On the eve of the 24th anniversary of September 11th, Jordan Hirsch sits down with Mike Gallagher—former Marine Corps intelligence officer, seven-year Congressman, and current Palantirian—for a conversation about American resilience and innovation.

From his deployments in Iraq to the halls of Congress, Mike witnessed firsthand how Americans adapt to meet existential challenges. In this episode, he draws parallels between the post-9/11 transformation of America's strategy to fight terrorism and its present-day technological competition with China, making the case for why AI must amplify—not replace—American workers.

Mike shares insights on reindustrializing America's defense base, real examples of AI empowering shipyard workers and dairy farmers, and why he's optimistic that American ingenuity, supercharged by AI that augments human judgement and creativity, will secure our future.

For the first time since the 1970s, we're witnessing a breakthrough that could reignite economic growth and human progress. In this inaugural episode of Working Intelligence: The AI Optimism Project, economist Tyler Cowen explains why AI represents what he calls a 'major civilizational advance' — one that will finally end the Great Stagnation that has constrained productivity for half a century.

Join Sophie Singletary and Tyler Cowen as they explore how AI is already democratizing access to medical and legal expertise, why America's deep capital markets and entrepreneurial culture position it to lead—and win—the AI revolution, and what the energy demands of AI mean for American independence. Cowen argues that far from destroying jobs, AI will unleash a wave of new ventures and creative work by eliminating routine tasks and making it radically easier to start a company.

This is a conversation about why the next chapter of human progress is being written right now, and why there's never been a more exciting time to be alive.