485: Josh Smith—Made FOR America

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe"
Episode 485: Josh Smith—Made FOR America (May 19, 2026)

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Episode Overview

This episode features a candid and inspiring conversation between host Mike Rowe and Josh Smith, founder of the Montana Knife Company (MKC). With Chuck Klausmeier joining in, the discussion celebrates American manufacturing, explores the challenges and values of making high-quality products in the U.S., and dives into Josh’s remarkable journey from lineman to running a $70 million company. The episode also delves into broader themes of apprenticeships, the skilled trades, supply chain struggles, the impact of tariffs, knockoff products from overseas, the role of AI and social media, and the essence of building something meaningful for both workers and customers.

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Guest Introduction & Milestone

[00:30–04:59]

• Mike Rowe introduces Josh Smith (founder of Montana Knife Company) and recounts his backstory:
  • Started MKC six years ago in a garage in Frenchtown, Montana.
  • Recently opened a new 51,000 sq. ft. glass-encased manufacturing plant near Missoula, attracting 5,000 visitors from all over the country.
• Significance:
  • Surprised by a lack of national media attention despite MKC being "one of the great American manufacturing success stories" in recent years.
  • MKC has grown from a basement operation to a $70M enterprise, employing 121 people.
• MKC’s product and impact:
  • All-American-made knives sold direct-to-consumer; strong customer loyalty and community engagement.
• Mike on supporting MKC:
  • Collaborations raised close to $200k for the Microworks Foundation’s work ethic scholarships.

"You’re making a truly useful product... You went from working out of your basement to employing 121 people. You’ve built a $70 million company." – Mike Rowe [02:19]

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Josh’s Journey & The American Dream

[10:13–15:32]

• Origin story:
  • Josh began making knives as a custom knife maker, shifted careers after the 2009 recession to become a lineman through an apprenticeship, then used those skills and savings to found MKC in 2020.
  • Emphasizes that any regular person can build something meaningful by starting small and learning through doing.
• Company growth:
  • Moved quickly from garage to horse pasture to a major facility.
  • Transparent operations; building with glass walls so customers can see manufacturing in action.
• Community celebration:
  • The grand opening became a powerful celebration not just of MKC but of local manufacturing potential.

"It’s the American dream manifesting right in front of people’s eyes... We’ve done it in front of the public, and I’m just a regular person." – Josh Smith [13:13]

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Apprenticeships, Trades & Building Skills

[16:23–24:28]

• Value of apprenticeships:
  • Josh credits his lineman apprenticeship and journeyman experience for providing skills, problem-solving ability, leadership, and confidence to start MKC.
  • Mike and Josh advocate for the apprenticeship model as foundational for American manufacturing and entrepreneurship.
• Mentorship history:
  • Discussion touches on the Socratic tradition and the need to return mentorship/apprenticeship to schools and industries.

"You can get that apprenticeship, you can put in 10 years and gain that experience, and you can go chase your dream... have the confidence that I’ve been doing all this in my career." – Josh Smith [17:43]

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Manufacturing in America: Challenges & Solutions

[22:09–29:13]

• Scaling up:
  • Transitioned from artisan knifemaking to scalable high-end manufacturing.
  • Invested $18M in new equipment (against board advice) to control supply chain.
  • MKC now heat-treats all blades in-house—unique among U.S. knife makers.
  • Ownership of equipment (lathes, grinders) brings both opportunity and staffing challenges due to skills gaps.
• Tariff struggles:
  • New German-made grinder cost $800k plus a 30% tariff.
  • Tariffs intended to support domestic manufacturing can backfire when no U.S. equivalent product exists.
  • The need for bipartisan support to facilitate manufacturing policy.

"The list of things that have to go right for you to even have a shot at being brilliant is mind boggling." – Mike Rowe [24:28]
"If you want to grow American manufacturing, you have to protect the manufacturers and the consumer." – Josh Smith [46:26]

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Supply Chains, Jobs & The Ripple Effect

[29:13–34:43]

• Supply chain impacts:
  • Every new job at MKC spins off more jobs in related sectors (sheath makers, cutting board manufacturers, etc.).
  • Company’s salary and bennies over $15 million/year—none of which existed locally five years prior.
  • Transparency: giant glass windows so customers see the people their purchases support.
  • Emphasizes the pride customers and employees feel in the company’s growth and visibility.

"We call it built in public. We want to take you on tours of our facility... we highlight our employees. I want you to see Tristan’s face, Melissa’s face, the people that you are supporting." – Josh Smith [34:05]

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Advertising, Counterfeits, and Intellectual Property

[38:36–47:02]

• Marketing hurdles:
  • MKC faces shadowbanning and strict ad policies on TV and digital platforms.
  • Apparel (hats, shirts) becomes a key tool for brand visibility.
• Counterfeit problem:
  • Over 4,000 fake MKC sites found—mostly Chinese rip-offs sold on platforms like Temu and Alibaba.
  • Counterfeits damage both brand and consumer; purchasers may receive low-quality or unsafe products and are denied warranty.
  • Frustration with federal inaction on IP protection.

"If, because of this podcast, you want to buy one of our knives, be very careful. There are over 4,000 fake Montana Knife Company websites..." – Josh Smith [44:41]

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Media Attention & The Power of Story

[39:30–43:14]

• National media’s absence:
  • Josh is frustrated that positive manufacturing stories are overlooked.
  • Argues that celebrating these stories motivates others and shifts national mood from cynicism to optimism.
• Positive impact:
  • Mike notes that social media, podcasts, and celebrity endorsements are picking up the slack—amplifying stories ignored by mainstream outlets.

"What do I have to do to get the country’s attention? I’m creating jobs, doing it the right way, I’m paying the tariffs—it hurts." – Mike Rowe [40:14]

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Trust, Technology & The Future

[53:27–60:43]

• AI and the future of manufacturing:
  • AI’s double-edged nature: essential to next-gen manufacturing, but also weaponized in creating fake products and scam ads.
  • Social media’s pros and cons: allows small-town businesses to find global markets; also spreads scams and counterfeits.
  • The skills gap is worsening as older generations retire and fewer pursue trades.
  • Rising cost of living is pushing Montana youth out unless they join high-earning trades.

"You can be in tiny town Montana and have an AI assistant... building a business while you’re also working for the rancher down the road." – Josh Smith [58:44]

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The Movement & A Renaissance in American-Made

[60:43–73:09]

• Building a Movement:
  • MKC’s success is not just about knives—it’s about fostering a sense of community, hope, and American identity.
  • Mike draws parallels with other “mission-driven” brands like American Giant and Black Rifle Coffee.
  • Customers buy into the story, not just the product.
• Supporting American Manufacturing:
  • Josh envisions policies to support startups (e.g., tax breaks).
  • Admits not everyone can avoid venture capital, but hopes for more creative government support.

"Did the world need another knife company? No. It needed your dream, your passion, your hope, your initiative." – Mike Rowe [62:19]

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New Product Reveal & The Meaning of Tools

[81:02–85:36]

• Exclusive announcement:
  • Josh gifts Mike the prototype of MKC’s long-awaited folding knife, "The Montana."
  • Design details: arrowhead motif honors Montana heritage and customs.
  • "Made for America" branding signals shared ownership with customers.

"I feel like that brings the customer in, like they’re a part of it. We made this for the people who supported us." – Josh Smith [82:06]

• The sentimental value of tools:
  • A pocketknife, like other tools, carries meaning because of who carried it and how it’s used/passed down.
  • Celebrates the cultural importance of heirloom-quality tools.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On building in America:

• "You don’t have to be somebody special with a business degree… If you’ve gone through an apprenticeship, you’re problem-solving every day. You can go leave that and chase your dream." – Josh Smith [17:43]

On tariffs and manufacturing challenges:

• "It didn’t make a lot of sense to me to tariff manufacturing equipment when you’re trying to build manufacturing... There’s nuance in these laws." – Josh Smith [27:55]

On brand significance:

• "When you put that hat on, it really does matter to a company like us. It’s hard for us to advertise knives... so by having the average American buy a T-shirt, wear their hat, it makes a statement." – Josh Smith [38:21]

On copycats and consumer warning:

• "If it’s not on our website... We don’t allow our knives to be sold on any other website, period." – Josh Smith [45:42]
• "All your knives come with…a lifetime warranty. You’ll sharpen those things for free…So somebody buys a ‘Montana Knife’... but it’s not off your site... You have to tell them, ‘Yeah, I didn’t make this knife, brother.’" – Mike Rowe [46:04]

On tools, legacy, and trades:

• "It’s about who carried it, the things they’ve done…do you want to be the guy that doesn’t have the pocket knife?" – Josh Smith [84:42]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• MKC's story and impact – [00:30–04:59]
• Josh’s career shift & company origins – [10:13–15:32]
• Apprenticeships & skilled trades – [16:23–24:28]
• Scaling, supply chain, tariffs – [22:09–29:13]
• Ripple effects of manufacturing jobs – [29:13–34:43]
• Marketing hurdles and the counterfeit crisis – [38:36–47:02]
• Frustration with national media & celebrating local stories – [39:30–43:14]
• Trust, AI, digital challenges – [53:27–60:43]
• Movement Renaissance, American-made – [60:43–73:09]
• "The Montana" folding knife reveal and its meaning – [81:02–85:36]

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Closing

The episode wraps as Mike and Josh reflect on the bigger lessons in the MKC journey—persistence, courage, the dignity in making, and the importance of passes-on tools and values. They share plans for future collaborations, express gratitude, and drive home the message: building American-made is possible and needed, but it relies on everyday people stepping up, believing, and acting—for themselves, their communities, and the country.

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Key Takeaway:
The Montana Knife Company is a testament to what’s possible when blue-collar grit, the apprenticeship model, new technology, and a sense of mission converge. Josh Smith’s story is proof that the American dream lives—not just in products, but in the values and people behind them.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Well, it's the way I heard it, as you probably knew. I'm Mike, and my guest today is Josh, and with me in Ph3 is Chuck. Should I be more formal with the names, you think? I don't think you can.

[A]

Josh Smith. Chuck Klausmeier. Mike Rowe.

[B]

All that's true. Josh Smith. If he sounds familiar to you loyal listeners, it's because he's been on a couple times. Once in 2024, and then once we did a. A remote with him and our friend Bayard Winthrop.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

Shortly after the tariffs were instituted. Right. Because I was really curious to hear from people who were making stuff in this country, you know, and the tariffs were headline news, and I guess they're still in the headlines. But it's a really. Well, it's a sensitive topic for a lot of reasons, mostly because it's been politicized horribly. But there are consequences, and many of which are unintended, I think that are worth acknowledging. But that's really not why I wanted Josh back on. Josh Smith, who created The Montana Knife Company 6 years ago up in Frenchtown outside of Missoula in the great state of Montana, really had a milestone. He built an enormous manufacturing facility. Yeah. And it's not just beautiful to look at. It's extraordinary in that 5,000 people traveled from all over the country to stand in line for a chance to get a tour of the factory floor. And he's encased the whole thing in glass so people can stand in, like, the lobby and look at the product being made, which I just think is terrific.

[A]

I mean, honestly, I didn't think there were 5,000 people in the state of Montana.

[B]

Well, I don't know that there are, but that's why I said they came from all over. Yeah. You know, so why Josh Smith? Because he's making a truly useful product for Americans and anybody who wants one, he's doing it in this country. He went from working out of his basement on his ranch to employing 121 people. He's built a $70 million company.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And here he is doing this incredible. Unveiling this remarkable milestone. And I just, for the life of me, I felt terrible that I couldn't be there personally because he did invite me, but I was kind of just appalled that there was no national media there. And he invited them. You know, like this is a chance to cover one of the great American manufacturing success stories in the last five or six years. And it sure does seem like with everything out there, all the commitments and all the desire to reinvigorate the trades and reshore and re industrialize, this would be a. A cornerstone.

[A]

You think it'd be a slam dunk for national media to pay attention to it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, and listen. And one of the things that comes up in this episode that's really important is the fact that he's getting ripped off by imitators. People are, you know, buying what they think is an American made Montana knife. And in fact, it is not. And so if you are looking to get a Montana knife, company knife, there's only one place to get it, and that's on his website.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Montanaknifecompany.com and why would you do that?

[B]

Why do you really need another knife? I don't know. I'm not sure how your cutlery is currently arranged or what your practical needs might be, but I can tell you this study after study has proven people feel better after buying a knife from mkc. Yes, it's just the act of doing it. They're not cheap. But Josh has done so many things right. And his customers have rewarded him in a way that only a truly engaged customer can by showing up to celebrate the opening of this facility. So I invited it back on, also to thank him. You know, he told me a couple of years ago he wanted to do something nice for the Microworks foundation. And so he made a custom blade for Microworks. Which sold out in about six seconds. Yeah, I mean, hundreds of them. And we raised, I don't know, 60, $65,000. And then he created something called the Rocker, which is the ultimate working man utility knife.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

And pledged like 10% of sales to Microworks forever in perpetuity. And that's generated close to $200,000 so far for a work ethics scholarship program. So, yeah, I'm biased. I like Josh. I like his product. I like Montana, I like what he's doing up there. And, you know, the more I talk to him, the more certain I am that we're back in the right horse here. If you need a knife, suffice it to say, there's only one sensible place to get it. And if you want a really fun, honest, transparent conversation about what it take to run a business, a manufacturing business in these United States here in the year of our Lord 2026. Well, stay tuned because this episode is called Made for America, which will be explained at the very end. So stick with us. Josh Smith, right after this. Dumb. Is it weird to love people but despise human resources? If so, well, color me weird. It's not to say I don't respect the millions of people who work in HR departments and companies all over the country. I do. It's just that I don't envy them. That's why microworks doesn't have an HR department, for better or worse. And it's also why I use ZipRecruiter whenever we need to expand. ZipRecruiter has proven themselves a million times over by helping countless employers get through the hiring process faster and more effectively than ever before. And now they have a new feature that instantly shows you the most interested, the most passionate and the most qualified candidates first. This is a huge time saver. Hours and hours of saved time. And it helps people like me find the people who can function in a non traditional work environment like microworks. In other words, ZipRecruiter works for me. And they'll probably work for you too. Post a job for [e-mail] ro and watch what happens. Odds are you'll find a human resource that just happens to be a great fit for your company in 24 hours or less. Ziprecruiter.com ro ziprecruiter.com ro the smartest way to hire.

[C]

You live up by San Francisco. Is that right?

[B]

North, north of the city? Not far, just over the bridge.

[C]

Still, I. We, my wife and I were talking about being surprised that you were still in the state and yeah, I'm surprised. Paying taxes.

[B]

I'm surprised myself. I sure am. I sure.

[C]

Especially as much as you're gone.

[B]

You know what, it's funny. I was just driving over the Golden Gate yesterday going into narrate a pile of shite and I'm like, God damn, I can't believe the toll on this bridge. It's gone up.

[A]

Like how much is it?

[B]

It was like nine or eleven dollars or something. But I'm thinking, what's the toll for the state? You know, like the toll just to wake up and breathe here. Oh, it's, it's steep, it's hefty.

[C]

My next door neighbor just got his residency. He's got a dental practice right down here in LA or somewhere. And he's just spent more than half his last year of 25 in Montana. Because now he's paying income tax in Montana and he's about to sell his business.

[B]

If you're just joining us, folks, it's the Joys of Living in California with Josh Smith. By the way, dude, welcome to a very short list. Aside from my mother and I guess one or two other.

[A]

Selena Zito.

[B]

Selena Zito, who writes a great column called in the Middle of Somewhere, we don't have a lot of people back twice.

[C]

Really?

[B]

Really that.

[C]

Well, I'm honored.

[B]

Well, don't be honored, because I'm gonna exploit you and pick your brain shamelessly here. Thank you for making the time.

[C]

Yeah. And how is your mom?

[B]

My mom's good. She's. She's working on her fifth book. Almost finished. She's like, God, is she 88 or 89? She's old. I have to look it up. She's very old.

[C]

She's amazing.

[B]

She's incredible.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And my dad is like 93 or 94, and he's, you know, he's just living their best life with the bocce ball, you know, and they got the book club and they got the pool tournaments, and they've got the, you know, geez, all the games. The Boggle and the. What's the one we always joke about? Chuck? The game with the funny name.

[C]

Oh, right.

[A]

You know, and she always says, is it. Is it pronounced this or that?

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. What is that?

[C]

Maybe that should just be the name of the game.

[B]

Do you remember that?

[A]

What?

[B]

Yeah. Rummy Cube.

[A]

Roomie Cube. Or Rummy.

[B]

Or Rummy Cub.

[A]

Or Rummy Cub.

[B]

Yeah. Well, I mean, to answer your question, this is a perfect example of the kind of exchange you could expect to enjoy at the Oak Crest Retirement Community. You know, a sentence starts, a proper noun vanishes from the short term recall, and maybe a half hour spent trying to identify what it was. I thought I wanted to say welcome to the show.

[C]

Yeah, perfect.

[B]

Big congratulations, man. You. You guys just in the way of a quick bit of backstory in case I didn't do it in the preamble. Josh has been making knives now with mkc. What are you in six or seven years?

[C]

This would be year six. Yeah, I mean, kind of year five,

[B]

really, which is nothing. Which is young. You're very like, for a manufacturing company. You're still early. Early innings. But what a milestone you've just hit in Montana. Thank you for the invite. I'm so sorry I couldn't make it. Josh opened an incredible facility where, I mean, the handiwork is truly on display here. Yeah, there's a glass building.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And, you know, I'm just. He walked in the studio 10 minutes ago, and I'm watching this video on YouTube and they're like thousands of people turned out.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

To see what you built. And I got so many questions for you, but how do you account for that, man? Why do people care about the business of making knives?

[C]

I think it's the American dream manifesting right in front of people's eyes. And they've gotten to watch the struggles and watch me start it right from scratch in my garage in Covid in 2020, you know, and it was just at that time, my daughters and my son and my wife and I. And you spend that Forward today. It's 121 employees. And it's been really. I mean, I quit my day job December 30th of 2020. So we kind of consider that like our first day.

[B]

Like, were you still alignment then? Yep.

[C]

I was a lineman for the power company. Yeah. And so that was really what we considered. Day one is January 1st of 21, when it was like, okay, we're going to go after this.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And a couple buildings later, you know, built the second building out of my two car garage in my horse pasture because it was like, I'm not sure this is really going to go for a long time, but we'll see. And we were in that about three months and realized we're going to grow out of this building. And that's when we started looking for ground and built what we just moved into, which is 51,000 square feet of manufacturing space with the Black Rifle Coffee retail. In a retail store inside of that.

[B]

In Missoula.

[C]

In Missoula, Montana, which is. I'm very, very proud of that. Because it's not a manufacturing base. It's not. It's a place people go to.

[B]

It's not a hub.

[C]

No. It's a place to go fly fish, you know, but it should show anybody and everybody out there that you can be anywhere in this country now and start a company and build an American brand, which is what we're building.

[B]

Yeah. Well, look, I mean, that's why I wanted to have you on again, A. To say congratulations for this. I'm looking at the. Yeah. The video right now. Look at.

[A]

Why is it going fast forward like that? Is that intentional?

[B]

No, that's you, dude.

[C]

I don't think it is. That's weird. Well, something going on?

[B]

Yeah, It's a plaything.

[C]

Yeah. I'm standing On a fire truck there. It's funny, we. We had so many people there that I had to. We climbed up the fire department, brought out their fire trucks, and we spoke to the people in front of that. We had between four and five thousand people attend that day.

[B]

That's so crazy, man. I still can't get over it.

[C]

I mean, mostly from out of state people, they were out of rental cars in Missoula on Thursday afternoon for a Saturday event. It was crazy.

[B]

I mean, this sounds paternalistic. I don't mean to ask it this way, but do you. I mean, do you fully understand what kind of. Kind of engagement that represents when a knife customer will drive from out of state to stand in line at 3 o' clock in the morning for the privilege of touring a manufacturing facility where the aforementioned knives are fashioned? That's weird, man.

[C]

It's weird for sure. I mean, it's. People ask me all the time, they're like, why? And we ask ourselves. I mean, I, in a way don't understand it. In another way, it's a positive story. It's one of the few things that you look out there and you see and it's so positive. Everything about it is positive. It's that, you know, we didn't sell out to vc. Like, we bootstrapped it. And I constantly, over the last five years have been on social media saying, like, I mean, my employees got to watch and this was really good for them. They got to ask me, why are those people stretching a tape measure across your house? And it's like, because I'm putting. Brandon and I are putting our houses on the line to build this next building. Like, we're borrowing and we're doing everything we can. And we talked about the struggles all the way along of growing manufacturing and how do you start with nothing? And. And you don't. I didn't know how to do this. I was a lineman, you know, to skip. Everything I did, I did wrong in the beginning. As far as, like, the first 200 knives I made, I did it all wrong. And I realized this isn't scalable. And I started researching and just improving each day. But I think the reason it resonates is because it's. We've done it in front of the public, and it also. I'm just a regular person. I'm not some fancy business guy or celebrity or had big money behind us. And I think people want to come out. Most people just said they wanted to come up and just say, congratulations, that's it.

[B]

You know, I think there's a micro macro element to everything you've done. You know, it's. Yeah, you're one guy all shucks. Josh Smith, Montana. Grew up where you did background what it is, and you've built this thing. You know, that kind of story relates to individuals. But all of this is playing out right now at a time in our country that is just incredibly consequential on a macro level. You know, from tariffs to reassuring re industrializing. Like this idea that, you know, can we do it? Like, can America actually get back to the business of making things? Yeah, you answer that question in the affirmative.

[C]

We do.

[B]

You're doing it.

[C]

And this, this really does actually relate exactly to your message. And here's how what you preach about so often with apprenticeships, the trades, this is the evolution of that. So I went through an apprenticeship. You know, I was struggling custom knife maker in 2009 when the housing market crashed and $5,000 knives were. Were the first thing to leave people's budgets. And so I had four young kids, you know, kind of a starving artist knife maker. And I went and got well, honestly, really. I started as a groundman, but I got an apprenticeship to become a lineman. That apprenticeship leading into becoming a journeyman lineman allowed me to put a little bit of money in the bank and take a look, kind of step back from my business and say, I want to start this Montana knife company that I'd been dreaming of doing. But the apprenticeship and the. And becoming a journeyman gave me the. Basically a little bit of money to be able to survive and then build this on the side. And the thing about what we're doing is we're showing that you don't have to be somebody special with a business degree to grow what we've grown. If you've gone through an apprenticeship and you're, you know, a journeyman or a foreman on a crew, figuring out how to put a pipeline over a mountain or. Or build a power line over a mountain or plumb a giant apartment complex. You are problem solving every day. You're managing people, you're leading, you're following plans, you're working, you know, you're dealing with finances. You're doing everything that you do to build a business, you're doing in your day job. And I think what people need to see is you can get that apprenticeship, you can put 10 years in and gain that experience, and you can go, leave that and chase your dream and have the confidence that I've been doing all this in my career. I've been problem solving you know, I've been leading people, I've been seeing how not to be led. I mean, honestly, that's when I was at a big corporation at a power company. I took more out of there about how I didn't want to treat my people than how I do, you know. And so I think what you are doing and what the young folks who are getting these apprenticeships and going into the trades will find is there's some of them that will come up with an idea and they'll transition out of that into chasing their own dreams and building their own version of Montana knife company. And their interest.

[B]

Well, it's interesting, you know, I thought of you a few hours ago, not just because I knew you were coming in, but because I was talking to this woman, Mackenzie Price, who runs these things called Alpha Schools. And it's rooted, really. It's an attempt to save public education, which, as you may have noticed, is kind of crap the bed in a fairly spectacular fashion from sea to shining sea. Yeah. And she refers a lot to the Socratic method and the Aristotelian way of learning, which was the original mentorship. So Plato mentors Socrates, who mentors Aristotle, who teaches Alexander, who goes on to be pretty great, run the world. Yeah, that's an apprenticeship program, you know, way before we used that word. Dumb. I love stories like this. Seven years ago, a guy named Ben still was a musician. He had zero interest in running a food company, but he was annoyed that so much imported meat was being deceptively marketed and labeled as domestic and decided to fix the problem. The result was a company called Good Ranchers. It's a completely honest, totally transparent meat company that deals directly with American farms and ranches and promises to deliver high quality American grown meat for a fair price today. That promise and Ben's absolute determination to keep it has not only propelled Good Ranchers into the top tier of meat delivery companies, it's fueled enormous awareness among meat eaters like me that we have all been affirmatively deceived by policies that allow imported meat to be marketed as domestic. That's the reason I switched to Good Ranchers. If I'm being honest though, I doubt that I would have stayed this long had the quality not been so exceptional. Every single cut I have devoured from Good Ranchers has been straight up delicious. And every morsel was raised on a small American farm or ranch. Give them a try. Subscriptions are affordable and flexible. In fact, if you start your plan today, you'll get free meat for life and $40 off your first order. Just use code [e-mail] free meat for life. 40 bucks off your first order. Goodranchers.com American meat delivered. If you could eat a steer, if you could eat a cow. Don't take a chance on a foreign ranch. Get good ranchers now.

[C]

Hey haul.

[B]

You know, the first time I talked to you, you talked about this theme as well. And I've just become so convinced in the last 18 months that the apprenticeship model, the mentor model, it's not negotiable. We must have it. We must have it back in this country. We must have it in our schools, we must have it on the job site. We must have it. The entrepreneurs must have it. But so too must Jensen Wong and Right. It's just, there's just no getting around it. And so I'm really interested. I wanted to ask you, how do you teach the business of doing what you do? You make arguably the highest quality blade in the country.

[C]

Right.

[B]

How do you teach people how to do that?

[C]

Well, you know, to be honest, it's something that I've had to learn and transition even how we do it because the way that we build our knives is not the way I custom forged a every single knife. And so I even had the opposite of me teaching someone how to do that. I had to go find people that had the skills to build these knives at scale and then take what I know about knives and put it in that model. Right. When you're using CNC machines, computer controlled, you know, milling machines and stuff like that, it's not stuff that I used in my custom knife making but I knew what made a really good blade. I knew how to heat treat it. I knew, you know, the geometry of blades. And so when you take that custom and I think it can be this way for other, you know, you, you take a custom home builder and then how do you build thousands of apartment, you know, one at a time. One at a time. Right. And so part of it is, is also going out and finding people who are experts in their area and just empowering them to do what they know how to do.

[B]

Let them be great.

[C]

We're bringing in the entire heat treat process in house and far as I know, we'll be the only knife company in America heat treating all of our knives in house.

[B]

Why is that significant? Why should people give a damn?

[C]

That's the heart and soul of the blade. I mean, if you don't heat treat the steel correctly, it's not going to perform, it's not going to cut it's not going to be tough. And again, I think it's just proving everybody has just settled in. Frankly, I went against my own board. Like my board of directors will love to hear this. But like my board of directors who are very, very wise businessmen and I'm not denigrating them because it's quite the opposite. I've learned a lot from them, but they told us not to buy land, not to build a building, not to buy the equipment. Okay. Well, in the last 18 months, I've spent $18 million on building a building and buying equipment. All against their advice. But they're now seeing the benefit of I now control my own supply chain. I'm not asking this. You know, when I started this in my garage, I needed to have blades cut in New York. I needed to have blades ground over here. Right. I need to have knives heat treated in Pennsylvania. But now you're sitting in line behind the big dogs. You're at the whim of the UPS driver making it on time to get your parts to you, to put them all together to just find out that the people you had make your parts made them wrong. And you got to start all back

[B]

over the list of things that have to go right.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

For you to even have a shot at being brilliant is mind boggling.

[C]

It was mind boggling and it was proved to be very challenging at times. Now it's equally challenging buying that much equipment and trying to find employees that actually know how to run that stuff. Right. And this is the other thing I'll tell people, you know, it's not just becoming linemen and becoming plumbers. And I've heard you talk about it. But please become a machinist. Please get into learning how to heat treat. We and the manufacturing industry, the only way we're going to build a manufacturing in the US is to have an employee pool that we can actually employ. And we are going to be doing, you know, some basically apprenticeships and whatnot through our company. But for right now we're realizing like my Swiss lathe guy, he was a young machinist and the Swiss guy, I

[B]

got a lathe guy, he's in Bern. Where is he? In Zurich. Where is he?

[C]

Well, a Swiss lathe is a lathe that makes screws.

[B]

Yeah, right.

[C]

We could not find an employee to do that. And that's a $750,000 machine that we bought and we could not find someone to operate it. So we flew the tech in from the company and he started teaching a young machinist in my shop that had never seen this machine and he's now running it. But we are needing more of those kind of professionals. You know, we need programmers, I need design engineers, process engineers. You know, we are making parts on scale and that's actually really hard to find. You can find a machinist that makes one part here and there, but we're making hundreds of thousands of parts now. You know, we'll make 200,000 knives this year.

[B]

Well, at what point is it efficacious for you to buy the lathe?

[C]

Well, we bought the lathe. The problem is you can't. It's finding the employee. You know, when we were looking at it and it's like we have to own that supply chain because by owning that lathe, we can now custom make our own screw at the exact length that the thread pitch that we want. It opens up all of our design.

[B]

And you can do that in Montana?

[C]

Yep. We're doing it in our own building right now.

[B]

What about. You told me a story about a grinder. I think it was a grinder.

[C]

Yep.

[B]

This is another not inexpensive tool that's critical to your, your delivery process. But, but that was in. That was in Germany, was it?

[C]

That's right. Yeah. It's a bevel grinder.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And there's two manufacturers of bevel grinders on the planet and they're both, both in Germany. It's a bevel grinding machine that grinds basically the face of the blade down to an edge. And they grind lawnmower blades. Anything that's a blade basically in America is ground on these bevel grinders in Germany. But they're made in Germany. And so we just got our, that grinder you're talking about. We just got that in about five weeks ago from Germany. And you know, the discussion at that point was around tariffs. And that was kind of a bit of a contention. Take all the politics out of it for a minute. It didn't make a lot of sense to me to tariff manufacturing equipment when you're trying to build manufacturing, reinvigorate manufacturing. Right. It'd be different if I chose not to buy an American grinder. But there is no such thing as an American bevel grinder. There's nuance in these laws that sometimes things get.

[B]

Would that grinder cost? Like what would it cost just to buy it in a non terrible $800,000. And with the tariff.

[C]

Well, what's 30% tariff on that?

[B]

$240,000.

[C]

Yeah, so.

[B]

So what, What a fascinating. I think we're both rooting for this president in so far as we want to see reinforcement, we want to see manufacturing reinvigorated.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

What kind of position does that put you in? Please don't share anything that's not appropriate to share. But I just want people to understand that the business of employing 121 people in Missoula.

[C]

Yeah, Yeah.

[B]

I mean, it's a going concern and it's capital intensive.

[C]

Right.

[B]

And this is a policy for me. I mean, I want to see this country make that bevel grinder.

[C]

Right.

[B]

I want somebody in that business to go, you know something, there's been a shift in the wind, and we think there's a market here, so let's make them here. And so in order to get that to happen, maybe there's some logic long term in that policy, but short term, I do think it's fair to say, you know, you're taking it in the neck.

[C]

Yeah. And, you know, all politics aside, I don't care who you vote for. These need to be policies that are bipartisan. I mean, we are, you know, hire Democrats and Republicans. Right. This is about providing, you know, true stability, even from a defense standpoint. Like the government today could now walk into my building and say, hey, you don't make knives anymore. We need you to make this part right. We're in a. We're in a war and we're short on this or whatever. From a national defense, national security standpoint, the country, to a small degree, is now better because we are. We exist. And if there's 5,000 more Montana Knife Company style manufacturers all over this country, our supply chain and our. Our national defense is. Is better off for it. But like In America, in 1979, there were 19 million knife manufacturing jobs. Today there's 12 million. Okay, so that's a 7 million loss. That's not great. But then when you think there's 125 million more Americans than Then that's a problem. And these manufacturing jobs, they spin off other jobs. Right. When we make knives here, we then need parts made, you know, in Seattle, we need things even. Even if it's fixturing for the machines. Right. There's all these ancillary things that we need to have built.

[B]

The sheath.

[C]

The sheaths, you know, Francesco with Teton Leather in Idaho.

[B]

I saw her in the video.

[C]

I don't know how many employees she has now. She went from her basement to now eight or nine employees, just basically supporting Montana Knife Company. And then the other stuff that she does, fantastic people, Montana block, they make our cutting boards and our Magnetic blocks and proof razors, another really cool American made razor brand for your face. And we do collabs, we try to collab Aries watches, which proof razors. Proof razors.

[B]

What makes them great?

[C]

Just the way that the razors are built, the way that the, the steel that they use in their blades and then it's actually the, the body of the razor that, the way that they're all manufactured out of aluminum and powder coated and they're, they're beautiful. And they also, frankly they. I was like, that's, you know, it's a razor and I got it and I shaved with. I was like, these, these are cool. Like they work really, really well.

[B]

Look, that's why I'm asking you. I think everybody is susceptible to. It's a razor. I mean how, how excited can you get?

[C]

Same as a knife.

[B]

A lot of people would say the same as a knife.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

You know what? A lot of people say the same for a car.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Does it start and stop when I need it to? Is it reliable? Can I afford it? It's like, ah, you know. So we have to decide constantly, every day, all of us what to get excited about and buy. Unless. Unless the question is we have to decide how to get excited or what sort of process excites us. Not necessarily the finished product. Assume it's excellent. Assume it's a proof razor. Assume it's an MKC knife.

[C]

Well, even think about passing things down like that proof razor or that knife. If you buy a Bic razor from Walmart and you give it to your dad for Christmas, it doesn't really seem like much of a gift.

[B]

Right.

[C]

It seems like more of a hint that he should shave more often. Right?

[B]

Right.

[C]

But if you give him a proof razor for Christmas or you give him a Montana knife or an Aries watch, you're giving him something that was made in America that has real value to it. You know, that's something. All of those are items that you know can be passed down or like, oh, I've got dad's old razor. Right. Like nobody really cares if you have dad's old plastic Bic razor. But that custom made American made proof razor or Montana knife is actually has real value because of the people that made it. And that's why when you come to our manufacturing facility in Missoula, it's not just a manufacturing facility. We put a black rifle coffee in it in a retail store. And when you come in and you order coffee and sit down at the table, we have giant glass windows that look out into the manufacturing so you can see where your money is being spent. All right, this year alone, we are going to spend a fuzz over $15 million in salary and benefits for our employees. Not one of Those jobs existed five years ago in our county. There's 78,000 people in our county. That has a major impact. And those people, those, those customers, those crazy people that drove from Maine or the bayou to come to our grand opening are supporting the people behind that glass to raise their families, to take that money and spend it on. That's what American manufacturing does. And when you see so many of these buildings along the interstate, you know, these big cinder block buildings with not a single window in it, you don't see the humans inside of them.

[B]

Nope. Nope.

[C]

You know, and that's why there's glass. We call it built in public. We want to take you on tours of our facility. We don't have anything to hide. We put these vlogs up on our YouTube every Friday night and we highlight our employees. Cause I want you to see Tristan's face, Melissa's face, the people that you are supporting. I mean, heck, you, Mike Rowe wearing our T shirt right when you're out doing your talks, or our hat, or the average guy in Florida that has a roofing business. When you're wearing that hat or that shirt, it has meaning. You stand for something

[B]

dumb. The federal government is not going to close America's skills gap. They have an important role to play, for sure. But if we're serious about reinvigorating the skilled trades on a national level, we need more organizations like SkillsUSA making a real difference on a local level. These guys have been around since 1965, and today they are relevant like never before. With hundreds of chapters in schools all over the country and hundreds of thousands of students participating and competing every year, nobody's doing more to train the next generation of skilled workers than SkillsUSA. And I'm encouraging you to at least consider being a part of this movement. SkillsUSA advisors and volunteers aren't just teaching trades. They're launching careers and strengthening the backbone of our country by mentoring the next generation of industry leaders. In high school, you could be amongst the people who are making this movement explode. Join the skilled trades movement. Support career and technical education programs through SkillsUSA. There's no better way to do it. You can volunteer at a local chapter. You can start a chapter in your own town, or you can just go to their website and see the impact for yourself. And see too, how easy it is to get involved Thousands of kids are being introduced to the trades in a way that's absolutely, positively moving the needle. The goal is a million members by 2030. I think it's doable. I'm doing what I can to help them learn [e-mail] Mike. That's skillsusa.org Mike. I'm talking skills us. Skills us skills usa. You know what, man? It's very true. I wish I knew it. Like, before I started doing it. It would have made me feel more deliberate. But on Dirty Jobs, everybody figured I was bald. Cause I was always wearing a cap. But it was always a different cap. And it was always the cap of the business who invited me in to get dirty and learn stuff. And I just did it because it seemed polite. But it wasn't until I got a letter from a guy who ran a very specific type of farm who said every time that show airs, we might. He said it was great for business, but never mind the business. I've got employees who care deeply about that logo. And when they saw that logo on international television, well, their hearts grew. Two sides that day. There was pride and dignity.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And that, you know, I don't use those words a lot because they, you know, they're often overused and they can be manipulative. But it is absolutely a real thing, a powerful thing, you know, and you,

[C]

I'm sure you to a certain degree realize the impact you're having. But at our grand opening, a guy walks up to me and he was like, hey, if you ever see Mike Rowe, tell him what he's doing is working. And I was like, oh, really? How's that? And he said, well, I teach at a trade school in Spokane, and I've had several students come through my trade school that have had a micro work scholarship. I was like, no, that's cool. I'll tell him that's super cool. It's. Whether you're Mike Rowe or you're just a regular guy. When you. When you put that hat on and you wear really does matter to a company like us. I mean, when it's hard for us to advertise knives. Right. We get shadow banned. And we actually. We literally can't advertise on Fox Television because they have a. I don't know if it's a weapons policy or whatever, but we get. Whether it's Fox or.

[B]

Or.

[C]

And sorry, if I'm naming networks I shouldn't be naming on here, but sorry. But not just that, but like the meta ads we try to run, we're not a Normal company where we can run ads. And so by having the average American buy a T shirt, it's also hard to rep a knife.

[B]

Right?

[C]

It's like you're not walking down the street being like, hey, do you see my knife wearing that T shirt or the hat? And it's not just of our company. Any company you think is cool, that's doing something that's good for our country, wear their apparel, wear their hat. It makes a statement and it helps make, frankly, our country better.

[B]

I think you're too modest or maybe self effacing to say what I want you to say. So I'm going to say it as you. Okay? Okay. We spoke a couple weeks ago. You invited me again to this grand opening and I'm sick to death that I couldn't be there. There's just no way I could work it out. But I really wanted to be there. And you told me in that conversation that you were frustrated because in your opinion, the national media should have been there. Where was the Today show?

[C]

Right?

[B]

Where was CBS this Morning? This is the story of a guy who used to get our electricity to us. Who decides, okay, I'm going to hang out my shingle. He only risks everything and he creates 121jobs in Missoula. You're looking at a, it sounds like a million dollar monthly payroll. Your company must be 60, 70 million dollars now. And so you're looking around, tell me if I got this right. But you're looking around going, what do I have to do? What do I have to do to get the country's attention? I'm creating jobs, I'm doing it the right way. I'm paying the tariffs. It hurts. I'm the very manufacturer you want to see reinvigorated, and I am. But it's tough, it's hard, it's scary. You're raising four kids. You're providing for 121 families, right? Can I get an amen? Can I get a, can I get an Eng crew to show up? How is that not a national story? Now, you didn't use those exact words, but I could hear it in your voice. So, you know, like, on the one hand, I'm looking at this video, it's an incredible love letter to everything you've accomplished. On the other hand, I hear frustration.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So if there's a question in there, it's how do you, how do you not be discouraged because you're Sisyphus, man. You're pushing the rock up the hill.

[C]

Well, it is discouraging or frustrating when you can't get national media to tell a positive story because it's. There's a self serving part, right. Like we're trying to grow and we want to sell more knives because that creates more growth. And quite frankly, we have to pay for this facility and pay for those, those employees. But it's more than that. It's a true belief in that. This is how we save, I guess, our country. This is how we make our country better. It's through the motivation that people might receive by seeing this story. There's so much negativity when you turn on the news and we're at war and the gas prices and you just pick the topic, it's always seems to be negativity. And I think it's easy for the guy who, you know, just turned out as a journeyman, plumber, journeyman lineman or whatever to think can you really go anywhere from there?

[B]

Right.

[C]

Is he topped out, has an idea of this fly tying business that he has or whatever it is. Right. A special material that could be used for, for building. And he doesn't quite have the guts to do it because he's never seen it been done. Well, no, it's been done. It's being done right. Right here in Frenchtown, Missoula, Montana. And if it can happen there, it can happen anywhere in the country. And that's probably my biggest frustration of not having national media talk about it is because I want people to go recreate. We've done what we've done and see, we're a direct to consumer company. We didn't even do it through Cabela's or through Bass, you know, Bass Pro. We have done it all through sales on our own website. And my wife was doing all the fulfillment in our basement of our house and she's still doing it now in this building with our employees. Like she runs that fulfillment. And I just want people to see like we design it, we prototype it, we test it, we now manufacture it all in our house, we sell it and we ship it. How many companies in the country do that? And we need to tell that story that that is possible.

[B]

Yeah, you do. So along with my frustration with the national media for not showing up and doing an obvious site location piece meta, what are you doing? It's a knife. It's not a box of plutonium. It's a tool. And it's a tool that helped build this country, frankly.

[C]

Well, look at what you can find on social media.

[B]

I mean, as long as I'm on my soapbox I'm currently featured in five promotional campaigns on Facebook. None of them are sanctioned. It's all AI. Okay, so these nefarious pricks and God knows what little backwater somewhere with a laptop in a basement have created. It's diabolical. They're defrauding Nevermind dewalt or Yeti or like five big brands. They're all with me. Right. So I'm all in these things out there with some bullshit invitation to enter a sweepstakes, and these guys get your information and then all kinds of mischief unfolds. So, look, I don't mean to pick on Facebook. I got six and a half million reasons on Facebook not to start trouble. But it's not just my fans, and it's not just Yeti's fans. It's Facebook's customers.

[C]

Yeah, and I'm glad you brought that up. And it's something I need to say, like, if because of this podcast, you want to come check out our website or you want to buy one of our knives, be very careful. Because now this is another problem that I'm having with our government right now is they're not protecting the American businesses well enough and consumers against China.

[B]

The IP.

[C]

The IP. And there are over 4,000 fake Montana knife company that we can find right now. Websites carrying Montana Knife company knives with our branding, our logo, fake knives that are being made in China and being sold. One of the worst has. Traditionally we keep after them with our lawyers, but has been Temu. Yeah, our knives were. Have been littered on Teemu. And it'll be interesting to see after this drops if they. We sent them a letter here just a couple weeks ago, so hopefully they're down. But name the site. They're all over the place. You just start Googling them if it's not on our website. Because we don't allow our knives to be sold on any other website, period. But they're everywhere and they're. We get them in to get people get them in there. They. They send them to us saying, hey, I got this knife from you guys, and it's not sharp and we have to write back and say, you didn't. That's not our knife.

[B]

So people understand. All your knives come with a. Essentially a lifetime warranty. Like you'll. You'll sharpen those things for free. For free for the end of time.

[C]

Yep.

[B]

So somebody buys a Montana knife because it's labeled Montana knife. It's your logo, it's your model, it's your make. Everything looks legit, but it's not off your site. And they get it, and it doesn't hold the edge. They send it to you, and you have to tell them, yeah, I didn't make this knife, brother.

[C]

Right. You got robbed.

[B]

That's it.

[C]

It hurts. It takes dollars. Those people intended to buy a knife from us, so it takes dollars out of the manufacturer's pocket, and it also robs dollars from the American consumer. It's a double whammy. And where is our government on that? That should be an easy bipartisan. Hey, Timu. Hey. Whoever else, Alibaba, we are going to absolutely slam you guys for this. Like, you have to protect. If you want to grow American manufacturing, you have to protect the manufacturers and the consumer. And I don't understand how that's not 100 to 0 vote in the Senate.

[B]

I don't know what to tell you, brother. I got slapped pretty hard four years ago for sharing a story that suggested that Hunter Biden's laptop may in fact be a smoking gun. I didn't do it to grind a political axe. I did it because that was a giant story, and it was very consequential. They have the power to knock that down. Yeah, right?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Surely we have the power to keep this kind of thing from happening. There's a friend of this podcast guy called Arthur Lee. You probably don't know him, but I bet you've seen his product. He made a thing a few years ago called LifeVac.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

A LifeVac is a device. If your kid, or really an adult anybody, starts to choke, you just put this on their mouth and you squeeze the thing and it essentially pulls the blockage.

[C]

Oh, wow.

[B]

I mean, it's incredible. He came on here. How many lives had this thing saved, Chuck?

[A]

22. Based upon somebody who either listened to the podcast or someone they know listened to the podcast and bought one in this.

[B]

Just our audience.

[A]

Yeah. 22.

[C]

That's amazing.

[B]

He saved over 5,000 lives.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Now China is ripping him off like crazy.

[C]

Instantly.

[B]

Now, the problem here, there is a corollary. It's not just that the knife doesn't hold the blade. It's not just, oh, that's disappointing. This freaking thing doesn't work, and your kid has 60 seconds, and now you can't. I mean that. So I don't understand why this isn't defcon. What is it, one or five? What's the bad one?

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

Looking at that, five sounds bigger. Five sounds bigger. But DEFCON one might be the bad one. I'm not sure. Whatever it is, all hands on deck. Yeah. It's not just mischief, you know, and I'm afraid that if it keeps going like this, and honestly, I'm not really afraid of this, but I think the only way through is for the default position for the average person to assume that whatever they're seeing is a lie. And until we get there, then the social media companies are going to continue to profit from these very scams because it's advertising and they're making money. So until people just look around and go, you know what, what's the point in advertising?

[C]

Right.

[B]

I'm sorry to hijack the conversation, but I. I raise money for my foundation every day with videos like these.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And these bums are taken, name and likeness from those scholarship videos and using them.

[C]

Yep.

[B]

Right. So, yeah, boohoo. Poor Mike. Whatever. I'll be fine. But the bottom's liable to fall out of the whole thing. And if the public loses their trust

[C]

in that, that is where. You know, I'm generally kind of a limited government guy, but that is where government, that's their role is to protect the American citizen. Whether it's national defense or through commerce policy like this, you have to protect, again, the American consumer. It does. It makes it incredibly hard when you're. You're borrowing money to build buildings and to hire people to get on the Internet and see 4,000 fake websites, you

[B]

know, and all selling your thing, your product.

[C]

Exactly.

[A]

That's a DEFCON 1 situation. That's the worst.

[B]

That's the worst, right?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

It's all backwards. Right. It does feel like five ought to be city on fire kind of thing, you know?

[A]

But look at golf. It's like if you get the highest score, you've lost.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

So it will be interesting, like when we launch our folder to see how fast they've copied it. I mean, I gotta hand it to China, like, they have gotten. It took them a few years before we ever saw our first one. It was really just probably at the beginning of last year that we saw our first fake. And we're like. At first it was like, oh, we've made it. There's a fake. It was kind of like almost like, hey, we're starting to become a real company. China's faking us. And then it was six months later, and it was thousands of knives. And it was like, oh, this is. This is a problem.

[B]

It's a problem.

[C]

Yeah. And if they're doing it, the. Let's face it, Montana Knife Co. Is not on the national scale. Really a household name. We would love to be someday but if they're doing that to us, just imagine the suction and the drag on our economy that they're having. If they're doing that to small Little Montana knife company, what is that to, you know, all these big brands, not to mention all the mom and pop brands out there?

[B]

It's unspeakable in its implications and its ramifications. I mean, every supply chain that I know of is tied in to this to some degree. I mean, obviously during COVID we're looking at our, our medical supply, we're looking at our, you know, antibiotics. And so.

[C]

And you're right there the same I've heard my buddies who were in the medical field talking about tourniquets, you know, these cheap Chinese tourniquets. And there again, it's just like with your friends, LifeVac, you're talking about a, I mean, like you say at the end of the day, a knife, whatever, right? But a tourniquet, that's in a life saving moment that if that fails because you bought a cheap one off of Alibaba and you thought the $19 product was as good as the $50 product, you know, somebody dies.

[B]

Well, like we're going down the hierarchy of consequential bad acts. I mean, there's not a lot of distance between what you're talking about and the fact that, I don't know, like every two or three thousand Adderall tablets might have a little Fentanyl in it, right? It might have a little bit in there. Like, what would we do if. Yeah. If the announcement was, listen, your favorite brand of beer is still available. It's just that every thousand bottles or so is, you know, filled with poison.

[C]

Somebody's gonna die.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. So how we got, you know, just layouts. One in a thousand, the odds are still with you. Enjoy that Adderall and wash it down with a Heineken and hope for the best, you know?

[C]

Exactly.

[B]

So, yeah, you're. I mean, it has to stop. In the same way trust in every major public institution has, has eroded. Just the, the basic. Can I even believe what I'm looking at? You know?

[C]

Well, and it's it that's just becoming. I mean, let's face it, with AI, and especially with you, who makes a living off of your, your voice and face, I mean, they've gotten so much better at that, even in just the last six months. Imagine how good they're going to be in two years at that.

[B]

You know, who's pissed off? And I've been meaning to reach out is Morgan Freeman. Oh, really? He's as angry as I am. Probably angrier because he's a. It's his. What do they call it? Nil. Name, image, likeness. Right. That's really all you have to sell if you're in this line of work. Right. It can all be co opted in so many ways. But I don't know, man, it's been a very weird day for me because the person here before you made a very persuasive case that AI is the best hope we have of saving our education system as it exists far and away the best hope. And I'm persuaded, I think, and I'll

[C]

tell you, we are doing right now fully integrating, trying to fully integrate AI into what we do. I mean, I talked to a very interesting person that found me through your podcast the first time in 2024. He reached out to me and he is one of the top AI engineers at Google and share his name with you off of this. But he reached out because he believes in the American manufacturing story and he thinks AI can play a really great part in that and offered to basically help us even as we start to integrate AI into what we do, help us even potentially build AI systems for our manufacturing floor.

[B]

Don't leave here without giving me that name or Chuck. I just spoke at Google's AI conference a week ago.

[C]

Really?

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

No, this is 18 months ago.

[B]

Well, I guarantee you, man, if they haven't fired him yet, he was there. I mean, he's. These guys are all paying attention and people should know this too. I haven't made a big deal of it here yet, but it, I mentioned it to you when we spoke. Everybody's looking at manufacturing and skilled trades with one eye and with the other they're looking at AI and they're coming together in ways that I didn't predict. You know, I knew we were going to get to an existential, you know, splat period with the skills gap, but I didn't know that it was going to be AI that accelerated it or made electricians or linemen. You know, the lineman college advertises on this podcast now all the time.

[C]

I mean, power and water, frankly, are going to be our two biggest issues as a nation. Power is quickly outrunning the water. The water issues, I think in 20 years is going to be a big one. You just fly into here and look down. Yeah. And go, that doesn't work forever.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

You know, but power as a lineman, and let's face it, I don't want a new power line going through my backyard.

[B]

Yeah, right.

[C]

Nobody wants, if you buy a ranch in Wyoming, you don't want a power line running through your new ranch.

[B]

Honey, they're putting in a data center. Yeah, it's going to be great.

[C]

Nobody wants that. But we have to have an upgrade to our infrastructure in a big way.

[B]

We must.

[C]

And so the power issue with these data centers and whatnot is going to be, it's becoming a real problem. But with the AI technology, you know, you can be a doomsdayer. And, and I compared a lot to social media. There's a lot of bad about social media and there's a lot of lives that social media ruined. Montana knife company grew to 120 employees in five years because the world is tiny because of social media.

[B]

And Microworks is going to give away $10 million this year because of Facebook. Yeah, I couldn't have done it without Facebook.

[C]

And we were just talking about meta and Facebook and you know, two things can be true. Meta and Facebook could be better and could allow us to advertise and push the word out better. But at the same time it makes the world so small. When I started making knives as an 11 year old in 1992, you had to get lucky to get an article in a magazine or you had to go to a trade show, to a gun show. There was no way to get seen. And now you can take a picture and a million people can see it. And it is what makes it possible to be in Webo county in Montana. Did you know there is a consolidate and this is another big concern. I bounce all over here. But there's a consolidating of, I wouldn't say necessarily power but wealth. It's consolidating into these cities. And Montana is an example of there's five or six towns, cities in Montana that are growing. Did you know in like four counties in eastern Montana there hasn't been a single business application put in in like two and a half years for a new business. These towns are shrinking. They're completely dying. And what I'm trying to get across is you don't have to be in these big areas to succeed. You can start a business from your garage like we did and use the power of social media and shopify and you know, AI. And that's the thing. Back to AI. You can be in tiny town Montana and have an AI assistant and AI help you write contracts and you can

[B]

be a guy, build a website.

[C]

Yeah. Starting to build a business while you're also working for the rancher. Down the road.

[B]

I just think it's a. We're not the first to make the point, but it's worth repeating because like big brains, big think tanks are wrestling with ways to save small town America and the tool we're talking about right now. In the same way, I think it can save education. To your point, I think it could just be transformational. What better way? Why do people leave? Why do they leave, you know, and come back so infrequently? It's because there's a promise of something better somewhere else.

[C]

And you know, back to your, you know, just thinking about the economy in these small towns and why people leave. Like these kids are leaving Montana because they can't afford to stay. Right. The median house price I think in Missoula is almost $600,000. It's almost 800,000 in Bozeman. So how do you graduate high school and stay? The apprenticeship programs and the trades people are going to be some of the highest paid people. I swear they're going to be some of the highest paid people. They already are some of the highest paid people in our area in Montana. And that's how these kids can't, you know, go to college and start life with a hundred thousand dollars in debt.

[B]

Well, unfortunately they can.

[C]

And even myself, you know, I've got like Tristan, right? He started with me when he was a senior in high school. He could have gone to school. He had full rides for scholarships to school. He kept putting it off and putting it off because he was seeing the growth of mkc. He's now basically got a four year business degree under Andrew, who worked at Amazon, who works for me that runs our operations. And now Tristan's, you know, making really, really good money. I don't want to put his finances out there, but making really, really good money with zero debt and a true, I would say, master's degree in business in five years and a front row

[B]

seat to the business of making a thing. Yeah, yeah, man. It's mind boggling how hard our government and our media make it. When you look around at the list of things that ought to be encouraged and you see the way they're being affirmatively discouraged. Yeah, I don't know how to fix it. But I knew halfway through our last conversation that I wanted to have you back soon to talk about all this because I really, I really think people need to hear your story and they need to understand that whether it's making a knife or a razor or a watch. Right. If you start with a commitment to do it here, you know, you met my friend Bayard over at American Giant. Same story, man. This is again and again and again. You're playing from a different rule book,

[C]

you know, and what I love about like the knives we've made, like this knife right here, you know, it'd be different if I was sitting in front of you and I had somehow grown a giant car manufacturing company, right? Like that's. It seems like a car manufacturing company seems so daunting, grand, right? Like, you know, it's like the average guy is going to be like, why I can't start a car manufacturing company, right? Our knives all the way along have been basically this three piece knife, right? It's so simple. And the point of that is if you can do it with a knife. Did the world need another knife company?

[B]

No.

[C]

No, right? Did the world need black rifle coffee? No, it's an idea. It's a movement, right?

[B]

Excuse me. The world didn't need your finished product in either case. They need your dream and they need your passion and they need your hope and they need your initiative because that's what bipeds have that matters.

[C]

And with encouragement from you, I'm actually going to start to develop my podcast in a little different way with telling that story a little bit and trying to provide and share the story of the struggles of starting a business and actually tell people from my perspective. And I honestly, we are just getting started. It's funny I say with moving into this building, we actually just got going. We moved out of my backyard four months ago. All 80 employees back then were reporting to work at my house. Right. I had to tear down my horse fence to build that building. Okay. We were competing with the big dogs and doing all this and growing this brand from my basement, from my garage, from my horse pasture. So we have only been in this building four months. Where we go from here is going to be just as hard as where we came from. And I want to share that with people and share the stories, the lessons, just as I've been really doing all the way along. But I want to do it in a bit of a more podcast format where I can take certain topics and I hope people take it from. Not a guy with an MBA that was trained, that's got all this experience, but from a blue collar. My dad was a backhoe operator.

[B]

From a lineman ignored his board. Yeah, it's true. I mean, I mean, yeah, but look, I wanted to make that point earlier just so you don't get too much grief when you go home. But in defense of your board, you know, it's full of smart people, right?

[C]

Yeah. Brilliant.

[B]

And so what don't they know that you do? What do they know that you don't? And why ultimately would you take the reverse commute like that?

[C]

Well, to cover a topic that I would cover on, on my podcast would be, this is why you don't sell out to the VC company that takes control over your business and tells you, the guy that knows the customer, that is the customer, what to do with your brainchild and your baby.

[B]

Right.

[C]

And they didn't know what I knew and what they would have done had they had control and own the company versus they're an advisory board. Right. These are brilliant people, and they aren't necessarily wrong. And in fact, in the end, they might be right. If the book someday is the Rise and Fall of Montana Knife Company, they will have been right. And their point was, you can always offload contractors. Right. If I'm having blades cut in Pennsylvania and blades ground over here and things slow down or, I don't know, we happen to get in a war in Iran, it's gonna happen, and the economy slows down, you can offload those people, but you can't offload a 51,000square foot manufacturing facility and $18 million in equipment.

[B]

True.

[C]

And 120 people. And so what I saw, though, was the difference. What the difference was between us and what they're used to is people were resonating with the story. They weren't necessarily buying the knife just because of the quality of the product. It's there. They were buying the knife because of the movement, the mission that we are on the. True. Like, I don't know, you're. You're obviously better with words, but I'm trying to find how they resonated with the brand and how it felt. And I knew by bringing those processes in and controlling those process and telling the story that people would continue to support. And at the end of the day, what will end up maybe potentially being a brilliant move is that we will then control that entire supply chain. Like, right now, it's still a giant liability to have all that overhead.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

But if Americans continue to support the brand and prove that this is actually the way the next board member might say, you know what you guys should do? You should buy some land and build a building. Because Montana Knife Company did that, and they're now not beholden to the supplier that has a bigger competitor that's telling them what they can and can't do.

[B]

Well, I mean, it's the old Ray Kroc story, man. You've got to, like, what business are you really in? What do you really make? Is it really knives? Are you a facilitator for the feeling that a satisfied customer gets when they buy the product? You know, McDonald's, you know the famous lecture where he used to go around and talk to kids and he'd ask roomfuls, what's my business? You know, and obviously people would say, well, you're in the restaurant business, you're in the meat business, you're in the ranching business, you're in the customer service business. And on and on and on like, no, man, he's in the real estate business. McDonald's owns more real estate than anybody, you know, and what they did with it was tertiary. You know, we just happened to put golden arches on it and build that brand. I think right now we're living in a time when the people who dare to make their stuff here go against the grain, knowing that the government can't protect them from fraud, knowing that their product can't be fairly marketed on social media for whatever reason, knowing all these things, you know, that I think you might be on the vanguard of some kind of genuine renaissance, in which case your business might not be exactly what you think it is. Just, look, thank you for the gifts, by the way. I mean, are you in the shirt business? Are you in the hat business? You know, I mean, we're kind of

[C]

in all of those things, but it's. We actually have, you know, a bunch of American made apparel that we're trying to launch. I want to talk to, you know, those guys at American Giant and try to figure out a way to collab with those guys. But again, it's. It's a way to have people represent what they believe on their body.

[B]

What about your buddies up in Maine? You know, jocko origin?

[C]

Yeah, yeah, we're definitely friends with those guys. We just got to figure out something to do. It's. It's honestly getting past this building, and I think. I. I don't know if I told you or I had lunch with a friend before this. You know, I generaled the whole building project. Right.

[B]

So general contracted it.

[C]

Yeah. So I. I ran the entire project. That's the last year.

[B]

That's big.

[A]

That's very big.

[C]

And so when you run a $18 million building and project and it has to be on time and on budget, which we were about a month early getting it done, and about a 1% over budget, so it Went well.

[B]

But if this knife thing doesn't work

[C]

out, I feel like I don't want to do that again. But I feel like the aperture has opened up too. And I want to start to bring other companies into what we are doing more and more. And the apparel side is something that we absolutely want to work with more American Apparel producers because it's hard. I mean we absolutely, we have apparel that's sourced and we have some American Apparel. But as American Giant knows, it's hard to do in this country.

[B]

I dare you. I double dog dare you. Yeah, I mean it's every single thing. Sourcing your own cotton, growing your own cotton, making those deals, handling those deliveries. It's. Yeah, people don't. That it chaps my ass too. Because people talk a good game. It's very easy to say, oh yeah, buy American. And it's very easy to stitch a flag on a thing. But when it comes right down to it. I don't know if we talked last time about the experiment. I worked for Wrangler for a couple years and I was like, guys, you know, why can't we. At the time it was Vanity Fair, Lee Jeans, Wrangler and a couple of other brands. I'm like, can't we just do a simple line of American made jeans here? I know they'll be more expensive, but just to give people a choice. And they were like, yes, we can. But let us show you the data from what happened last time we tried and basically they were $10 more expensive. Nobody bought any. So they knocked it down $5 more expensive. Nobody bought any. They knocked it down at $2 more expensive. Same exact pair of jeans, one made here, one not nothing. Now they're losing money, but at this point they need to know where the tipping point is. So they took it down like a quarter 25 cents more for the same thing made in America. Nothing like they tested it all through JC Ben. Nothing. Not until they. Oh, they went to a penny, a penny more and they got a little. Yeah, a little. It wasn't until it went to zero that it worked.

[C]

I do, I do think that's changing. And I don't know what year they did that, but I would guess it was pre Covid.

[B]

Oh yeah, that was, it was, it

[C]

was a couple long time ago. And I do think I've said I don't need 400 million Americans to support my idea of my business. I understand that there's still going to be plenty of knives made in China that are bought. I need a tiny fraction of those Americans to support my idea. And quite frankly, I think it's a lot more than a tiny fraction that believe in what we're saying. Maybe they don't need a knife, but maybe it is a pair of origin jeans or an American Giant shirt. I believe really since COVID and we are, we are seeing a renaissance in this stuff. But we do need support from the government to help these ideas scale from just tiny, small niche brands into giant American brands. And I, I think there's things they could do with taxes. I think you could give new businesses incredibly low tax rates for the first five years or up to a certain cap. Say, hey, once you cross 10 million in sales, you're going to pay the normal business taxes. But in the first five years we're going to help you pay almost no tax. Like it takes so much money to just get off the ground as a business owner. And we did it. We bootstrapped it. We just sold 200 knives and then we made 200 more and sold those and then we made 500. But we were fortunate because of the style of the product. It was relatively simple. Some of these new businesses take a heavy, heavy investment up front in equipment before you can make one thing.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And that's why I say I don't also begrudge somebody who does have to sell 50% of their idea to VC to fund the first machine that they have to buy.

[B]

How else can you compete? You know, you can bootstrap it, but you know, not everybody's got the cojones.

[C]

But the government could absolutely find ways to, to grease the skids for that.

[B]

What kind of knife is that?

[C]

This is our stockyard knife. It's an interesting blade. It's got not really any kind of a tip on it. And that's for if you're working around animals. If you're, you usually find ranchers and farmers carrying this. So if say you're riding your horse, you get baling twine or something wrapped up in your horse and you get off to cut that out and the horse kicks or a calf kicks, it doesn't stab them. It's safe around animals. This is one of our working class knives. We call it our blue collar line. You know. Yes, that's a little bit niche, but honestly, I make tools for people. And not every tool is going to be for every single American though. You find tons of people opening boxes with these at work.

[B]

Sure.

[C]

Because again, you're not going to stab yourself. It's a pretty safe tip. This is a lineman knife here. A Skinny knife that linemen use at work. You can take this ring and you suck it up in what's called a shotgun. And you can cut like, say, twine that a bird has dropped in the power line off or whatever they call it. Hot sticking. But both of these knives we're adding to our blue collar line. And in addition to. To your blade, we are going to add this to the Microworks foundation donation. So the rocker and these two blades. So a percentage of every one of these sold is going to go to the Microworks Foundation. So we're expanding that blue collar line. And honestly, I told you this in the very beginning. It'd be a crawl, walk, run. As we grow in scale, I can't tell you how much I believe in your mission. With trade schools, with apprenticeships. This is truly how America survives. These people build America. And I actually called these people out at our. At my speech on Friday night. We kind of had a friend's family event, and I invited a bunch of the contractors that built our building. Too often, we see these buildings open up and they cut the ribbon and all the fancy investors are there, the government officials and everybody. And the guy who froze his ass off on the steel, you know, beams in February when we started tipping it up, they're not there. And so we invited a bunch of our contractors and thanked them. And it's those guys that build the buildings that allow us to build America, you know, to build the American dream. So.

[B]

Well, I know how much you care since you told me you were going to do this. You guys have sent my foundation $188,000 for a small company that's making a go of it in Frenchtown, Montana. I don't take that lightly. I tell your story often and to anybody who will listen, because you put your money where your mouth is. And I appreciate the kind words. And, you know, did you see that thing I did with Theo Vaughn last year? Yes. Yeah, we may do that again. I just mention it because in spite of the fact that the media couldn't get its act together to show up to cover your thing, there are a lot of people who are paying attention. Obviously, 5,000 people show up just to be on hand is a thing, but, you know, Theo has a huge audience and that he cares.

[C]

Yeah, he's a really nice guy. He really is. He's. People see the comedian side, but I. I don't want to overstate how much I know him. I've been around him a couple times.

[B]

Have you been on his show? No.

[C]

No.

[B]

Hey, Theo he's sitting here.

[C]

But his, His Rogan. I haven't been on Joe's.

[B]

No, no.

[C]

But Joe again has been very good to us.

[B]

Yeah. You know what? I. He's. He gives you regular shout out.

[C]

He does. And he wears our shirt or hat once in a while, which is. Which is massive. But. But Theo, I think, really does believe in like, things like what we are doing and things like you're doing. And, you know, Theo came from a background of, you know,

[B]

you know, blue collar, L.A. poor.

[C]

You know, he saw people struggling to make livings. And now that he is where he is, I think he. He wants to do what he can do to help.

[B]

You know what? His manager told me something and I've confirmed it. I know it's true, but he'll go to a town, he'll do a show. It's exhausting, as you can imagine. You know, you're living on the road, you go to a town, you promote the thing, you go out, you do the thing. And now it's what, 11:30 at night and you're beat. And you know, Theo's relationship with his fans is like yours is very engaged. You know, they want to stick around and say hello. Yeah. And so he sticks around and it's no bums rush. And I mean, there's stories of him standing there in the lobby of the venue after the people who run the venue are like, look, you gotta go. He doesn't go, he just stays there. And people come up and they tell him stories, they thank him. It's not just, oh, that was so funny. They're connecting. That's what I meant earlier. Theo's a comedian, but his brand is not comedy.

[C]

Right, Right. And I saw it firsthand. He did that in Missoula. He stood out in the lobby and shook hands for over an hour afterwards. And it wasn't just a quick, you know, photo and out. And you know, those guys are on the road every other night. They're doing that. That's exhausting. I mean, you, you know, you talk to people all the time. It's exhausting. He really is a, from what I've seen, a really good person.

[B]

Well, look, I mean, there. It's like Bush used to. He got a lot of grief for it. But the whole, you know, thousand points of light thing. Yeah, I think about that all the time now. I think it's true. I think you can find that sentiment in. In certain kinds of companies, you can find it in certain kinds of comedians, podcasters, personalities. You know, those are the ones who I think can have a real seat at this table. And, you know, if the Today show is not going to show up, if the national media is not going to show up to cover that event, then, you know. And again, I hope I'm not talking out of school, but I loved our conversation. Two weeks ago, you didn't call to invite yourself on this podcast. You just called to invite me to your thing. And then we just talked about these basic.

[C]

I asked you advice. You were very kind to give it.

[B]

I'm very stingy with advice because God forbid somebody take it.

[C]

But, well, but you are telling such an important message. And I feel like our message is not the same exact message about the same thing, but they are parallel paths, and they are both as critically important to our nation's existence, and they really, you know, flow in and out of each other. The apprenticeships and the trade schools that you are helping kids go to might be working for us down the road. That might be a machinist, that Swiss lathe operator. I mean, I'm sorry, but we need help. We need machinists, we need Swiss lathe operators. We need those people that you are helping put in school. And so what you are doing is helping feed into businesses like mine and other businesses that are trying to do the same thing. And so it's a parallel path that is bipartisan. What we are talking about is not a Democrat, Republican thing. And it's just unfortunate that on television, that's pretty much mostly all they want to talk about.

[B]

That's it is this or that.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Yeah. One last thing I've got here. I have to show you this, and I'm going to give it to you. This is the culmination, and it's gonna sound crazy, and the average consumer is gonna go, you know, yeah, it's just a folding knife, but we have been trying to develop and build a folding knife for two and a half years.

[B]

Like a pocket knife.

[C]

A pocket knife.

[B]

That. That's the first thing you and I talked about two years ago. Yeah, that's the.

[C]

We've been working on it since, really. And the new manufacturing building, like, we could not have made this in my backyard in Frenchtown. We had to. We had to purchase this equipment. I had. Well, when I was on your podcast in 2024, I had 50 employees. Today's 120. That growth is what's made this possible. And I say this, and I'm actually asking you guys, I'm asking Chuck to not put this out for about two weeks because we literally started assembling these yesterday.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[C]

Like, we are. This has been just such a giant undertaking, and I'm very excited about it. But this is our new folding knife for. It's called the Montana. And I want you to open that. We're very excited. You're the first person to ever receive one, so.

[B]

Oh, wow. Made for America. Why not in?

[C]

I feel like that brings the customer in, like they're a part of it. We made this for the people that have been supporting us this entire time. Not in.

[B]

But I love that, man, that preposition. Sometimes this the smallest, you know, the smallest words have the biggest impact.

[C]

Well, our customers that bought these knives all the way along, they made this possible because I could never have made this in my garage five years.

[B]

Even the box, you know, is there a more satisfying sound than a well machined box than the snick that makes? Of course that's a magnet, but whatever. Yeah, that works great. Beautiful. Beautiful. Wow. What are we calling it?

[C]

The Montana? It's a liner lock. It's got a couple things that I think are cool. It's got no screws on this side. Like, there's no screw heads. And in fact, this arrowhead actually has a screw going into it from the other side to hold that handle on.

[B]

How's that work?

[C]

We've re engineered the liner lock to be what we think is one of the best liner locks ever made. That's the mechanism that you're pushing on there, right? The arrowhead on the pocket clip. So when you're at a restaurant and you look down at somebody's pocket, if it's not an arrowhead, it's not an mkc. And there's a couple things with that one. We started as a hunting knife company, and I never want to lose our roots. And also you can find arrowheads. You know, people go arrowhead hunting in Montana. So it's the Montana. It's got the arrowheads and then the engineering and the manufacturing, everything in that. There's, I mean, 120 people making that possible. So it's a big moment for us, for sure.

[B]

That's huge. Dude. Congratulations and thank you.

[C]

Yeah, thank you.

[B]

I mean, I assume this is a gift, right?

[C]

Yes, absolutely. Well, it's not just a gift, but it is a thank you. You know, in the last year and a half since you and I met, you know, you go do these talks. We see it, we see our hat that you wear, our shirt. There's a lot of people that, you know, talk a big game and whatnot. But you truly do believe in the mission that we are on, and. And we believe in your mission.

[B]

Well, you've been extraordinarily generous, you know, and again, I don't take it lightly. We're big fans. We're rooting for you in every way. What is it about a pocket knife, man? How is it that this talisman has endured? Why are these things passed down from generation to generation?

[C]

I really believe one. I think it's in who carried it. If you had a pocket knife that your grandfather carried right now, and if somebody was to set that on the table and say your grandfather carried that, it would mean something to you. Any tool. A hammer, a framing hammer. If you had. If your grandfather was a framer and you had his framing hammer. It's about the hands, I feel like. And, you know, my dad has working hands. My hands have gotten soft in the last few years sitting in an office. But, you know, I think it's. It's about who carried it, the things they've done. And also, do you really want to be the guy when. When some gal asks, hey, do you guys have a pocket knife? I need to open something. And do you want to be the guy that doesn't have the pocket knife?

[B]

You want to be MacGyver? Of course I have a pocket knife.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And then you want to be Crocodile Dundee. That's not a knife. That's a knife. Wow.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Well, look, I made the point the last time, but the fact that you're doing this in Montana is just so great. I was up there not long ago, you know. In fact, I texted you. But I met what's his name, the governor. Gianforte.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And he's doing some good stuff, too. He's a fan.

[C]

Yeah, he is. He's doing a good job in Montana, for sure. And I heard about friends of mine that own central plumbing and heating were at that talk, and Jesse Waldenberg texted me, and he's like, mike's wearing your hat.

[B]

You know, I mean, why again we hear I was in Montana.

[C]

Yeah, exactly.

[B]

I was in Montana where a. Where a river runs through it. Gotta remember that one. Yeah. Norman o'. Clain.

[C]

That was made about the Blackfoot River.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Which is where I grew up. Blackfoot River Valley. That's why the first knife that we ever made was called the Blackfoot.

[B]

Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On the rocks are teardrops beneath Them are words, and some of the words are theirs.

[C]

That's so cool.

[B]

It's a great book. You're a pro.

[C]

You're. He's really good.

[B]

You know what I remember? I remember Robert Redford.

[C]

He lets me know all the things. This stuff's gonna work out for you.

[B]

No, man. Look, it's our country. Could learn a lot from the big sky boys. And anybody who's paying attention will see that on display. You know What? Go on YouTube and find the video. It's like 18 minutes long, and it's just a fly on the wall. And you can see what a love letter looks like to manufacturing that's writ by the guy who built it. I had no idea you were your own general contractor on that thing, you lunatic. That's crazy. But you're a. Yeah, yeah, man. You're a lineman who made good. Look at that. They flew in on a Blackhawk.

[C]

Yeah, the. The local firefighting people offered to bring that Blackhawk. They put our logos on it and everything, but they offered to bring that in. They believe in what we're doing. Those guys fighting wildland fire with Blackhawks. They put the logo on there. It backfired a little because people came up and started congratulating me for buying a Blackhawk. No, we need more CNC machines and lathes and easy.

[B]

Okay, so you're still doing the mic drops. There's still new stuff in the works. The website is still mkc.com yeah.

[C]

Montanaknifecompany.com okay. Soon to be mkc.com were this close. Actually, we had to buy that.

[B]

But isn't that crazy? That's crazy. There was a guy who owned microw.com 18.

[C]

Really?

[B]

Ago. Yeah. Yeah. He was happy to sell it to me. And I was like, you know something? I'm not gonna buy my name. I'm just gonna wait till you die. And he died four months later. Did you.

[C]

You didn't have anything under suspicious circumstances.

[B]

It was a real tragedy.

[C]

Do you know Hillary

[B]

Well? Took you 90 minutes to get there, Josh. But you finally landed the plane. Or the Blackhawk. Go buy a knife that was made in this country by people who give a damn. And thank you for coming back on the pod. And I will make it up there soon. And I'll expect nothing less than a private tour.

[C]

Well, I'll hold you to that.

[B]

For sure. Maybe a decent cup of black rifle coffee.

[C]

Perfect. We can do that.

[B]

Gosh, Chuck, I wonder if they'll ever advertise on this podcast.

[A]

You know what do me a favor, would you, Josh?

[B]

The next time. Evan, tell him I still. I mean, I'm drinking his coffee right now, for crying out loud.

[C]

Evan, what are we doing here? Let's go. Yeah, we got to advertise.

[B]

What are we doing, man? Yeah.

[C]

All right.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

It's a good one. I really, really put the arm on poor Evan there.

[C]

Thank you.

[B]

Thanks for the knife.

[C]

I appreciate it.

[B]

Means the world. Josh Smith, everyone. Goodbye.

[A]

If you like what you heard and

[B]

even if you don't, Won't you please,

[C]

won't you please, pretty please?

[B]

Pretty please subscribe? Well, I hate to beg and I hate to plead but please, pretty freaking please, please sub. Oh, please subscribe.

[D]

What would you do if your online store converted 36% more shoppers? You could take 36% more vacation.

[C]

Another pina colada?

[B]

Yes, please.

[D]

Open a new retail location with 36% more square feet.

[B]

Fantastic.

[D]

Hire 36% more help.

[C]

You're hired, and you're hired.

[D]

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