Homeschool Entrepreneur Jacob Kite on Faith, Tech & Truth

Jacob Kite (0:00)

These huge companies keep monopolizing and controlling all of the market share and the financial side of it. They control the manipulation side of it, the content side of it, what you see, how you see it, and that leads you to buying. I think TikTok and Instagram, I can't remember which one, I think it's Instagram, has a very interesting algorithm experience where it shows you something that is sad, then it shows you something that's going on in the world, a war that's aggravating, and it shows you something that's scary or that leaves you in suspense, it shows you something that's fun, and then it shows you an ad or something like that. There's some sequence that it uses, and a lot of it's just based on manipulation or unclean content, and so I plan on fixing a large portion of that market by creating a new opportunity for young people to start creating things. Your organization is known worldwide and we certainly appreciate every facet that you do. I do believe in what you're doing because I've seen it in my family.

SPEAKER_2 (0:59)

I'm so excited about all the things that Robert, you guys do with Classical Conversations. It's been a huge blessing for our family.

Jacob Kite (1:05)

Grateful for the work at Classical Conversations. You're a leader and you have been in this movement for a long time.

SPEAKER_2 (1:10)

We love Classical Conversations. I do feel like I have a debt of gratitude to you, your family, all of CC for just the fruit that has come from CC.

Jacob Kite (1:22)

I appreciate all that you guys do both through this wonderful podcast and also through Classical Conversations which I am convinced is the best education resource out there. Thank you very much for all that you do for the cause of Christ and for our families and for our children. Really, really appreciate it.

Robert Bortins (1:38)

Hey everyone and welcome to another informative episode of Refining Rhetoric and I'm always blessed when I get to talk to a Classical Conversations graduate and today I'm talking to Jacob Kite. He is an entrepreneur, actor, founder, building brands and systems designed to prepare the next generation to lead as founder and CEO of a growing portfolio that includes Activitree, Pocket Truth AI and the Jacob Kite Show. Jacob represents a new kind of entrepreneur shaped by a creative founder from selling Christmas albums before his teenage years to studying stock markets and blockchain at 14 to nearly becoming international president of Key Club International. Jacob's story is one of the choosing the harder path thinking generationally and building with purpose.

He has worked with organizations like the Loyal Press, Classical Conversations, and his long-term vision is centered on responsibility scale and raising the next generation of worldwide change makers. So, Jacob, welcome to the show.

Jacob Kite (2:34)

I appreciate it. Glad to be here. I guess that summarizes it all. It's a good summary.

Robert Bortins (2:39)

Hopefully, I pronounced all the businesses you have correctly. But yeah, so you are a...

Jacob Kite (2:44)

The one that you do is Activitree. Activitree.

Robert Bortins (2:47)

Activitree. All right. Yeah, and I know I've looked at that website before, and I appreciate that. You've taken me along on your journey and reaching out to me a few times. So yeah, excited to share your story with the show. You graduated out of Challenge 4 in the spring of 2025 So just a recent grad, and you've had this idea of building businesses for a long time. So yeah, just tell us a little bit about yourself and your family and your background.

Jacob Kite (3:15)

Yeah, of course.

Pretty much, I was born in Colorado. I came from Colorado, but my family is from all over the world. Some would call us maybe like gypsies or something because my family moved around all over the place. My dad was a pro athlete. My mom was from Brazil, all of that. So they traveled a lot.

And my father was getting into Olympic level type of sports. And he never really wanted me and my siblings to get into the very high-end competitive sports because of how crazy that was. We didn't realize how crazy everything else was as well. But that's why when I was born, we got into music. And so I have five younger siblings. We all are musicians and actors and just were in the entertainment industry. I started in violin when I was two. I had an inclination for music before that though. And then since then picked up a lot of other instruments and skills along the way, and helped lead my siblings to do the same. And so that's why we're here today. That was one of my first entrepreneurial endeavors. I'd say that everything leads to entrepreneurship in one way or another, because the term is initially like a risk taker or a innovator, if you go back to the root of what it means. And so, yeah, that's where I kind of got started initially. And then from there, I started playing concerts, weddings came, a lot of different types of things with music, started recording and selling albums with my sister, Shailen, and another friend, and that was a Christmas album we did when I was probably about, if I had, I think I was like a nine or 10 when we did that. And we sold a whole bunch of copies of that. I think we made a few thousand dollars of profit for an entrepreneur day. Actually, it started because we were doing the entrepreneur day at CC, which is something that you guys do run at some campuses. And so when we did that, we brought that to market there and sold a whole bunch of it, and that kind of got me going in a way, so to say. From there, I really wanted to get into government stuff and parity and have future aspirations to be in politics in one way or another. And so that got me into youth council boards in the city, so like city youth council that would be advising the mayor and city councilmen and city councilwomen, and then getting involved in larger organizations such as Key Club International. And it actually led me to starting and founding my own non-profit that was a community-based service effort for teenagers that ran for a while. When I was 14, at the same time, I was getting into stocks and crypto and things like that. And then that kind of led into me getting involved in these student bodies, student government bodies.