The Entrepreneur's Ethic

To honor the holiday, we’ll re-release my interview of John Berlau about George Washington. The Founding Father, Revolutionary War leader, first President, model for Mount Rushmore, face on the one-dollar bill, namesake of a Capital City, a state, and much else. But in many ways, he was not just the Father of a country, but the Father of American entrepreneurship. The current occupant of the Oval...

Craig Rupp has spent years building at the frontier of autonomous agriculture, helping pioneer systems that allow tractors to operate autonomously in real production environments. Before Sabanto, Craig played a foundational role in the creation of FieldView, which eventually landed at Climate Corporation. It’s a technology that remains central to modern precision agriculture and ultimately part of...

Our latest podcast episode features my compadres from Ag Startup Engine , the AgTech fund that we started ten years ago, Joel Harris, Colin Hurd, and Mikayla Mooney.  We discuss the state of agtech investing. To borrow from Dickens: It is the best of times. It is the worst of times. Entrepreneurs at Ag Startup Engine portfolio companies continue to do great work in building impactful businesses. A...

Brady Sidwell is an entrepreneur from Enid, Oklahoma who runs Sidwell Enterprises , an agricultural conglomerate with multiple businesses including a grain elevator, local food distribution, a flour mill, and a brewery. 

Entrepreneurs tell stories. And some get others to tell their stories. Vance Crowe is a communications expert, widely sought-out speaker, a podcaster, and the founder of Legacy Interviews . Legacy Interviews creates professional video recordings of individuals or couples telling their stories and the lessons learned along the way. www.kevinkimle.com

Jackson Kimle is CEO of Midland , a business that’s developed land-based seafood technology and a business model aimed at scaling shrimp production. Using innovative Algae-Based RAS™ (recirculating aquaculture systems) technology, Midland Co. now has three contract farms raising shrimp in Iowa. Midland's farms are dedicated to quality, handling each batch from tank-to-table. Seafood played a key r...

Welcome to season TWO of The Entreprneur's Ethic Podcast! Throughout this season, we'll be tracing the arc of American entrepreneurship. We’ll kick off the season with an interview of John Berlau about George Washington. Yes, THE George Washington. The Founding Father, Revolutionary War leader, first President, model for Mount Rushmore, face on the one-dollar bill, namesake of a Capital Ci...

In the last podcast of 2024, we take a shot at interpreting the spirit of the time for change-makers, what I call the entrepreneurial zeitgeist. What’s potentially interesting or notable for innovators and entrepreneurs in late 2024? I had a great discussion with two people I’ve learned a lot from, Rob Trice of Better Food Ventures and The Mixing Bowl and Brett Wong of Anterra Capital . Rob’s home...

In this podcast, we talk about insanely great olive oils and vinegars. I interview Brie Thompson, with Olivelle . Brie founded Olivelle after graduating college in 2006, along with her mom, Michelle, in her hometown, Bozeman, Montana. Brie aimed to source high-quality infused oils and vinegars for the newly independent shop, but struggled to do so, disappointed by the available offerings where sup...

In this podcast, we talk about insanely great chocolate. I interview Adam Pearson, an owner of Fortunato Chocolate , a business that makes very high-end chocolate. He’s also an author. His book, Finding Fortunato: How a Peruvian Adventure Inspired the Sweet Success of a Family Chocolate Business , was how I first came across Adam’s story and the story of his family’s business. www.kevinkimle.com

This week’s podcast is an interview with Dr. Michael Cusumano,  the SMR Distinguished Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He specializes in strategy, product development, and entrepreneurship in computer software as well as automobiles and consumer electronics. Our discussion is inspired by a book he wrote with David Yoffie,  Strategy Rules: Five Timeless Lessons from Bi...

This week’s podcast is a case study set in 1995 and 1996. Steve Jobs was at that time CEO of two businesses, neither of which was Apple. Rather, he was CEO of technology company NeXT and animation studio Pixar. He aimed to take Pixar public but faced substantial obstacles in doing so. The most prominent investment banks turned down the opportunity to help Jobs do an IPO, assessing it as too risky....

This week’s podcast is an interview with Callum Laing , a Partner at Unity Group, Founder of the Veblen Director Programme, and past CEO, Chair, or Director of multiple public and private companies. www.kevinkimle.com

This week’s podcast is an interview with Mike Ihle, founder and President of Ihle Fabrications , a farmer-built company that has become a leading provider in manufacturing agriculture wear parts for combine harvesters and other farm equipment. Started in 2002 on the family farm, Ihle has since grown into a Certified Case IH Remanufacturing partner, as well as making parts for John Deere, Claas, Dr...

This week’s podcast is an interview with Dr. Matt Clancy , Economist of Innovation, Research Fellow at Open Philanthropy , and Creator of New Things Under the Sun, a living literature review on research about innovation. www.kevinkimle.com

This week’s podcast is an interview with Al Myers, Founder and President of Ag Leader Technologies . Al is a pioneer in precision agriculture technologies. Ag Leader launched an on-the-go yield monitor in 1992 and has introduced many innovative precision agriculture tools since that time. Today, Ag Leader has almost 300 employees who make tools used by farmers around the world. www.kevinkimle.com

This week’s podcast is an interview with Clayton Mooney, Chief Farmer and Co-Founder of Clayton Farms Salads . Clayton’s journey to today, ‘delivering the world’s freshest salads,’ is a winding one. www.kevinkimle.com

One of the Entrepreneurs featured in my upcoming book, The Entrepreneur’s Ethic , is Wilbur Wright. Wright’s work, along with his brother, Orville, exemplifies Ethic 3: Fail Successfully. This is the experiment-orientation of entrepreneurship. www.kevinkimle.com

Jim Fay is an innovator who’s been a part of development of multiple billion-dollar products. Jim defines his work as that of an ‘Entrepreneurial Product Engineer.’ He shares four product development principles, with a contrarian view of the idea of a minimum viable product. He also shares seven principles for success. www.kevinkimle.com

Zeitgeist is a word that comes straight from German — zeit means "time" and geist means spirit, and the "spirit of the time" is what's going on culturally or intellectually during a certain period. In the last podcast of 2023, I take a shot at interpreting the spirit of the time for change-makers, what I’ll call the entrepreneurial zeitgeist. What’s potentially interesting...

This week’s podcast is with Dr. BJ Johnson, CEO and co-founder at ClearFlame Engine Technologies . We talk about his design of a sustainable diesel engine with the capability to reach net-zero emissions and even reverse greenhouse gases to yield a negative balance in carbon emissions while reducing the costs of long-haul trucking for fleets large and small.

This week’s podcast is an interview with Dr. Josh Storrs Hall is an independent scientist and author. One of this books is, Where Is My Flying Car?: A Memoir of Future Past . Dr. Hall was the founding Chief Scientist of Nanorex, Inc, which is developing a CAD system for nanomechanical engineering. He remains a member of Nanorex' Scientific Advisory Board, and well as a Research Fellow of the I...

This week’s podcast is an interview with Joel Harris, co-founder and CEO of GenVax and my compatriot with agtech investment fund Ag Startup Engine . Joel co-founded another business more than fifteen years ago, Harris Vaccines, that pioneered development and commercialization of mRNA vaccines in the livestock industry. The GenVax team is working on the next generation of livestock vaccines for dis...

One of the Entrepreneurs featured in my upcoming book, The Entrepreneur’s Ethic , is Henry Ford. There are seven parts of The Entrepreneur’s Ethic. Ford’s work exemplifies Ethic 2: Solve Hard Problems. This is the priority setting-orientation of entrepreneurship. It tackles the profound question of “what should I work on?” This week’s podcast is an historic case study from early in Henry Ford’s jo...

In this week’s podcast, I interview Brent Blum, Executive Director of the We Will Collective at Iowa State University, an organization that supports student-athletes through NIL deals and helps them to contribute to the community. www.kevinkimle.com