What the Tech!?! SpaceX IPO Edition – Episode 13 of Unbuffered

Christopher Mitchell (00:15)
Hey, I’m feeling particularly Unbuffered today. ⁓ it’s a pretty Unbuffered day sitting here, the the first business day after the IPO of ⁓ of SpaceX, sitting here on Monday. I’m Chris Mitchell at the Institute for Local Self Reliance. I’m in Saint Paul, Minnesota. This is an episode of Unbuffered, and I’m talking today with my colleagues here at the Institute for Local Self Reliance, Sean Gonsalves. Welcome.

Sean Gonsalves (00:38)
That’s right. ⁓ s Warren Buffett’s savvy in investor advisor that nobody knows about. That’s why I’m here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And if anybody believes that, they should buy they should they should spend all of their life savings buying ⁓ stock in SpaceX.

Christopher Mitchell (00:44)
That’s that’s where you came to us from. And Jordan

And we also got Jordan Pittman. Jordan, welcome to the show.

Jordan Pittman (01:01)
I know, usually behind the scenes, but in the forefront now. Just like the Knicks. Shout out the Knicks. They are got I had to shout out, man. It feels like the upside down world. I like woke up and I was like, yeah man, they actually won. Wow. So

Christopher Mitchell (01:09)
Yeah.

So we

are not financial professionals. And we also welcome the Knicks victory with you know, a little bit of a a little bit of a heavy heart for our friends in San Antonio who do wonderful work and we’ll be back undoubtedly for championship rings sometime soon. ⁓ but today we’re gonna be talking a bit about Elon Musk. We’re splitting this show into two parts, and the first part is gonna be about Elon Musk, SpaceX, and that sort of thing, because there’s some stuff going on that I just I can’t let it slide, is driving me crazy. And ⁓ the second part of the show.

Is an interview with Jeff Gavlinski, who does a wonderful event called Mountain Connect that Sean and I have gone to. I’ve been to it a lot of times. It’s in Colorado in August. And we’re going to talk about that and why it’s not your average event and a bit about the industry. So ⁓ stay tuned for that. But before we get there, I just I had to talk a little bit more about this thing because there’s a few things. And we got something we’re gonna try out. We’re actually gonna be responding to some clips that we pulled ⁓ because I can’t wrap my head around what is going on.

Except for to ask this and I I already know the answer because I checked in with you guys ahead of time, but like Sean and Jordan, have either one of you heard the term Muppets in return in or rip your face off, rip their face off in terms of Wall Street?

Sean Gonsalves (02:27)
When no, when I hear about the Muppets, I think about the Muppets show that I grew up on.

Jordan Pittman (02:31)
Right, same here, yeah. I b have no recollection, no.

Christopher Mitchell (02:31)
Mm-hmm.

So in 2012, emails came out. I think it was around then. and it was after the after the Wall Street had destroyed the entire US economy and took homes away from millions of American families, ⁓ by having swindled them out of with with the law and the law not bothering to help out people who had been totally screwed over. Goldman Sachs emails came out in which they repeatedly referred to clients that were unsophisticated as Muppets and bragged about ripping their face off.

Sean Gonsalves (03:03)
Mm.

Christopher Mitchell (03:03)
because these were sophisticated people who are taking advantage of other unsophisticated investors. ⁓ and so that comes to time, comes to mind right now with SpaceX, which to me, in talking with Karl Bode last week, we talked about this. It’s a bomb. And I don’t remember we recorded a show. I don’t know that it was for for TikTok being cut up. I don’t know if that part made it in. I don’t remember. It’s a bomb. It’s a time bomb in particular. And ⁓ Jordan’s saying, yeah, I think that part was in there.

Jordan Pittman (03:32)
Yeah, yeah, that that’s ⁓ actually one of my favorite parts. It’s like you didn’t say it was a bomb. You said you thought it was an atomic bomb. Like I wanna really specify that. So yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (03:40)
Yeah, I I I said, I mean, I feel like

this filing could very well ⁓ be the the part of a of a major ⁓ downfall of the economy, the mar market led and kind of like 1929 kind of territory. ⁓ but none of us are traders, none of us are are financial experts. This is not advice, this is more of us trying to explain what we know about Starlink, what we know about SpaceX, and why.

We just think it’s a crazy world out there that whenever we see this coverage of SpaceX. At least that’s how I think of it, Sean. How do ya is that

Sean Gonsalves (04:10)
Yeah.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. I mean w I don’t know how many companies are wrapped up in SpaceX these days. I mean there’s Starlink, there’s you know, the the Rocket Company, there’s Tesla, all this other stuff. And I think Tesla’s not okay.

Christopher Mitchell (04:23)
Actually Tesla’s not. It’s just for point no

Tesla’s actually not a part of that yet, but there is a talk about bringing it together. But it is the Grok AI. It’s X, it’s ⁓ you know, it’s it’s like you said, SpaceX, Starlink is a part of that. I don’t know what else is in there, but those are the big ones.

Sean Gonsalves (04:40)
Well, it feels it feels to me what Elon Musk is the only genius he might be a genius at, the only thing that he may be a genius at is convincing people of a bunch of bullshit. Wha so like it just feels to me like this is a way for him to be a trillionaire on paper and to generate something like seventy-five billion dollars in cash and it’s like this is a way to like, I don’t know, a shell game to like move money around in in in these companies and keep making these promises. So to me, you know, I I you know, where’s the hyperloop? Where’s the

Where where where’s the a nation full of self-driving cars? Where’s the mission to Mars? It it all just ex it’s it’s like he’s great at selling this dream of the future. And again, not being an investor and not having, you know, studied this carefully, it just smells funky to me from a distance. And you know, just as a regular person with a 401K

I’m super concerned about whether or not, you know, that’s gonna be rated to help fund ⁓ to to help fund this monstrosity.

Jordan Pittman (05:42)
What?

Christopher Mitchell (05:42)
Right,

because the index funds being required to buy in under the rules under the Nasdaq and ⁓ and potentially some other exchanges. Jordan, were you gonna say something?

Jordan Pittman (05:50)
Yeah, I was gonna say, Sean, you said as a person doesn’t invest, well, because of those rule changes, you are an investor, whether you like it or not. So it’s actually even more critical that average person’s asking themselves, Well, you’re telling me this is the greatest thing since sliced bread. You’re forcing me to invest in this even though I didn’t have no stake in it. ⁓ I would

Sean Gonsalves (05:56)
That’s right. Right.

Jordan Pittman (06:10)
I don’t know, I would like for it to go well, but based off everything we’ve been talking about to this point, the only thing Elon’s really good at is that marketing, man. Like he’s really good at somehow convincing these, you know, investors, board directors, members, whatever the case may be, that what his vision is for the future is great. Which on paper sounds great. Like going to Mars, the eight-year-old in me is like, I love that.

How are we gonna do that? Because mind you, SpaceX, most of the funding, if I’m not mistaken, is coming from our tax dollars anyway. So where’s my dividends from all this actually?

Christopher Mitchell (06:40)
Yeah. Well

that we’ll we’ll talk a bit about that. I mean, I feel like so Musk gave ⁓ a historic amount of money to the president and then has himself made a historic amount of money in a way that seems totally shady, having changed changed a bunch of the rules to benefit in the ways that I don’t know that that Trump necessarily did it for him, President Trump, but ⁓ but it’s just it’s gross to see this sort of a thing. And I do feel like there’s a lot of Muppets who are being taken for a ride. And ⁓ and there’s a lot of young people who are gonna put their money into this, and I feel like

Sean Gonsalves (07:01)
Yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (07:09)
You know, that’s on them. They’re making decisions. We treated people like adults. They get they make those decisions. But like I think this is it’s a gross situation. But we’re gonna we got a couple of clips to respond to. We gotta keep this tight. Go ahead, Sean.

Sean Gonsalves (07:21)
no, I was just wanted to say that, ⁓ of the various businesses that are rolled up into this, it’s I think Starlink is the only one that actually generates any real revenue, right? I mean, so I d I just don’t understand how it could be valued so high and it it you know, and it’s a bunch of businesses that don’t really make any any money.

Christopher Mitchell (07:31)
That’s right.

So so this is something that we’re gonna talk more about in after one of the clips in terms of what people think. But the way it’s structured is the idea is that is that the data center and AI business is going to be pulling in an ungodly amount of money. It’s gonna be pulling in so much money that even though Starlink will be pulling in something like 75, 80% of all the money on the entire planet spent on telecommunications.

That will be a small sliver of the money pulled in by this AI thing, which by the way, ⁓ Elon just purchased as a part of his ⁓ his empire within SpaceX, right? Because like he controls it, he calls the shots. So it’s a board of directors, but they’re a rubber stamp. And he’s gonna continue to control like 85% of this company, the decisions that are made. There is no, there is no one else checking him. And he just paid a lot of money for him to bring his own other company, Grok AI, into the portfolio.

Sean Gonsalves (08:22)
Mm-hmm.

Christopher Mitchell (08:35)
While he was saying it was built incorrectly the first time around, that it was not there was not a lot of value there. He majorly he overpaid for himself, right? I’m gonna talk a little bit about Tesla. What’s Tesla’s number one sale right now? It’s the cyber trucks to himself, other divisions, right? SpaceX is buying Cybertruck after Cybertruck. And so, like, like this is like one of those things. Like this is a ⁓ this is ⁓ it’s gross. And and it’s not the only time this has happened, but this is a new scale of like how wealthy people figure out how to fool people.

Sean Gonsalves (08:47)
Yeah.

Right.

Christopher Mitchell (09:04)
And and the retail investors and take their money with a media that is incapable of covering ⁓ what’s actually going on out there. And so that’s why I want to talk about it. Like this is in our wheelhouse, even though it’s not. So let’s play the first clip because we wanted to respond to ⁓ Jason Calacanis, who was on ⁓ an episode of the Bulwark show with Tim Miller, and he said this thing, which is it’s it’s it’s like it’s the word of God. Everyone believes this, right?

Let’s pause her there. Yeah. So, like, this is the thing, right? People are like, and and Travis has said this to me on numerous occasions. You can’t bet against Elon. What are you talking about? Like, I’ll tell you this. When he challenged Mark Zuckerberg to a cage fight, I should have put money on Mark Zuckerberg. One of the few times I would have done that, you know? Like, and what happened? Elon backed out. Elon, ⁓ a guy who lies about everything all the time. A guy who accomplished a David Blaine level magic trick.

In taking Twitter and making it worse, right? Like, I actually kind of liked it, but like it is way worse now, no matter how you want to measure it. Like engagement, money, ads, like whatever you want to call it. Like, Twitter is way worse off now. Tesla, what has he done to Tesla? Tesla’s sales are shrinking across the board. They can’t even compete with BYD, but it doesn’t matter because no one wants to buy it because the man who runs it keeps throwing up Sieg Heil and talking about things and supporting Nazi parties around the world.

The guy has like totally destroyed Tesla, which is a company that like a lot of people were pretty excited about. He literally went after his user base and pissed them off, like for no reason. Just what what exactly why would you bet on this man? Like this man who told us we would have full self-driving like 10 years ago and then six months ago told us, but now it’s really coming. And I’m gonna have half of the all Americans are gonna be able to h ride it ⁓ to be able to like hail a ride by the end of 2025, right?

Sean Gonsalves (11:06)
Right. Right.

Christopher Mitchell (11:16)
And now here we sit halfway through 2026. It’s in three cities in Texas. He’s got 59 vehicles, according to all the reports, and they are worse than the average driver. I’m a huge supporter of AI driving because Americans, human beings, are bad drivers. I’ve I’ve driven, I don’t know, like seven, eight or eight different countries on three continents. People are bad drivers. He’s made a worse system. Like there’s like what like the guy brought screw worm back to Texas.

The guy said he was gonna cut $2 trillion out of the US budget, which is insane because that’s more than the US budget, basically. And then he cut it back to 150 billion. And then it turned out they were lying about all of that. He actually ended up costing more money. And on top of that, people are still like, don’t bet against him. Do you remember the Wisconsin Supreme Court race where he decided to get in on it? This guy, this guy lives like, I swear, like, I don’t know, like, if he’s like surrounded by monkeys for all the banana peels he’s slipping on on the regular, but like

The guy screws up everything that he touches. And somehow he’s annoyed as being a genius.

Sean Gonsalves (12:16)
Well, if if by

Yeah, well if if by not betting against it means don’t bet against the you know

I don’t remember if it was PT Barnum or somebody, but somebody one of those people made made, I think, made a comment about how lucrative it is to bet on the public to buy into a bunch of nonsense. And so if by not betting against Elon, that’s what that dude meant, then maybe. But like you said, I feel like everything the dude says is a lie or this ridiculous exaggeration. And it’s built on this carefully crafted PR.

⁓ manicured image that he’s some genius. Like he’s literally building rockets in his basement. And I don’t see any evidence of him being a genius at anything other than convincing people that this is gonna be the future. So when we talk about let’s just talk about telecom for example. 75 to 80% of the entire telecom entry is gonna be is essentially what getting internet from Starlink?

Christopher Mitchell (13:25)
You know who says that? People so I mean, yeah, that’s the claim, but like this is literally the caliber of the people, the Jason Calacanis, They’re like, man, I was on this flight and the SpaceX, you know, we use Starlink and it was amazing. The whole world’s gonna be using this. And I’m like, that’s quite a leap from this plane internet is better than the old plane internet to like the whole world is going to use this. And I, a person who is barely able to use the internet, am gonna claim that I know what the whole world’s gonna be using in the future. It’s just it’s lunacy.

Sean Gonsalves (13:41)
Yeah.

That’s a big

is i is lunacy. And to say nothing of the fact that they don’t exactly have a great track record in launching rockets that don’t explode. I mean, there’s still a lot more satellites that would need to be deployed.

Christopher Mitchell (14:04)
Well they are, you know, so yeah,

yeah, but let’s be clear. Falcon nine, wonderful. Gwynne Shotwell, the SpaceX team have really done a good job. And I will say, I think Elon Musk, he is obsessive about some things, and he demanded that ⁓ they and his his big idea was that the rockets would be reusable, right? And and he pushed for that hard. And that is like it’s really important. I don’t I don’t want to take it away from him. Like he gets that. Other people have designed it. Now he’s pushed ahead with the starship, which is a much larger launch vehicle.

That pushes up against the limits of what any engineer has ever been able to accomplish or any team of engineers. And so far, it’s not doing great. It has gone up a couple of times without blowing up. The Starship is needed to be able to go to Mars, to be able to do a bunch of other stuff. ⁓ the Falcon 9 is wonderful, but we can’t do a lot of new things with it. and so, like, just for people that are trying to keep track of that, and not only that, but on SpaceX, 70% of SpaceX’s business is Starlink.

Which brings me back to a comment that Matt Larson shared with us, who’s been in this business for 30 years running an ISP. Matt Larson running VistaBeam. Have a lot of respect for him. And he had basically said if you want to build a rocket company, you want to be able to justify a ton of launches. You want to put up a whole bunch of satellites. This is a good way to get investors to pay you to do that. That’s what Starlink has been. Starlink has been really successful in that metric. But like it’s got what, 11 million users now? And its ARPU is down to 66 after being in ninety-eight, ninety-nine two years ago.

Sean Gonsalves (15:00)
Right.

Christopher Mitchell (15:30)
Like the state of Maine had a program in which it was like, come get your free Starlink and they had enough for like a few hundred people in the specific regions where they don’t have any other access and they couldn’t give away. I think they gave away like five percent. Like no one actually said it officially, right? So like there’s there’s all kinds of insanity going on with this. now we also Karl just jumped in. So I want to make sure Karl Bode’s here now.

Sean Gonsalves (15:48)
Look look look look Yeah, look who came in from outer space, E

Elon’s biggest fan.

Karl (15:53)
Yeah, I’m a huge fan. Now you guys know it. I’m sorry I’m late. I got into life ⁓ serious life issues, but I am here now. Yeah, ⁓ start Yeah, thank you. ⁓ I appreciate your I appreciate your patience. yeah. I was they have like ten million subscribers, right? And I was watching that Jason Calacanis video you sent to me where they’re predicting that it’s gonna like three hundred to five hundred million subscribers. And to do that they have to start

Christopher Mitchell (16:00)
well, so you’re serious life issues but you’re joining us. Like, all right, let’s talk about something important.

Karl (16:18)
They’re already seeing, as you mentioned, reduced subscriber revenue because they’re having to lower price to even function and get people to sign up. But to get to those huge numbers, which just be like Netflix grade content, you would have to really start competing with entrenched monopoly providers, right? So that means lower prices. That means more congestion on your network, that means introducing a whole bunch of restrictions on the network like throttling of 4K video and weird network management stuff that’s gonna degrade the quality. And this is a company that has never had functional customer service.

Right. So as those problems escalate, you’re gonna just run into issues where people are very unhappy. ⁓ so this is all this is all lined up to be a hot mess.

Jordan Pittman (16:57)
I don’t know.

Christopher Mitchell (16:57)
Yeah, we have

that clip. Jordan, you wanna you wanna throw that clip up?

Jordan Pittman (16:59)
Yeah, yeah, as I throw that clip up, I just wanna say like one point to your thing about

Betting against Elon. I think I don’t like that statement because kind of similar to how Spider-Man is like the face of New York when you think of New York. I think Elon is the face of late stage capitalism. I think we don’t bet against Elon. We don’t bet against a system that won’t allow itself to fail because they actually don’t even believe in capitalism. The people who say they actually believe in it the most, if they actually genuinely believe in this free market system, if it didn’t work, it would collapse. But here we are, we had given a man premise of all this millions, trillions of dollars for what?

What? Just on a hopes of some of this stuff works out? Now imagine me, old Jordan Pittman, go into a bank or go to Wall Street and be like, Hey, my name’s Jordan Pittman. I want to go to the moon by twenty forty. These are my ideas and have. Do you know what they’re gonna do to me? That board room would laugh at me. They’ll kick me out immediately. But no, because I don’t know, Elon has or I don’t know what the case is. It’s almost like it’s a constant reminder to a very ⁓ real issue that everybody’s feeling is like

For individual people, I am struggling day to day just to make ends meet. Meanwhile, people at the top can just buddy with each other and make sure everybody has the funds and stuff that need to be, whatever they want to be, at the top one percent. And that frustration is real. Everybody can feel that, but cross the political aisle. It’s just frustrating that these people at the one percent continue to like, yeah, we’re not the issue. Just give us more money and we’ll solve all these problems. And it’s just like, I don’t know, it’s just it’s super frustrating. So

Christopher Mitchell (18:27)
No, and

I want to bring it, I want to bring it back before you do the clip because Karl missed the part where I was talking about. Karl, do you remember the term Muppets from Goldman Sachs? The financial engineering. I just want to hit this over and over again to be clear. Like, this is not like your garden variety IPO. IPOs have a bunch of rules in order to protect unsavvy investors like me, although I’m not involved in this one, but like I’m a stereotypical kind of person. Like I I shop around for index funds. I may occasionally buy a little bit of Ford stock one. I love the lightning, even though I’m kind of alone on that.

Karl (18:34)
Yeah. A little bit, yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (18:56)
Also, just note the Ford Lightning considered to be a total bomb outsold the the Elon Musk’s truck, the cyber truck. So ⁓ keep that in mind when people talk about what a genius he is. ⁓ this is designed so that when the it hits the indexes, the indexes have to buy a small number of shares that have made available. Usually, if you’re gonna require the index funds to buy all these shares, there has to be a large number available so you don’t have a massive swing in the price.

This is designed so the people that are already in, Elon Musk, his friends, the people that have loaned him money, all gonna hit their payday right when Sean, me, Jordan, I don’t know, Karl, if you have a 401k or a Roth IRA or any of that stuff. But like as soon as that stuff hits, all these other it’s gonna drive the price up and those institutional people are gonna cash out. And then we’re gonna be stuck having to have this position. And it is it is just infuriating that they’ve totally changed the rules. The system was set up so you didn’t have these kinds of dumb swings.

Karl (19:36)
Yep. Yep.

I’m sorry. I think I think when the when the shit hits the fan I think everybody’s gonna stand around with a dumb look on their face like that Spider Man meme pointing at each other wondering how we got here, that’s exactly what’s gonna be happening like we didn’t. How could we have known? You know, it’s only clearly obvious math.

You know, how would we have known this is go bad and the IPO ha gives him an eighty five percent, eighty to eighty five percent you know, pretty much unmitigatable ⁓ control of the whole company. So as he kind of unhinges and untethers and gets weirder, which is I think inevitable because based on what we’ve seen so far, it’s just gonna get worse. And we’ve we’ve affixed that to the entire US economy and you can’t tell me that’s not gonna end badly for people.

Christopher Mitchell (20:30)
Yeah. So let’s let’s end up here talking about the addressable market. But Jordan, go ahead and hit that. Karl’s already responded to a part of it. Let’s let’s ⁓ finish it off.

A history of humanity more than Netflix.

Karl (20:55)
Ha ha

Christopher Mitchell (21:06)
Most people are putting it on as a backup.

Karl (21:08)
Who hasn’t, really?

Sean Gonsalves (21:13)
Yeah, ’cause I first of all, what’s crazy about this to me is well, what it reminds me of is that I’m r the it just became clear to me that almost everybody that talks about Starlink out in the world knows nothing about Starlink. Or how it works.

Christopher Mitchell (21:26)
No, it’s magic from

the magic from the universe.

Karl (21:29)
Yeah.

Yep. Exactly right. Like Rogan had ⁓ somebody on Buscon there to talk about Starlink and they really see it as like a magic pixie dust. They think you just sprinkle it everywhere, there’s no limits. They don’t really care about the technical specifics of it, despite pro being self proclaimed engineers. They don’t care how it works. They don’t care if it works. They’re there to accumulate money in any way possible. They they just

Christopher Mitchell (21:49)
Yeah, we complain

about the telephone and cable companies. To be clear, their service is better and cheaper than Starlink, right? Right. They have better customer service like Comcast, Charter Spectrum, and AT&T beat them on customer service.

Karl (21:56)
Yeah. And their c their customer service exists, you know, and their customer service is And and and they’ve been his among customers. Yeah,

yeah. And that’s hard to do, man, because those are like some of the lowest ranked companies on customer service in the whole country. In a country with airlines and banks and insurance companies. So

Christopher Mitchell (22:15)
But

hundreds of millions of people are gonna be taking this and they and they better soon, right? ‘Cause like they can’t wait five or ten years. Like this has to happen like tomorrow to justify the value of this IPO.

Karl (22:23)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Sean Gonsalves (22:28)
I mean it it it like just something as basic as and this is a oversimplified analogy but if you’ve got a highway that’s pretty traffic jammed and somebody comes along and says Hey I have a plan to add ten billion new cars to the highway everybody immediately is gonna be like there’s not enough space, there’s not enough capacity, how are cars supposed to move at all? It’s just gonna be a parking lot.

That idea just doesn’t even enter into people’s thinking when it comes to Starlink and and and the capacity constraints that it currently has. Now you can say, well, you know, they’re gonna launch, you know, a mil you know, a million more satellites and all that and it’ll take care of all these issues. R really?

Christopher Mitchell (23:11)
But here’s the thing, here’s the thing, here’s how it could work, right? Because one of the things I’ll say is that from is that I don’t have certainty on any of this stuff. Like I feel pretty more I feel more certain about this than most things, but in my life, I try to be if you have certainty on things, you got blind spots. And I try to I try to avoid those. I’ve seen a lot of stories about whether or not Starlink SpaceX should buy T-Mobile. That would solve a lot of their problems. They suddenly have customer service, they’ve got better marketing.

Karl (23:37)
Mm.

Christopher Mitchell (23:39)
They’ve got all this stuff. I mean, like, I’m not saying that I know all the repercussions of that. Karl, I don’t know if you’ve thought about that at all, but like wouldn’t surprise me. I mean, it it kind of makes sense in a lot of ways for what the what all these folks are looking for in terms of control and ⁓ and and everything else. Consolidation, yeah.

Sean Gonsalves (23:54)
Salivation.

Karl (23:55)
Yeah. Well

consolidation’s the name of the game, right? That’s just gonna keep going. Media companies are gonna fuse with telecom company. We don’t really have antitrust reform anymore. We don’t really have regulators that function very well. So I think that’s gonna be the name of the game, consolidation. Just kicking the can, kicking debt down the road like they’ve done with, you know, the Paramount and Warner Brothers merger. That’s just it’s just endlessly kicking obligations and accountability down the road. And eventually it eventually it all comes due, you know, eventually.

Christopher Mitchell (24:21)
So

Karl, I want you to explain this. Jordan, tell us tell us your impression of what people think about Elon. They think he’s like pretty sharp, smart guy, successful. Like I feel like you’re the person that we turn to to know like what other people thinking.

Jordan Pittman (24:31)
Well

Well, my generation thinks he’s a buffoon, but like I guess that just Yeah. Well, see, this gets complicated, right? ‘Cause it depends on who you’re talking to. Like I think and and and this you know

Christopher Mitchell (24:37)
Really? You think you say that for real?

Jordan Pittman (24:46)
not to get political, but it usually goes along party lines, even around my age, is like people who lean a little more left. They’re like, he’s like he’s just a magician. He’s not really smart. He doesn’t really do any of this stuff. But I’ve talked to some of my like more moderate colleagues and friends and they’re just like, nah man, like he’s a little weird and unconventional, but he got it, man. And there’s still a lot of people, I mean, I can scroll on TikTok right and say there’s lot of people that still believe in him. And

if you pressure them to ask why is that the case, most of them would genuinely just be like, It’s a it’s a gut feeling. He just feels right. It just

Christopher Mitchell (25:20)
Where

does that gut feeling come from, Karl? Because I’ll tell you this: the media does cover all of his stupidity. They cover the fact that he’s supporting Nazis, right? They cover the fact that his Tesla sales have tanked. They cover the fact that the the Tesla truck is ugly as it. Like, I don’t know. Like what

Karl (25:22)
Yeah.

Our press is terrible. ⁓ he’s been mythologized for fifteen to twenty years, right, as this super genius engineer. But if you look at the stuff he’s actually he doesn’t have an engineering degree, and if you look at the stuff he’s actually built, it’s like part of a car door. He ha he’s opportunisti opportunistically really good at cozying up to actual en innovators and then taking credit for all their work, taking singular credit. And then the press just parrots him and it’s it’s been a twenty year construct. If you remember he was like an Iron Man two as a super genius. There are references to him in the

Old Star Trek Generations movie where he’s like, ⁓ he’s alongside the greats of history. But as as time has gone by and you actually especially if he talks about things you understand really well. Like you may not notice it if he’s talking about things you don’t really have a dabble in, but when he starts to talk about certain things, he he reveals very quickly he really doesn’t know how a lot of this stuff works. Even his own engineering and his companies. He doesn’t understand basic sci fi concepts. You’ll see constantly him like reading a science fiction book where he misses the

Entire point, had no idea what the book was about. So I think I don’t think he’s I don’t think he’s unskilled. I think he’s opportunistic really opportunistically really gifted at exploiting media attention in this age, and he’s really gifted at using the f money he lucked into at PayPal to build something larger, which does take a type of skill, but I’m not gonna say that’s a s you know, a super genius engineer.

Christopher Mitchell (26:32)
Right. No, he he if you

Yeah, I mean it reminds me that like he’s also great at kicking things down the road. I feel like shamelessly saying six months till this, six months till that, we’re gonna do this this crazy thing. now look over here. And this is where I think our media is particularly weak is is is that someone can do that forever, right? We have a president who can just do that. Yeah. I mean, like, ’cause like I can tell you this right now. I don’t know if you’re listening to this two weeks ago, listening to it four weeks from now, we are almost at peace in Iran.

Sean Gonsalves (27:07)
I was about to say that sounds very familiar, which

Christopher Mitchell (27:16)
Like that is like that is a fact. For for twelve weeks, we’ve been at war with Iran. There’s also been a ceasefire, and we’ve been almost at peace with them. And it’s just it’s just like we’re almost there for the agreement to be signed, you know. Like, ⁓ there’s there’s any number of these things. And I feel like you the press just has like this sense of like there’s no history. It’s an a historical press.

Karl (27:35)
It’s awful. I was reading through just cause I did a newsletter post on this this week and I was reading through just the generalized press coverage of the IPO. You know, and I was reading Long Reuters articles and I was reading New York Times articles. And there’s no mention that he is, you know, an overt white supremacist. There’s no mention of like the fact that he was like inspiring racist riots in, you know, ⁓ overseas this week. There’s no mention of like his long history of vaporware. It is it’s you’re right, it’s like a historical void where they’re just cause they’re not

Christopher Mitchell (27:59)
And and even the

the business press, like this is one of the things that that’s what I was try actually trying to get at when I said it. Hold on a second, Sean. Is that this guy like cancels a whole bunch of legal contracts? Well, like it’s gonna take three years to get through the courts while he tap dances, but it’s gonna catch up. I have to believe that. All the people he fired illegally, if not in San Francisco, then in Europe, like where they have actual laws that they sometimes enforce. Like, like he does all of this stuff that is like it’s gonna come back to haunt him. And and there’s this idea that like that there’s there’s there’s no

Karl (28:03)
Yeah.

Sean Gonsalves (28:03)
Well

Christopher Mitchell (28:29)
There’s no penalty to be paid by him for for doing that. ⁓ you know, he’ll just he just breaks the law whenever he wants to and assumes he’s gonna get away with it. Eventually that catches up with a person, I feel like. Sean?

Sean Gonsalves (28:40)
Yeah, th I I was say I mean the legacy la legacy media, traditional media’s always been terrible as it w w as it relates to historical context, especially when it comes to like foreign policy and and things of that nature. ⁓ but I felt like the business press used to be a lot more honest than the the regular press because business people have to live in the real world. I’m not so sure that ⁓ is the case any longer. And ⁓ in in in any case

you know, the the the way ⁓ these billionaires are buying all these outlets, this whole notion of, you know, the liberal media, that I mean, that’s like, you know, that’s laughable. Nobody even says that anymore, I th that I hear of. And so I just think that Elon has done a terrific job at building at at building up this image. But I will say that

You remember kinda like the good old days, like when I was younger, you never even really knew who billionaires were or who ran companies. They were always sort of these shadowy people in the background or whatever. Yeah, exactly. And and now Yeah, it’s n and now all especially these tech bros, they love media attention. And and and in Elon’s case, I think, you know, it

Christopher Mitchell (29:36)
It’s like Jack Welch and no one else. Lee or Coca, like those things they’re in a car company or GM, you know, or G E and that’s it.

Sean Gonsalves (29:50)
has really hurt him though. I mean, certainly we saw like w around when he was super active with Doge and and and and and what that meant for Tesla and all that kind of stuff. And so as opposed to, you know, ten years ago when he could sort of get away with, he’s this sort of mysterious weird dude that’s a that’s a tech genius, now he’s been out there so long and has talked so much that I think for a lot of people they realize, you know what, this dude’s not no he’s not a genius.

Christopher Mitchell (30:17)
Well, I I do think there’s this question about the addressable market when you do factor in the fact that like millions of people are aware that their children or loved ones have died because of US government cuts to USAID and those things. Just because we don’t know about them in the United States doesn’t mean they’re not out there and those people are gonna have a chip on their shoulder for a long time about Elon Musk, and some of them are gonna be freaking terrorists. Drives me crazy when like we ignore all of that sort of impact of like just

The DOGE thing. I don’t wanna I don’t want to go into it too much, but like the damage that he did to the United States branding and the damage he did to people’s lives and the way people don’t get over that, just like it’s gonna it’s gonna hang over us for a long time. We gotta wrap up.

Karl (30:58)
Yeah, just a

Sean Gonsalves (30:59)
say nothing

of of of gutting the really ⁓ our scientific ⁓ foundation. I mean what what what’s go what’s gone on in in research in science and research in this country is horrifying. ⁓ and and will take generations to repair should we, you know, get past this, get around the corner on this stuff. It will take generations to repair.

Christopher Mitchell (31:06)
Yeah, no, I mean it’s it’s been great for Canada and Europe.

Karl (31:25)
Yep. I think I think I think Trumpism has really allowed a lot of those tech guys to kind of be the worst possible version of themselves. They see it as like a a a a green light to be just you know, unholy bastards. And I think eventually, I don’t know what it looks like, but I think eventually that ends and we have a sort of renaissance of some kind back towards something that vaguely resembles like foundational dignity, and I don’t think he’s gonna weather that transition very well down the road.

Christopher Mitchell (31:25)
Yeah. Co come.

No, I don’t. And and I’ll tell you when I look at SpaceX and what’s going on, Starship, they’re saying there’s gonna be flying missions by the end of this year. That is hard to believe. I don’t know when the V3 ro the V3 Starlink is gonna be up there, but I cannot imagine that Starship is doing multiple missions by the end of the year. They’re talking about launching sixty V3 Starlink satellites when it does. No way. No, no, no, no. Maybe maybe in 2035 with like Starship like fifteen or something like that. But like

I just I’m making sort of making predictions. I think that the SpaceX stop stop stock is doing what we thought it would do. It’s popping early. It’s gonna stay up, it’s gonna come down maybe a little bit, it’s gonna go back up when the index funds have to buy a bunch of it and then it’s gonna come down. And as people get a better sense of SpaceX, I’m trying to decide if I should be buying Rocket Lab or not right now, because a bunch of morons ditch their Rocket Lab stocks. And I gotta think that the legitimate companies that aren’t run ⁓ you know, by smoke and mirrors, ⁓ in addition to good engineering.

Karl (32:41)
Hm.

Christopher Mitchell (32:49)
Who just kind of ign ignore the smoke and mirrors, those are gonna be the the better ones. So anyway, like I just feel like in terms of predictions, like this is a it’s a time bomb. It’s it’s hurting the entire United States, it’s hurting the entire world. ⁓ in terms of like when you talk about the USAID programs and things like that. It’s just it is such a mess. And I do feel like there’s a part of me that hopes that it is going to lead to a ⁓ a a significant market break because

If it doesn’t, it’s just gonna get worse and I don’t wanna see it get worse than this in terms of the theft of the like of the people at the top from the people in the middle and the people at the bottom.

Karl (33:24)
Yep. Yeah. I don’t encourage like an economic reckoning. I’m not saying I want it to happen, but I think learning I think Americans need some very first hand understanding of their own choices, ⁓ in a way that’s a little more concrete to them. And I think it’s coming.

Christopher Mitchell (33:40)
Yeah, I don’t I don’t look forward to it at all. ⁓ but I I do think it has to happen. It’s one of those things that like pull the band aid off. So

Karl (33:46)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (33:48)
⁓ we are going to ⁓ finish this show off with a discussion of with Jeff Gavlinski and some of the things that are going well. ⁓ I’m gonna run off and do a costume change real quick. Don’t think I pre recorded or something like that. It’s just I’m just gonna do a quick costume change because I just I just saw Spam a lot, which is awesome. I mean, if you just wanna you wanna feel good and forget about all this stuff we’ve been talking about when Spam a lot comes through, hop to it because that was a fun show ⁓ out in the in the theater world. So ⁓ anything else you guys wanna sign off with before we bring in Jeff?

Sean Gonsalves (34:00)
Ha ha.

Karl (34:01)
Ha ha

Jordan Pittman (34:18)
No, no, just appreciate the conversation.

Christopher Mitchell (34:21)
All right.

All right, Jordan, hit the switches. Let’s bring in Jeff.

Karl (34:23)
Yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (34:28)
And now we have a special guest, a special guest who’s been on before, um, a special guest who, uh, I’m not going to say promised, but said he would ship my son a whole bunch of really cool fountain pens from his event and then never did. But I don’t hold that against him because I’ve known Jeff for so long, Jeff Gavlinski, and I didn’t tell him I was going to do that so I could just hit you with it live. Jeff Gavlinski, the CEO of Mountain Connect. Welcome back to the show.

Jeff Gavlinski (34:50)
Wow.

I’m not sure I should be here after that one. I forgot completely from I know well well I promised I would I Need to be a man who keeps his promises. I completely forgot about that. I still have them by the way III

Christopher Mitchell (34:58)
yeah, because you didn’t send me a few pens.

Yeah, they’re

great. I love those fountain pens. ⁓

Jeff Gavlinski (35:14)
I could make another empty promise. Yeah, you could pick them up in person.

Christopher Mitchell (35:17)
Or you could tell me, could pick him up in person. Atch. Where

am I gonna see you next, Jeff? Where might I encounter you?

Jeff Gavlinski (35:25)
⁓ Probably if you come to Mountain Connect that’s my next ⁓ place I’m traveling away from home.

Christopher Mitchell (35:33)
All right, so today we’re gonna be talking about Mountain Connect and we’ve done this before. We’ve previewed a conference, but when I say that, I feel like if you’re listening to this, you like you haven’t listened to Jeff before and you haven’t attended Mountain Connect, you don’t know what we’re talking about because Jeff is always trying to do interesting things. We’re gonna talk in just a second, we’re gonna get to one of the most interesting things he did last year that I think really engaged the audience and is trying to cut through ⁓ just the BS that’s out there.

And I say BS. And if you don’t want to hear us not say the full extended version of that, then you might want to skip this part. But ⁓ Mountain Connect is a special event, is in Denver. When is it this year,

Jeff Gavlinski (36:13)
It is August 10th through the 12th at the Sheraton Downtown Denver Hotel.

Christopher Mitchell (36:18)
And it used to be up in the mountains, but you got tired of people passing out and having medical issues. So you brought it down to Denver, which has bigger hotels and ⁓ bigger parking lots. ⁓

Jeff Gavlinski (36:24)
You

Yeah, wow.

And more room. We ran out of space.

Christopher Mitchell (36:33)
Yeah, exactly. You can only get so many people into those areas. ⁓ But last year, you had on stage Angela Siefer. She just recently wrote on LinkedIn about her experience there, because it’s not your average conference. ⁓ You gave her a sign that has adult language on it. And on one side, it said bullshit. And on the other side, I don’t really care what it said. But what was that event all about?

Jeff Gavlinski (36:36)
Yeah.

Well, it was a way to ⁓ demonstrate that we’re not afraid to talk about ⁓ touchy topics in the industry. So effectively, I gave all the panelists, including Angela, a sign that said, on one side it said agree, on the other side it said bullshit. ⁓ And then ⁓ I would read about a touchy topic in the industry. I would ask one of the panelists to comment on

And then when that person was done, I’d have all the panelists vote on it. And what ended up happening was most of the audience then got engaged and started shouting out their own votes. So this year, I’m going to flip the script a bit, and we’re going to have a little bit of fun with this session. So it’s going to be the last general session of the conference. And we’re going to give the signs this time to the audience as well, wrapped around a happy hour.

So yeah, so we’re trying to have fun with some of these touchy topics, but we’re trying to raise them because I think we don’t talk about them enough.

Christopher Mitchell (37:53)
i love it

Right, this is participatory democracy. This is giving the conference an organic ability to ⁓ weave and move around, to talk about different issues and to make sure if you have someone up there ⁓ that they’re not going to be just skating by. I mean, I’ll give you an example. had ⁓ the beginning of BEAD-ish.

Jeff Gavlinski (38:07)
Yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (38:28)
had Drew Clark interview Alan Davidson. And I felt like Drew didn’t just ask him what questions to ask 10 minutes before the event. But Drew came up there and had some really good questions, some really good feedback, held his feet to the fire in ways that you don’t expect ⁓ at a conference like this, where, for instance,

I’ve been to an event in which a FCC chair, Jessica Rosenworcel was there and very clearly could not handle any independent questions and only had softballs lobbed at her that she proceeded to ignore and say whatever she wanted to say. It was painful. So we don’t see that at your events, which I just am so thankful for.

Jeff Gavlinski (38:57)
Right.

Yeah,

well, it just is another good example. Last year I interviewed the Chief of Staff for NTIA and I started out ⁓ before the conference. We had ⁓ a meeting and this is how it started for me. I said to her that ⁓ I was tempted to send NTIA gift baskets and she got a little confused and said

Why would you do that? And I said, well, because you’ve, you’ve extended the life of my conference with the June 6th policy notice update. And, and so that sort of started the, the dialogue, probably not a trucian way to start a dialogue with somebody in that position. But when we got to the conference, I held out two questions that she wasn’t expecting and they were, ⁓ they were not softballs, but gracefully she answered them.

Christopher Mitchell (40:02)
Yeah, no, that’s, that’s what we need. I mean, we live in a society in which we’re supposed to be able to ask hard questions of people who are public servants and have won elections and things like that. ⁓ so, ⁓ so Jeff, what else, my people, just the, the, the, what’s the brief overview of, you have different tracks this year. mean, historically your conference was known for being, ⁓ you know, having innovative topics around fiber optics, around wireless, around co-ops, munis, the big companies.

Jeff Gavlinski (40:06)
Yeah.

Christopher Mitchell (40:29)
You’ve highlighted whatever is interesting in the industry. You don’t kind of have like a one track mind, but what are some of the highlights this year?

Jeff Gavlinski (40:36)
Well, let me first talk about the conference itself because a lot of things are changing and I’ll talk about content at a very high level, but I’ll also talk about it. so 2026 is less about adding more content and more about creating outcomes for people. So people don’t need another event with endless panels or they don’t need ⁓ conversations. Well, they do need conversations that help them move their projects forward.

And every major change that we’re doing this year was designed around action and connection. So as you may or may not know, we’ve led bead conversations in all events the last four years or so. And so now I think the industry must answer the question of what comes next. So in my mind, this is really a focus around the ISP. So deployment operations, future demand.

certainly AI and emerging applications, sustainable business models, and better long-term infrastructure decisions. And so this is really for me, it’s content evolution.

Christopher Mitchell (41:48)
Okay, so I’m glad that here is not just AI, AI, AI. ⁓

Jeff Gavlinski (41:52)
It’s not, it’s

not, it’d be tempting because everyone else is doing it, but you know, you, I always think that we always get ahead of ourselves. And so we really need to talk about the underlying infrastructure supporting whether it’s AI or quantum. ⁓ if we don’t address those problems, we’re, we’re still going to be in the same boat. We’ve always been in, which is reactive.

Christopher Mitchell (42:14)
And so

I get the sense that you are trying to get more Internet service providers to be attending and really trying to make sure that they’re getting a lot out of it if they are coming from that world.

Jeff Gavlinski (42:25)
Yep. So this year, one of the things that we’re doing that’s brand new is a hosted buyer program. And it exists this year because I believe great meetings shouldn’t happen by accident. So in this program, we are bringing buyers and builders together intentionally. So the hosted buyers are ISPs actively planning, building and buying. And then the hosted buyer sponsors.

our companies helping make those projects successful and they have to have a national footprint. So through this program, ⁓ we are providing structured introductions, qualified and curated conversations, and what I would like to think is better use of their time. So effectively, I’m underwriting the cost of attending the conference for qualified ISPs.

Christopher Mitchell (43:23)
All right. And they can find out more about that at mountainconnect.org.

Jeff Gavlinski (43:29)
mountainconnect.org and you know right on the home page there’s a button you can click on the hosted buyer program and right now we are at there’s a lot of diversity in this program we are at over a billion dollars in project opportunity that includes fiber hybrid fiber and of course a little bit of wireless as well we have funding sources such as

speed, ⁓ state and local grant funding. There’s still some still some CAF stuff out there. Private expansion and private equity. ⁓ So traditional ISPs, ⁓ co-ops, we’re going to have a couple cities as well who are expanding their existing networks. ⁓ So it’s a real diverse pool of ISPs from tier one through tier three. We have

one of the largest ISPs in the US who’s applied and been accepted to the program, which was a little bit of a surprise, but I think that says something about what we’re trying to do.

Christopher Mitchell (44:40)
Well, you know how I feel about ⁓ merging and conglomerates and things like that. Which foreign set of ⁓ companies owns Mountain Connect and tells you what to do?

Jeff Gavlinski (44:55)
None. The only one who… Yeah, I understand. I was gonna say my wife. ⁓ She has a lot of influence on what I do. But other than that, nobody tells me what to do. And I think that’s one of the great things about being independent. ⁓ For those that don’t know, we’re the last independently owned broadband conference left in the US. And, you know, I’m trying to protect that as we grow. And, you know, for me, this means that…

Christopher Mitchell (44:57)
Right. It’s a leading question.

Jeff Gavlinski (45:24)
We have always been technology agnostic. We can have, as we discussed earlier, honest conversations and we’re willing to host difficult discussions. And we’re primarily focused on the tier three and below ecosystem and are certainly open to disruption and emerging ideas and solutions. So that’s what makes us a bit different.

Christopher Mitchell (45:50)
Yeah, now if we could just get you out of August.

Jeff Gavlinski (45:53)
Well,

this is I’m in a of a quandary here in Colorado. There’s there’s only three hotels I can have my conference at these days. One’s a Sheraton. One is the Broadmoor, which would price a lot of people out, unfortunately, down in Colorado Springs. And then, ⁓ boy, what is the large Marriott?

and the large Marriott property that fiber connected was just at one ⁓ I forget what they’re called it’s out by the airport

Christopher Mitchell (46:20)
I think-

I’m not sure, but I think the correct answer is there is no bad time to come to Colorado. ⁓

Jeff Gavlinski (46:30)
Well, there isn’t there isn’t, but

but I I know some people they ask vacation time for some people and so that creates a bit of a quandary. So I I’ve just been I want to acknowledge the fact that August may not be the best time, but it is our time ⁓ and we’re going to make the most of it.

Christopher Mitchell (46:49)
Yeah, I’ve loved the events. It’s been a little bit of a gap for me, unfortunately, as I’ve become more reclusive. ⁓ But ⁓ I’m very tempted to come pick up some pens.

Jeff Gavlinski (46:58)
you

Well,

you, listen, that bullshit session is made just for you.

Christopher Mitchell (47:11)
No, I love that idea. And I really liked the idea. I liked knowing the crowd. Like I met Matt Larson there, not that we met on email where we yelled at each other and I was borderline uncivil to him ⁓ in that I was sometimes ⁓ reasonable to him in my communications. And then got to know each other better through Mountain Connect. I met a lot of great people through Mountain Connect who I got to know better. So I have a very high ⁓ endorsement for this. I’m strongly encourage people to make it out there.

Jeff Gavlinski (47:33)
Thank you.

Yeah, I think one of the other areas I’d like to talk about that’s going to be different this year is networking. So I have redesigned this conference so that networking becomes part of the experience and not something that happens in between sessions. So what does that mean? So this year I’ve got a completely new ⁓ construct for my exhibit hall. It’s a linear layout. So I call it the Main Street.

With food anchored on both ends, we have networking lounges on either side of ⁓ the main street. And the point of the main street is, you recall from my early days, we had all the exhibitors in the hallway. So every time you left a room, any room, it created a different vibe. And I think that…

Christopher Mitchell (48:27)
Yeah.

It was very hard to go

to a telephone meeting because you’d run into three people you wanted to talk to as you were trying to get out of their conference.

Jeff Gavlinski (48:35)
Right, right.

And so I’m trying to recreate that as much as I can this year. Everything is within about 30 steps or so from the Main Street. Food, content, ⁓ you know, the general session ballroom, etc. All very accessible. ⁓ We are replacing some of I hope you would hope you like this next one, but we’re acquiescing a bit of our agenda content.

to focus on roundtables. So these are tables of 10, so nine people plus a facilitator, talking about 21 industry topics that’ll be spread out three times during the conference to give everyone an opportunity to go. But it’s a chance to lend an additional voice to more people at the conference. It’s also another way to create strategic networking opportunities as you get 45 minutes to an hour.

to sit at a table and talk to like-minded people who are interested or passionate about the same topic you are. And of course, we have a hosted buyer lounge, we have a wellness lounge, and last but not least, ⁓ I am utilizing AI matchmaking this year for all attendees, which means when you download our app, you’ll be asked as you’re creating your profile to answer interest-based questions.

right before the conference begins, you go in the app and it’ll say, you know, based on your interest, you should meet this list of people. And if you chose more, what’s cool about it is if you chose more than one interest, ⁓ you can actually filter down, say you chose three, you could filter down to one and refine the list even more. But it’s a way for us to connect people. And I’m even gonna do something with food this year to connect people.

I’m going leave it as a surprise, I will say that on the menu this year, you’re going to find seasonal locally sourced food on the agenda. So we’re going to do something fun ⁓ with food this year to create a memory for people and a connection.

Christopher Mitchell (50:51)
Yeah,

I mean, I feel like you and then I know that in the past you’ve you’ve embraced Doug Adams, who helps you out quite a bit. And so, you know, I’ve I want to leave him totally out of this. The two of you always have ⁓ interesting ideas to surprise people with.

Jeff Gavlinski (51:00)
Yep.

Yeah, I love having Doug as part of the team, but I should clarify none of these ideas are his. They’re all mine. ⁓ As you would expect. Not one idea is his. Not one. I’m kidding. I’m kidding, Doug. Love Doug, but none of the ideas are his. So anyways.

Christopher Mitchell (51:16)
Not one.

The ⁓

⁓ So people should check out mountainconnect.org, August 10th, August 10th through the 12th and ⁓ in Denver. And ⁓ I’ll just say Denver, if you’ve not been there, it’s amazing. There’s no bad time to go and, but you probably won’t get snow in August. So there’s that.

Jeff Gavlinski (51:30)
Yeah.

Yeah, well one thing that has changed in Denver this year is they finished the 16th Street Mall construction that’s been going on for three years. And so that whole area has been cleaned up and as well you have, I don’t know if you’ve been to my event in a while, but the Sheraton sits right on the end of the 16th Street Mall. So ⁓ that’s all been cleaned up as well. So, and I’ll tell you one thing and I’ve kind of hinted at this.

Christopher Mitchell (52:08)
Excellent.

Jeff Gavlinski (52:14)
during our conversation, you know, like what is the one thing that is different this year? I believe we are shifting away from just delivering information and unstructured networking to creating outcomes. So, you know, the content matters, but we’re investing just as heavily into people, into who people meet, how they connect, and what happens when they leave. I think that’s probably more important than anything.

Christopher Mitchell (52:44)
All right, well thank you, Jeff, and looking forward to this event.

Jeff Gavlinski (52:46)
Thank you.

If you come out, I’ll bring pens.

Jordan Pittman (52:52)
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Unbuffered Podcast. We have transcripts for this and other episodes available at ILSR.org/podcast. While you’re there, check out our other podcasts from ILSR, including Building Local Power, Local Energy Rules, and the Composting for Community Podcasts. Email us at [email protected] with your ideas for the show. Follow us on Bluesky. Our handle is @communitynets.

You can catch the latest research from all of our initiatives by subscribing to our monthly newsletter at ILSR.org While you’re there, please take a moment to donate. Your support in any amount helps keep us going. Unbuffered is produced by Christopher Mitchell with editing provided by me, Jordan Pittman. Until next time, thanks for listening.

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