The Entrepreneur's Ethic

Agricultural entrepreneur Zack Smith is bringing ancient agricultural ideas into the present time at his startup, Stockcropper. Combining livestock and crop farming is ancient. A robotic barn with multiple species and a creative strip cropping method? That's new. We discussed three decisions, one practical, one principled and one weird. There’s Rock ‘n’ Roll, whiskey and Twitter stories you don’t want to miss.

We’re always looking for feedback on the podcast as it evolves, so let me know what you like and what you think can be improved.

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Agricultural entrepreneur Harry Stine has worked over his decades on another core agricultural technology, the seed, at Stine Seed Company. He started breeding soybeans before there was intellectual property protection for open-pollinated crops like soybeans. Today, his business is the largest independent seed company in the U.S.

This is the fourth installment of my exploration of Ethic 6: Enjoy the Edge from my upcoming book The Entrepreneur's Ethic.

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Serial entrepreneur Colin Hurd has worked on much more modern tools for agriculture and beyond. His most recent business, MACH, develops technology for solutions in perception, navigation, route planning, monitoring, and connectivity. If it’s off-road and autonomous, Colin is probably working on it.

This is the third installment in my exploration of historic entrepreneur John Deere and the way he exemplified Ethic 6: Enjoy the Edge.

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In this week’s podcast, I interview Deere historian and archivist Neil Dahlstrom about John Deere and his legacy. Neil describes John Deere as a frontier entrepreneur archetype. You’ll enjoy learning about what he means by this and how a frontier mindset might be useful for you today.

This is the second installment in my exploration of Ethic 6: Enjoy the Edge, as exemplified by historic entrepreneur John Deere.

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One of the Entrepreneurs featured in my upcoming book, The Entrepreneur’s Ethic, is John Deere, the historic agricultural entrepreneur. Deere’s fame and fortune resulted from his work innovating the plow over decades, that most ancient of agricultural tools.

There are seven parts of The Entrepreneur’s Ethic. Deere’s work exemplifies Ethic 6: Enjoy the Edge. This is the truth-seeking-orientation of entrepreneurship.

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This week’s episode is a great conversation with Jon Housholder. Jon is co-founder, co-owner, director, editor and producer with Unrivaled Films. Unrivaled Films has produced critically acclaimed documentaries for major streaming services, network television docuseries, viral music videos, and nationally televised commercial branding ventures all around the world. He is a three-time Emmy Award winner as a producer, editor, and director.

This is the fourth installment in my exploration of Ethic 4: Invest in Tomorrow.

 This week’s episode is a great conversation with ⁠Derral Eves⁠. Derral is one of the world’s top YouTube and online video marketing experts. As an example, he’s coached and worked with ⁠MrBeast⁠, whose ⁠YouTube channel⁠ is considered to be the most-subscribed channels whose owner is an individual.

There are seven parts of The Entrepreneur’s Ethic, as discussed in my upcoming book. This episode is the third installment of my exploration of Walt Disney, whose work exemplifies Ethic 4: Invest for Tomorrow. This is the future-orientation of entrepreneurship.

This week, I explore the entrepreneurial legacy of Walt Disney with David Bossert. David is an award-winning artist, filmmaker, and author. He is a veteran of The Walt Disney Company, and a Disney historian, and an authority on Disney art and animation history. We discuss Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, as a book David wrote about it was the primary source for last week’s historic case study, what it was like to work with Disney, and his core strengths and legacy.

This is the second episode exploring Walt Disney and the way he exemplifies Ethic 4: Invest in Tomorrow.

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This is the story of Walt Disney's first breakout animated character. But this character is not a mouse. Disney would eventually envision the business model that guides the business he founded to this day, but this case study explores how early mistakes and business betrayals helped shape his later decisions. And seventy years after these events, Disney (the company) would enter a sports trade to get back what Walt Disney had lost in a set of events that can only be called weird.

This is the first episode exploring Ethic 4: Invest for Tomorrow.

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Kevin explores today’s distilling industry with Rob Taylor, co-founder of Revelton Distillery, a business located in south central Iowa. More alcohol is distilled in Iowa than any other state – by a significant distance actually – but most of it goes into cars as ethanol-blended gasoline. Rob is distilling for a different purpose. They discuss the origin story of the business, Rob’s grain to glass strategy, his ‘go big or go home’ approach, the role of artisans in alcohol and why the weather in Iowa is good not just for growing corn, but for making fine bourbon. There’s also discussion of the role of mentors, another important part of The Entrepreneur’s Ethic.

This is episode four in Kevin's examination of historic entrepreneur Francis Cabot Lowell and his impact on the world.

Editor's note: this episode was recorded in October 2022.

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