A Random Walk with Ben Kohlmann

This week, the United States government delared a new federal holiday: Juneteenth.  But many Americans don't know the backstory behind this momentous day. 

On June 19th, 1865, a Federal General leading the occupation of Galveston issued an order setting all enslaved people free in the state of Texas - and beyond.  This was the true end of slavery in the United States. 

Historian Ed Cotham, who also serves as the President of the Terry Foundation, walks us through the history Juneteenth from 1865 to the present day.  He is the recent author of "Juneteenth: The Story Behind the Celebration"

Benjamin Fernandes grew up in humble circumstances in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.  His life changed when he was given a scholarship to Haven of Peace Academy, but struggled academically.  His sister, however, found her way to an American university, and Benjamin knew he had to follow in her footsteps.  Initially denied entrance to Northwestern College in Minnesota, he called the admissions director.  The director was so impressed, he let Benjamin in...and Benjamin achieved a 4.0, graduating in 3 years. 

He soon found himself at Stanford where he was inspired to build a company to solve financial access for his fellow Tanzanians.  After a stint at Harvard, then as one of the first African founders to be accepted to the prestigious Y Combinator accelerator, Benjamin now runs Nala out of Tanzania.  He is one of the leading lights in the African entrepreneurship scene, leveraging his former career as a television personality to inspire thousands.

On this episode, we discuss:

+How making cold calls and being determined can unlock opportunity

+What African retail finance looks like now and what Nala hopes to accomplish

+Why Africa may be poised to be a breakout star in the coming decades when it comes to new technology

+How rejecting high paying jobs in pursuit of a God-given passion can change your life

After spending most of his 20s as a Navy SEAL deploying overseas, George Hodgin found himself at Stanford Business School. While helping a fellow veteran navigate challenges with PTSD, despite significant anecdotal evidence touting marijuana's benefits to those recovering from mental illness, George discovered there was little scientific research related to marijuana and PTSD recovery.

It turns out there was a significant gap in the market for cannabis.  Inspired by his friend and a class project, George created the Biopharmaceutical Research Company to create a pathway for academic researchers to access cannabis for medical research. After years of regulatory uncertainty, BRC is now poised to be a leading provider of cannabis to medical research facilities across the United States. In this episode, we discuss:

+The challenges veterans face in transitioning from the military to civilian occupations

+How serendipity and a sense for untapped markets can lead to unimagined outcomes

+The history of marijuana legislation in the United States

+What BRC brings to the table, and what peer-reviewed medical research could to create more nuanced federal regulation related to marijuana

In late January, SpaceX announced that they would launch the first civilian-only commercial flight no earlier than Q4 2021.  Jared Isaacman, CEO of Shift4 Payments, was named as the mission commander and sponsor.  

Dubbed Inspiration 4, Jared is crewing his mission with 3 other individuals.  The first is a front-line medical worker.  The second will be drawn from donors to St Jude Children's Research Hospital.  And the 3rd will be selected from an inspiring group of entrepreneurs who leverage the Shift4Shop platform.

In this episode, Jared takes us deep into his background as a civilian fighter pilot, entrepreneur, the inspiration behind Inspiration 4, and why commercial space flight matters as humanity reaches deeper into our solar system. 

You can register for your chance to head into space at https://inspiration4.com/ - where you can also contribute to the fantastic lifesaving work of St. Judes.

In 2016, a young Baggio Leung was elected to the Hong Kong Legislature on a Pro-democracy platform.  After modifying the oath of office during his swearing in, he was expelled from the body shortly thereafter.  His advocacy became a thorn in the side of the Chinese Communist Party.  Baggio was imprisoned, followed, and ultimately left HK to seek asylum in the U.S. in December 2020. 

Along with his fellow activist Daniel Wong, Baggio takes us into the heart of a city that has gone from beacon of freedom to repressed metropolis in the span of 20 years. In this episode, we discuss:

+What running an election as a pro-democracy candidate is like in modern day Hong Kong

+How the 2019 Extradition Law launched a wave of protests in Hong Kong

+What the personal cost of being a pro-democracy activist is under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party

+What true authoritarianism looks like on the ground...and how America remains a beacon of hope despite our deep partisanship

30-40% of freshmen who start college don't return for their second year.  And in the process, many accrue debt without the degree to bolster future earnings.  Even those who do get a degree end up with tens of thousands in debt that takes an average of 21 years to pay off.  Colleges don't guarantee salaries, occasionally exacerbating financial burdens rather than relieving them. 

Wade Eyerly and Dennis Murashko have a plan to level the playing field.  Through Degree Insurance, Wade and Dennis have created a model that pays out to college graduates who don't make a certain income threshold by their 5th working year.  These insurance policies are paid for by the colleges themselves. 

In this episode we discuss:

+How Wade's background in the highly regulated airline industry prepared him to tackle the insurance market

+How Dennis' legal and actuarial background made him the perfect fit to co-found Degree Insurance

+How insurance for college graduates works

+How the higher ed landscape is evolving

Rob Henderson grew up in poverty, foster care, and was a poor student.  To escape, he joined the Air Force at 17, getting a top score on the military entrance exam, and discovered a love for understanding what makes people tick.  A few years later, he was at Yale, and is now a Gates Cambridge scholar working towards a PhD in psychology. 

More impressive than his secular credentials are the ways he distills insights about human behavior, rooted in his own experiences finding himself in unexpected situations.   His popular twitter feed (@robkhenderson) is one of the highest signal to noise accounts on the platform.  His writings in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Quillette have captured the imagination of those seeking to better understand the trends shaping our world.  And his discovery of "luxury beliefs" reveals that the currency of the elite is no longer materialistic, but rather what you outwardly say you believe.

In this wide-ranging conversation, we discuss:

+How growing up in poverty shaped his perception of the world

+How standardized testing can help talented people in poverty get otherwise unavailable opportunities

+How his upper-class Yale classmates gave him a taste of what drove elite culture

+How he inadvertently grew his twitter following to tens of thousands of followers by tweeting screenshots of the books he voraciously reads

After getting her first job offer out of college, Stephanie Young didn't even think to negotiate her initial salary offer.  She was grateful to have a job and didn't want to offend the hiring manager.  Yet, it turns out she left thousands of dollars on the table that compounded over time. 

Learning from this experience, Stephanie built Riva Negotiations with the aim of helping young professionals negotiate top dollar for new positions. Utilizing artificial intelligence, a vast repository of data, Stephanie and Riva create automated scripts that help professionals in a number of fields understand the market and where they can push salary offers higher.  

In this episode we discuss:

+Why recruiter and hiring managers expect new hires to negotiate starting pay

+The challenges employeers face in hiring the right talent, and how prospective employees can use that to their advantage

+What levers are useful to negotiate before accepting an offer and which ones aren't

+How to use coaching resources to ensure you get the salary you deserve

What kind of man hikes 80 miles in 3 days from the middle of Burma to fly to Iraq and provide humanitarian assistance to ISIS-besieged populations?  Dave Eubank, the founder of the Free Burma Rangers.

After a career with U.S. Special Forces, Dave heard a calling to help the people of Burma.  He uprooted his family, moved to the middle of a civil war, and began building relationships to bring them hope.  His group, The Free Burma Rangers goes where other NGO's wont, bridging the space between the front lines of combat and "safe zones."

In this remarkable conversation we discuss:

+How he and his team saved a 2 year old girl in the middle of a firefight in Mosul, Iraq

+What it's like to raise a family of 5 amidst the world's most challenging geopolitical situations

+How his faith in Jesus drives him to love his enemies...and protect them

+A special guest appearance by his 14-year old son, and the lessons this young man has learned living in Burma, Syria, and other hotspots

After a nearly 20x run up in 2017, the digital currency Bitcoin hit all time highs and was valued at nearly $20,000 per coin.  It quickly collapsed down to ~$4000.  Yet, as we approach the end of 2020, it's value is back to the 20k level, and mainstream adoption is increasing. 

What does the rise of bitcoin mean for our financial system?  What are the regulatory and legal implications of decentralized, digital currencies?

Lawyer and law professor Nelson Rosario joins us to explore these topics.  His fascination with the topic led him to create one of the first law school classes exploring digital currencies.

In this episode, we explore:

+What bitcoin and digital currencies are

+Who is investing in and using these currencies

+What money is - and what it says about society

+The regulatory and legal challenges posed by Bitcoin