywhere at once. And so I think I actually found that breaking point during my CO tour. Where I took over a struggling sub, um, uh, you know, they have a certain list for that kind of stuff. And then I took it over and I thought I could just, you know, use force of personality and everything else, stay up 24/7. It just doesn't work. And then I realized, you know, there's kind of the true value of, of delegation. And I think we all say we delegate, but we don't. You know, delegation is you're going to put decisions into someone else's hands and trust they're going to make the right decisions and empower them to do it. And you have to be willing to let them fail. Most of us are not because, you know, we, we associate that person failing with us failing. And on a submarine, yeah, but you can always step in at the last minute. But what you don't want to do is make every decision because it's, you know, for the military there's a thing called decision fatigue, and what you don't want to do is make all those tiny decisions and then screw up the big decision where you have to step in and make it. So that's why it's, it's much better to let everyone else run the day-to-day of the boat, even in tactical situations, so you can remain, you know, not part of the decision-making and really step in when you need to. And I think that's a really tough lesson to learn. Because like most people don't want to associate their success with someone who could fail and, and think that, but that's kind of what you have to do. Um, and what I've really seen outside, and a lot of people talk about it but no one really does it, it's a very— it's, it's very tough to separate that ego, even though people talk about it. I see it all the time with, you know, servant leadership and blah blah blah blah, but It's, it's more than that. And to be perfectly honest, you can't have one leadership thing that for every single person anyway, every single person requires a different leadership style. But ultimately, you got to be true to yourself. And you have to be willing to take that punch in the face or fired for your team. And I think that's a, you know, I think very few people in the workforce are able to do that. I think in the military it's probably a lot higher.

True. Uh, really, in my opinion, because I, I got in 21 years ago now as a seaman recruit, but even as a junior enlisted in the Navy, I felt like leadership was really the main thing. In my opinion, the Navy is a leadership organization. We just happen to have a bunch of hardware, but, uh, it's, it's quite different, especially when you become a CEO, and especially in the Navy. I think the Army does it quite differently because we do command by negation, especially on a submarine where they don't see you at all. At least when I was a CEO, my RCO was only 20 feet away. Of course, he let me be the CEO and make up all of my decisions for my unit. But how does it feel to command at sea, especially when you have nobody else to report to? When I was enlisted, I used to think of people like you like God at sea. You pretty much, you know, the buck stops with you and you make the last decision. How did that feel for you? How did you experience that? Let's listen. Did you hear the question?

Yeah, I did. Yeah. I think it's, you know, that's what I really liked about submarine. What I like about submarines is, I think in all the militaries, you have a very big division between officers and enlisted. I think on— and I think the only thing that would be different is probably a tank or something like that, where you live on top of each other. On a submarine, you live on top. So you just don't have that that difference, but so much. Like, you go down to the, you know, the chief's quarters, the goat locker, and you spend time there. There's no— it was just not that formal circumstances. Everyone's in it. I mean, you either succeed as one or you die as one, just like a tank. And that's probably the only kind of the thing out there. So your leadership's different. You trust your junior enlisted. I mean, I've— that's what I, I laugh because I post sometimes videos of carriers and I try to show What these 19-year-olds and 20-year-olds were doing. And I always, always get a comment like, they're just doing what they're told to do. In reality, no. Like I have been told, no, I'm not gonna exit, like on a, like on, from a helmsman, you know, junior person that's on a submarine telling me, no, that's the wrong way. You need to do it this way. And I was wrong. They were right. That's what the expectation is, that they stand up and they push that kind of stuff. But you have to, you have to create that environment where you get that kind of feedback. You can't rule by fear or you won't get that feedback.

That is so true. And you were also awarded the Vice Admiral James Bond Stockdale Award for inspirational leadership. What does that recognition mean to you personally and what leadership philosophy does it represent?

I'll probably take that one to the grave with me. I'm probably— it doesn't really matter, you know, whatever recognition I have. That one matters the most to me because it's voted on by peers. You can't put yourself in for it. Your boss can't put yourself in for it. And you're, there's only 2 selected each year and that's out of all the COs. So it's all the SEAL COs, all the aviation COs, all the SPO COs, all the limited duty COs, all that kind of stuff. And, you know, to me, yeah, I really do think, you know, I know it's most people pay it lip service, but I really do think that was a function of my career. They made it very easy. I had a very good team that once I finally, you know, got my poop in one sock and realized that I could do it myself, that I really need to empower and train them. That really made all the difference in the world. Wow. Like I said, it's, it's very tough to put that aside. But that's probably, you know, one that I will recognize most and, and like most. Because in the end, that's kind of, for me, the end-all be-all of leadership. It doesn't really— it's, it's tough to get something higher or reach a better leadership thing. I don't care if you're a CEO of a Fortune 500 customer company or anything, that's, that's very different than getting that.

Yeah. And I really like, uh, what you said. Another mantra we have, I think it's for the entire Navy, right? Uh, one team, one fight. Uh, literally.

Yeah. It's easy to say, it's tough to do. And that's what I mean. I think that's the biggest problem that we have getting out of the Navy. It's we expect that to be the same on the outside. And it's not, it's more like, I'm self-first and everything else is secondary. But that team-first mentality, mission mindset, you can't teach, you either have it or you don't. Yes. And you can, and that's what I really look for when I hire people. I work with people now because I'm very, you know, I've been burned a couple times and I've been very, you know, I look to make sure now that that kind of thing is there. I can teach anyone anything.

Yes.

You know, or the team could teach anyone anything. You can't teach that, that mentality. It's just you either have it or you don't.

Huh. That is Kind of true, but I don't know. In my experience, it seems like in the Navy, I don't know how they do it, but it's like maybe by osmosis or something, but maybe it's just the environment you live in, but it's kind of expected and people just do it. Maybe because it's a matter of life and death.

Yeah, I was saying in the military you have that, and I would say it's probably 90% of the people have that mentality. That's what I mean. Hell, that's why you join the military. It's service above self. I mean, some of these people are living on food stamps. They sure as hell aren't doing it for to get rich or anything else. They're doing it because they believe in something. Um, I would say on the outside, it's very, very tough to find that service before self. It's very tough to find people who actually put self— I see a lot of people who talk about it, um, but when push comes to shove, they crumple. Whatever. And I've done the same thing, but I'm very, you know, I'm very cognizant of it now and the decisions that I make. And, you know, it's— it all stems from— I think you can realize you're doing it right if something if you're working with someone and they mess up or they miss something, is your first thing to blame them? Is your first thing to sit there and say, what could I have done differently?

Yes.

You know, to change that or to make sure to prevent that mistake. And I think that alone, if you're telling, if you're thinking all the time that why they make that mistake and you don't think how you could have caused it first, then you're just lying to yourself about putting team first and that kind of mentality. And like I said, I think people do pay it lip service. See a bunch of speakers and podcasts and all that kind of stuff, but they don't, they don't walk the walk, you know, they don't walk the talk in the end, you know. And it's very easy to do it when everything's hunky-dory. Where it really shines is when you're under pressure, when you're under stress. That's when you're— the real you will come out.

True.

Um, and you want to make sure that the real you is something you're proud of.

That is so true. So after two decades in uniform, what was the most challenging aspect of transitioning from commanding sailors to, uh, that's what it was.

It, it was this belief that, and they told us in the Navy is true, that, you know, all leadership is transferable. It's not. Operations is the same. It's not. Like, there's nothing at all that's the same in the military as outside the military. The people who struggle the most are the people who think that it's the same. And I, you know, I talk about this sometimes, is you really want to drop into that first job where they give you the freedom to really not do anything for 6 months to really understand. Because if not, you are not going to be liked because you're going to come in with a military mindset. And you're going to sit there and act like you've done this before and you haven't. And you're going to start either ordering people around or pushing operational stuff that just doesn't— it's not applicable. You have to really understand why people make those decisions and how it functions. And really, this is what it comes out is it— I don't care. In the end, everyone in the military is exactly the same. We could sit there and say they're from diverse backgrounds and blah, blah, blah.

Does—

no, it's they all think the same, they all have the same motivation. I would say by 95%. On the outside, that's not true at all. I mean, you could be working from someone from India who's used to a caste system, you could be working from, you know, someone from Asia, who is very task-oriented. I mean, you could work with a different generation. Yeah, who, who like that their biggest thing is to show up whatever time they want. And in the end, if you're doing a sprint and they get things done, do you really care what time they show up? You just want the work done. So You know, it's— you have to be flexible and you have to be willing. That's why I cannot stand— this is probably pejorative, but I apologize for this— I can't stand all these leadership books, to be perfectly honest, because they try to sell you on a concept that might work for one subset of people, um, and it doesn't work for everyone. Uh, and I think I would love to see some book written that kind of lumps, you know, kind of talks about it all. And I guess, you know, the bigger heartache I have is too, is the— we have a lot of— and you've imagined seeing it come out of the military too— a lot of people who we like to write books coming out of the military about leadership, when reality, a lot of us have not led in the civilian world. And it just, it's absolutely silly to me that we try to equate both of them together.

Well, maybe that book needs to be written by you.

No, it's— I mean, I could sit there and try, you know, I'm definitely not good enough to sit there and say it. I definitely don't get it right. But I do. I mean, I still have an executive coach, I'm still screwing up. But the important thing is I learned from it now. And I think I'm a better— I'm even— I would say I'm a better leader now, a better manager now than I have been. And it really, you know, sometimes, you know, I could think of a couple of points in my life where I've had, you know, come to Jesus moment. True. And I think if you don't have that, you're never going to improve. You need really— I hate to say, if you've never been hit rock bottom or been, you know, really failed miserably, you will never ever get better. Because, you know, half this— I think half the times we were successful because we're lucky or because we were successful because of timing or whatever. Truly be confident and to have a listen to yourself, you really, you have to fail big time to be able to reset yourself and really start learning. So, wow.

Actually, I was going to ask you this question later, but I think we need to handle this now. I love this coin. I can't remember who gave it to me. One of my CEOs did, but on one side it says failure, the other side it says success. Two sides of the same coin. So how has failure shaped your life? Yep. So how, how has failure shaped your life?

Sorry, could you say that again?

Oh, sorry. How, how has failure shaped your life?

Um, like I said, I think that's what actually teaches you. Success doesn't teach you anything. Other than you were successful. And it's a luck. Is it the team? Is it someone just gave up? Is it, you know, it's— there's so many ways to be successful, um, that you just kind of are lucky. Um, I think people truly learn by failure. And I think, you know, Chris Crosby, who's one of my mentors and, you know, who owned my last startup that I ran, um, He, he taught me that, you know, smart people don't learn by you telling them. Smart people learn by screwing up. And what you want to do is you— there's two ways to screw up. There's the ditch and there's the pole. The ditch is something recoverable. The pole is recoverable, but it's a lot harder. And so you want to make sure your team hits that ditch to learn. You want to prevent them from hitting the pole. Uh, and I— and, and they will still hit the pole too, and you got to help them recover, and it is recoverable. Um, but that's how smart people learn. You don't learn by reading a book, you learn by screwing it up, and it's those scars that make you. Um, I do think you can learn a lot by listening to someone's failures. I mean, that's— I would love to have a book that just talks about these are the 105 things that I screwed up in my life and what I did to get better, because that's actually That's worth listening to. The scars are what make you, not the successes.

Powerful. Let's talk about command presence. What advice would you give to emerging leaders who want to earn trust quickly in high-stakes environments?

I mean, I think it really depends on your environment. Are you in a mission-critical environment? That's very different than, you know, kind of a workplace environment. In reality, no one should really know you're there, and no one should— the whole thing should function without you. I mean, ultimately, you're trying to work yourself out of a job with who you get. I mean, you can make the decisions and you're there to step in, but if you're doing it right, you don't do anything. I mean, you're just kind of there for eye candy and, and strategic thoughts and doing interviews and podcasts if you're doing it right. If you have to step in a lot, you either don't have the right team or you weren't doing something right. Um, and so I think command presence in the military is very different than command presence outside the military. You know, command presence, you have to be though, you have to be there to give your team that kind of confidence in what they're doing that, you know, that you can get there and done, get, getting out alive. It's not the same outside of it. And. And I think they're two totally different things. And that's the other thing that I've seen leaders do. It's, they walk in and try to push that command presence in the outside world and it just, it doesn't work at all. They take you for an a-hole.

Yes. I remember that very, very clearly. I think I was only a lieutenant at the time. I had my first job in Silicon Valley and I tried to give orders to these engineers. They completely ignored me. And I'm like, what in the world? But, uh, yeah, I had to change my approach at influencing them. But, uh, so yeah, yeah, that's what it really is.

It's, it's, everything's about influence. It's not, you know, you can rule by fear for only so long and then you either have to level up the fear or you, you know what I mean? Or you have to do something. And so people will only fear you for so long. So if you want to live your life by that, by continuing to level up the fear and, and making examples of you actually doing that, then, then that's the only way you can do it. It just, it doesn't work in perpetuity because people will— it only goes so long. And that's it. But that's not the way you want to live your life. And that's not the way, because your team will jump ship when they can. They will vote with their feet. Because that's the one thing in the military, outside the military, is guess what? You don't have to stay with any boss you don't like. In the military, you're stuck with whoever it is and you got to make it work. On the outside, not so much.

So, so true. So comparing the military and tech, and especially since that's, that's where you are leading at such a high level now, uh, we talked about command at sea earlier, you know, in the Navy being both a privilege and a burden. So are there any parallels that you see between commanding a submarine and leading a global tech enterprise like you're doing now?

Uh, just the technology. You have to know the technology. I mean, that's the one thing that The submarine force does very well. You know, they, they hide all the cool operational stuff. You have to get qualified, and this is for officers, of course. You have to get qualified in the engineering plant first before you can do everything else. I mean, you have to know every single circuit, ventilation valve in that submarine to properly fight it. And so I think that works well in the tech sector. You have to understand the underlying technology. To be able to understand how you get the most return out of it. And I don't think that's always the case in, in there. But, you know, alone technology doesn't sell. Like, you know, I used to think that if you made some cool widget that was really cool, it would sell. But, you know, there's— look at, you know, you can ask Segway or Google Glass or some of these other things that were, that were pretty cool out there that they didn't sell because technology alone by itself doesn't sell. Um, you have to— there's something you, you have to bridge in there to make people's life easier and do something. Um, but it just can't be technology focused. Someone's got to get something out of it.

So true. So how do you balance technical mastery with emotional intelligence, both in the control room?

Uh, I think it's— you gotta have it. I mean, I think you gotta— I, to be honest, EQ is probably higher than technical intelligence. Because you can fill in technical intelligence with your team. You can't really fill in EQ. I think, you know, that EQ is probably the, the more, the bigger thing. And I guess it really depends on your role. I think if you're a manager, that's the case. I think if you're an IC, individual contributor, where you're not managing anyone, technical's probably first. But I also think that's another important point. Guess what? In the outside me and a manager— like, in the military, we associate success with how many people we lead, how big is our command. It doesn't work like that on the outside. I mean, to be honest, that, you know, individual contributor is just the same as a manager. In fact, you might even have more business impact as an individual contributor than as a manager, just because you're there for the— you know, it all depends on what you want to do. Strategy is, you might just have to be an IC for that, and that's fine. Um, And you have— it's a very tough thing for the military to let go of. True.

I guess I definitely had to learn a lot about being flexible. No, you know, we say Semper Gumby. I think it's definitely applicable in the industry. It's such a different world. But now you are widely recognized as a top 10 data center influencer, a builder of a top 10 modular data center company. What innovation and how are we shaping how we build and secure AI infrastructure today?

Oh, I am totally counter what I would say most people are. Um, I am in belief right now that a lot of it's just marketing. Um, you know, even Elon said there's only so much, so many tokens you can make. Everything now is just reinforcement learning. You've already scraped the internet, what else can you put it in? So if they're able to generate that many tokens with what they have now, why do they need 200 gigawatts? To make a model. Most companies actually use open source, and they use this thing called MCP to insert their own data to that open source, and then that's how they run their inference. Um, and like, it just follow the money. It's just, it's, it's Business 101. You have to have some kind of path to return on investment. But what you're seeing is, you know, a company— let's just take OpenAI for example— is actually losing a ton of money. Um, and it's because it's, you know, their subscription-based service. Now there's ways they can monetize that, like the way Google does and everything else. Yep, at this point in time they're not— like, there is no clear path for that to be revenue positive, especially with all these checks they're signing up for. And then you also have this other problem of circuitous economy where, you know, you are a startup and you get investor money you go to a, like, a cloud or a NeoCloud, and you, or you take down compute, that, that NeoCloud orders GPUs from NVIDIA right now, or AMD. Now, a lot of the benefits to get you on board quickly, they give you credits, they lower costs because they want to get you on hooked on it. Um, but that looks like positive revenue. So now you look like you're doing well in your business, and you might just be because you're getting breaks right now for the first year, you go get more money, you borrow more. It's like this repetitive cycle. And so, you know, it's not necessarily Ponzi mechanic— it's not to say Ponzi scheme, it could be Ponzi mechanics. But I mean, look at a company trying to bolster someone who uses their product, like, and they buy their product. I mean, how— that's not real capacity. And the best, you know, people like to equate AI, you know, Is it— are we in a bubble based on, um, a bubble? And I think that's the— that's not the best way to look at it. The best way to look at it is Japan in the '80s when everyone was supposed to have a lot, and Japan subsidized their semiconductor market and had this same kind of, you know, the government gave them low cost, they gave them deals. I mean, heck, the, uh, the, the palace the palace grounds in Japan was actually worth— real estate was worth more than all of California real estate. Wow. I mean, that's, that's, that was in the '80s in Japan, but it was all self-generated. And so it was successful until it wasn't, uh, and they realized that that demand wasn't there. So I think we need to be very careful on AI and, and believing that that is— and you see, I mean, it used to be they need all these gigawatts to solve for artificial general intelligence, AGI, and that's how they're going to monetize it. They stopped talking about that because I don't think they're close. I mean, it's all these models are just probabilistic models telling you what you want to hear. If you want that model to be your best friend, guess what? It's going to be your best friend because it's going to tell you exactly what you want to hear. Exactly. Um, but also has a hallucination problem. It'll make stuff up too. So I think it's You know, to me, what we are focused on is really what makes money on an AI, which is really the inference side. That's how you get the, the ROI. And, you know, we are doing some AI factories and that stuff like that, but it's— there are a lot of people out there who are coming. It's, you know, it's like the gold rush. Everyone's out there trying to pan for gold, and only a couple are going to be successful. But I do think, um, you can do a lot with an open source model, and why pay for it?

So let's see how that intersects with national security. Then, uh, how do AI, data center, and defense system intersect in shaping the future of national security?

I mean, unfortunately, we live in an interconnected world. So you— I mean, there's— the US has a US Cloud Act, which was originally came out in 2000— I think it's 2019. Um, and this stems from, uh, the FBI, the FBI wanted data on drug cartels. It was at a Microsoft data center in Ireland. So they passed this law basically that the government can order any US-based company to give them the info without really telling you about it. They're giving you your info. And so Europe didn't like that very much. So they made GAIA-X and GDPR. So they're trying to keep everything inside within their borders. But ultimately, we all live in a network and it's very tough to keep stuff inside your borders, even your metadata and stuff like that. Are you willing to pay for all this stuff? I don't know. But I do think you do need to have an infrastructure that's built to be distributed. Like, you can't— like, putting everything in Ashburn, Virginia does us no good if someone takes out all the fiber going to Ashburn, it's going to shut down the internet. I mean, it's like Or go look at, you know, what the Soviet, the Russians did with Dragon Anchor in the North Sea and take out the fiber between, you know, UK and the Nordics. It's, it's not that tough to go after this stuff. And it's absolutely asinine to protect your data center when I can just shoot all your mechanical stuff. I can take down all your mechanical with a bullet on the outside of it. I don't even have to go inside your data center. Or I can, guess what, you're running fiber. I can go after all your fiber outside your data center. You have no protection. Control over. I mean, it's just, it's all false illusion of security. Um, and I think that is, we need to understand the way you can solve this and what Ukraine's taught us. You have to be distributed. You have to be distributed, and you have to pretty much bring your platform with you, but you really have to be distributed.

So that's good. Uh, let's talk about resilience then. Uh, your company, NorthStar Enterprise and Defense, you operate with defense-grade resilience. Not too many, not companies out there can say that. What does that mean in practical terms for enterprises and especially government?

It's kind of the same thing. I mean, we are helping them build distributed networks and distributed compute to run unique platforms that either can run disconnected without the internet or can run connected with the internet. That's why we work with hardware providers, we work with, um, you know, platform providers, we work with network providers to kind of really give that kind of solution. Because I think You know, a lot of people believe that their data center and their mountain is protected, but like I said, all your mechanical and electrical's on the outside. So it's great your data's protected. If they take out your mechanical, electrical, you can't run the darn thing, you can't use your data. So it's somewhat pointless. So it's building that resilience and able to lose a site and still keep functioning. But that is expensive. I mean, it's, you have to replicate data, you have to build a platform that goes over too. I mean, that's, It always makes me laugh on some of these, like these 380 regions that some of these clouds use, because you're making the assumption that that company is going to spread their workload across two availability domains. But guess what? That costs money. And they'd rather just put it in one and blame you when something happens. It's a much cheaper way to do business. So, and that's not for everything, but that's kind of, it really, you have to think in those kinds of terms, not, You can't think of, you know, I'm on cloud and I'm safe. That's not the case at all. It's super easy to disrupt the cloud. True.

So you mentioned AGI earlier. Maybe this one would be a little bit simpler. Sovereign AI, right? AI that is secure, ethical, and aligned with national value. So in your view, how do we ensure that?

I mean, I think it's— that's what I kind of mentioned. You just take an open source model and you inject the data that the specific it like you don't have to train it, you just inject the data that you have, the important stuff, and now you have your own model that you can use for entry. A really easy way to do it, and it does not require like— you don't need like gigawatt or 500 megawatts to make your own model. I mean, it really is just use open source, use someone else's model they've already paid for, inject your own data, then you can control your own model and utilize that own model. And I think, you know, once these all these promises and these, these sovereign clouds start not happening, or they realize the costs of it, or it's not delivered on time, you're going to see shifting to, you know, what makes the most sense of with this kind of stuff. That's not, it's not backed in hype and stuff. It's actually backed in what actually works, the practical, you know. And this is where I think it's, this is where the Navy helps out. It's, you know, we're very good at calling bullshit on things. You know, what's the bullshit meter? We don't have a lot of patience for it. And it all like, it all comes down to, you know, how do you operationalize that? How are you going to do that? You know, and a lot of stuff seems like rainbows and unicorns and, you know, how to call that. If you can't think in your head, how are you going to get from A to B? And then it's not going to happen. And I think we need a little more common sense in the industry.

Actually, one of your videos, which is a viral video I used to promote this podcast, you were talking about the backlash on nuclear power AI is definitely creating a, uh, global crisis on power.

No, it's, it's actually doing, it's doing well. It's, there's an assumption that you need a lot of power.

Mm-hmm.

Do you need power? Do you need transmission? And so I'm of the opinion that you don't necessarily, you're not gonna need all this power people keep talking about because these massive data centers aren't gonna be built cuz you don't need that many tokens. I mean, like we already said, you already have the internet. In a model, what else are you going to put in there? It's just going to be reinforcement learning to make it better. Um, and so how much power do you really need? Um, but I— the backlash I'm worried about is there are so many kind of companies that are out there who think they can do nuclear right now, and they all have these designs that sound awesome, but in reality, it's, you know, it's— they— there— you have to go through a formal process to get this stuff approved, unless you're like— doing it like the Gen 3 Plus. If you really want to get something done fast, Gen 3 is kind of your pressurized water reactor. Gen 3+ uses safety. Like, you can walk away from the thing. It's going to cool itself. It doesn't need pumps like this Gen 4 stuff. Yeah, it sounds cool. As a technologist, I think it's awesome. Is it practical? Is it going to be delivered on time? No. I mean, you already seen NuScale flamed out with that, and they worked on 2012. TerraPower talked about deliveries this decade, but TerraPower recognizes that they won't be able to deliver till mid-2030. And they're doing a lot of stuff with medical isotopes now, which is also super important. But I think the backlash in the community is going to be all these companies that are promising these large power plants in like this in the next 5 years. That won't happen. And then we'll just blame nuclear power, saying, yeah, it's like that. It's there. I mean, to be honest, every— you might have a Westinghouse reactor Everyone is different. I mean, that's why NRC qualifies a reactor operator. It's for that plant. Yes, that plant, because everything is different. It doesn't matter if it's still the same design, it will be different in some form or fashion. So, but I, what I'm really excited about is more of the micro reactors, which is kind of like, it's a very simplistic design. It's much easier to get approved and think of it like a nuclear battery that it lasts 8 years. You can put it on a semi and do that kind of stuff. I mean, to me, that is more interesting than, you know, a quick path to get rich on some plan that it takes a long time. And I mean, I even see the, you know, kind of the shady marketing just as much in nuclear power as I do in the AI world too. Lots of promises and delivery, lots of hand waving and misconstruing facts. And it's— they're just taking advantage of people. Don't— in reality, if this was something people understood, it would be a very different story.

True.

But no one really understands it. So they're very much enamored with press releases and videos.

A lot of marketing hype for sure. Now, you do have a newsletter, The Control Room, where you talk about agentic AI and inference computing. How do you see these evolving over the next 5 years?

I mean, that's how you make your money. I mean, that's 70, 80% of the market will be inference and agentic AI. And I think The community used to and still does for the most part think inference as write my term paper for me, blah, blah, blah. But inference can be either latency sensitive or bandwidth constrained. Think quality assurance in manufacturing process, think safety of life, think remote surgery. You have that stuff. You have the thing with, let's just say, you know, you have 100 people using AI to make a video all on the same radio access network, like that, you, that's like terabytes of information. You can't push that through the fiber from, so you're gonna have to put something at the tower base to resolve that kind of stuff.

Yes.

And then there's the sovereign piece too. Like you, there's stuff that if I make this model and I'm at, I'm in sales, that's my own IP. So yes, my model could be deployed as an inference solution somewhere, but I've spent a lot of money on that model.

Mm-hmm.

And I wanna make sure that it's protected. And so I may put something close to me so I can go hug my servers and make sure no one gets access to my own IP.

True.

And so, I mean, I think that it's all this different versions where it leads to what I've been talking about, which is distributed compute. I mean, you can't get away from it.

Sure.

It's just going to be what it's going to end up happening.

So what do you— I think I'm showing— oh, I should have been showing your company site. Hold on, let me get it in just a second. I thought I had already— okay, here we go. So this is North Star, right?

Yeah, there we were.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we were I, I ran an incubated startup underneath Compass Data Centers, um, and we kind of redefined how we're doing our, the modular approach. We went to more composites. So that composites was an Owens Corning developed, you know, composite. It's been Owens Corning pointed us to collaboration with Northstar, and so we started getting some defense contracts. And so Compass is you know, Canadian-owned. So you can't really do defense— U.S. defense contracts with a Canadian-owned company. So we had to be sold, and NorthStar just bought us this year. So that's kind of how that, that, that works. So we were a startup, and I should say we were an incubated startup because I totally cheated on startup because I didn't have to go get funding. I'd have to go get Series A and B. I had a very good, you know, parent company that funded me. Okay. But ultimately we had to be sold because of the defense contracts.

Because I really like the name NorthStar. I was gonna I'd ask you, what does that symbol mean to you in leadership? And in—

I mean, I think it's, it's what your true thing that you can come back to is. And that's where I think we lie to ourselves. I mean, honestly, what's the true thing? I think people will sit there and say, servant leadership, service above self, but when push comes to shove itself, the North Star is themselves. And they need in You know, I think the North Star needs to be— yeah, it needs to be, you know, if you're honest with yourself, and it can be yourself and you can work around that kind of thing, but it's what guides you, what motivates you, what you always come back to. Um, and to me now it's different, you know, now that I have some scars, it's very different. I'm actually preaching what I— I'm actually doing what I preach now and not, you know, kind of just lying to myself.

Yeah, because with a North Star mindset, talking about mission, people, and purpose, you've said that sustainability and security are not opposite. They are twin imperatives. Can you elaborate on how you've embedded that mindset in North Star culture?

Well, I mean, I think it's— and this all comes down to what sells. I mean, I think you can make something super complex. We made a data center you can control via your phone. That's not simple. It's tough to recreate and it's super expensive. So that doesn't sell. And that's like a Segway, $5,000 for a Segway. It does. I mean, it sounds cool, but it's expensive. It doesn't sell. Yeah. And so you have to make it simple and you have to make it repeatable and you have to make it something that people need. It has to be foundational. But you— I mean, there's a reason why you don't hand-build cars. Well, you do, but they're Bugattis and they cost millions. Like, you don't need an assembly line. I mean, they— we saw this back with the Model T. Hand-built doesn't work. You have to do an assembly line. So if you are straying from that assembly line, you are ultimately not doing what you want to be doing. And so everything that we do is, is manufacturing. Now, we might build pieces and parts and bring them to a site and kind of glue them together, uh, and make a big building, but it's still manufacturing in the end. And that's what everything we do is try to take advantage of manufacturing and alternative construction.

So in that case then, how do you see the balance between AI innovation and human responsibility evolving over the next decade?

I mean, I think it's on the military side, you're always going to have that loop. Um, you know, they might be able to get the target acquisition, give you a firing solution quick, but ultimately humans got to look at it and push the button. I don't think you want the machine making that kind of stuff. Um, but I do think you want to offload some of this work to, uh, AI. Now granted, what's the responsibility, what's not the responsibility? You see all the Sora videos now. Um, what happens when someone makes a, a person like an actress that's AI? I mean, you can do a lot with that, but ultimately I think you need to have And is it better free range or take, you know, basically con people or something? You need some humans in there to provide oversight. Now granted, we are nowhere near, like I said, it's a probabilistic model. It's just telling you what you want to hear. We're not like near HAL or the Terminator or anything like that, but we need to make sure it's used responsibly. And you, because it can do, I mean, it can mimic voices. I mean, you could, I could, I could be an AI right now. I've seen, I don't know if you've Googled like fake, uh, people actually use AI on some of these interviews now where that's why people say, hey, raise your left hand, raise your right hand, so you can, it's, they can verify it's you and not some, something else, you know, that it's AI that you're trying to use to get a job.

Um, what a time we live in.

Oh, I know, it's, it's interesting. I mean, I mean, there's a lot of benefit from it too, but I mean, it's still, in the end, we don't— we're talking to one-third of the company, one-third of the world has access to this AI because they have access to broadband. There's still a lot, a lot of people who don't have access to any of that. And so we make it sound like we're solving world hunger, and I hope we solve cancer with it, but You know, what are we doing to make the people's lives who don't have access to the broadband that we're building? Because, you know, it's— I hate that with, you know, there's a significant portion of our country in the U.S. does not have access to broadband, you know. And I— that was supposed to be solved with BEAD. Right now there's— we're spending like $44 or $45 billion to bring broadband to rural areas. But until we solve that, I mean, your AI is you're not going to get the dominance that you want because you have to have access to that AI to make it happen. And it can't just be down at the school, or you got to have it at home to be able to do the work with it.

Yeah, and you've touched on ethics and sustainability. What role do you believe ethics, sustainability, and resilience will play in shaping the future of compute and defense?

I think it really depends on the use case because for some of this stuff, you don't really need a lot of resilience. I mean, if you're doing gaming, do you really care if that thing does it? You know, it's, it doesn't really matter. I think using, you know, using AI to mimic people or deepfake stuff is the ethics problem that we got to resolve on how we're going to fix that kind of stuff. Um, and, you know, I think it's, it's, it's responsibility for us to use it, but I don't— the problem is what safeguards can you put in place? I think the You know, you've already looked the genie out of the bottle with what Sora is able to do right now, uh, and it's just going to get better from there. But how, you know, what kind of stuff can we do? Because you can tell, you know, by some— how can we develop programs that can sniff this stuff out and label it as AI-generated stuff? But now you get the opposite effect. Like, I like to post a lot of veterans videos that I get, and the purpose of veteran videos really is to show people what we do on a day-to-day basis out in the military, just to dehumanize what we're doing. But I still get a lot of people now who are saying, oh, that's AI, that's AI. No, that's really, that's really what they're doing right now. Yes, and yes, it's cool, it's, it's cool.

Um, it is, it is, it is getting a lot better. Even professional like myself, no, I can get tricked at times because AI is so realistic. No, unless you're using a special tool, you can't really tell just by looking. Because when you first started people would have like, you know, 6 fingers or things like that. You could easily tell this is trash, but now it's almost impossible. It's like so good, man.

Yep. I mean, that's a reason why Sora watermarks it. I mean, yeah, trust me, I imagine people will love to get rid of that Sora watermark on there that shows it so they can mimic stuff.

Yes.

Um, but we have to do stuff like that. I think it's important that we're doing stuff so we know what's AI and what's not AI. I mean, we've always used computer generated, and that stuff was getting better. Um, but this stuff is definitely photorealistic. We need to make sure that we're protecting ourselves from ourselves with this, specifically with the images and, and videos. And, you know, but it's, it's also a great answer. Like, if you don't like what you see, that's— it's very easy to blame AI now. So you don't have to look into it because it's AI. Someone's trying to fake something to you. So unfortunately it does not help on conspiracy theories or some other stuff. Even if you're showing facts, those facts could have been doctored and it's very easy to— it's, it's what I think it makes it harder to sway people. You know, people are going to believe what they want to believe. And, you know, at least with before you could sit there and say, this is eyewitness. But that I witnessed now to be fake.

Man, what a strange world we live in. It's kind of exciting, a lot of opportunities, but challenges as well. Okay, for the last— man, it's been almost 55 minutes. So the last 5 minutes, let's focus solely on leadership. What is the greatest lesson you've learned so far?

Excuse me, what was the what?

The greatest lesson you have learned.

I mean, what true mentorship and true delegation actually is. Like I said, it's— you have to be comfortable with what that person comes up with, even if it's wrong. And it— and what I've often seen is it might, it might be, it might be right, it might be okay, but it's just not the way you do it. But we don't like to— we don't, you know what I mean? We don't, we don't like to associate because now you're putting your success in someone else's hands. And, you know, we're very much self-ego driven. Unfortunately, until you break yourself of that. So it's, it's, it's more than really understanding what that actually means. I think I used to talk about it and say it, but I didn't really practice it. And now I actually practice it and understand I can separate myself from it. And I still get mad sometimes, but I realize, you know, if something screws up, a lot of times it's me. I did something. I didn't give them the correct data. I didn't update them. I didn't tell them I can't— like, we're assuming people can read. Like, it's like with dealing with your spouse, like, yeah, it's in my mind. Everyone, everyone thinks of stuff differently. Just because you, you took information in and you walked away with the conversation does not by any means mean that that person across from you walked away with the same insights. We're all different people, and I think once you realize that, then you will start looking a lot more inward on when mistakes happen, of what you did to contribute. In fact, I just posted something on LinkedIn about, you know, human error in data centers. It's like, people always want to do the right thing. But if you make them make the choice between— let's just say, hey, you have to get this done before your family, you go see your family— if like, if they think they're smart, they will cut corners. And eventually, you know, eventually that will come up to them. So protect people from themselves. Don't put people in situations where you, they can comp— you're giving them to make a choice because you do not want them compromising themselves.

Man, that definitely keeps you humble as well. What do you think is the greatest leadership advice you have ever received?

Uh, really, it's to look inward at the problems first. I mean, it really is kind of— it's, it's understand what you have, and everyone takes things differently. And I used to laugh at kind of Myers-Briggs, and there's better ones out there right now. But you have to understand who you're talking to and how they take information in and, and how they act under pressure. And I think it's super important for leaders, especially if they're in your direct group, to really do that kind of stuff that you might think is silly and stuff like that. But then you know your team. Like, you know, some people just don't do well under stress, and that will come out. And so you do not want to put that person under stress. You wanna make sure that you're leading them the way it's most effective for them to be leaders. So once again, this is not, you can't portray, this goes back to my earlier comment that leadership books I can't stand because it's, you, there's no pejorative leadership at all. There is no one single golden bullet book. I don't care how much people like Brené Brown and stuff like that. It's like no ego is such an easy thing. Yeah. But people don't follow it even who have that because they ultimately go back to their ego unless they're really thinking about it. So, you know, I think that's kind of what it is. It's you have to understand the people you're working with.

So, uh, you've had such a great success, right? Award-winning submarine CEO to now industry, uh, award-winning leader, uh, in this tech data center and AI. What do you think is the secret of your success? Why are you successful?

Lucky. 100% agree, I'm lucky. Right place, right time. I'm no different than anyone else out there. I think I've just been super fortunate and lucky.

Okay, I will accept that because there's definitely an element of luck in success. If I take that away from you, what else is there? Why do you think you are so successful?

I think I'm persistent as hell. I don't give up. I don't take no for an answer. I don't believe in the status quo. This is the nuke in me. My wife calls me a pessimist. I like, like, you know, to me, grit's the most important thing in the world. Um, and I think you have to have that persistence and that grit to really, you know, you don't want to get— you will get punched in the face, but you want to get back up and keep on getting punched. Or if you do get punched, you want to learn from it before you keep going. You just— it's— I'm like, I'm always looking for what the problem is, what's bullshit, and that's the Like I said, that, that's 100% Nuke in me. It's, you know, it's questioning everything and that kind of stuff. And I think that's really served me well, but I also don't believe I'm limited by anything. I can, I solve, you know, I don't think I can solve cancer, but I do, I'm not afraid to talk about some of these things and go against the norm and preach this kind of stuff. Um, and I think that's kind of what has helped me be successful. It's, I don't, wow. I don't do well just by following status quo. I've never have done. It's more poking holes in things is more fun and seeing what the advantage of that is.

So for aspiring leader watching, especially junior officers, this is really key. Persistence and not taking—

Well, the junior officers, it's easy. Do what your chief tells you to do.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Up to a point. But you do have to be persistent too, because at times you are going to fail, right? Maybe not. I know, I don't know why, but most male in the Navy, they want to be Top Gun. They want to be flying with F/A-18. I had that dream too, but sometimes it's just not gonna work out. So when you fall down, you have to pick yourself back up and find something.

I was a CO about to be fired.

Wow.

You know, so it's like, it's, you will stumble. It's how you, how, what happens after that. I blamed everyone else except myself when that happened until I realized I had a good hard look at what was really going on. It was me. And once you came through that, that is— so if, you know, if something happens, look inward first. Don't blame anyone else. What did you contribute?

So powerful. You keep saying that over and over again, but that is so powerful. Look inward.

Because it— but we, like I said, we'd like to handwave about it. We like to say servant leader. Yeah, we're not. It's— we'd like to blame everyone else. It's And so it's— unless you're looking inward when you fail, or something happens, even if your, your team fails, unless you're looking inward, then you didn't— you did something. I mean, I think the Marines like it. I think, yeah, tactical units get this really well. If they don't accomplish— let's say someone can't do a 26-mile ruck walk, that is on the squad leader, the platoon leader, that they didn't make sure that happens. Yeah, I think that we need to have that same kind of mindset. If someone fails at a mission, what did you do to not prepare them to get that right for that mission? It's just a different mindset.

It's true. But in the Navy, the only time I really felt that was at boot camp, because they wouldn't let anybody fail. It was terrible. One person can do it, then the entire unit is punished.

If someone fails on a look— I mean, if someone fails on a checkout, that's good. But what did they miss? But if they keep on failing, what are you doing Yeah, what do you— why are you putting someone in this position? And some people just aren't meant for some of this kind of stuff, even how much they try. So how can you repurpose them into something they're really strong at, you know? And some people will not be successful no matter how much they do in a certain thing, and that's fine. So how can you find something that they will be successful in? It could be catered to their needs and their wants.

That's true servant leadership. So as a leader, what are you learning now?

I think I learned— I, I was probably arrogant 4 years ago and thought I could run a business. I got super lucky where I, uh, I was with Chris under, under Compass, and he let me fail a lot and gave me the mentorship that I needed. I think really it's learning how to run a business has been the thing, and it really comes down to sales, and it's not yourself selling an idea, you're selling a huge part of what they need. So it really, you're selling to the person across the street, not the idea of what you have. And I think, but that is also transformative on leadership too. I think if you think, you know, in the end we're all humans, we're all dealing with humans and is, and that's dirty and that's mucky and it's not easy. As soon as you recognize that, I think it's, it's much easier to make decisions and run something., um, than it is otherwise. And, and I think it's— yeah, I think that's really what I learned. It's, you know, how to do that kind of stuff, how to, how to honestly lead, how to honestly come up with a strategy, how— what sells, you know, that kind of stuff. Um, don't just jump on the bandwagon and make it a business.

Powerful. Always trying to find a win-win for everyone involved. And, uh, who are some of the people that you know that we should know, some of your mentors or thought leaders.

And I've been super lucky, you know, it's like Joe Cava from Google, Brian Cox from Stack, you know, Carrie from Colt. I mean, I have so many leaders in our industry who are CEOs who I've been able to call and ask questions. I mean, the biggest one recently was Chris, who, like I said, took a chance on me, taught me how to lead and let me know when I screwed up and let me fail. And and let me learn how to actually run a business. I, like, if I would have— my business would have failed if it was just me back in the start if I didn't have that kind of leadership and oversight. So I've been super fortunate. But the big thing is, don't be afraid to ask those leaders if you— like, what's the point of you trying to figure something out? And I used to consider this micromanaging, but wouldn't it be better if you asked your boss if they've done something before and they can give you advice? On. And they might have an idea that, you know, instead of you spending 3— like how disheartening it is, you work hard for 3 weeks and you do something and it's not what was wanted. But if you would have asked that question, if you would have had, you know, the, the gumption and putting aside your ego to ask the question ahead of time, you know, has this worked before? Have you done something like this? What are you actually trying to get? You would have stopped that 3— wasting 3 weeks. And I think it's raising your hand and asking for help is the most powerful thing that you can do.

Yeah, you go back to the theme of humility. That is so powerful. So if you could choose 3 people to have dinner with, who would you choose and why? They could be alive, dead, or even mythical figures.

Man, I would say Churchill.

You don't have to say why for that one. Who else?

I think Einstein and Patton.

Okay. Yeah.

Or maybe Halsey's in there too, or somewhere in there. To me, it's Churchill just because of what he did, the ability to get a nation around him. Einstein, these great ideas, and then a military leader who really led well and was brave and that kind of stuff. I think that would be a very unique thing.

Now, the people who listen to the show, we are readers. Any books that you would recommend, uh, or even movies, YouTube channel, podcast as well, but mostly books?

No, I think it's, I think it's just under, you know, you know how I feel about kind of books. I think it's, I think you're, you know, I think books are good. There are some good ones out there, um, on, you know, kind of not leadership books, because I think leadership books are actually better when you when you actually get online and you read what articles that people post, because you want diverse opinions on that kind of stuff. And so, you know, to me, it's— I like the books. Now, I can give you a list on startups and business. I mean, even How to Win Friends and Influence People is good. Yeah. As a certain thing. I just avoid the leadership books just because I think I have a hard time listening to people with that kind of stuff.

Especially—

and it's nothing wrong, these are all good people— but military people writing about leadership in the outside world drives me absolutely bonkers. It's not, it's not the same. It's not. And don't try to say it is.

All right, is there a song, a book, or a movie that would be your life's theme or anthem?

Uh, my life's theme or anthem, a movie or a song or a book? I've probably— I like Ferris Bueller because that's all about you don't, you don't take what the world gives you and you make your own success. And, you know, he is viewing the world through a different—

he's—

everyone's saying this stuff's impossible and he's doing it, you know, and he knows it and he's making stuff happen. I think that's kind of the way to live life is don't be bound by people's conformity or rules. You make your own self.

Yeah, I think Nelson Mandela said, right, it's impossible until it is done, which is pretty powerful. So if you had one day to live, how would you have liked your final contribution to be?

I think spending time with my family and imparting leadership lessons or stuff to my kids.

What is the number one leadership lesson you would impart?

It's grit. Grit, definitely.

Yes. And when you wake up in the morning, is there one problem you would like to solve?

When I wake up in the morning? Yeah, how do we build what I think is coming in the future, which is distributed compute? And how do we stop wasting time with this big stuff? Because it's not— it's relevant, but it's not relevant. And in the end, it's not— it might be helping a quarter of the world. It's not helping three-quarters of the world, which is to me, it's how do you get broadband to rural areas? And And you can monetize that for the business people. You can monetize it and everything. But in the end, how do you get, how do you really make that happen?

Okay, finally we are coming to the end. Thanks so much for spending a little bit more time with us. How can we add value back to you?

I mean, I think it's just, you know, I like to write a lot of stuff on LinkedIn and, you know, I posted something recently about MCP and kind of open source, you know, kind of how you can use open source models to make a GenAI and how things are working. So I think, you know, just interacting, asking questions, you know, telling your stories, I think it's just be part of the conversation. Get out, stop sitting on the sideline and be part of the conversation.

Very good. Thank you so much. And to finish, okay, before we finish, let me ask you this. Is there a question I should have asked you that I haven't asked? Ask yet?

No, I think, I think, I think I rambled way too much. I think it's, you know, it's, I think, you know, you kind of, you kind of definitely covered everything. Uh, but in the end, you know, I would say the one thing is, how do you know you're successful in life? And that's you raised good kids and you contributed to the world around you. Is that's, it's not how much money you make, it's not what car you drive, it's really when it comes down to it, that's it.

Well, that's tough because, uh, my last, uh, the most important question of the podcast is, if you could go back and give a piece advice to your 17-year-old self standing at the edge of this incredible career you've had both in the military and in the industry? What would you say to 17-year-old?

You're not as good as you think. You're not as good as you think you are.

Powerful. Okay, lightning round, rapid fire, really, really quick. Don't take too much to think. One word that defines great leadership. One word.

Great. I mean, it's—

okay, think it for yourself. All right, morning routine or practice that keeps you grounded? Coffee. Book or quote that changed your life?

What was book or what?

Or a quote that changed your life or mantra.

I love the, you know, kind of that, the Man in the Arena.

Very good. And who inspires you most today?

My wife.

To finish the sentence, leadership is?

Always learning.

Okay, what did you want to do when you were a kid?

Uh, want to command a submarine.

Wow, you did it! Bravo! That's incredible. Yeah. Wow. Okay, 3 adjectives describing you as a child.

3 adjectives? Uh, uh, persistent, annoying, thoughtful.

As an adult?

Oh, as a— yeah, as an adult. Yeah, yeah, I think that's Those three probably fit well for me.

Okay. All right. So consistency. Okay. Well, very last one, and this is it. What is one word that represents our shared experience on this podcast today?

Gratifying.

I think I'm just so grateful. Grateful. Grateful. Thank you so much for making the time. US Navy Commander Tony Grayson. Thank you. Thank you so much. I think especially the aspiring military leaders, I think they're going to get so much out of this interview. Thank you.

All right, thank you. Thank you so much.

All right, everyone, uh, thank you so much for being with us, uh, today. So this is going to be the end of the podcast. No more podcast for me today. I normally do it, uh, once, uh, but I did 3 podcasts today. But I think you guys got a lot out of it. Now next week I'm going to have one of my primary mentors. Here she is, uh, the legendary Shelley Archambault, the author of Unapologetically Ambitious. She's one of the very first Black CEOs here in Silicon Valley. She's going to be with us next Thursday. You absolutely do not want to miss it. Okay, until tomorrow, have a wonderful day. Thank you for being with us. Bye. Thank you for listening to the Leadership and Success Podcast with your host, Coach BZ. If you like what you heard, please subscribe to our channels and come back for more wisdom nuggets on how you may develop into a better leader and achieve greater levels of success. Leadership is the most critical skill. The world will always need leaders to lead others, deploy the next disruptive technology, or execute a business strategy. You may as well decide on counting yourself among the 21st century leaders. See you right here next time on the Leadership and