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Hardpoints

VALOR Media Network

Every week, former fighter pilots and current entrepreneurs Neal Rickner & Mike Smith provide unfiltered insights into the biggest stories in startups, energy, and national security.

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Episodes

72 episodes

  1. Your Supplier Might Be Tied to the Chinese Military. How Would You Know? 50:51
  2. China Refueled a Satellite in Space and America Still Can’t. Why? 48:45
  3. Zelensky Is Ignoring Trump and Bombing Russian Refineries. Who Actually Holds the Cards? 52:52
  4. The First Russian Diesel Shipment Is Under a Day of U.S. Demand. What Did America Pay for It? 48:05
  5. $10,000 a Household for a Data Center and the Town Still Said No. Bribe or Fair Deal? 41:00
  6. The Pentagon Wants $54 Billion for Drones, Up From $226 Million. Does It Need a Four-Star for Robots? 49:41
  7. Anduril's CEO Says Defense Tech Is a Bubble. So Why Is His Company Talking $100 Billion? 52:27
  8. 417 to 3: Congress Finally Agreed on Your Power Bill — And It Still Didn't Matter 50:36
  9. Diesel Just Hit $6 a Gallon for the First Time Ever. Can the White House Actually Fix It? 55:44
  10. We Tariffed Hockey Sticks and Exempted the Oil We Actually Need 38:48
  11. Trump's Grid Emergency Order Bans the Two Technologies Actually Fixing the Grid 50:09
  12. West Point Fired Its Only Climate Scientist 53:08
  13. The Army Killed Its Drone School While Ordering Every Division to Buy Them. So Who's Actually Learning How to Fight? 48:01
  14. The Bill Comes Due: America Just Hit $40 Trillion, and the Pentagon Is Picking Up the Tab 51:30
  15. The Navy Kept a Carrier at Sea for 260 Days. Trump Says That Wasn't Long Enough. 41:33
  16. America's Nuclear Reactor Made Zero Watts of Power. Welcome to the Golden Era? 50:43
  17. You Are Not the President: What Tuesday's DCA Incident Actually Tells Regular Flyers About Their Safety 47:25
  18. Nine Carriers vs. None: Why China Builds Ships 230 Times Faster Than We Do — And Who's Actually Fixing It 48:12
  19. Oil Executives Cashed Out $400 Million Since the Iran War Began. Who Picks Up the Tab? 42:21
  20. China Is Building the Factory. America Built the Chatbot. Are We Winning the Wrong Race? 48:12
  21. Europe Is Cooking and Its Grid Is Shutting Down. Do We Know What's Coming? 39:36
  22. SpaceX Can Drop Tungsten Telephone Poles from Orbit. Who Controls That Power? 48:45
  23. AI Is Erasing Entry-Level Jobs. National Service Might Be The Answer. 47:36
  24. 11 Million People, No Power, 90 Miles Away: What's the Cuba Endgame? 46:21
  25. Humanities Majors are Beating Computer Science. The World Has Shifted. 51:05
  26. America is Being Forced to Burn More Coal. AI & Politics Did This 42:42
  27. 250 Wind Farms Blocked. 15 Million Homes Worth of Energy. The Pentagon Calls It National Security. 42:50
  28. China Told Trump: Touch Taiwan and We Go to War 48:34
  29. We Accidentally Made China the Climate Superpower 44:57
  30. When Insurance Leaves, Everything Else Follows 47:22
  31. Canada Keeps Your Lights On. So Why Are We Treating Them Like an Enemy? 42:22
  32. We Burned Through Half Our Missiles in Seven Weeks... Now What? 44:29
  33. The AI That Taught Itself to Hack — And What Happens When China Gets It 40:05
  34. The Underwater War Nobody's Talking About 38:07
  35. Why VCs Are Betting on Fusion (And Why They Probably Shouldn't) 46:37
  36. Speaking Up From America While Your Family's Still in Tehran 47:07
  37. Ghosts in the Grid: China’s Sleeper Access, a Plan With No Plan, and America’s Energy Security Gap 41:23
  38. Iran, China, Russia: The Oil Chessboard 43:49
  39. When War Planning Fails: The Iran School Strike 35:34
  40. Operation Epic Fury: Iran Strikes, Hormuz Tightens, and the Old World Order Cracks 47:53
  41. EPA Pulls the Jenga Block: The Endangerment Finding Falls and Climate Policy Enters a New Era of Uncertainty 37:58
  42. Pentagon vs. AI Guardrails: Anthropic Draws a Line on Autonomous Lethality & Domestic Surveillance 42:18
  43. “No U.S. Parts”: Lessons from the Munich Security Conference 46:25
  44. Drones, Darkness, and Disruption: Ukraine’s Energy War and the Startup Response 41:07
  45. $2.3 Trillion on the Table: Batteries, Power, and the New Energy Arms Race 36:01
  46. Building Big Things 1:33:49
  47. Operation Absolute Resolve: Venezuela Shock, Oil Politics, and the AI-Driven Startup Squeeze 1:19:21
  48. Pushing the Edge 1:17:09
  49. Turkey & Energy Transition 1:47:38
  50. The Game is Rigged 1:31:46