The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe

Nearly 2,000 years ago, Roman Emperor Hadrian built a wall to protect the empire's northern frontier. Today, another Hadrian is building something very different—but with a similar purpose: helping protect America by rebuilding its industrial strength.
Chris Power is the founder and CEO of Hadrian, an advanced manufacturing company using AI and automation to produce critical components for America's aerospace and defense industries. Born in Australia, Chris believes America is the greatest country in the world—and he's determined to help keep it that way.
His mission is to reinvigorate America's industrial base, starting with the Defense Industrial Base. Chris joins Mike to discuss manufacturing, national security, and why America's ability to defend itself ultimately depends on its ability to make things.
Because sometimes the best defense isn't another wall. It's the ability to make what you need, when you need it.
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Andy Stumpf knows what it takes to operate when everything goes wrong. A former Navy SEAL who served with SEAL Team Six, Stumpf spent 17 years in the military, including a tour as a BUD/S instructor responsible for training hundreds of aspiring SEALs. He was also shot at close range by an Iraqi insurgent with an AK-47—and somehow came back to serve again.
In this episode, Andy pulls back the curtain on the world of special operations and the psychology of becoming a SEAL. He reveals what he learned about the candidates who ring the bell, the methods he used as an instructor to get them to keep going—or make them quit—and what it really feels like when an AK-47 fragment shatters your sciatic nerve. It's a conversation about fear, pain, endurance, and the strange things that happen in your head when the stakes couldn't be higher.
Andy is the host of Cleared Hot, one of the most popular podcasts devoted to military life, special operations, and the people who have lived it.
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What happens when your son drops out of MIT at 19, starts a defense company in his twenties, and sets out to reinvent the way America builds weapons? If you're Tamara Thornton, you get a job.
In this episode, Mike sits down with the Head of Marketing and Communications at Mach Industries, Tamara Thornton, who also happens to be the mother of the founder and CEO, Ethan Thornton.
Ethan's decision to leave MIT and pursue his vision for Mach has led to a company now valued at $1.8 billion. But the story gets more interesting when you hear it from his mother—and learn what Ethan was like long before he became a CEO.
It's a revealing and often surprising conversation about family, ambition, risk, failure, manufacturing, and the remarkable journey from a kid who liked to blow stuff up to the leader of one of America's fastest-growing defense companies.
At the center of it all is a fascinating question: What happens when the son you raised becomes your boss?
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What do a Home Depot employee and a satellite have in common? More than you might think. In this episode, Mike Rowe talks with two CEOs about the people and technology quietly building the future around us.
First, Mike sits down with Ted Decker, CEO of The Home Depot, to talk about workforce development, the company's "inverted pyramid" philosophy—where frontline associates and customers sit at the top and management exists to support them—and why developing people from the ground up is central to the company's success. Decker also explains the story behind Home Depot's Kids Workshop program, which has introduced generations of young people to tools, building, and the satisfaction of making something with their own hands.
Then Mike talks with Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree Ian Cinnamon, CEO and co-founder of Apex, a company tackling one of the space industry's biggest challenges: making satellites faster and at much greater scale. Cinnamon explains just how many aspects of everyday life depend on satellites—from communications and navigation to weather and national security—and why getting more capable spacecraft into orbit is becoming increasingly important.
From the aisles of Home Depot to the edge of space, this is a conversation about building things, building people, and building what comes next.
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What exactly is communism—and why has it failed so spectacularly everywhere it's been tried? Bill Whittle has spent years answering those questions, and in this episode, he makes the case in a way that's hard to misunderstand.
Bill is a writer, filmmaker, and political commentator whose work includes Empire of Terror, a detailed examination of the history and ideology of communism. Here, he breaks down the fundamental differences between individualism and collectivism, explains how free markets actually work, and makes the case for capitalism and the constitutional republic that makes it possible.
Using simple analogies, memorable examples, and plenty of common sense, Bill tackles some very complicated ideas without burying them in complicated language. Why does individual freedom matter? Why do markets work without a central planner telling everyone what to do? And what happens when a government decides that the collective is more important than the individual?
If you've ever wondered why capitalism works, why communism doesn't, or how the two systems actually differ in practice, Bill Whittle has a few answers—and he makes them surprisingly easy to understand.
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