Shows / Hardpoints
Hardpoints
Every week, former fighter pilots and current entrepreneurs Neal Rickner & Mike Smith provide unfiltered insights into the biggest stories in startups, energy, and national security.
Episodes
- Hardpoints
Dems Stampede & Vance Says the War is the Reason. Is Hegseth the Fall Guy?
Democrats now hold both the House and the Senate, and James Talarico is the first Democrat to win a Texas Senate race since 1988. The night before the vote…
- Hardpoints
SpaceX Capped Starlink at 100 MPH and Ukraine’s Drones Went Dark. Who Should Hold the Off Switch?
On the night of October 13, Ukraine’s drones start losing their connection. SpaceX has capped the military version of Starlink so that any terminal moving…
- Hardpoints
Your Supplier Might Be Tied to the Chinese Military. How Would You Know?
Louisville Slugger, the official bat of Major League Baseball, sits under a company controlled by a Chinese-led investor group. So does Arc’teryx. Isaac Stone…
- Hardpoints
China Refueled a Satellite in Space and America Still Can’t. Why?
Every military satellite America owns launches with all the fuel it will ever have. When the tank runs dry, a satellite worth hundreds of millions of dollars…
- Hardpoints
Zelensky Is Ignoring Trump and Bombing Russian Refineries. Who Actually Holds the Cards?
Ukraine is hitting Russian oil refineries more than 3,000 kilometers inside Russia with a drone that costs about $55,000. Last weekend, the president of the…
- Hardpoints
The First Russian Diesel Shipment Is Under a Day of U.S. Demand. What Did America Pay for It?
A new Treasury license allows Russian diesel to be sold into the United States through April 7, 2027, after a phone call between President Trump and Vladimir…
- Hardpoints
$10,000 a Household for a Data Center and the Town Still Said No. Bribe or Fair Deal?
Local opposition blocked or delayed an estimated $130 billion in data center projects in the first three months of 2026 alone. In Hazle Township, Pennsylvania…
- Hardpoints
The Pentagon Wants $54 Billion for Drones, Up From $226 Million. Does It Need a Four-Star for Robots?
The Pentagon is asking for $54.6 billion for autonomous warfare next year — up from about $226 million this year. That same week, Secretary Hegseth announces a…
- Hardpoints
Anduril's CEO Says Defense Tech Is a Bubble. So Why Is His Company Talking $100 Billion?
Anduril's valuation doubled from $30.5 billion to $61 billion in under a year, and the company is reportedly in talks with investors at close to $100 billion…
- Hardpoints
417 to 3: Congress Finally Agreed on Your Power Bill — And It Still Didn't Matter
The price of keeping the lights on in America's largest grid went from $29 a megawatt-day to $329 in two years. Utilities have already asked regulators for…
- Hardpoints
Diesel Just Hit $6 a Gallon for the First Time Ever. Can the White House Actually Fix It?
A $20,000 drone just took out 4% of the world's oil supply, and two days later American diesel crossed $6 a gallon for the first time in history. Mike and Neal…
- Hardpoints
We Tariffed Hockey Sticks and Exempted the Oil We Actually Need
At 12:01 AM on September 8, Canada's counter-tariffs went live — roughly 700 American products tiered at 15, 25, and 50 percent, covering nearly 28 billion…
- Hardpoints
Trump's Grid Emergency Order Bans the Two Technologies Actually Fixing the Grid
Nine days before this recording, the White House declared a national emergency over the American power grid—not about blackouts, but about who built the…
- Hardpoints
West Point Fired Its Only Climate Scientist
West Point just fired the only climate scientist on its faculty. Seventeen years of uniformly outstanding reviews, tenure, a grant to research weather systems…
- Hardpoints
The Army Killed Its Drone School While Ordering Every Division to Buy Them. So Who's Actually Learning How to Fight?
Mike and Neal open episode 63 with a contradiction that should worry anyone paying attention to how the Pentagon actually works: the Army stood up a unit in…
- Hardpoints
The Bill Comes Due: America Just Hit $40 Trillion, and the Pentagon Is Picking Up the Tab
America just crossed $40 trillion in national debt for the first time in history—and the number that should really worry you isn't the debt itself. It's what's…
- Hardpoints
The Navy Kept a Carrier at Sea for 260 Days. Trump Says That Wasn't Long Enough.
The USS Abraham Lincoln left San Diego last November for a routine six-month deployment. It has now been at sea more than 260 days with no return date, sailors…
- Hardpoints
America's Nuclear Reactor Made Zero Watts of Power. Welcome to the Golden Era?
On June 4th, a reactor at Idaho National Lab hit something called "zero power criticality"—energy in equaled energy out. The plant won't produce a single…
- Hardpoints
You Are Not the President: What Tuesday's DCA Incident Actually Tells Regular Flyers About Their Safety
A missed radio call at Reagan National this week put the president's helicopter in a near miss with a commercial jet. Nobody died. Nobody even remembers it…
- Hardpoints
Nine Carriers vs. None: Why China Builds Ships 230 Times Faster Than We Do — And Who's Actually Fixing It
China's naval intelligence assessment puts Beijing's shipbuilding capacity at 230 times America's. They already have 370 warships to America's 287, climbing to…
- Hardpoints
Oil Executives Cashed Out $400 Million Since the Iran War Began. Who Picks Up the Tab?
Oil and gas executives have sold nearly $400 million of their own company stock since the Iran war started. The ConocoPhillips CEO alone sold $80 million in…
- Hardpoints
China Is Building the Factory. America Built the Chatbot. Are We Winning the Wrong Race?
China is installing five times more industrial robots than the United States and running fully automated dark factories with no human workers. American AI…
- Hardpoints
Europe Is Cooking and Its Grid Is Shutting Down. Do We Know What's Coming?
Thirteen hundred people are dead across Europe. Train tracks in Leipzig melted, suspending service. France's nuclear reactors are shutting down—not because of…
- Hardpoints
SpaceX Can Drop Tungsten Telephone Poles from Orbit. Who Controls That Power?
Getting one kilogram to low Earth orbit cost $54,000 on the Space Shuttle. Falcon 9 brought it to roughly $2,500. Starship targets under $200. That 500x…
- Hardpoints
AI Is Erasing Entry-Level Jobs. National Service Might Be The Answer.
Three million Americans graduated this year into the worst entry-level job market in two decades. Graduate unemployment is running higher than it did at the…
- Hardpoints
11 Million People, No Power, 90 Miles Away: What's the Cuba Endgame?
In this episode of Hardpoints, Mike and Neal turn to a story that's quietly fallen out of the headlines: Cuba. Ninety miles off the coast of Florida, 11…
- Hardpoints
Humanities Majors are Beating Computer Science. The World Has Shifted.
Three million students graduated from American colleges this year and walked straight into the worst entry-level job market in two decades. Recent graduate…
- Hardpoints
America is Being Forced to Burn More Coal. AI & Politics Did This
In May, the Department of Energy issued six emergency orders to keep coal plants that were supposed to be retired running through the summer. One in…
- Hardpoints
250 Wind Farms Blocked. 15 Million Homes Worth of Energy. The Pentagon Calls It National Security.
The Pentagon declared an energy emergency. It's also burning through missiles at a record pace and asking for a 1,327% increase in Tomahawk procurement. So why…
- Hardpoints
China Told Trump: Touch Taiwan and We Go to War
Yesterday in Beijing, President Xi told President Trump directly: if Taiwan is not handled properly, the two countries will have — and he used the word —…
- Hardpoints
We Accidentally Made China the Climate Superpower
The Strait of Hormuz has been closed for months. Qatar's LNG complex took a direct hit in March and won't be back online for three to five years. Asian spot…
- Hardpoints
When Insurance Leaves, Everything Else Follows
Four hundred thousand home insurance policies canceled in California since 2021. Twenty-nine percent of markets in the state are already showing slowed home…
- Hardpoints
Canada Keeps Your Lights On. So Why Are We Treating Them Like an Enemy?
Canada supplies 98% of America's natural gas imports, 93% of its electricity imports, and more than half of the oil it brings in from abroad. Three years ago…
- Hardpoints
We Burned Through Half Our Missiles in Seven Weeks... Now What?
In the first 72 hours of Operation Epic Fury, the U.S. Navy fired roughly 400 Tomahawk cruise missiles into Iran. More than the total number produced over the…
- Hardpoints
The AI That Taught Itself to Hack — And What Happens When China Gets It
Anthropic built an AI so dangerous they refused to release it. Mythos taught itself to find vulnerabilities, chain them together, and take down entire systems…
- Hardpoints
The Underwater War Nobody's Talking About
95% of all international internet traffic — every email, financial transaction, and military communication crossing the ocean — runs through undersea cables…
- Hardpoints
Why VCs Are Betting on Fusion (And Why They Probably Shouldn't)
There's $2 trillion a year flowing into energy — and almost none of it is reaching the startups that could actually change things. Mike and Neal break down the…
- Hardpoints
Speaking Up From America While Your Family's Still in Tehran
The Iranian regime broadcast a message on national TV: parents, go tell your children not to protest — and if something happens to them, don't complain. Then…
- Hardpoints
Ghosts in the Grid: China’s Sleeper Access, a Plan With No Plan, and America’s Energy Security Gap
"This episode of Hardpoints tackles a threat that sounds hypothetical—but isn’t: Chinese military-linked operators are already inside parts of the U.S. power…
- Hardpoints
Iran, China, Russia: The Oil Chessboard
"In this episode of Hardpoints, Mike and Neal zoom out from the daily headlines to unpack the big geopolitical logic of oil war—and why the U.S. may be…
- Hardpoints
When War Planning Fails: The Iran School Strike
In Episode 37, Mike and Neal tackle one of the darkest and most consequential questions to come out of the Iran strikes: who killed 175 schoolgirls at a girls’…
- Hardpoints
Operation Epic Fury: Iran Strikes, Hormuz Tightens, and the Old World Order Cracks
In this episode of Hardpoints, Mike and Neal break down the opening days of a rapidly escalating war with Iran. Following Operation Epic Fury - coordinated…
- Hardpoints
EPA Pulls the Jenga Block: The Endangerment Finding Falls and Climate Policy Enters a New Era of Uncertainty
Episode 34 tackles a seismic shift in U.S. climate policy: the administration’s February 12 move to strike down the EPA’s 2009 Endangerment Finding—the legal…
- Hardpoints
Pentagon vs. AI Guardrails: Anthropic Draws a Line on Autonomous Lethality & Domestic Surveillance
Episode 33 dives straight into the collision between national security priorities and AI safety red lines. Mike and Neal unpack a brewing showdown: the…
- Hardpoints
“No U.S. Parts”: Lessons from the Munich Security Conference
Neal’s back from Munich with a ground-truth readout from the security ecosystem surrounding the Munich Security Conference—and the headline is simple: in…
- Hardpoints
Drones, Darkness, and Disruption: Ukraine’s Energy War and the Startup Response
Ukraine’s power grid has become a frontline target—and drones are the weapon of choice. In this episode of Hardpoints, Mike and Neal continue the new…
- Hardpoints
$2.3 Trillion on the Table: Batteries, Power, and the New Energy Arms Race
Global energy investment just hit $2.3 trillion—and batteries are at the center of it all. In this episode of Hardpoints, Mike and Neal kick off a new, tighter…
- Hardpoints
Building Big Things
In this episode of Hardpoints, Mike and Neal dive into the intersection of energy security and the startup economy, discussing the implications of recent…
- Hardpoints
Operation Absolute Resolve: Venezuela Shock, Oil Politics, and the AI-Driven Startup Squeeze
Hardpoints kicks off the new year with Mike and Neal swapping quick holiday stories—family downtime, e-bikes, skiing attempts—and then diving into a…
- Hardpoints
Pushing the Edge
Managing risk is a huge part of being in the military, running a startup, and working national security. You have to push to find solutions, but you need to…
- Hardpoints
Turkey & Energy Transition
In this episode of Hardpoints, hosts Mike Smith and Neal Rickner delve into the intersection of energy security and the startup economy, exploring how these…
- Hardpoints
The Game is Rigged
In this episode of Hardpoints, hosts Mike Smith and Neal Rickner delve into the intricate world of rigged systems, from gambling scandals involving NBA players…
- Hardpoints
Wind Wins, Power Shortfalls, and “War-Zone” Politics
Aging jokes aside, Neal & Mike riff on precision in speech—why lazy phrases (“hate mail,” “to be honest…”) muddy debate and how clear language shapes how we…
- Hardpoints
Maintaining Accountability in Energy, Climate, & Security
In this episode of Hardpoints, hosts Mike Smith and Neal Rickner are joined by Alexander McCoy, a veterans advocate and climate campaign leader, to explore the…
- Hardpoints
Moral Courage and the Future of Energy
In this episode, Mike Smith and Neal Rickner discuss the intersection of energy security and the startup economy, touching on various themes such as public…
- Hardpoints
Wind, War & Warning Signs
Neal lands a lead investor—unlocking insider commitments and government matching funds—buying his company ~18 months of runway and hard-won momentum. Mike…
- Hardpoints
Troops in DC, Intel Bailout, and Authoritarian Drift
In this episode of Hardpoints, Mike and Neal weave personal stories—like sleepless nights, scout projects, and time outdoors—into heavier discussions on U.S…
- Hardpoints
Burning the World to Distract from Epstein
This week on Hardpoints, Mike returns from an epic, no-internet, log-hopping backpacking trip in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains, while Neal hustles through…
- Hardpoints
Thirsting for Leadership, But Drinking the Sand
In this fiery and deeply personal episode of Hard Points, Mike and Neal dive into the illusion of leadership in American politics, kicking off with a sobering…
- Hardpoints
Truth Is Quieter Than You Think
Conspiracy theories thrive where the official story falls flat—when the world feels rigged, unfair, or just off. This episode of Hardpoints meets that unease…