497: Ethan Thornton—I Like a Lotta Problems

**Mike Rowe** (0:03)
Hello, friends, it's The Way I Heard It. My guest today will give you hope for the future, or scare the hell out of you. I can't decide.
He's inspirational. He's dealing with absolute mortal stakes, creating completely consequential tools slash weapons that are going to determine, in all likelihood, the fate of the world, or at least play a pretty big role in it. And he's 22

**Chuck** (0:37)
That's the crazy part. Oh, and also he owns a company that he started, which is worth...

**Mike Rowe** (0:44)
1.8 billion.

**Chuck** (0:45)
With a B.

**Mike Rowe** (0:46)
Yeah. And in other news, his name is Ethan Thornton.
And it's a name you're going to want to remember. He's been getting a fair amount of press here of late for all the reasons I just mentioned, in no particular order. But if you look at all of it on the page, that's one thing. When you see this guy speak, as we did at an energy conference about four months ago, it's another thing altogether. And what's happening, I think, in the military industrial aerospace world, is this coming together of young entrepreneurial patriots who are dedicated to building the arsenal that they believe we need to fight and prevail in an asymmetrical war.
This conflict seems inevitable. We don't know when, but somewhere between China and Taiwan, well, I guess is the straight.

**Chuck** (2:00)
Yeah.

**Mike Rowe** (2:01)
But it just seems inevitable that things are going to get spicy.

**Chuck** (2:08)
And whether it's inevitable or not, we still have to prepare for it. And he has a lot of knowledge in this area, way more than your average 22-year-old, I would say.

**Mike Rowe** (2:19)
Way more than your average 50-year-old.

**Chuck** (2:22)
Or 63, maybe. Yeah.

**Mike Rowe** (2:24)
Or look, I'd say way more even than people who are firmly entrenched in this industry.
What's really happening, I think, is that the rules of engagement have changed so quickly, Yes. so quickly, that our whole playbook has not quite been rendered completely obsolete, but kind of.

**Chuck** (2:51)
It's getting there for sure.

**Mike Rowe** (2:52)
Yeah.

**Chuck** (2:53)
Everything is about unmanned vehicles and unmanned deliverables of payloads and whatnot.

**Mike Rowe** (3:01)
Yeah. And look, it's easy to look at all this and go, oh, God, here we go. It's the Terminator or, oh, man, why are we accelerating into this future that just seems so uncertain and so scary?
But I think that's the wrong way to say it. This is inevitable. We can't stop progress and we can't stop the world from spinning. And this is the way it's spinning.

**Chuck** (3:31)
And at this moment, we are behind in this race.

**Mike Rowe** (3:35)
Yeah. You're going to have a hard time balancing a lot of what you hear with the fact that it's coming from a guy. And I hate to make it about this, and I'm sure it annoys him, but it's both amazing and inspiring that he's 22 And he has the attention of the Pentagon. He has the attention of Sequoia, a giant venture firm who's put a lot of money behind the tools he's created. You'll see those tools. He'll talk about them. He'll show them to you.
This is the future of what our arsenal is destined to become, because we're not going to out manufacture China. They made 1,000 ships last year. We made three.

**Chuck** (4:18)
Yep.

**Mike Rowe** (4:19)
We're not going to catch up this way, and we're not going to win the next conflict. Or more importantly, as Ethan will tell you, we're not going to be able to prevent the next conflict unless we perfect and mass produce what you're about to see. And I'm not betting against him.

**Chuck** (4:39)
No. And you know what I love about this guy more than anything else, and I know you already know, and that is that he is a patriot.
He's 22, and he loves this country, and he wants to help this country be the best that it can be. I love that.

**Mike Rowe** (4:53)
He dropped out of MIT to build this company.

**Chuck** (4:57)
Mach Industries.

**Mike Rowe** (4:58)
Mach is the name of the company. He was a Teal fellow, which helped accelerate his rise. The name of the episode is, I like a lot of problems. And that's a direct quote from a guy. You know, when he said it, it made me think of every great pitcher I've ever seen, especially the relief pitchers. It's the bottom of the ninth. The bases are loaded. You want the ball. Give me the ball. I can do this. It ain't bragging if it's true. Listen for yourself. See what you think. I like a lot of problems. Ethan Thornton, right after this. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. Dumb.