Marine First Recon & Humanoid Robotics

Summary

Tier1 Podcast Episode Summary
Episode: "Marine First Recon & Humanoid Robotics"
Date: June 8, 2026
Host: Brent Tucker | Guest: Michael LeBlanc (Ret. Major, USMC First Recon; Co-founder, Foundation Future Industries; Author)

---

Overview

This episode of the Tier1 Podcast with Brent Tucker dives deep into the experiences and insights of Michael LeBlanc—a retired Marine First Recon Major, entrepreneur in the field of defense-related humanoid robotics, and author of the book What If Anger is the Answer?. The discussion traverses Michael’s journey from uncertain college student to Marine officer, through combat deployments in Afghanistan, transitioning to business leadership, building companies in robotics, and the evolving role of robotics (including AI and humanoids) in modern and future warfare. The conversation closes with an exploration of Michael's book, its core message about the productive power of anger, and reflections on leadership and virtue in modern life.

---

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Choosing the Marine Corps & Officer Experience

• Joining the Marines
  • Michael describes an untraditional, spontaneous path: from translating ancient Greek in college to joining the Marine Corps via their website (04:14, Michael LeBlanc: “...my path into the Marines was really going to marines.com and just typing in my phone number...”).
  • Influence: Marine branding's clarity and the culture of “being the best” (05:34–06:11).
• Officer Accession Process
  • Complete lack of prior military knowledge: thought all Marines were infantry, later discovered the diverse range of MOSs (07:30, Michael LeBlanc).
  • Assignments based on ranking preferences but with a “quality spread” to diversify specializations (08:49).
  • Selected “Ground Intelligence”—allowed for infantry officer roots, sniper school, and intelligence school (10:46).

2. Culture, Standards, and Identity in the Marine Corps

• Ethos & Standards
  • Marine Recon as “tip of the tip of the spear” (11:45).
  • Marines’ remarkable standards; intra-service rivalries with mutual respect (14:30, Brent Tucker: “...if I had to put a word to it as standards, it's a huge deal...”).
  • Challenges of upholding standards, willingness to be “unliked” as a leader (15:47).
• Lessons on Leadership
  • Drawing parallels between raising children and leading Marines: boundaries, consistency, and discipline (16:27–18:12).

3. Afghanistan: Reality vs. Expectations

• Deployment to Helmand Province
  • Lack of pre-deployment research, understanding region’s significance, and learning on the ground (20:07).
  • Opium fields’ beauty and irony in the US-funded irrigation transforming into drug-fueled conflict economy (21:01, Michael LeBlanc: “...that became a great bed for opium.”).
• On Purpose and Perspective
  • War's clarity and heightened sense of importance in contrast to civilian life (25:49, Michael LeBlanc: “...it felt like everything mattered out there. Everything was a scene from a movie...”).
  • Admissions about loving war for the experience and camaraderie more than broader geopolitical justifications (28:43–29:28).
  • Comparison between American “adventure” motivations and Ukrainians’ existential fight (29:28, Michael LeBlanc: “...everything that I did was so voyeuristic. There was that sense of adventure that you want to get out...”).
  • Key differences between Afghan and Ukrainian sense of national identity and patriotism (31:06–32:03).

4. Post-Military Career: Business and Robotics

• Transition Challenges and Harvard
  • Difficulty landing jobs despite military background; eventual acceptance to Harvard Business School with help from a mentor and hard work (39:00–40:14).
  • Insight from mentor: “Everything you learned in the Marine Corps is applicable. Everything you learned as a leader is applicable in business.” (39:00).
• First Robotics Startup: Cobalt
  • Unplanned pivot from private equity job offer to robotics entrepreneurship (44:59).
  • Early skepticism about hardware businesses; eventual realization of unique position in robotics following advice from Sequoia’s Alfred Lin (46:48, “...you're one of the only people in this industry that has the grit to carry through on hardware...”).
• Entrepreneurial Truths
  • Lessons on selling enterprise solutions, understanding product-market fit, and embracing authenticity (52:06–54:33).
  • “Being world-class at something” is about playing to unique strengths and building a team of experts (50:43–51:14).

5. Humanoid Robotics, AI, and the Future of War

• State of Defense Robotics
  • Foundation Future Industries focuses on humanoid robotics with defense applications; robots depicted capable of handling weapons (“that’s the future of war—is it not?” 56:14).
  • Ukraine as real-world laboratory for battlefield robotics (56:15–57:23; 98:11, “...these are offensive robots... we're the first humanoid in the world to be tested in combat...”).
  • Critical challenges: integrating diverse robots/drones into operable systems for commanders without technical background (60:26, Michael LeBlanc).
• Tech Race and Cultural Capabilities
  • Belief in US superiority: “China makes great breakdancing robots... They don’t do anything useful. They don’t know how to create products that scale...” (67:18).

Notable Quotes:

• Michael LeBlanc:
  • “You don’t make real money with your brain. You make some money with your brain. The only real money comes from balls.” (64:00)
  • “The things I’m pushing for most usually aren’t the right things. And so when I get turned down from them, it’s like, oh, that was actually good.” (44:21)
• Brent Tucker:
  • "Complex plans never survive first contact. They brief well." (37:27)
  • “Anger is a long-burning fuel. It can be and it should be. What are we going to take these things and use it for good?” (87:56)

6. Book: What If Anger is the Answer?

• Genesis & Purpose
  • Longtime dream to write; began with extensive journaling in Afghanistan (75:54).
  • Concept evolved from “The Good Lieutenant” to the final message—mining the productive power of anger for discipline, leadership, and boundaries (79:08; 83:09).
  • Designed as an accessible, under-4-hours read, providing a new framework for approaching standards and assertiveness (95:33).
• Core Arguments
  • Modern culture undervalues the “offensive” virtues—anger, aggression, accountability—vital for defending standards and boundaries (84:10, 84:38).
  • Anger, properly channeled, is essential for leadership, parenting, societal order, and personal growth (86:11).
  • Drawing on history, philosophy, and lived experience, Michael warns that suppressing anger leads to chronic resentment rather than harmony (95:33, “If you don’t sometimes feel acute anger, you’re probably feeling chronic resentment…”).
• Virtue in Balance
  • The need for a "sliding scale" of virtues—compassion, mercy, valor, controlled violence—context matters (91:03–91:59).
  • Critique of modern overemphasis on “softer” virtues at the expense of “manly valor” and righteous standards (90:08, 91:50).

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | | --- | --- | | 04:14–06:11 | Michael’s spontaneous decision to join the Marine Corps and Marine branding | | 10:46 | Becoming a Ground Intelligence Officer | | 11:45 | Recon Marines: mission and ethos | | 14:30–16:27 | Standards in the Marine Corps and leadership lessons | | 20:07–23:23 | Arriving in Afghanistan (Helmand), lessons on opium fields and war’s reality | | 25:49–29:28 | Purpose, the addiction of war, comparison to Ukraine | | 36:05–37:46 | Military lessons in decision-making; value of making any decision versus indecision | | 44:59–46:48 | Turning point: robotic entrepreneurship and advice that shaped Michael’s path | | 50:43–54:33 | Insights on business, dealmaking, and authenticity | | 56:10–61:11 | The new era—humanoid robotics, drones in modern war, and what’s missing | | 67:18–69:12 | US strengths in robotics and the importance of useful scale | | 75:54–76:10 | Writing the book: journals to publication | | 83:09–87:16 | Anger as a productive resource |
| 91:03–91:50 | Sliding scale of virtues, challenge to compassion-over-everything mindset | | 98:11–100:21 | Offensive robots in Ukraine, learning from real conflict about future warfare |

---

Memorable Moments & Quotes

• Michael LeBlanc on Joining the Mariners:
  “I just wanted to do the best one.” (05:34)

• On the Power of Standards:
  "[...] you got to insist on it, and you've got to be unliked for it." – General Paul Kennedy (15:02)

• War’s Strange Allure:
  “I think I loved war for. For selfish reasons. For me, I loved it. I wanted this experience. Me and the boys.” (28:54–29:03, Brent Tucker)

• Comparing American and Ukrainian Motivations:
  "To those guys, it really is like...they’re just called out of doing whatever they were doing. And now it gets serious." (29:28)

• Building a Robotics Startup:
  “I thought robotics were stupid to get into the entire time I was there…all I know is that I’ll never do hardware again...That was so stupid...He (Alfred Lin) was like, that's completely the wrong lesson..." (46:48)

• On What Makes the US the Leader in Robotics:
  “China makes great breakdancing robots. If you needed a robot that can breakdance...but they don't do anything useful. They don't know how to create products that scale and...America is still the place to come.” (67:18)

• Anger as a Virtue of Leadership:
  "If you don’t sometimes feel acute anger, you’re probably feeling chronic resentment." (95:33, Michael LeBlanc)

• Virtues Applied Contextually:
  “Violence is sometimes the answer. We'd be speaking German right now if violence was not the answer.” (88:18–88:37, Brent Tucker)

---

Conclusion & What’s Next

• Michael LeBlanc’s current company, Foundation Future Industries, is deploying thousands of humanoid robots for auto manufacturing and up to a thousand offensive robots to Ukraine—potentially the first humanoids tested in combat (96:56–98:11).
• What If Anger is the Answer? is available on Amazon and major retailers, offering practical insights for anyone seeking to channel aggression productively.
• The conversation concludes with emphasis on iteration, practical leadership, and the need for society to reclaim a fuller understanding of virtue—balancing compassion and controlled aggression.

---

For More:

• Book: What If Anger Is the Answer? by Michael LeBlanc (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads)
• Company: Foundation Future Industries (defense-focused humanoid robotics)

---

Host: Brent Tucker
Guest: Michael LeBlanc
Episode Producer: Drew Tucker

---

This summary highlights episode content and key insights for those who haven't listened. Excludes advertisements and non-content segments. For direct quotes, refer to timestamps in the summary above.

Transcript

[Commercial Announcer]

Ready to soundtrack your summer with Red Bull Summer All Day Play. You choose a playlist that fits your summer vibe the best. Are you a festival fanatic, a deep end dj, a road dog, or a trail mixer? Just add a song to your chosen playlist and put your summer on track. Red Bull Summer All Day Play. Red Bull gives you wings. Visit Red Bull.com BrightSummerAhead to learn more. See you this summer.

[Michael LeBlanc]

So good, so good, so good.

[Commercial Announcer]

New markdowns up to 70% off are at Nordstrom Rack stores. Now stock up and save big on shoes, tops, dresses, accessories and more must haves for summer. Join the NordicLub to unlock exclusive discounts. Shop new arrivals first and more. Plus buy online and pick up at your favorite Rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack.

[Drew Tucker]

Foreign. Podcast. I am your host, Brent tucker, owner of FRCC. Go to FRCC shop and use promo code tier one to get 15 off the world's best coffee, cigars and bourbon. And I'm Drew Tucker, expert of tape guns at First Responder Coffee Cigar and cast company. See us at FRCC DOD Shop. I invite you guys to join our Patreon. It's brought to you by Cobalt Kinetics. As a Patreon member, you'll have behind the scene access to exclusive content. There's a fitness forum, there's a weapons forum, and in that weapons forum, there's a Cobalt Kinetics weapon expert ready to answer all your weapons questions. So join the Patreon today and as always, this episode is brought to you by Human Performance TRT. Go to HP D trt.com use promo code tier1 and get 20% off all of your testosterone and peptide needs. I'm doing a 30 day challenge right now using the products. Can't wait. We're going to do 30 days, 60 day, 90 days. Follow the channel and follow my progress. Let's do it. Drew.

[Commercial Announcer]

Welcome to the Tier one podcast.

[Drew Tucker]

This is amazing. Dude, check this out.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Foreign.

[Drew Tucker]

With us today we have Michael LeBlanc, retired major with First Recon, co founder of Foundation Future Industries, a defense focused humanoid robotics company. I can't wait to get into those topics. And he's also the author of the book what if Anger is the Answer, which might be my favorite title to a book yet.

[Michael LeBlanc]

I appreciate that.

[Drew Tucker]

And we're definitely to talk more about that one as well. Well, welcome to the show.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Awesome. Thanks so much.

[Drew Tucker]

First things first, got some gifts for you.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Great.

[Drew Tucker]

Got some tasty gains so you can travel with your your creatine with ease. And

[Michael LeBlanc]

love it. Thank you.

[Drew Tucker]

Brotherhood Blades. Got you a knife, and it's got the Tier 1 podcast logo engraved right on the blade.

[Michael LeBlanc]

That's great. You know, I see the. I see the creatine gummies all the time when I'm watching them. Always like, what a great idea, Creatine gummies. But I know I haven't. I haven't taken the plunge yet to. To get them. That's perfect.

[Drew Tucker]

All right, well, I. I'll load you up before you leave. That way you'll.

[Michael LeBlanc]

When.

[Drew Tucker]

Then you'll get hooked on it and you'll.

[Michael LeBlanc]

That's great.

[Drew Tucker]

You. You. You'll be on the bus like I am.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yep.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah, let's get into it, Ref. Let's just go chronological. The. You joined.

[Michael LeBlanc]

What.

[Drew Tucker]

How old were you? We joined the Marine Corps 21. 21. And which. Which way did you take? You go college? Rotc. How'd you become an officer?

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah, so I. I went to college first. I was. I was pretty much coming out of high school. I didn't really know what I was going to do with my life, and I. I didn't. Didn't plan on going to college. And then. And then kind of found my way there. I only applied to one school that my high school English teacher had turned me on to, and. But while I was there, very strange school. We translated ancient Greek, so read all the Thucydides, Plato, Plutarch, like all the old. And I got really into war and what it meant to be a warrior. So my path into the Marines was really going to marines.com and just typing in my phone number, and I was like, you guys, Jesus, take the wheel.

[Drew Tucker]

Well, if you don't know much about the military and you want to go to war, like, that's. I'm not saying not nothing, but not much. Yeah, the Marine Corps, like, they're catered to that. I mean, their commercials are spot on. Their billboards, you know, the attitude of their recruiters and an act which. Which I love, actually, like, go.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

You know, what do they say in marketing? Like, you know, I mean, it's not. It's not some insightful thing, but, you know, market towards the people that you want working for you. And I know it sounds so simple, but so I think so many companies and even branches of the military do it wrong.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yes. No, they do. In the Marine Corps. You know, the Marine Corps really gets it because their messaging is just so clear and simple that I remember because I, you know, I didn't. I didn't know. I knew guys in high school that had gone to the military, but I didn't do research by like talking to a lot of people. There was one guy in my college who had, who had been a Marine, and I went to him and just asked him, you know, why'd you be become Marine? He's like, well, because it's the best, you know. And I was like, yeah, but what makes it the best? And he was like, well, you got the army, you got the Navy, you know, but, but the Marines did the best. So I did that one. I just wanted to do the best one.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah, I love it. It's such a Marine answer, though.

[Michael LeBlanc]

I was like, I'm in. You know, that was, that was my result in the branches. But it's, it's funny because everything that you do watch in a Marine commercial, I still love Marine commercials. I love, every, every year the Marine birthday message comes out. And I can't wait to watch it because it gets me all, it gets me all amped up. I do like, you know, nine burpees and then quit.

[Drew Tucker]

So when it wasn't a hard choice for you.

[Michael LeBlanc]

No, I didn't even really think about it.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah.

[Michael LeBlanc]

I also had, my school was right next to the Naval Academy.

[Drew Tucker]

Okay.

[Michael LeBlanc]

So that, that kind of developed because I was hanging out with guys at the Naval Academy and I was going, man, you guys really did this, right? Like, I didn't know, I didn't even know you could go to war. Like, I didn't even think about it.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah.

[Michael LeBlanc]

And they were like, well, you still could. You just join now and you can join whatever you want. And they all wanted to be Marines. I think it was like a competitive process or something like that. So. So that also just kind of turned my attention there. But.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah, so I know. No, I know enough just to be dangerous when it comes to the, to the, to the officer Corps.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

How is it that you get assigned your, your branch? So, so coming out the specialty, right?

[Michael LeBlanc]

Oh, yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

Well, I guess we call it the branch or in the army, but, you know, whether it's infantry armor.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

Like, how, how do you know? How does that, how does that get assigned to you?

[Michael LeBlanc]

It's bizarre. So that was the other thing. So I didn't know. I'm going to make myself look like an idiot here. But, you know, I just, I joined Marine Marines dot com. That was the place I assumed everybody was infantry, right. Yeah. Like, I thought, you know, if you're going to be like a cook, you know, you're probably like, I don't know, Some other company. Like, if you're going to do logistics, you're like a company. I just assumed everything was infantry. And so then you get there and there are 22 different specialties. And, you know, one of them is infantry. I think only like five are combat arms.

[Drew Tucker]

Right.

[Michael LeBlanc]

And you start looking at this and you're like, I might be like an air mechanic. Right, Right. And I'm like, I can't be an air mechanic.

[Drew Tucker]

Right. Which, you know, as. As we're talking about it, because not an officer. And you know, the officers I talked to, we're not only talking about, like the beginning of their career like this. Like an interview.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

So it just dawned on me while I'm talking to you, I mean, there are some advantages to being enlisted man. Like, oh, yeah, you know what you're signing up for?

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

You know, now you can be bamboozled a little bit. But in the day, it's your choice what you sign up on those papers, but you guys pretty much get assigned. Yes to it. And yes.

[Michael LeBlanc]

So you, you rank them all, 1 through 22 of. Of what you want and what you don't want, and they try to get you a top five pick, but it's. And then, and then they do it in this bizarre way. So There were like 300 people in my class.

[Drew Tucker]

Okay.

[Michael LeBlanc]

They take. They let the first person choose, then the hundred first, then the two hundred first, then the second, then the two hundred second. So they call it the quality spread. So that you don't get, you know, all the top 20 guys picking all the, all the good Moses.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah. Interesting, Interesting.

[Michael LeBlanc]

But, yeah, it makes for this, you know, it's. It's really, really worrisome once you get in and you're like, I also, you know, I. If I had known everything, if I'd known everything, I probably would have would have gone either to the Reserves.

[Drew Tucker]

Okay.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Because the reserves, you could get deployments easier. And the Marine Corps, you had to fight for. For deployment at the time or. Yeah. Would have gone on, you know, Green Beret or probably Green Braes.

[Drew Tucker]

I would go, yeah, I do. I get that. At the end of the day, whether you're enlisted or. Or officer, if you don't like where you're at, and it is generally hard to switch moss or career fields. I mean, it can happen, but it's not, it's not easy. That's why it's so important to do it right the first time. But if you get the wrong one, Special Operations is usually open to all, all career fields.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

But the disadvantage, I think, to be an officer is the rank to which you guys have to. You have to maintain or obtain to go is going to take longer than, let's say usually they'll take an enlisted specialist with you can knock out in two or three years. Yeah, usually most. And I can't think all of them, but most of them want a junior captain. Yeah.

[Michael LeBlanc]

And ours was funny. So when I joined, we only had recon.

[Drew Tucker]

Okay.

[Michael LeBlanc]

And you couldn't get. You had to get selected for recon, so you couldn't just join and you had to be either infantry or ground intelligence, which is an infantry primary and then intelligence. But then they opened up marsoc. So then marsoc, once, once they had marsoc, anybody. Anybody could go to it, which is, which is a much better way to go. Right.

[Drew Tucker]

So you at least have options.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

So what, what'd you end up getting?

[Michael LeBlanc]

Ground intel.

[Drew Tucker]

Ground intel.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah. So that, that kind of became. Once, once I actually learned all these different moss, that one, you got to be an infantry officer first was your primary mos, and then you got to go to sniper school and intelligence school. And I thought sniper school sounded like the coolest thing in the world.

[Drew Tucker]

That's kind of a win win situation, really, because, you know, your aperture is a little more wide, but you still have the primary of. Of office, I mean, well, of imagery.

[Michael LeBlanc]

So it's funny. So they, they kind of sell you, they sell you on like this great, great dream of what, what you're going to be. But then almost all of. All of us went on to become intelligence officers in our first battalion. So then, you know, I had six Marines. You're, like, supposed to be doing platoon command time, and you got six Marines. I mean, 29 palms. You know, you're like, oh, man, this, this fell apart.

[Drew Tucker]

Tell us, tell us about, you know, the recon Marines. It's its mission. It's, you know, its legacy mission. What, what, what they're there for and what they do best.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah. So. So we always think of the Marines as the tip of the spear, and then recon is the tip of the tip of the spear.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah.

[Michael LeBlanc]

But it's, it's always, it's always been our form of special operations. We, we used to say we didn't want to take money from anybody else. We didn't want to be in anybody else's command. So that was the big thing, was making it a Marine asset. The Marine commanders controlled that. That went on for a long time. And then finally people were like, there's big money to go into special operations, and you're, you're constantly fighting over budgets in these battalions.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah.

[Michael LeBlanc]

And so it started to make sense that they were like, marsock's got to be the way.

[Drew Tucker]

I know. And I, I hate it. I, I do. I understand why you want your guys to work for you. That's not a selfish thing to want. I mean, anyone else wants their people, you know, to, to work for them.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

But, you know, when the g. What hit and we started, you know, creating these siege sodas and these sodas, and in the day, they're going to pull in your people and they're going to work. They're going to work jointly for their own special operation cause. And then when you need an asset to do that you've trained with, that you've owned. It's, It's. It's part of your planning process.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yep.

[Drew Tucker]

And now when you need it, it's not there for you. That's. I, I get it. Yeah. So it's so easy for them. You know, sometimes I'm trying to get us. Sometimes people beat up the Marine Corps for being like, you know, they didn't jump on SOCOM early enough because they didn't want anyone else to. To have their guys.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yep.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah. I, I'm just saying. I get that. Like, that doesn't, that doesn't make them weird. Like, I, I get that when you go to war, you want, you want all your pieces of the, of the, of the chessboard.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah. And. And that is. I mean, Marines are like that. I've, I've found now in the other branches, there are units like that. Right. And there, there are like, like, if you talk to, like, PJs in the air Force, they're all a community. Right. Or there's a SEAL community, or there's, you know, Green Berets, like, they're, you know, Rangers. There. There are all these different communities within it. The Marine Corps is just one big community like that.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah.

[Michael LeBlanc]

So that you really are like every Mariner rifleman. That's the idea, is that, like, the lawyers have to go through and carry the guns. It's. It's a whole different feel. When I got to Afghanistan for the first time and started, that was when I met, like, the first soldiers that I ever met. And they, I remember they, like, one of them left their rifle in the chow hall and. And just, like, was, like, coming back and going, has anybody seen my gun?

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah.

[Michael LeBlanc]

And we were all like, how dare you call it a gun? How dare you? Like, what the hell is going on here. You know, it's just like this crazy.

[Drew Tucker]

Right?

[Michael LeBlanc]

And that was. That was on, like, a big. I can't remember which big base, but it was on, like, a big base and everything. But it was just so. You would never. You would never see that anywhere in

[Drew Tucker]

the Marine Corps because it's standards. And that's what I've always loved about Marine Corps. Of course, like anyone else, you know, it's. There's rivalries, and it's always fun to make.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

You know, make fun of people. We make fun of the Marines. They make fun of us. We're justified in our jokes, and they're justified in their jokes. They're only funny because they're a little bit.

[Michael LeBlanc]

True, right? Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

But. But I've always respected the Marine Corps for standards, and I don't think it took me to get a little bit older to. To define that and put a word to it. But if I had to put a

[Michael LeBlanc]

word to it as standards, it's a huge deal. I. I just met this great general, Paul Kennedy. Just met him a couple weeks ago. He's retired now. But it was so funny because we were. We were chatting about different units. And, you know, to me, it was my time as a lieutenant in Afghanistan, and to him, I think he'd been a forward colonel when that was going on. But he's talking about the units, and so he's talking about all the kind of bosses at the time that I would. I would know is, like, the commanders. And he'd be going, oh, he was. He's going like. He just didn't hold his Marines to a standard. And. And he kept. He kept emphasizing that of the ones that he's like, he's like, everybody wants to get out there and go native. Yeah, everybody wants to go out there and relax and just shoot it, whatever. He's like, you've got to insist on it, and you've got to be unliked for it. And I thought that was. That was so cool that he was bringing it back to that.

[Drew Tucker]

It's unique, what you kind of slid in there about standards. Like you. I don't think some people are willing to be unliked over them.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yep.

[Drew Tucker]

And I don't think you have to be, but I think you have to be willing to be outside of just ridiculous standards. And like any good leader, any standards you put, you should be able to meet those standards, or else you won't be respected, which means if you can meet those standards, they are obtainable. And if you set a standard and hold it. People will reach those standards.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

I mean, they have to. What are the choices? But if you. But. But if you give them the choice. That's just human nature.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah. And I think the place that I see it all the time now, I've got three kids. I see it with parenting all the time, is that people have these negotiations with their kids. You know, they. They feel guilty about putting something on their kids. You know, so the kids, like, oh, like, I don't want to eat that for lunch. You know, and they're. And they're like, kind of whining, and it's like, yeah, I know that it doesn't seem that great, but I guess you could. They launch into these whole kind of dialogues with them where I'm like, it's so much easier. You don't have to be. You don't have to be, you know, dick about it.

[Drew Tucker]

Right.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Just going like, that's your lunch. Eat your lunch.

[Drew Tucker]

Right. It's so funny you mentioned that. My kids are so polite. They.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

You know, please. Thank you. Yes, ma'. Am.

[Michael LeBlanc]

No, ma'. Am.

[Drew Tucker]

Yes, sir. No, sir. Very polite. And, you know, every now and again, they'll go up to. They'll go to someone's house. Like, man, your kids are so polite. How do you do it?

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah, I.

[Drew Tucker]

Well, I. I make them. Yeah.

[Michael LeBlanc]

It's that simple. That's exactly.

[Drew Tucker]

I make them that, you know, you instill it early. They didn't know it was an option, and now it's just something they do. It's that easy. You just.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yep.

[Drew Tucker]

You make them.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Well, and it's funny, so, like, my. My oldest. My son Michael, like, he's. He's kind of the prototype. Right. So he was like the V1, and that's where we were, like, figuring out all these things, you know, I can remember when he was. He was a little baby, and he'd be, like, reaching for my computer, and I'd be sitting there going, I guess I want him to not be afraid of computers, but could he erase something? You know? And I'd go through these, like, I don't know what to do. By my third Ellie, it was like, get the hell away from my. You know. But I think that's created in her such a freedom. Everybody always talks about their youngest being the wildest. It comes because they have better boundaries. There's so much case law at that point.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah.

[Michael LeBlanc]

That, you know. You know where the ruling goes. Right. And that's an easy world to navigate.

[Drew Tucker]

Here at the Tier 1 podcast, we're excited to have tasty gains as a sponsor. A company with values that aligns with ours. I take their products every day, three times a day. And if it wasn't a product that I didn't take personally and believe in and a company with integrity, then they wouldn't be sponsors on this show. Creatine helps the body produce more ATP, which is an energy molecule that your entire body runs on. It helps improve your physical and mental performance in all aspects of life. Let's be honest, creatine powder sucks to take every day. With the creatine gummies, you can take them with you anywhere and they taste great. Every batch is third party tested, so you know you're getting exactly what you pay for. Go to tastygains.com and enter the promo code tier one. That's T I E R, the number one. And get 20% off your order. You know, you were. You're talking about your, your first trip to Afghanistan.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

Where were you at in Afghanistan?

[Michael LeBlanc]

I was in. So I was first in Cop Rankle and then Dwyer. Am I going to remember any of these names? All of it was in Hellman province.

[Drew Tucker]

Yep. Yeah, the. My first rotation was, was to the Helmand province just a few years before yours. But some things didn't change, obviously, which is the, the terrain. And Afghanistan is a crazy place. Between central east, south and west or it being a hot spot. Yeah, they got it on the Hellman for the whole time. There was a hard place to, to subdue and for various reasons. What, what did you know about the Hellman going into it? And what was your expectations versus reality of war?

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah, I think, I think a trend with me is not knowing a lot about what I'm getting myself into. So. So I didn't, you know, I, I didn't do a ton of. A ton of research on this. I kind of, you know, they have a million training scenarios that are all Afghan based by that. That point. But it was, it was funny once I actually got there, you end up, you know, we went through this, the place they would call Little America.

[Drew Tucker]

Okay.

[Michael LeBlanc]

And that got me to look that up. Cause I was like, what, what is. What's going on here? It turns out the whole, like the whole Green zone, so it's all desert and then you have this like, you know, green zone where there's canals and there's actual vegetation. The United States did that as it was like a US aid project that they went and put all that money in. And they were like, if we have canals to here, we can Create like life and self sustaining cities and stuff. The funny thing is, you know, 50 years later, how many years later that, that became a great bed for opium.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah.

[Michael LeBlanc]

And so it was really, you know, the way that it kind of looked, you had like, you know, big green zone would like come down in like kind of a Y shape and in the center of the Y was this place Treknawa, that, that was Bad Guy Zone. You weren't allowed to patrol there, you weren't allowed to go there. They had like, you know, a little place, Fiddlers Green that we, that we had Marines at that was just in the south of it. But otherwise it was kind of like don't push there. But that's why it got so dangerous was because all those drug routes going right to Pakistan.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah. You mentioned opium. It makes me think of like opium fields and that's a, that's a not all fairly uniquely thing in the south. And I landed helicopters or someone landed me in a helicopter and some of the most beautiful opium fields, oh they're when they bloom and they're bright green, they have purple or red depending you know, on, on the, how ripe they are flowers. I mean if you didn't know that it was one of the most prominent drugs in the world, you look out there and be like what a, what a beautiful field.

[Michael LeBlanc]

No, it's gorgeous. It's. And, and that, that's the funny thing because it like, it accounts for like at the time it was probably like 99 of the GDP of exports of Afghanistan. Right. And, and it's gorgeous. I mean it's, it's a very funny, funny thing.

[Drew Tucker]

It's a very funny thing. There's a lot of irony in that because the, the Taliban claimed to, to be very against drugs.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

They've been using it for years and years and years to finance what they want and then they've tracking much post war. I haven't verified this, but it's been reported in several places and I, I have a guess why. They finally went through and eradicated the poppy fields and drugs after the war. But I think what they're trying to do is establish themselves on the world stage as, as a government and, and say hey look, you know, we're not, we're not those guys. We're, we're, you know, this is who we are, this is who we've always been. Whatever you know, they're trying to do.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yep.

[Drew Tucker]

But the reality is absolutely not. They, they 100% used those opium fields to, to support their, their terrorism for decades.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think, I mean, that's generally what you see with rappers, right? That's kind of like, that's kind of their way up and then they're like, hey, don't, don't do it the way I did it.

[Drew Tucker]

Exactly.

[Michael LeBlanc]

You know.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah, like, I didn't know where you're going with that at first, but as soon as I connected the dots, I was like, you know what? Actually, that is spot on. That is exactly. They really great analogy.

[Michael LeBlanc]

You know, it's interesting too. I've been to, you know, this past year I went to Dubai, Monaco and Singapore and those were interesting trips because I was like, you know, I don't know how many years, 50 years, 60 years ago, none of these were places to look at, Monica. Monaco probably was, but 100 years ago you wouldn't have thought of any of them. And so I got really interested as I was in each one of like kind of how they came to the world stage. Because Singapore now you associate with money, right? I mean, Singapore, we think of crazy rich Asians, we think of all this money. But it was interesting when they, they, they got kind of, they got kind of cut out and became independent. They were pretty screwed. But their first thing was that's, that's where it comes from. We're going to kill anybody. That's chewing gum, right. Because they said we are going to become a good, clean trade partner and we're going to be the only port that anybody trusts from the Western world. And we're going to do that by getting really hard on crime. So you kind of see that in these nations there's, there's a playbook for them to go from, you know, drug dealing, just, you know, to be able to get, get alliances and things.

[Drew Tucker]

That is ironic. The. How many tours did you end up doing in Afghanistan?

[Michael LeBlanc]

Two.

[Drew Tucker]

Two?

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

What was your second tour? Back. Back. Back to the south or.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Same. Same place.

[Drew Tucker]

Really? I've always liked that and hated that at the same time.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

Because you, you, you know the place. Yeah, why not? You know, so send them back. There's something else to be said about a fresh set of eyes. And there's also something else to be said about a problem set. A new problem set for someone.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah, this one. So, so when I went on my first one, I just wanted to stay.

[Drew Tucker]

A 12 month tour. Six. Six. Eight months. Six months.

[Michael LeBlanc]

So it's supposed to be six. I never wanted to leave. And you know, that was, that was the thing. I was fighting to get these deployments and you couldn't get a deployment anywhere at the time. Like, and everybody was arguing over who's going to get to go. Everybody's fighting for it. But so when I got there, yeah, I didn't want to leave. And so that was as soon as I got there, was making that case of why she gets to stay. So that's why I just got to extend out. So the second one was just same place the two weeks back and then pop back in.

[Drew Tucker]

What'd you like about it?

[Michael LeBlanc]

You know, it felt like everything mattered out there. And I think like that that was my biggest problem coming out of college was looking at, you know, at business. At the time looked so empty to me. And I kept thinking, you know, I had like, you know, didn't. Didn't know a lot of places where I grew up in Ohio. But like, I had an aunt that worked for an insurance company. So that to me was like business. And I was just like, why do I want to go work in an insurance company? Like, that just doesn't make any sense to me. I'm going to go sit in a cubicle. I don't know what they, you know, I don't even know what it's about. And in Afghanistan, it felt like. It felt like everything was a scene from a movie. I mean, it felt like everything that you did was sacred and heightened.

[Drew Tucker]

When you finally find your thing, you want the whole world to know about that thing. So you use a thing called Canva to make it an even bigger and better thing.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Whether you want to create flyers for

[Drew Tucker]

that thing, make presentations for that thing, or design merch for that thing. You can do anything so people can see your thing, feel your thing, love your thing. The next thing you know, it's a thing. Canva, the thing that makes anything a thing.

[Commercial Announcer]

Starting a business can seem like a daunting task unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website to marketing to selling and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, Heinz and Allbirds continue to trust and use them. With Shopify on your side, turn your big business idea into sign up for your $1 per month [e-mail] special offer.

[Drew Tucker]

Everything had purpose heightened. I'll give that as well. There's. I mean, there's. There's low sense of purpose, but purpose nonetheless. But everything's heightened.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Well, that's, you know, that's what's funny. I mean, it's not it's not like I thought that it was a good war. Right. Like, even before I went, I thought. I thought Afghanistan was such a stupid war. But. But when you're there, you're like the act of fighting, the act of what you're doing for the nation. I mean, all of that is just. That's as serious as it gets. And I love that.

[Drew Tucker]

I don't. I don't think I've ever maybe said this on a podcast or thought about in that way. Of course, at the beginning, it was. Yeah. Signed up right after 9, 11, so everyone was super gung ho about that, you know, but after, for me, between training and, you know, taking time to get whatever, I spent, you know, 15 years in war at two thirds of that in Afghanistan. You know, towards the end of it, of course, the. The shininess of doing this war for America wore off a little bit. I don't know if it was justification, naiveness, or maybe I really could explain why I think it was still necessary, but it. It had. It had gone down a little bit.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

And I think it's tough to articulate this or even say it out loud, but I think I loved war for. For selfish reasons.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Oh, yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

For me, I. I loved it. I wanted to do this. I wanted this experience.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

Me and the boys.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yep.

[Drew Tucker]

Don't get me wrong, we. We want to do it the right way, like, and do it towards bad people. So I wasn't. So on a smaller scale, you could easily just fight. Like, it's harder to just fight when you zoom out in the much bigger scale of. Of the war, you know, but in our small scale and what we were fighting in our area made sense, and I think to some degree was a little selfish of. Of me to keep on wanting to go.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Well, that's, you know, that's what's so funny. So I've been going back and forth from Ukraine this year, and it's so funny to me because I'm used to talking to Americans. Why'd you join? You know, you know, this seemed cool. I saw this commercial, really liked, you know, Black Hawk down, you know, and then you go over there and you're like, oh, man. So, like, what. What got you into this? And they're like, oh, my family was gonna die, so, you know, kind of had to point your guns that way. And I was like, man, okay, that's a whole different. But it was so interesting when I was. Talked to them because I was like, everything that I did was so voyeuristic. Right. There was There was that sense of, like, adventure that you want to get out to. There's. There's that sense of personal purpose, of. Of doing something that felt. Felt serious. And, you know, to those guys, it really is like, you know, greatness thrust upon them. It's just like they're. They're just called out of doing whatever. Whatever they were doing. And now it gets serious.

[Drew Tucker]

I can see the oddity. And normally asking someone why you joined that, you can't ask a Ukrainian.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

Like, because I, I had to. So I went to Ukraine several times, and at the beginning, they were. They had checkpoints, you know, at the border of Poland, and they were stopping all males. I want to say 18 to 60, might have been 65. And if you were. If you, if you had two legs and two arms and you're within that range, you couldn't leave the country. You're expected to stay here and go to war or go to war, just in case. Yep. And that was that. That was, that was the reality for me that, oh, this isn't. This isn't what. What I'm used to.

[Michael LeBlanc]

No. And. And it was funny to me, too, because Afghanistan wasn't like that for the Afghans. Right. So I lived with the Afghans.

[Drew Tucker]

That's true.

[Michael LeBlanc]

But it was really funny, even for them. You know, I can remember the soldiers didn't even know the word Afghanistan. Right. And they didn't, they didn't think of themselves as a. As a country. You know, Afghanistan was kind of where all the other countries ended, so they didn't have that. That national pride. But it was really interesting to go to Ukraine then and see everybody's like, you know, they've. They've really got real patriotism there, that they do.

[Drew Tucker]

They, of course, you know, they're. They're cut from the same cloth as Russia. They were part of it.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

The families are still tied to Russia. The Russian language was. Was mainly spoken by. I'm going to make this up a bit. 30s or 40s and above, most people still knew Russian. The younger people still knew. Knew it and could talk it, but all the older people definitely knew it.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

And when the war kicked off, they were like, no, we're not speaking Russian. Yep, we're not. We will not speak that language. Like, we will only speak Ukrainian. We're Ukrainian. I love that. Yeah, I love that.

[Michael LeBlanc]

No, it's, It's. It's so cool to see what they've done over there, because now everybody is so entrenched in it. I mean, you wonder what's going to happen to the country when the war ends. Right. Because now it's been going on for I think, four years or something like that, but it's transformed. Every business has become a defense company. Every, you know, every man has become a soldier. I mean, it's, it's going to be, going to be an interesting transition for him.

[Drew Tucker]

It's, it's a joke in poor taste, but it's not a complete joke. You know, there's, there's opportunity everywhere if you're looking for. And yep, in Covid, there was opportunity.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Oh, yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

Bicycle companies, guitar companies, skateboard companies.

[Michael LeBlanc]

They had record years during COVID Oh, yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

Hand sanitizers and, you know, then those, those make sense, obviously. So sometimes I do try to look for those things.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

When I was in Ukraine, I was thinking, you know what, you need to just go ahead and start. Do it now. Make a window company. Because every window is blown out of almost every building. You start a window company in Ukraine.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

Printing money.

[Michael LeBlanc]

That's right.

[Drew Tucker]

Just printing money.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah. Well, I know it's, it, it is funny. I mean, you see those, those timing issues. That's. So many companies just pop up to respond to the moment and that's, I mean, that's so much in fashion. That's so much. But that's, that's where it becomes interesting because they get kind of so attached to big valuations and high cash flows and then they go like, we're the kings of it all. But when it dries up, you know, when it's not raining anymore, that umbrella business, tough spot.

[Drew Tucker]

You spent 13 years in the Marine Corps, correct?

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah, it was eight. Eight active duty and then six in the reserves. Yeah, sure.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah. With that combination of reserve and actor status, you're right there where you need to make a decision, hey, am I going to stay or am I going to go? That's the decision point that most people need to make it. What was it for you? Was it a hard decision for you

[Michael LeBlanc]

or did you know? No, it was easy because you had to do. You have to do like career level schools, you have to do these special schools to move on to the next rank. And so I actually, when I was, when I was a captain, I got passed over for major three times because I didn't do. I forget what the school was called, but I, I didn't, I didn't go to the school that you had to. And, and that was because you had to do that in the reserves, you know, it was like night school, like, you know, and I, I wasn't, I wasn't gonna go to night school and things, so I got passed over three times. Then they were gonna kick me out of the Marine Corps. But then fortunately at, at the time I was working for General Eric Smith, who's now the commandant. And he, I, I don't know, saw, saw me getting passed over and said promote him. So that was the only reason I got to stay in major and then, and then kind of reached my time that would have been a lieutenant colonel and then hadn't done that school. So.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah, it's like you'll know schools wouldn't high on your list.

[Michael LeBlanc]

All, all my strategic decisions in life are, are made by me just not, not really knowing, knowing what's going on.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah. Well, there's, I saw this saying the other day and I love it. And it said, it said something like, don't. Don't do what everyone tells you. Bite off more than you can chew and figure out how to chew it.

[Michael LeBlanc]

I like that.

[Drew Tucker]

And there is something to be said about that because you can also have so much indecision and an abundance or too much planning. And then you can have so many options, you just don't know which ones to take. So I think that has to do a little bit with special operations. Don't get me wrong, especially on the Green Beret side. I mean, the Green Berets can plan with the best of the MDMP process is a monster of a process when it needs to be.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

But on a, you know, short notice mission, you know, you can whip out a quick plan in 30 minutes and go. Yeah. And I really think with, with, with business, it's that, that type of, of mindset is I, I'll just take all the information I can quickly.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yep.

[Drew Tucker]

Make a decision go and, and we'll figure it out from there.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Well, that's, that's what I love. So when I was at ocs, which is like our, our boot camp, Right. For officers, there was their, their whole thing was make a decision, just make a decision. And they, they really showed how much, you know, how much they believe that because we had this final. So everybody had done the 10 weeks and then you had, you had to take a, you know, small team and everybody took a turn being in charge.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah.

[Michael LeBlanc]

And this, this one guy, his plan there was a defense. Right. We had to attack the defense. Everybody just did like flanking it like it was. Everybody did the same thing. And this guy was like, we're going to go right up the middle. He's like, we're going right up the middle. And you know, the instructor's standing there and he's like, you're gonna go right up to the middle where all their guns are, where all our machine guns are pointing. He's like, they'll never expect it. And, you know, so, so we go and it's all, you know, it's all like blanks and stuff. And we're firing. Of course, all of us die. Right. And we're doing like an after action report about how stupid he is. But that guy stays in. There's another guy that tries this really complex attack and he can't quite figure out. He's like, we're gonna send some over to this side. Going to do a probing attack. We're going to. He said all these different things. They dropped that guy that day right there. He didn't, he didn't go on to the next iteration. And, and I thought that that really told me what the Marine Corps was. And it said, make a decision. Like any decision is better than indecision.

[Drew Tucker]

Complex plans never survive first contact. They, they don't. And they always brief well. They brief well. Yeah.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

And you can fall in love with that plan. You get so excited how, how awesome it's going to turn out. Oh, yeah. And it just, it's just not reality.

[Michael LeBlanc]

No, I mean, that's, you know, and then you, you know, you get into business and you got all these consultants, you know, Bain, BCG, McKinsey. They'll, they'll put together the most complex plan to be like, we need to divide this up into 60 products, you know, and yet it's, it's really. No, just the simple one. What sells? What do people want? What's useful? Those, those questions end up being the, the important ones.

[Drew Tucker]

I love that because that, that means those are truths. And truths carry over, you know, from, from one aspect of life to the next.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Absolutely.

[Drew Tucker]

That's how you know they're absolute truths. Yeah. And there's still those lessons learned from the military when applied appropriately. Work in various places of, of your life.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah, 100%. And I mean, that. That, for me, that took a lot of learning because when I got, when I got out of the Marine Corps, I just couldn't find a job. So I was, I was kind of back in that college mindset of who's. Who's gonna hire me, making a resume, putting the resume out to a bunch of businesses I didn't want to be a part of, and I was willing to work anywhere for $60,000. That was, that was the criteria. And I was like, if I hit that, I'm making the big bucks. I'll make six figures someday, right? I was like, that's the path. So just applied to a bunch of jobs I didn't want and got turned down from everywhere.

[Drew Tucker]

Wow.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Just nobody was interested at all in taking me, and I think it took me. So then I realized, all right, I got to go back to school, right? But once I was in Harvard, I had a mentor named Tim Day. He's, you know, he's turning 90 this year. But Tim had been a Marine, had gone to Harvard Business School, and then had started a big company called Bar S Foods, Big Hot Dogs. He was the hot dog king. But he. He kind of took me aside at the beginning, and he was like, everything you learned in the Marine Corps is applicable. Like, everything that you learned as a leader is applicable in business. And. And I didn't realize just how. How important that was, because the world was kind of telling me, don't do what you've been trained to do. Don't act like that. Nobody wants that. Nobody's interested. You got too much edge, right? You know, it's too decisive. They like indecision, right? They like weakness. They like mercy. They like. They like all these things that he was like, do not believe that. And. And that really gave me a leg up, I think, because I started embracing all the qualities that. Where I was like, no, I. I know what to. I know what to do. I'm a Marine major. I know what the hell's going on here.

[Drew Tucker]

Love that.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

Was it hard getting into the Harvard School of Business?

[Michael LeBlanc]

Oh, yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

I mean, you couldn't get a $60,000 job, but you get into the Harvard School of Business. Explain that.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah, well, you know, it was funny. I think that now, looking back at it, I think that when I interviewed, you know, everybody just realized that I just wasn't fit. And I think they were right. Like, even. Even today, I don't know what I would look like with a boss. I don't know. Like, that. It just. It just doesn't really fit. And they used to ask me these questions right in the. In a couple interviews that I got. Got to go in a room with people and stuff, and they'd go, you know, what if you tell somebody to do something and they don't do it? You know, they had, like, this. And I was like, look, I worked with the Afghans, all right? Like, I'm world class at dealing with people that don't do their shit. But you Know, they just, like, they had this meant they thought that I came across as like a drop and give him 20. Everybody would make that joke. And it was like, you know, you're getting like, stereotyped, which is kind of funny. But I'm also like, no, they're right. Like, I do. I do have a standard. I want everybody to live up to that standard. I'm going to push myself to it.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah.

[Michael LeBlanc]

But. Yeah, just nobody, Nobody wanted anything to do with that.

[Drew Tucker]

I love that was your proof, because they're not going to understand it that if I can get Athens to do anything, I can get anyone to do anything.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yes.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah. And that. That. But then, you know, the nice thing was then, you know, so. So we're like, this was. This was funny. So I got out because I. I stopped active duty because I was getting married. And. And I'd done. I'd done my. My last deployment. And my wife was like, it's this or me. Like, I'm. I'm happy to, you know, happy to go my separate way, but she was like, if you're gonna be with me, you gotta be out of this. And, you know, so I was looking to get married, but then all of a sudden I was like, I'm not gonna be able to provide for a family. Like, we wanna have kids and stuff. Like, I'm actually not gonna be able to do this. So I was thinking my, like, top, Top thing to do was paint houses. That's what my dad. And my dad's a house painter. And so I always painted with him. And I was like, I can. I can make some money painting houses. But we went to her maid of honor. This is woman, Rena. Who is she? She was born in Kosovo. Like, war torn Kosovo. Came here, had no, like, she came from nothing. And we co. Visited New York before the wedding, and she's living in this, like, posh apartment. And we're like, how the hell. Like, how did you get that? And she goes, oh, it's banking now. You know, I went back to school, I went to Columbia, and she got us set on this track where she was like, they love veterans. You can go to Columbia. Like, you know, you just need to. Need to learn this test. And so I started talking to all of her friends and everything, and she got us plugged into like, how do you study? And that was, you know, that was brutal. But it was. It was. Again, it wasn't. It wasn't that I was, you know, very smart. It was just like I. I just went after. Went at it every day forever until. Until I did well on the test. And then once you have that test score, then you're. You're competitive.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah, but what, what is it? When you got through Harvard, did you have an idea at that point what you wanted to do or pursue? Or is it right back to, well, I've taken this next step, but it's back open to what now?

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah, well, so it became really interesting once I got in. Then I started calling. I would just email Harvard alumni anywhere that I could find them, and I would just put Harvard Marine in the subject line. Anybody would get back to me and I'd say, will you talk to me for 30 minutes? And I would just talk to. And I'd just go, what do you do? And. And quickly started honing in on, like, private equity and finance. That I was like, this is the thing that, like, everybody wants to do, so I always want the thing that everybody wants to do. So I'm like, that's. That's what I'm gonna do. So I got so set on. On finance early. But then through the whole path of. Of seeking that out, you have a bunch of people telling you you can't do it, which, you know, always makes. It makes you even want more year.

[Drew Tucker]

Exactly.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Man, I'm gonna shut you up.

[Drew Tucker]

Exactly.

[Michael LeBlanc]

And, you know, so. So I, like, pushed so hard for those things. But that's. I mean, that's kind of the pattern of my life. It's like the things. The things that I'm pushing for most usually aren't the right things. And so when I get turned down from them, it's like, oh, that was. That was actually good. So private equity, I actually even had. So I had a job, set up a place called Cerberus. Big, big private equity firm. I was excited and I was going. They didn't have me sign an offer letter because they had a board meeting with. I can't remember who, but Dine Corps. Dine Corps is the ones that made, like, food and stuff for Afghanistan.

[Drew Tucker]

Yep.

[Michael LeBlanc]

So they were like, you should come to the Dine Corps meeting and then sign your offer letter there and you'll meet. There was a general on the board, and they're like, you know, it'll be a whole nice thing. We'll go. Go out to dinner and stuff. During that week, I got introduced to my co founders at my first company, Cobalt. And so during that week, made. Made a snap decision to go do robotics instead.

[Drew Tucker]

If you've ever been to any of my tactical training classes, then, you know how adamant I am about the use of white light and the importance of a quality high powered tactical light. That's why I use cloud defensive tac lights. You can't hit what you can't see and neither can the bad guys. Clearly identify your target and simultaneously overwhelm his vision with hundreds and, and even thousands of lumens. Get serious about defending yourself and your family. Go to clouddefensive.com and use promo code tier one to get 30% off your order. That's right, 30%. You won't find a better light than this and you won't find a better deal than this. On, like I said, on a snap decision, essentially, like, this is what we're doing.

[Michael LeBlanc]

That's what, what, what year? 2019. 18. 2018.

[Drew Tucker]

And so I'll just speak from, you know, from my point of view or from the outside. And I think generally this would be true. That's early on to go all in. I think it's easy now for people like, hey, let's do robotics. Yeah. And that's always the ironic thing about businesses if you don't know what the future holds.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

And so it's a risk. And if you're going to get into it after it's popular, it's even harder. You don't know when that window closes and when the next one is.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah. So I, I thought, I thought robotics were stupid to get into the entire time I was there.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah.

[Michael LeBlanc]

And, you know, I even remember. So I went after, after we sold that company, I went and I met with our board member, Alfred Lynn, at, at Sequoia. So he's, he's like this big guy and you know, I mean, he's a small guy, but he's a big guy in the world. And we, we go to the, you know, the Rosewood Hotel on Sandhills, like, you know, famous place for breakfast. And I'm like, I'm here with Alfred Lynn. This is this real deal. And I'm telling him, I'm just like, all I know is that I'll never do hardware again. I was like, that, that was so stupid. I'm gonna do some kind of enterprise SaaS company. I'm gonna go sell, sell something that nobody knows how it works or what it does, but they just keep, keep buying it. And you know, he was just like, that's, he's like, that's completely the wrong lesson. And he was like, you're one of the only people in this industry that has the grit to be able to carry through on hardware. And he's like Apple's hardware company. Tesla's a car, a hardware company. He's like, SpaceX is a hardware company. He's like, hardware is a great thing to be in if you can handle it. And he's like, and you just prove that you can handle it. Like, you never leave that and that, you know. So then I, then I realized, oh man, I was perfectly poised this whole time and, and didn't really realize it

[Drew Tucker]

when I was looking at your background and just, you know, I only know business through, through my lens, which is, sometimes seems very complex, but everything's as complex as you want it to be. But when I thought about that, I was like, man, I don't know. Cigars, coffee and bourbon is actually pretty simple, you know, Like, I don't even know where you start putting a robot together. Yeah. And manufacturing and you know, the, the AI and the AI learning and the controls and not, and then having to. At least everything I'm getting is, is off the shelf and, and heck, you know, coffee, cigars and bourbon. It's, it's been, it's been refined for decades and centuries.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

I mean, if you find something that doesn't work or needs to be better, you're making it or figuring it out. Just, I just. Tell me about the complexities of robotics.

[Michael LeBlanc]

It's, you know, to me, every business is the same because there, there are people that dedicate their lives to making the right bourbon, you know, and you don't have to be that person to get into. I think that's, that's the biggest confusion that people have is like, I need to be the expert on it. You should definitely know about your product. Sure, right. But like, you know, I don't know, I don't know the ins and outs of our AI model or anything like that, but I have, you know, world class people that have been, that have dedicated their careers. I mean our, our head of AI has been doing this since the 90s. And you know, I mean he, he understands this stuff. He's built his life around understanding. He's taught this, you know, at college level. He's, you know, those, those are people you get. But it, it becomes, you know, you need to know how to attract those people.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah.

[Michael LeBlanc]

And yeah, I remember I looked at, I was looking at like how they judge presidents and I found there's like an interesting table that a ton of historians have weighed in on. But when they're judging presidents, they rate them across a whole slew of different activities. I think it's like 16 different criteria. And it'll be, you know, how did they do on, you know, down ticket? Did they get Congress to go their way? How did they do on foreign policy? How did they do on domestic policy? How did they, you know, they have all these places that they hit and they give them individual scores on all those, and then the aggregate gets averaged. And I thought that's really interesting because that's, that's what it is to be a founder too. You, you don't have to be everything. You just have to be world class at some of the things.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah.

[Michael LeBlanc]

And if you bring that to the table, you can start bringing in experts for, for all these things. And so our manufacturing, I mean, you get the greatest of manufacturing, get the greatest of AI, you get the greatest of software. You start pulling these people together and, and all of a sudden you're amazed with what they're doing. And then, you know, a couple of weeks later you're like, what's taking you so long? Right.

[Drew Tucker]

So for, for you personally, what do you think that is about? I mean, it's always tough having to answer these questions about yourself. Right. You gotta be world class at something. What do you, what are you world class at?

[Michael LeBlanc]

I, I would say large enterprise deals, like going, going to, selling things to businesses. And it's, it's funny to me now because, you know, as a kid, I really wanted to be a baseball player. Right.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah.

[Michael LeBlanc]

And, and now I'm like, oh, it turns out the skill that I have way better than baseball. I could do it my whole life. Makes me a bunch more money.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah.

[Michael LeBlanc]

But, you know, you don't, you don't really realize it. Like, when, when are you gonna be tested on like, enterprise deals? But that was at Cobalt. We had, you know, we had terrible product. It was just, it was horrible. And even if it worked, it wouldn't have been good. But we were able to sell these things. You know, we sold it. We sold the General Motors and Amazon and, you know, Robinhood, Slack, Citibank. You would know the names of all of our customers. Target, AT&T. I mean, you would know all of them. And, and that was because, you know, we really figured out how you actually go into these big, big companies and say, let's, let's do big multimillion dollar contracts. And that's, you know, so now 24 months in to this company foundation, we have, we have over $100 million of contracts in with auto manufacturing. That's, that's a hard thing to do when you're early on.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah.

[Michael LeBlanc]

In the company. Right. We've got 73 million in military. They're, they're hard things to do.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah. That's always fresh. I worked for a government contracting company. You always want bigger contracts. Obviously the, the problem with that is, is they always want to see past history and know that, you know, they're. Their reduction of risk is knowing that you have done a project of this size before, but if no one gives you a bigger project, then you don't have the opportunity.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

To have a past history on a bigger project. It's, it's almost like your credit score. Right. When you're earlier, no one wants to give you a credit card or a loan because you don't have a good credit score.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

Well, if you don't give me a car load or a credit card, how am I supposed to build the credit score? Yeah, it's one of those ironic things, but perseverance.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Well, and I think you've got to know. You got to know what your product is. And that sounds kind of annoying in MBA right now, as I say it, but like, for you, it's not, it's not the scars that somebody's buying. Right. That's the reason they make their second purchase. Their first purchase is buying you, supporting you, you know, buying into the brand and that, and that experience is enough to make them get over the hurdle of buying ones. And then it's going to be down to do I actually like this product, do I want it in my life? And that's, that's where they'll keep buying. But for, for early technologies, I think that the biggest thing is people don't feel listened to by the engineers, by the salespeople, by the people that are bringing it in. And in a, you know, in a corporation, I mean, I know this from Pentagon. I know this from just Marine Corps. Reputation is everything. You're, you're constantly worried about your reputation. How, how am I going to look, you know, if this, if this whole thing falls apart?

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah.

[Michael LeBlanc]

And so I think you defend against that by, by convincing people, like, I'm going to be there every step of the way. Like, me personally, I'm not going to hand you off to somebody. Right. This is like if, if we, if we fail, like, I'm going to be there standing on the carpet with you. And I think that makes the big difference.

[Drew Tucker]

I say this all the time as well. And what you're, I think what you're alluding to is, or to sum it up in one word, is authenticity. And you cannot fake authenticity. I mean, there's, there's some people who are really good at it, but they can only fake it for a little bit because they're not authentic. And that won't take you very far. Yeah, true, authentic people are, are hard to find. And people will take chances on authentic people.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yes. And I, I think, I think that's where marriages fall apart. Right. Is that people kind of go in. You can willpower yourself to be a certain person for like, you know, two years, you know.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah.

[Michael LeBlanc]

You know, maybe 18 months. But, but then, you know, over the course of, you know, 10 years, 20 years, all of a sudden you're just like, I, I gotta drop my pack, like, this is, this is done. And, and so I think there is, there are a lot of things that I do in sales. I'm sure that I do really stupid things in talking to customers, but I think that people sense that I'm, I'm genuine about it, and I really am. Like, I'm, you know, I always tell all my customers, I only work with people that I like. I really do, because I just can't, I can't have that in my life. You know, if somebody's annoying at the beginning, it's not going to go well. You know, if you have that first date with somebody and you're already bantering and it's like, it's not going to go, go well from here.

[Drew Tucker]

Here's the next subject I want to talk about, which I think people will be very interested in. You know, the, the description of Foundation Future Industries is a defense focused humanoid robotics company. And you know, everyone has this vision of, you know, the movie Terminator, you know, where war is getting fought with robots, which is crazy. You know, we're both old enough to remember seeing that movie for the first time. And it's science fiction. And now it's, it's, it's reality. Yeah. We don't know how, how much further in the future it is, but it's certain that it's, that it's coming. In fact, I'm gonna throw this picture up real, real quick of one of your robots shooting a Glock.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

I mean, that's, that's, that's the future of war.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

Is it not?

[Michael LeBlanc]

Oh, very much so. And, and I think that's, I mean, that's the really interesting thing about Ukraine is what makes the Ukraine Russia war so significant. I, I don't think that it's a very significant, just geopolitically in its own right. But I think that it's, it's like a movie trailer and it's, you know, robots are coming to a theater near you. It's. They are, they are really using robots first. And for us, you know, we would have what Scan Eagle. You'd have. You'd have these like drones and stuff.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah.

[Michael LeBlanc]

You know, back when we were over there. But the idea was like route clearance maybe. It was like to, you know, just to go see if there was something ahead. And you had this like little, you know, it was like looking through, know, paper towel roll. Right. You know, we just didn't have a lot going on there. You maybe got Predator Reaper support that, that you didn't see. You know, you got to pull up like, like on, on bigger targets and things. But now, I mean, it is a robot first war. So, I mean, that, that was what was so fascinating about going to Ukraine is that it is the drones, the counter drones and the, the unmanned ground vehicles, UGVs, you know, those, those are the main fighters.

[Drew Tucker]

I don't know if you went there, but I went to soft week this year. I didn't in Tampa, and I missed last year. And so I've been out of the loop for just a short amount. I missed one year. And this year was so much different than past years that I've seen AI, everything. They had unmanned boats patrolling, you know, the channel, you know, again, just unmanned this, unmanned that. I learned this. I mean, that it was heavy. Heavy. Yep. You know, drones. So much was focused on again, robotics, AI. And so it just shows like, not. It's not that it's coming. It's. It's here. These companies are here selling it to. To the government right now. And of course, it's just like the, the iPhone that. The iPhone. What's the saying that you could. You can't get to the iPhone 16 without getting to the iPhone one first.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

You know, so I think we're, I think we're at, you know, this Gen one.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

I think these Gen ones are, are good enough, you know. Yeah, definitely something to. To build on. That being said, what is, what is the. What's the shortcoming of that right now? What are they missing? What is it that needs to be done for it to really be unleashed? Is it an energy source? Where. What do you think it is?

[Commercial Announcer]

Your next chapter in healthcare starts at Carrington College's School of Nursing in Portland. Join us for our open house on Tuesday, January 13th from 4 to 7pm you'll tour our campus, see live demos, meet instructors, and learn about our associate degree in nursing Program that prepares you to become a registered nurse. Take the first step toward your nursing career. Save your spot now at Carrington Edu Events. For information on program outcomes, visit carrington.edu sci. Chronic migraine 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting 4 hours or more can make me feel like a spectator in my own life. Botox Onobotulinum toxin a prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine. It's not for those with 14 or fewer headache days a month. It's the number one prescribed branded chronic migraine preventive treatment prescription.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems or muscle weakness can be signs of a life threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions including als, Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis or Lambert Eaton syndrome and medications including botulinum toxins as these may increase the risk of serious side effects.

[Commercial Announcer]

Why wait? Ask your doctor. Visit botoxchronicmigraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more.

[Michael LeBlanc]

I think really the brain that's bringing them together, you still have a lot of isolated drones, a lot of isolated UGVs, isolated humanoids, the, the palantirs of the world that are trying to bring all of this together. That's, that's going to be what's critical is because, you know, we're kind of having these debates right now. Anthropic came out and was like, you know, we'll do just about everything with the government, but not these three things. You know, you kind of have companies starting to lay some of those out. And at the end of the day this, this has to be in a commander's hands. Like that's, that's just how the military works. And so until we can make it easy enough for a commander without engineering training, without, without having to know this stuff in depth, to be able to walk up and say here's what I wanted to do. You know, then we're, we're still in the early stages, I think.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah, you know, people will always throw this, this. And I heard this argument and it's a solid argument on its surface. But, but I think you'd be far better suited to answer this. Electronics is great, but there's always a counter to everything. And if electronics start overwhelming the battlefield, then you said, whether it's attack, it's circuitry or electromagnetic pulse that can take things offline. Are there things that are those concerns or have we pretty much have a defense against that and that's not, that's not the issue.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Well, that's, you know, the drones that you see going out in Ukraine right now have cords on them. Have you seen that?

[Drew Tucker]

Yes, I have. I mean, it's funny because it's almost like the, like the, the old has become new again.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yes.

[Drew Tucker]

Because that's a TOW missile. Yeah, you know. Yeah, that's right. There's, there's certain, we've, we've done that. We've had tethered drones, you know, real early on.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yep.

[Drew Tucker]

So it is funny that, that, that you mentioned that because that is, it's,

[Michael LeBlanc]

it's a funny thing. I mean everything, everything looks kind of like primitive robotics. I mean, you're still looking at it and thinking this is going to be a museum someday for what, what it's going to be.

[Drew Tucker]

Right.

[Michael LeBlanc]

But, but that's the thing. Like, I think, I don't know, I think a lot of people get stuck on this mentality where they're like, you know, if you build a 10 foot wall, they're going to make an 11 foot ladder. Right. Or you know, you always hear, you know, if you, if you kill, kill one terrorist, you create two. Remember that one? And I was like, you know, that, that might be true of like, you know, the first wall or the first terrorist, but I'll tell you, you get a pretty high wall, it's pretty damn hard to get over. And you know, you kill a lot of terrorists, all of a sudden nobody wants to sign up anymore. Right. So I think this technology race is kind of the same where it's like that's, there's going to be a lot of back and forth with Cyber, with EMPs, with all this stuff, like to go after the power source.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah.

[Michael LeBlanc]

But we're just going to keep getting over it. Then the electronics are here to stay.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. I think everyone has that friend or, or business partner or business relationship where someone has a good idea and the, and like it's almost that person's job to counter every idea with why it won't work.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah, right.

[Drew Tucker]

Just everything.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yes.

[Drew Tucker]

Could you just tell us what, give me one thing. Why give me one positive. Just the negative Guy just, everything sucks. That's why this won't work.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

And to some degree, although those people do annoy me because they'll wear you down, but I've always, I've actually grown to love them. And, and I better have an answer for them.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

I also know this. I'm not going to win that argument. No answer is ever going to be good enough for that person. But I better have a logical answer that at least I buy.

[Michael LeBlanc]

You know, I always think it's funny, those people, because they, they think they're, they're so damn smart. And it's, it's a brain answer. And I always say you can make money with your back. You know, my dad was a house painter. You can, you can get, get a craft. You can definitely make money with labor. You can make money with your brain. And, and that's where people are like, that's what I want to be doing. I want to do that knowledge, work stuff. I want to be, I want to make money with my brain. You don't make real money with your brain. You make some money with your, with your brain. The only real money comes from balls. And, and that's, that's where the brainiacs really fails because they're looking at the 99 things that won't work, and the entrepreneur is looking at the one part that will work.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah.

[Michael LeBlanc]

And it's like, usually the 99 are solvable. It's just, it's just going to be hell to pay to get through all of them. But that's, that's why it, it doesn't generate anything to do that. So, you know, it's funny. People want to get so good. I call them balls and strikes. And I'm like, great, you're an umpire. And I'm. I'm a home run hitter. Like, it's.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah. I love. We already talked about this earlier about absolute truths. Yeah, they. They really do. They stand the test of time. What you're talking about right now, I don't know if you've ever seen the series. Believe it's on the History Channel, Discovery Channel. It's called the Men who Made America.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

One of the greatest series I've ever seen. And we get in this. It's normal to do you see the success, whether it be Heinz, Hershey, Coca Cola. You just assume they were always successes.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

And then kfc, I mean, they go through every. The railroads. They go through everyone. And you find out, no, the beginning of all those people were people who bit off more than they could Chew.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yes.

[Drew Tucker]

And just fig and just got, got to chewing.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah. And that's, that's what I think is so great about the military when you go through this stuff. I tell my kids this all the time is, I'm like, it's easy to be bad at anything and then once you're bad, it's really easy to get better. Right? So like that's the process and all you have to do is get bad at something and then get better and better. And that road of getting better may take a really long time. That's, that's why it takes years to get good at this stuff. But it's, it's not, it's not a hard strategy. I think people try to out outsmart difficulty and they try to think like, oh, if I come in at it this way, or see people study all the time, if I read a bunch of books on it, if I, you know, if I think about it enough, I can avoid all those mistakes. No, you can't. You just, you've just gotta get in it, you've gotta make that early decision. You just gotta, you just gotta go with it and then let it be wrong and then, and then fix it along the way. But that's, that's why like to the kids, I'm always like, you know, iteration, tinkering, experimentation, accidents, those, those are all big words in our house. Because I'm like, that's where everything good comes from. It's just from just messing with stuff.

[Drew Tucker]

I, as a proud American and somebody wants to have hand something over to my kids. We have to continue to be the best in the world at things. And I think it's so easy for us when it comes to robotics to assume that we're not or that we will always be tied into Taiwan or China. Do we have the capability to be the best in the world? In robotics, standalone? And is, is China is someone better than us right now in robotics?

[Michael LeBlanc]

No, we, we are the best. And this is this what's so funny to me, I'm like, China makes great breakdancing robots. If you needed a robot that can break dance, like I, I've got the right guy in Hong Kong that can put it together for you. Like they put together, they could do, you know, jujitsu, they could do, they don't do anything useful. They don't know how to create products that scale and, and that goes on and on with, you know, when you look at, you know, you know, used to be unicorn businesses, you know, for a billion dollars, then, you know, now it's like trillion dollar businesses. America is still the place to come.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah.

[Michael LeBlanc]

A lot of them may be created by immigrants. Right. And you have Elon Musk come over here, but they're coming here to do it.

[Drew Tucker]

That's right.

[Michael LeBlanc]

And that's because we know how to make these things useful. Everybody makes this mistake in business where they go, the product, I'll get the product right. And I know what the product needs to be. And Steve Jobs did a disservice to everybody on this. He probably did it on purpose, but he was just like, your customer doesn't know what they want until you give it to them. And so you got this generation of arrogant engineers that are just like, we know what to build. All of these roboticists think they know the greatest thing to do because they're like, now we can do two backflips. You know, they're like that. Of course that's next because one backflip was the first thing. No, making them useful, making them actually do something that people want them to do or need them to do, that's, that's half the equation. It's product market fit.

[Drew Tucker]

I think using Steve Jobs as your example is a great one. And it says, I think people forgot to, forgot how to understand general statements. And whether he did that on purpose or, or that's how he did it, they're going to look at him and they're going to try to emulate a one off.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

And it's just, sure, you can try that. But you know that, that is, that is an exception to the rule.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yes. Well, that's, you know, I see this a lot with successful, you know, business leaders. They all sudden want to become pilots and they, they get it in their head that because they're good at one thing, they're good at all things. And like that's, that's just not how human beings were made. Right. So you can be incredible, you can be world class at something, but terrible at everything else. Right. Like, I don't, I don't think that Michael Phelps can, can sing. Right. So it's, it's a really stupid thing to go at. And you know, look at Donald Trump and Warren Buffett Both eat McDonald's. I should be eating Mickey D's every day. Like, that's not, that's not a clear path.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah, the, well, the funny again, quotes that I've heard and I love and it's, you know, it says, I don't know of which weapons World War 3 would be fought with, but World War 4 would be fought with sticks and stones. Huh. And I get, I get the, I get the concept of that. And it's, and it's, it's probably, probably a lot of truth to it. Again, going back to either unmanned things or robots. You know, we have fighter jets now that are essentially working as a swarm and are starting to work together. And I think that's one of the things you said. I didn't really. I should have, because ground tactics is, is my forte.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

And I never realized when I look at rope, you're always, you always see them as a singleton, a one off, like performing things. But you need them to work in concert and, and be able to work in everything from a team, you know, from a team to squad, platoons, company, battalions and, and all the way up, all doing their individual thing as well as in, in a collective.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

And I know we'll get there because AI blows my mind what, you know, what, what it can do. But yeah, that is, that's interesting to try to solve that problem without the, the innate uniqueness of, of a person.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah, well, that's, that's kind of the cool thing about, you know, coming from defense and being in defense tech. You've got, you've got a lot of civilians in at the heads of these companies that are the visionaries for the products. Yeah, I think that it's very easy. No matter how many, you know, no matter how much you actually see of just going over and looking. Everybody wants to envision war as Call of Duty. And I mean, that's, that's what I thought war was, right? Is that like you're, it's gonna be you and a gun and you're walking around, you're like, oh, don't shoot that guy. You know, shoot this guy. And you're making those decisions constantly. By the time, you know, by the time I was in Afghanistan, we, we were all convoys. All of our patrols were convoys. And so I had, I had my exact trucks, I had my exact machine guns. I had, I knew everybody there. We knew exactly, you know, if contact came from whatever direction, everybody knew and had run those, those drills a million times. You knew exactly what to do right there. It was nothing like Call of Duty. It was no individual action. Like you knew, you knew what to do. And I remember I used to tell my parents at the time when I was in Afghanistan, my brother was living in New York and living, you know, pretty, pretty wild lifestyle. And I was like, he's in more dangerous, dangerous spaces on the streets of New York than I like, mine is a dangerous space, but we all have machine guns, and I know how everybody operates around me.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah.

[Michael LeBlanc]

And, like, I think that's what we're seeing in the products right now that are coming out is still. People are just thinking, what is that hero product? What does the product itself do? And not. What is this whole landscape going. Going to look like?

[Drew Tucker]

I want to transition to the book because, as I told you, it's probably my favorite name of a book, but so it tells me a lot about the mindset of it, and so I'm very interested in it. Again, it's called what if Anger is the Answer. What made you decide to write a. Where do you get time to write a book? And what made you decide to write a book?

[Michael LeBlanc]

You know, my dream was always to write a book.

[Drew Tucker]

Okay.

[Michael LeBlanc]

And I, you know, I was. I was really into books, getting into the Marine Corps. So that was the kind of research that I would do, like reading Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War. I did that a lot. I would read the Odyssey, the Iliad. I would read Steven Pressfield's Gates of Fire. I would read One Bullet Away, Nate Fick. You know, I loved. You know, books. They get you excited about what it is, and they give you a glimpse into what the kind of spiritual adventure is going to be in it. And I always thought that really helped me get through the harder trainings that I went through was this kind of deep expectation that it was going to be like that in mind. It was mythic, right. I was able to. I was overcoming some, you know, impossible challenge. Whereas I think somebody that didn't read, read all those books or get into the adventure of it, they. They get pretty cynical about what it is, and they're like, this is when. When are we gonna have to carry £250? You know, and they. And. And they can't. They can't get themselves there again. It's the. The kind of brain people. But I always wanted to do so. I always wanted to write a book and kind of contribute to that. And, you know, so that. That was kind of the goal. And at a certain point, you know, my first company was doing well, and my wife was like, you know, you're living. You're living the dream. And I was like, I didn't dream of robots, you know,

[Drew Tucker]

a dream, but none of it's the dream.

[Michael LeBlanc]

You know, she always. She's like, you're living someone's dream, but. But she was like, well, what's your real dream? And I was like, you know, to write a book is my real dream. To write a book that means something to somebody. And so she was like, gotta do it right? And so that was when she was like, I'll give you from 5 o' clock in the morning to 8 o' clock in the morning every day. And she was like, I will handle the kids during that time. And, you know, wives are always quick to give you the middle of the night to do things. You know, 2:00am is your free time. All right.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah.

[Michael LeBlanc]

But that was. I would just, I would wake up and just got in this rhythm of daily going and working on this. And I, I think it ended up helping me incredibly in business too, with the clarity of thought. And it does a lot for you to write early in the morning.

[Drew Tucker]

So to take a step back, you know, hearing your story, I wanted to write a book. How do you, I mean, where, where do you start? You know, I mean, how do you, you end up with this book? I mean, you could have wrote about anything, you know?

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

You could have written about business. You could have, you know, written about the, you know, just the military or military story. You could have went whimsical with it. You could have done anything.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

How'd you land on this?

[Michael LeBlanc]

So I kept, While I was in Afghanistan, I, I kept a journal of everything. So I would write almost every night while I was there. So I had, I had like 200,000 words written from all this and unusable, not, not usable as a book.

[Drew Tucker]

Right.

[Michael LeBlanc]

But it, it was kind of themes that I was thinking about at the time. And it was, it was, it was making sense of what was going on there. It was, you know, things, like I say, things would happen there that were just so funny or so challenging. I mean, they, you know, it just opens up these, these parts of human experience you don't, you don't get to see in the civilian world a lot. So I would just always write them. That's, that was where I started, was going back to that and going, what. What's here that is important to teach somehow? And what's, what is the theme? What, what was this whole thing going through here? And, and I started to, I started to really lock onto this question about what, what makes people different, right after, after going to boot camp or after serving? Because that was like, when I, when I came back from Afghanistan, I would hear that all the time from friends, friends and family, right? Like, oh, my gosh, you're so changed, you know, And I think everybody in the service has has that in common that people think something's changed. And so I got really locked on the question of what. What is that that changed what. You know, what's what, what is it that's different? And. And that's kind of what the book became. Is. Could I. Could I teach that to someone who didn't go through the process? Or could I at least put it on their radar for them to go?

[Drew Tucker]

Go.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Hey, sweetie. Your mother showed me this Carvana thing for selling the car. I'm gonna give it a try. Wish me luck. Me again. I put in the license plate.

[Drew Tucker]

It gave me an offer.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Unbelievable.

[Drew Tucker]

Okay. I accepted the offer.

[Michael LeBlanc]

They're picking it up Tuesday from the driveway. I haven't even left my chair. It's done. The car is gone. I'm holding a check anyway. Carvana, give it a whirl.

[Drew Tucker]

Love ya.

[Michael LeBlanc]

So good, you'll want to leave a voicemail about it.

[Commercial Announcer]

Sell your car today on Carvana.

[Michael LeBlanc]

F. Pickup fees may apply.

[Drew Tucker]

I think about. People have told me, you should write a book. I. I don't have the same desire to. To write a book, so I'm not going to. But I. I do think of it like this. I was. I was. I was building a car, like, frame off, body off, project, you know, from. From the beginning, you know, and when I got towards the end of it, you know, friends would come over and be like, how did you do all this? And I get it. It's almost like a book or a car. Whatever it is, you look at the finished product and it overwhelms you. And I'll tell them, well, you're. You're seeing the final product. But when I first had it, it was just a frame, so I just worked on the frame.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yep.

[Drew Tucker]

And then after that, I had to run the brake lines. So. And. And I didn't even. I didn't even worry about the whole brake system. I just had to get the brake lines to the front left tire. Then the electrical system. It's not the whole electrical system. I just had to wire up the left brake light, you know, today.

[Michael LeBlanc]

So originally, I sold. I sold my book to Harvard Business Review as. And it was under the title the Good Lieutenant.

[Drew Tucker]

Okay.

[Michael LeBlanc]

And the idea was. I said I was working at Harvard Business Review at the time. This one, when I was at Harvard. And I would say, we write all these books about number one. And I was like, you're always. It's always Bill Gates or Steve Jobs or Warren Buffett. You always see what the number one does. And I said, what's interesting is what the number two is doing what makes you a great number two. Because that's how you become a great number one. And I said that's what the military really teaches is like how to serve a commander. You don't really need to know what General Patton was doing if you're going to be a lieutenant or if you're going to be a corporal or something. You know, you need. It's this whole other skill set. And I said that skill set doesn't exist. And so that was what the whole book was catered to was it was called the Good Lieutenant and it was all about how to. How to carry things through for somebody else's vision, even if you disagree with it.

[Commercial Announcer]

Right.

[Michael LeBlanc]

And how to. How to manage all and negotiate all those things. You know that, that then later got. Got turned into the title what A Better Way to Alpha was was another title of it. Right. And. And then, and then I couldn't sell that one. And then, and then it became, you know, over time what if anger is the answer? And each of those needed refinements and rewrites. But that is the only way to land on something is just to keep iterating. Just keep what's not working, keep refining it, refine it. Yep.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah. Would be something I say all the time as well. I learned way more from failures than I've ever learned from successes. And if you go back to missions, when a mission goes right, we still talk about it. We talk about like how we could do it better. But it doesn't give you that. That real urgency to change and to do things better.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yep.

[Drew Tucker]

When you fail, you have a. You have a whole out different outlook. Urgency that something, something has to change and has to change now and it has to change in, in a big way.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

And so that's kind of. That's how I view that. I said well I tried this one first. Doesn't mean it was a failure. You know, we told you talking about missions, you know, you don't. But it wasn't. If it's not what you wanted, if it doesn't have the outcome you wanted. We're people who are highly, highly motivated were our own worst enemy or best critique or as it should be. As it should be. And you have to listen to that and keep refining and keep refining and also love that you don't refine it to its infinite point and make it perfect.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Right.

[Drew Tucker]

And then release it. That's something else I love that you did. You said this is good enough. Let's See what it does?

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

Oh, it wasn't good enough. Let me refine it. Because, people, there is no perfect product.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Well, and it was. You know, I didn't learn this until too late in the process because this. This took me. You know, I worked on it for, I don't know, eight years. Something. Something long. But I started realizing I needed to read it out loud to people. So, you know, my. My wife got together a whole bunch of guys that I didn't know, but they were, like, husbands of, like, friends of hers and stuff. So. So I kind of had this, like, weird crew. They didn't know much about me and everything. And, you know, I sat them down, and I was like, these guys are gonna be eating out of the palm of my hand. They're gonna love this, right? And. And so I, like, start reading it. And the, you know, the preface to it. Everybody, you know, stop after the preface, and everybody's just like, that's so badass. Like, they're like, I'm excited about this. I didn't know what I was coming into. This is badass. And then I read the beginning of the first chapter, and they're all nice guys, right? But they're going, yeah, I think. I think that was interesting. I think, you know, I think what I could take from it was. And I was like, oh, my gosh, I've got people right to my face. Nobody's gonna be nice to you when you're not there. And I was like, and these guys are struggling to figure out what's. What's good about it. And that helps me that I was like, immediately, as soon as I left that, you know, we had them all over for drinks and cigars. I went up that night, and I rewrote the beginning because I was like, I know exactly what I wanted those guys to read. And I brought together another group and that next time that hit. And then I was like, all right, perfect. And that's really when I opened up what the book should look like.

[Drew Tucker]

I really want to talk about the process of the book, because it's like anything. Again, whether it's. The process is what matters. Whether it's the process of becoming a soldier, the process of building a car, the process of writing a book. Processes can. Can get overlaid over a multitude of different ideas. A good processes can. Is consistent. But I want to talk about the book itself again. What if Anger is the Answer? A Harvard Marine's Guide to Shaping Aggression. And I love. We have on the website and it describes it. Modern leadership teaches Us to suppress anger, to smooth it over, soften it, or eliminate it entirely. But history, philosophy, and lived experience tells a different story. What if anger is the answer Is a book about discipline, leadership and the forgotten role of anger. Encourage loyalty and accountability. Let's get into the, the meat potatoes of the book and start with that.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah, I think the big thing that people are missing and they're getting better on it in these last couple of years. But we just, we lost that sense of needing to defend your family, of needing to defend boundaries, of defending standards, of. We, we just lost this sort of offensive anger that's, you know, we had the Department of Defense forever and turned back into, into the War Department.

[Drew Tucker]

I personally love it.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah, well, I, I think that's, I. People that, you know, were, were in the military during that time where we, we really ran away from this for like the past 15 years in a strong way. We were, we were kind of sheltered from it. And I feel so lucky that when I left college I got to go to a place that, that would shame me. I think what, what a disservice that we do to young people coming out of college to not shame them. That's, that is a horrible environment for them to develop. You, you need to be ashamed of what you're doing. And, and I think that's where, you know, you should absolutely be angry if, if somebody screws something up, you don't, you don't have to be angry at them, you know, in a way that you're screaming or violent, you know, going overboard is where anger gets the bad reputation. But you know, to me, I, I always go back to. So at my first company we had, you know, we'd raised, I don't know, $30 million at the time. We had probably 200 robots out. Right. And these are like five foot robots that would be in businesses and they were supposed to do, replace the security guard. They just didn't work. And we all knew that they didn't work. But anytime you'd try to get into it with the engineers, they'd push back and they go, well, this is what I've done. And it does work my part, you know, and you kind of back off and all this kind of stuff. And we, we finally had a customer at Amazon test us and they set booby traps all around of things that we were supposed to catch.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah.

[Michael LeBlanc]

And we, we got one out of 20. Oh wow, their tests.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah.

[Michael LeBlanc]

And so I went and did a larger test of 200 things. We, again, we were under 5% of catching these things. And that. That was a place like, as. As an entrepreneur, I had to feel angry. And, you know, I got. I got fuming. I was visiting my parents in Ohio at the time, and I was talking to my dad, and I was just like, I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Like, and I was like, I talked to these guys, and I'm pissed at everybody. I'm pissed at myself. But that, that sparked this, you know, this new. New presentation I put together of everybody with the results. And I was like, we're gonna fix this. And I showed exactly where it turned out. It was a leaky funnel. It was, you know, nine. Nine different sections were getting a B minus, and that turned into an F in the aggregate. And which. Which I think happens in organizations all the time. And so I was like, in 90 days, we're going to be at 80% and we're going to tell our customers exactly where we are now. And, you know, we. We ended up hitting that. That 80%. We got up to 95%, and it became a huge marketing tool for us. But I think that's, you know, that to me, is always a great example of how anger can be productive. It can build something.

[Drew Tucker]

I couldn't agree more. There's always going to be the. Again, the, the people that want to point out what's. What's wrong with certain things, what's wrong with the title, and they, they're clearly not understanding it or listening. They'll just read the title and, and, and walk away.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yep.

[Drew Tucker]

It's. Anger is a good thing. Controlled anger.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yes.

[Drew Tucker]

Uncontrolled anger is. No, no one's. No one's insinuating that.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Right.

[Drew Tucker]

You know, we're talking about controlled anger. And what, and when failures are. I'm not okay with failures. They. They should make me angry. And anger is a. Anger is a long burning fuel.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yes.

[Drew Tucker]

It can be and it should be. You know, it's. What are we going to take these things and use it and use it for good? Violence. Violence is. People spin. Violence is a horrible thing. People have said, you know, your book, you know, what if anger is the answer? And people say, you know, violence is never the answer. Yeah, that's. That couldn't be any less true.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Right.

[Drew Tucker]

Violence is sometimes the answer. We'd be speaking German right now if violence was the answer. If, If a, If. If a. A woman is getting assaulted on a train.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yep.

[Drew Tucker]

Violence. Right then is controlled. Violence is the answer.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yes.

[Drew Tucker]

So. And, you know, go ahead.

[Michael LeBlanc]

That. That's something I. I think that, you know, you can see that. You can see the strength of that in ancient Greece. You see the strength of that in ancient Rome. People that get these virtues right end up having very strong societies to build around them, because that's what we're praising. Right. And today you have. You have so many. So many young men that are relegated to their basements, Right. Playing video games and. And watching porn that, like, it's. It's because we've changed the metrics so much in the system that they don't really feel like they're worth winning. They feel like the things that. That they bring to the table aren't respected. And anger is. Is a huge one of those wrath. Being able to bring this power. You know, Aristotle calls. It's one of the virtues that he lists is anger, you know, and it has to be at the right person for the right amount of time to the right degree.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah.

[Michael LeBlanc]

And, you know, the two errors are not getting angry enough and getting too angry. And, you know, too often we throw the baby out with the bathwater and we just go, nope, I've seen Jerry Springer. I know what anger is like. Not interested.

[Drew Tucker]

You know, we. We're talking about gates of fire and virtues. And one. One of the things that. That gets brought up in that book and talking about war is, you know, he looks at a. At a. A younger soldier and says, you know, don't. Don't. Don't be misled. That compassion and mercy is a greater virtue than manly valor.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

And that's. That's what we've done. We've taken mercy and compassion, which are good things. They're good things, but we've taken it out of balance.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yep.

[Drew Tucker]

We've. We've. We've put so much weight on that that we've. We've thrown off the scale of. Of what's. What's truly virtuous.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah. And that's the interesting thing about virtues and vices. It's all about the waiting. It's all about the judgment of where should I give my energy? And we have. We've taken all these soft virtues. There are plenty of good things about hearing everybody's voice in a room. It's a great thing, making people feel comfortable when they're doing something new. Great. There are a lot of good things that come with those, but we've gone so overboard in providing them that we've thrown off the really good parts of making people uncomfortable. And they have to find it in themselves to. To get, you know, to get comfortable.

[Drew Tucker]

I think the, the other thing we, we've done and just haven't done a good job of either explaining or accepting is that virtues is, is these virtues not. Are a sliding scale and when appropriately applied, what, what I mean by this is, is we'll take, we'll take the ones we just use, you know, is compassion, you know, greater than, than violence? And almost anyone would, would say yes, but no right there. When what are we talking about? Like, what, what are the circumstances you have to be able to apply? Each one sometimes are applied at a much higher level. But, but it's not just a universal standard that love and compassion are the greatest of virtues.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

What are we applying it to? Because maybe some, some hatred and violence might be a greater virtue.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

When applied in the right circumstance.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yes. And that's, you know, I think people get very lost on this in, you know, Christianity because this, this is the big, the big change that goes on. Right. You have, you have the Greeks, you have the Romans, that's kind of driving all thought. And then you end up getting Christianity and it, and it turns a lot of that, you know, on its, on its head. And, and so people start marrying up to this idea of, no, you shouldn't be angry. They start to hold up, you know, Gandhi and Christ as, as the figures to go to, you know, Christ. There's a famous scene that churches love to kind of talk over, but it's where he walks into one of the temples and they're all, you know, they're selling merch, right? They're like selling swag for the church and he throws over the tables and he throws them out. I mean, that's, and he says he's coming back with a sword on a horse. Right? Like, Jesus was not soft in this way that people are like, we need to be Christ. Like, and then they, you know, they just roll over on everything. He, he didn't mean that. He didn't mean, you know, if somebody comes and, you know, says something terrible to your wife to just go, ah, you know, let's turn the other cheek. Like, say more about her. Like, that's not, that wasn't the intent there. But I think that gets kind of bastardized in the way that people look at these.

[Drew Tucker]

I love this story you just told because as soon as you brought up Christianity and the, and what we were talking, that was the first thing I thought about.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

Because of course Jesus talks about love, talks about it being the greatest of all these, his love. But again, if you, if you look at his life It. And he showed a lot of love. A lot of love. But when in certain circumstances, that love wasn't the answer for that circumstance, was it? He showed some anger.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

And not even like a little bit of anger. Yeah, he, he showed some straight up anger on that.

[Michael LeBlanc]

And that's the thing. Like, I think, you know, everybody pulls from their spectrum of behaviors. Right. So if you don't have that part of you that's assertive, that's insistent upon a standard, you don't even have that vocabulary, you're not allowed to go into that range. And so that's kind of what the book is pressing is to say. You should develop that part because you do need that if you're gonna be a parent again, you've gotta get angry at your kids. Your kids are obnoxious. They come out there obnoxious, scheming liars. Like, that's what children are. And it's your job to stop those things, not to just let them run over and go, oh, I know I'm a pushover, but she loves me.

[Drew Tucker]

No, this is a great topic and I hope people really enjoy listening to it because I'm being a little introspective, you know, right now, just, just thinking about it. Even though, like, I put my input and I know these things to be true, but sometimes you don't talk about them and then realize, hold on. Like, there's knowing it and there's, there's living it. Yeah. I was saying the range of compassion and violence is something, you know, the military has to do all the time.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

It's what law enforcement, you know, has to do all the time. And that's what I think. Then you, then you mentioned parent. I was like, you know, it applies, it, it applies that. The more I thought about it, it applies to every aspect of your life.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yes.

[Drew Tucker]

And I love that you bring this up because we, we have to stop saying only these things are, are virtuous. Just like you mentioned, there are other virtues. We, but we need, we need to understand that there is a, a wide spectrum. It's been true for a long time. And, and we're losing. And we're losing that. And I think that's why we're losing a little bit of the goodness as a whole of our society, because we're off balance.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah. And that, you know, I think, I mean, one of the, one of the big points of the book is to say if, if you don't sometimes feel acute anger, you're probably feeling chronic resentment. And I think that's the world that we live in is people have this bitterness and cynicism and resentment toward others. And it's, it's usually because they haven't, they haven't spoken their minds, they haven't insisted about, upon what they think is the most important there. And you know, so you do, you just kind of come into this world and go, well, nobody wanted to hear my thoughts. And it's like, well, did, did you say them? Did you push them? You know what, when somebody told you it was wrong, you did you argue through, did you debate it? And, and I think that's, I love books that kind of plant a seed. That's why, you know, my book takes, it's, it should be under 4 hours to read because I read books on a plane all the time. Going, going to D.C. to California, and I love when you can pick up a book, read it on the plane, and you have a new framework, you have a new lens. You know, it's like having a fun new tool to go play with. And that's, that's what this is just to give an argument to, saying you, you should be insisting on boundaries, standards, and speaking your mind. And then you go off in your life and you go, man, oh, yeah, I'm not doing that in this. Oh, I'm not doing that in this relationship. Oh, I should be doing that at work. I wonder what would happen if I actually, you know, there's a right way to say things.

[Drew Tucker]

Absolutely. What's, what's next for you?

[Michael LeBlanc]

Well, we got, we got thousands of robots going out the door.

[Drew Tucker]

Where they, where they go, where, where all are they going to?

[Michael LeBlanc]

Most of them are going to auto manufacturing right now commercially, and then it looks like we're going to have a thousand robots going to Ukraine. So, yeah, a lot, a lot of exciting stuff. I mean, this, you know, this, this is a packed time. But this, this again, like, this is the fun of doing all this stuff. When I got out of the Marine Corps, nobody wanted me. And like I say, like, I, it's, I don't have family connections or something. I never knew anybody that went to Harvard. But, you know, you, you enter this world and just through the years of it, you know, it's been what I've been doing for 11 years, kind of in the elite world, but just pushing it. You end up with so many resources of, you know, raising hundreds of millions of dollars, and now you got new new pots to do that with and new new people to meet these up with, and everything's on this, this different scale. It's a, you know, it's, it's amazing. My, my life is all over the place and traveling a ton and getting all these things out there, but it's a, it's never dull.

[Drew Tucker]

The thousand robots going to Ukraine. Yeah. Are they offensive? Are they frontline robots? Are they security robots to free up those people to move other places?

[Michael LeBlanc]

No, these are, these are offensive robots. And so this is another interesting thing is selling to Ukraine versus selling to the U.S. the U.S. is where, like I say, they've, they've put $73 million toward helping us develop this robot. Right. So they, Right. They've taken their stake. They. The U.S. i've never, I've never had anybody talk about it in a way that would think it's fully autonomous, that the AI is deciding what to do. Everybody knows it's going to work with like drones. There's going to be a commander in the loop.

[Drew Tucker]

Okay.

[Michael LeBlanc]

In Ukraine, they're, they're very much like anything is a target, that direction. And, and it's been, it's been interesting in the discussions to see, okay, if we put weapons in their hands, what, what kind of missions are they going to run, what, what are they looking for them to do? But to me, again, I'm always like, you don't learn from a whiteboard. Right? Yeah, you learn from. That's why, you know, we were the first, first humanoid in the world to be tested in combat. Because I was like, this thing needs its combat action ribbon. Like, you got it, you gotta at least get it out there. If somebody just blows it up, as soon as it walks out, you go, we should fix that. You know, Exactly.

[Drew Tucker]

It's. I know it doesn't sound good, but again, it's reality. This war with Ukraine and Russia has to some degree been a good thing. I mean, if you can't look at some sort of. War is a tragedy and the amount of loss of life with ridiculous numbers is not a good thing. But it'd be even more of a tragedy if we saw that and learned nothing from it.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yes.

[Drew Tucker]

We have a chance and opportunity to learn from it and to save American lives and another good lives. So we. So it's okay to be excited about something good that can happen in the future?

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

But you know, we live in a world on the Internet where you have to preface it like that because it'll get made into a short and that's all they hear and, and you're the bad guy. But the drones have come so far. Yeah, thanks. Thanks to that. And if we can get robots on the front line, especially before know anyone else, and advance ours. There will be worlds of worlds ahead.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah. And this, this is where I think that people focus on, you know, some terrible situation where a robot is going to walk up and shoot somebody. And everybody knows when technology doesn't do what you want it to do, how obnoxious it is. Right. Like when my car's dinging because I don't have my seatbelt on. You know, everybody's got those, those parts. But if you look at, I mean, just look at the 20th century, we don't have a great record for life and suffering.

[Drew Tucker]

No, like it's, it's horrible. You just said, what if robot goes up and you know, and shoots some. Those arguments, those straw man arguments are always crazy to me because guess, guess who else has shot innocent people. Yeah, people.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yes, a lot of them.

[Drew Tucker]

Right. But so, yeah, that's. Again, those are always the people that have a reason not to do something. Rather a reason to do something.

[Michael LeBlanc]

And that's where.

[Drew Tucker]

But we can have an answer for that.

[Michael LeBlanc]

When you look at what these robots are going to do, I mean, it's beautiful to think of robot armies going to war and companies, countries are still going to suffer because they go, man, we're losing a ton of, we're losing a ton of land. We're too, we're losing a ton of money. But you're not losing those lives. And you know, I look at that in the US that's been a strategic weakness of ours since World War II, has been our sensitivity of losing human lives. The world knows about that. They're like, if we kill one soldier, it's going to be a big deal. National news over there, knocking down a robot. Nobody knows what happens to our robots. Nobody cares. And rightfully so.

[Drew Tucker]

It's a devil's advocate question, but I'm going to throw it at you anyway. If you think of modern warfare and the loss of life, and I say modern, we'll talk about. We don't lose that many people in the revolutionary war. So we'll talk civil war on just millions and millions and millions and millions of people. If that hadn't happened, could you imagine how many more people would be on the Earth right now? And we'd have to, you know, it's going to have an impact. I know it's a crazy thing to say. So you're saying we should have wars to maintain the population. No, it's not what I'm saying. The government's doing a good job of that alone with co and COVID vaccinations. Joke, half joke. But, you know, I mean, that's. To some degree, like, that's a. That is. It's just a crazy thing to think about.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah.

[Drew Tucker]

There. We will. Without war, we will overpop. There's a chance we overpopulate the Earth.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah, I. I think that if. If you look at the history of human beings, you can always count on them hurting their. Hurting their masses.

[Drew Tucker]

I. I agree with that answer.

[Michael LeBlanc]

I don't think we're in any danger of losing that aspect. Right. The. The question is, who are those people? Right, Right. And how are they being killed? I think those.

[Drew Tucker]

But actually, I think actually that's. That's the perfect answer to. To that question. Anyway, Mike, tell everyone where they can. Where they can get the book.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah. On Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, Goodreads, wherever. Wherever they sell.

[Drew Tucker]

Okay.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Sell books.

[Drew Tucker]

Like I said. You guys have seen the book on the screen. I'll throw it up one more time. It's by Michael LeBlanc, and the book is called what if Anger Is the Answer, and I will be reading it. My. I can't. I can't. Thank you enough for coming on.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Thanks so much.

[Drew Tucker]

It was a. It was a really fun conversation to have with you.

[Michael LeBlanc]

Yeah, no, it's so. So great meeting you and, you know, big fan of the show to get to be here.

[Drew Tucker]

Nothing says thank you like a tier one robot. I'll. I'll give you. I'll get. I'll give you my address.

[Michael LeBlanc]

I like that. You know, that would look good back here. That would look real good back here.

[Drew Tucker]

We'll tag you. We'll tag you. Anyway, thanks, brother.

[Michael LeBlanc]

All right. Thank you.

[Drew Tucker]

Yeah.