So, Patek Patel from Informatica is going to walk us through all their DevSecOps stuff. So thank you all for your patience. And I'll back up. Great. Thank you for introducing. Hi, everyone. Today, we are here to talk about how Informatica has built the DevSecOps practices into AWS with the help of Redhead ACS Advanced Cluster Security. A little bit about myself. I'll start with that. So currently, I'm with Informatica. I've been here for the past six years and a few months. Before that, I work for Netflix and Yahoo. Currently focused on Kubernetes, that's one of the things that my team works on primarily as of these days. We are a security engineering team mainly focused on it. All of you can reach out to me on Twitter, at Patek Patel, that's my handle. And let's now take a little bit of information about Informatica as well. So we are 1.44 billion in revenue as of today. Informatica has been around for a long time, about 27 years. A lot of you folks may have used it and heard about it already. As of today, Informatica offers intelligent data management cloud, our customers use our data management cloud to do API integration, data integration, data quality, data governance, master data management, and many other things around how enterprises are building their data driven organizations. Our cloud process is 32 trillion transactions per month. And all of these services are hosted in the Kubernetes. And our Kubernetes is also hosted on multi-cloud. So we use all the clouds, like all three major clouds, AWS, Azure, Google. But today we will focus on how we are using ACS within AWS. So to start with, I wanted to provide my opinion on what does DevSecOps means for me. Everybody has their own opinion, how they run their organization, how their culture is, and all that. So from my point of view, when development team, security team, and operations team, they are coming together and building their environment in a singular fashion such that they are moving at the same speed. So that's the main goal. And this is the goal that my security engineering team also follows. As a security engineering team, we are there to help out our development and operations team to ensure that we are taking care of security as a one group rather than operating individually. Also all of us who are operating in the cloud, we have heard that security is a shared responsibility. So on that DevSecOps enables a shared security mindset for everybody. This is where development team understands what are the guardrails, how those guardrails are interpreted in the development, build, and production deployment environment. So security team helps out defining these guardrails and then helping them implement with the help of development and operations team on the shift left. So these are the gates that we are building to ensure that when our development team is building their code, operations team is pushing that code out from the build to production environment, they are given a continuous feedback on how their software piece of code is doing and what are the checks they are passing and failing and how to improve upon those checks. So that's what our DevSecOps opinion, my DevSecOps opinion is. All of the next slides are mostly focused on this opinion that I want to enable my development organization to be successful from the security point of view. So before we jump further into various practices, I also want to take a quick look at LifeCycle, how we see DevSecOps LifeCycle at Informatica. It is very similar to what we typically see in the traditional DevOps. So it starts with planning and development, but security, it adds few of the checks or guardrails such as thread modeling, peer reviews, coding reviews, and so on. And when the code gets committed, it's further down the road and this is where we are doing the static application security testing, dependency management, secure pipeline, and so on. So in the security testing, we want to ensure that any code that is being checked in, whether it is a Python Java or even a Terraforma CloudFormation code, that is meeting the security standards and it is compliant to our definition of the guardrails. And then moving on to build and test, this is again next phase where security tools are integrated with your build systems, whether it's a Jenkins, CircleCI, Harness, or any other build tools that you are using. And here, the security checks are extended to the next level where we are also making sure that the artifact or binary that is being built, it is meeting to the standard of our compliance and security requirements. So here, we focus on the configuration scans. So what this means is how this binary is configured and when it goes into production, what configuration it will take with it, like we are trying to verify those. And then comes the ship and deploy. Again, in ship and deploy phase, we are running further checks that we define in the build and test, but this is more of a validation that what we define in the build environment, is it the same in the production environment or not? And if it is not, how do we provide a feedback to our deployment team on what's wrong, what is the drift, and what went wrong? And the last one is the monitor. This is a continuous monitoring, so looking out for any drifts in your running environment and running your vulnerability scans and providing feedback to your development and operations team so that next cycle, next build cycle, next development cycle is fixed and improved. So as we go further and look into different things, I want to just take a break here to explain what tools we'll be talking about. So first one is Amazon EKS. So Informatica uses Amazon EKS very heavily as our managed Kubernetes engine. Then we have Amazon ECR. This is where we store our container registries. And then we use Reddit ACS, Advanced Cluster Security, for securing our Kubernetes environment and providing the feedback to our development lifecycle. And then JIRA is our ticketing and workflow management tool to ensure that all of these systems that can be plugged together in one workflow and is completing cycle through the feedback point of view. So as we go detailed into what we should do from the DevSecOps perspective, I want to start with some of the best practices that we think about when we are deploying our Kubernetes environment. So some of the things are like segregating your repositories. We'll talk about all of these items further into next slides. But segregating your repositories into Dev, production staging so that you have clear delineation between what code is written in the development environment, what is built, and what is running in the production. So make sure that you are using a distro-less container images. So typically, or traditionally, we have been all using publicly available operating systems such as Reddit, CentOS, Ubuntu, and taking that in and on top of it, putting our binaries or artifacts and running those in the production environment. But those systems come with a lot of burden, a lot of packages that are not necessary. And so distro-less images like Alpine Linux is very helpful here. Also we use admission controllers heavily to ensure that we are securing our environment from the get go from the first entry point, enable your audit logs for Kubernetes. This is helping out both in the security and debugging point of view. Get your security controls from the build time and run time perspective. Also adopt service mesh. This is for optimal routing and encryption. And it also aids in your security visibility as well, like which ports, which applications are talking to, which other applications and ports, and how the network traffic is encrypted and segmented. And lastly, implement CS scans. So CS scans, there are three different verticals into it. One is for containers, your Docker container, how they are configured from the CS perspective, your worker nodes, and your clusters. So we talked about segregating your repositories. So I'll go a little bit deeper into what I mean by that, why I'm talking about segregation. So here on the first bucket, we have the development environment. So this is where a developer is writing their code and committing that into a container, basically building out a container image that can then be used further in the development cycle. So when a developer is putting this into on his own local desktop, we enable them with a local binary. This is actually a command line utility that is provided by ACS that our developers are using to scan their local container images. And using this scan, they are able to understand what are the dependencies and what are the third party libraries or various libraries that are used, and what type of vulnerabilities exist in those libraries. So this is the early feedback system where they are able to look at their own code, their own container, and from that point of view, they understand that here are what I have written, here are my libraries, and this is what I need to fix. So once they are happy, they have patched all of their issues, all the vulnerabilities, they put that into our DAO repository. This is a labeling system that we have internally implemented so that developer checks in their containers into DAO repository. After that, when they are ready to go into QA cycle, it goes, it, it, it, those containers are promoted to the QA repository. And our CI CD pipeline, it only accepts container from this QA repository. So all the, all of our built pipeline, they are only accepting it from the QA, and using that, they are building this environment. So they, in the CI CD pipeline, this container images, they will be various YAML files, policy files, that would be defined, and using that, the final build is put out. And this build is also verified using various CIS scans, reddit ACS scans, and once that is, according to the satisfy, satisfactory requirements, it will be then checked into the staging environment. And QA cycle goes on through multiple cycles, and after the final release candidate is published, that final release candidate then gets into the staging environment. And this, this final release candidate is then used to deploy into our production Kubernetes cluster. So we'll, as we, as we go into the whole life cycle, how we are, how we are, how we have integrated it. So to put it into perspective, our container, it goes into AWS ACR. This is where our staging or QA or DAB repository comes in. Jenkins, the tool that we are using for our build pipeline, it picks it up from the ACR, and builds its whole artifactory binaries. And this binaries will be scanned by reddit ACS for vulnerability issues, CS compliance issues. And this compliance issues or any of the vulnerabilities of compliance issues are now collected by JIRA, and tickets will be created in the QA project to ensure that QA team can take a look, validate it, and request a bug fixes for that. And this cycle, as I was mentioning, multiple QA cycle goes through, and after those QA cycle, the release candidate will be promoted to the staging environment. So again, going over the build time security, as I mentioned previously, like distro less images are a very important factor here. At Informatica, we heavily use Alpine Linux as our distro less image, and even some of the legacy tools that we have, legacy application, where we have Mandate of Red Hat or Santos type of operating system. We have taken that operating system, taken that image, and reduced it down to whatever the minimum things that we need. So when I say reduce, we are removing any package managers, any network utilities, file system modification utilities, there are all this, we call it a bloatware that is not required to run your container. We remove it from our environment, and we have slimmed those images down to 80 MBs so that we are running the minimum operating system in our environment. Then, as I mentioned, enable tooling for developers to able to scan their code and their container in their local desktop environment, and provide integrations to help them build out a pipeline, so they are encouraged to look at their issues in their development cycle. Integrating ACS with Jenkins CI CD for continuous feedback during the build time, scanning at Dev Time and promoting to QA, scanning in also CI pipeline as well. So this is, again, like we previously talked about it in our pipeline design. In all of this, it is only possible if you have stronger block around what, where your build system accepts your images from. So we are locking it down to the compliant repositories only, and this is achieved by specifying specific labels that are accepted during the build time. Now, moving on to the runtime security, this is a very similar setup using Reddit ACS. So whenever container images that they get deployed into the Amazon EKS, Reddit ACS is deployed, the sensor is deployed in all of our cluster, each one of the clusters, and this is part of our orchestration layer as well. So orchestration layer will put up, will install Reddit ACS sensors on all the clusters. And using those sensors, we are implementing the continuous scans. This continuous scans are doing multiple things. The first one is vulnerability scans. Second one is the CIS scans add for the Docker images, CIS scans for the Kubernetes environment. The third thing it is checking is various policies that we have defined in our Reddit ACS for measuring the risk of particular Deployments. On top of it, we also have our custom policies defined in our Admission Controller as well that enforces various RBEC-related Privileged Related rules. And also it ensures that none of the vulnerable container that Get deployed into the production environment. Along with that, Admission Controller is also making Sure that our deployment is only coming from the Prod repositories, and nobody can deploy it from any open Repositories outside of Informatica's purview. So we have a lot of open repositories like available by Docker, redhead, koai, et cetera. And also many of the vendors, they maintain their own Repositories as well. But at Informatica, we block out those repositories to ensure That only approved code goes into the production. And this is achieved using the Admission Controller policies. So in the runtime, some of the controls that, specific Controls that we have implemented is first is enforcing The namespace usage. So namespace usage allows us to build out a segregation Between products and business entities. And this is where this segregation is ultimately Helping out to enforce role-based access control Between pods and also the various application. And the same namespace segregation is used to define The network policies and our service match policies on Which namespace, which pods can talk to which other Namespaces and pods. Along with that, Admission Controller, it is our Central point, central enforcement point, which is Enforcing all the garteries that we have defined. Which is like pod security policies, deployment must have The network policies associated during the deployment. How api servers can be used, can it be used from the External clients, how it is used from internal Environment, who can vary the api servers. So all of this is put into the Admission Controller. And in the last, monitoring the configuration to detect Cs compliance failures. So one of the things that we may Assume that once our kubernetes environment is Deployed, it is expected that kubernetes system itself will Keep monitoring this environment and do the self-healing. But many times we have seen that this self-healing has a Failure due to the local changes that may be Implemented by the kubernetes admin. And from the security point of view, we want to detect this Changes and report it back into our operations team. Along with that, this configuration also allows us To monitor for any rogue containers. Like people will be surprised at how can rogue containers Get into the kubernetes environment when most of the Things are managed by orchestrator or your local Deployment system. But even with all of that, we have Seen that people, the deployments, they don't do a Proper cleanup. And many times we have seen this Rogue container which may be used for testing purposes Or temporary purposes and then they never got cleaned up. So this configuration monitoring allows us to detect this type Of rogue containers. Now, this build time and runtime Security that we talked about, but at the end of the day, we Have to figure out what we are achieving, like how do we Get a single pane of view. And for a single pane of view, We have defined this risk lens that allows us to figure Out what is the risk profile of each of the deployment That we have in our running kubernetes environment. And to define this risk lens, we have multiple verticals that We have defined. The first one is images. So as we talked about, like, what are the images? Are those approved images coming from the approved Repositories? Are there any rogue images that are Running in the environment? Then the access control. Access control around, like, who are the admins? What are the access that each of the containers has in the Kubernetes environment? The next one is network policies. Who can talk to whom? Also for the pod security Policy is also part of this. And then the cluster Security itself. Like, how clusters are configured? What are the cs parameters configured for them? And are they meeting those cs parameters or not? So as we have defined those guardrails, we codified Those guardrails into the reddit acs. So here i have popped up one of the sample risks that was Identified by reddit acs. So if you look at here closely, Here it is defining all the policy violations. So one of our policies says that if there is a container That has any vulnerability that has CVS score greater than Seven, then that should not get deployed. Or if it is deployed and a vulnerability is detected Afterwards, then it's a policy violation and we need to flag it out. Similar to that, here's the process with uid zero. So this is an example of arbeck policies failure. And similar to that, secret mounted as environment Variable. So this is a big no-no from Cis. So it's a Cis policy failure as well. So these are the combination of the policies that we have Identified. And ultimately this policy Failures are calculated under the risk. And that is the priority. Based on that, we have defined The priorities which will allow our developers and the Operations team to prioritize their workload and figure out What items we need to fix first. So one of the good Example is that priority will go higher if the fixable CVS Score greater than seven is there, is present. But if there is a docker cis failure, then we may Not prioritize it at that high level. Because docker cis, not all of the controls are Approachable or expected to meet in our environment. So we have put it at a lower priorities. So based on this priority based decision, we are Feeding this data back into our development teams lifecycle Using gira tickets. And in the last, the DevSecOps takeaways that i want to mention here. So the first one is define guardrails and document them. So this guardrails are ultimately helpful for everybody to be On the same page. When you define them and document It, it is very likely that your development team and Operations team will go through it to understand and Figure out like how those guardrails will be implemented in The different stages of the DevSecOps lifecycle. Like whether this guardrail is at the code commit level, build Level or the ship level. And once you have documented This, it is pretty easy to put them into acs. So most of the guardrails that we have defined, they Either go into acs or admission controllers. And using those two systems, we are able to ensure that all of Our kubernetes deployment will fall into our standards and The requirements. And once you have the guardrails, One of the main advantages is using this guardrails, you Are able to provide feedback to developers. So this is also very important. You want to create your own System using whatever ticketing system that you are using so That the issues that are identified by admission Controllers or reddit acs goes back into the development Life cycle. This will allow security to Move to the shift left and reduce your security issues in The production environment. And when i say reduction, one Of the major thing that we have experienced is kubernetes Amplifies your problems. Because in the past, when you were Running like thousand virtual machines and running your products Or applications using that, now those thousands of virtual Machines are multiplied by thousand containers. So all your vulnerabilities, all your issues are Multiplied by thousands. So this is one of the things That is important to keep in mind. And to control this, you Want to ensure that you have broader mindset work. So when you provide your early feedback to developers, they Will be sharing your load. They will be working for you to fix the security issues early on. And at the end, build your automations to provide reporting. It's certainly a good idea to put your issues in the jira. But then you also want to build out your reporting system, your Dashboards and charts to ensure that you can provide routine Feedback to the leaders on how we are doing as a security Minded organization. So yeah, that's the final slide. Any questions? Yes, awesome. We do have one question from the virtual side of the house. And he's asking, are third party oci images being signed after scanning? Our third party oci images are signed. Yes. So as I was mentioning that we are bringing in all of our Images into our own ECR. And so before checking into ECR And during the storage process, we do sign it. So we have our own notary that is used to sign those images. Thank you. All right. Anyone else have a couple of questions? Here we go. Thank you, everyone. Hey, i have a question for you. Sure. This is here. So sometimes there will be Some containers, like init containers, which come and go very fast. So will it also scan that? So those init containers, yes. So during the run time, it probably won't get scanned. So one of the reasons is we have scheduled the Continuous scan for acs every four hours. So yes, during the run time, they won't get scanned. But they will certainly get scanned during the build time. So we know what, like, dependencies, what are the Configuration from the docker cs point of view. So at least we have validation during the development time And build time. Okay. You're saying that, you know, even Before the container runs during the build time, that scan Will happen and it captures that if something is wrong. Is wrong. Correct. And if that pass didn't get checked, It won't go further. It will fail there. Yes, correct. Yeah. That's correct. Okay. Thank you. All right. And one more from the ether of the virtual world. Is there a plan to migrate from the use of pod security Policies to pod security admission controller or something? Yeah, that's a great question. So we haven't yet found, We have invested a lot into pod security policies as of today. So the network policy, that is something that we are Looking at. But as of right now, no. It says mostly investment issue. Like we have invested in Resources, so don't have time to go into the next one right now. Yeah. Could you re-explain the pipeline that you was talking About when you said that you had to create separate Repositories? Mm-hmm. Are you, those repositories created beforehand or are they Created after the workflow or during the workflow? Yes, it's created beforehand. And also we have a document that Outlines what are the tags and labels that should be used. So budgeting system. So that also helps us like basically Repository names are specific based on our naming standards. Is that an answer? That was a good answer. All right. We're going to wrap it up here and thank you Very much for coming. That was awesome.


Setting up your practice course. If you don't have a course from your organisation, you can get a Moodle Cloud site and create a practice course there. Here's how to do it. First, go to MoodleCloud.com and choose a package that you're interested in. Perhaps you could start with a free trial. Once you've signed up and got your site, log in and, if you wish, explore the helpful information and the starting with Moodle course. Then, from the My Courses tab at the top, click the three dots on the right and then New Course. Another way to add a new course is from the Site Administration tab, Courses, Add a New Course. You can give it any name you want. The full name and short name can be the same if they're not too long. Choose a subject that's relevant to you or that you're interested in and add any other details. Click Save and Display. If you go to My Courses, you'll see you are enrolled as a teacher in your new course and you can start Moodling right away. However, perhaps you want to have a separate teacher account from the one you will use as Site Admin. That's a good idea. Or perhaps you want to give the course to another teacher. Here's how. Go to Site Administration, then Users, then Add a New User. Choose a user name and a password and make sure you remember them both and then any other information, for example, First Name, Last Name, Email and then Create User.  Click the Participants link. Click the Enroll Users button. Find the new account and assign them the role of teacher. Click Enroll Users. You have now enrolled that new account as a teacher in the course. If you wish, you can unenroll yourself, you, the admin, by clicking the bin icon. Now this new teacher account is ready to begin teaching with Moodle. To summarise, go to MoodleCloud.com to get your own Moodle site quickly to set up your practice course. Ideally, add a new account to users teacher in the course.


Hey guys, Matt from Mystery History here. So today I wanted to share with you a confession. A confession by this man. His name is Dr. Alaa Shaheen and he is one of the world's leading Egyptologists. He is also head of the Cairo University Archaeology Department. He rubs shoulders with top Egyptian government figures and members of the Egyptian state of antiquities. If anyone knows about Egypt's most in-er-kept secrets, it's this guy. In December 2010, he was hosting a conference to a select group of delegates about ancient Egyptian architecture when he let something slip. He admitted to being complicit in the covering up of an astonishing secret. He has since retracted the statement and is now denying he ever made it. However, during the conference a handful of press reporters were present. They all ran the same story, shortly after the conference all quoting the same remark, making it rather difficult to believe that he didn't actually say it. In what I can only imagine was a misjudgment of trust. When questioned regarding the possibility of alien involvement in the construction of ancient Egypt, he not only confirmed this to be the case, but confessed to knowing and I quote, There is still something inside the pyramid that is not of this world. In a previous video I shared how the tomb of Osiris, once believed to have been a mythical god from Egyptian legend, a belief Egyptian antiquities would like to keep alive was actually discovered recently. The tomb was found by traversing an access tunnel system just a few inches in diameter. From the moment this impossible access passage was discovered, they quietly knew they had found something amazing. The moment Egyptian authorities finally managed to get a robot with a camera into the tomb, a complete media blackout descended upon Egypt. Walls were constructed around the tomb and no information regarding the find was shared for several weeks. When the world was eventually allowed near the site, the tomb was found to have been conveniently empty. No explanation as to how grave robbers could have possibly got into the tomb has ever been produced. Was Osiris an alien? Was our previous research bang on the money? Even in Egyptian legend, the figure known as Thoth was said to have allowed beings such as Ra and Osiris to exist in our realm. Were ancient Egyptian artists accurate in their depictions of these beings as hybrids? If as Dr. Alashahid states, along with ancient Egyptian literature, that there is indeed something otherworldly under the Great Pyramid, could it really be a portal? And if it is, why hide it? Regardless of what it is, they are definitely hiding something. What otherworldly thing do you think is hidden under the Great Pyramid? Let us know in the comments. Thanks for watching guys, until next time, take care. Most people have never heard of Pareidolia, but nearly everyone has experienced it. Anyone who has looked at the moon and spotted two eyes, a nose, and a mouth has felt the pull of Pareidolia. It's the imagined perception of a pattern or meaning where it does not actually exist, according to the World English Dictionary. It's picking a face out of a knotted tree trunk or finding zoo animals in the clouds. German design studio on Formative is undertaking perhaps the world's largest and most systematic search for Pareidolia. Their Google Faces program will spend the next few months sniffing out face-like shapes in Google Maps. This phenomena of seeing faces was also attributed to the very famous face of Sidonia that was found on Mars. The face was first imaged in detail by the Viking I and Viking II orbiters. 18 images were taken by the orbiters. Viking I launched on July 20, 1976 and Viking II orbited Mars on July 25, 1978. The striking likeness the apparent natural formation had to a face allowed the image to quickly gain notoriety around the world. The possibility of ancient ruins being on Mars is not a hypothesis held by modern science. And it is certainly not a scenario that NASA endorses. Neither does any other space-going nation appear to have any interest in investigating the possibility. Many conspiracies have surfaced over the years regarding covert operations in search of exactly such ruins on our neighboring planets. Many claiming black operations have occurred, such as an Apollo 20 program, with some rather convincing CGI hoaxes subsequently being created. Regardless, what a number of authentic researchers have managed to accomplish by just studying imagery of Mars and also of historical knowledge of the region held here on Earth is quite remarkable. The vast orbital imagery of the Sidonia region of Mars have attempted to debunk the face as just being a product of light angle. However, thankfully, people did not let these debunking efforts dissuade them from further investigations of the area. Some researchers who were versed in the works of Zachariah Sitchin connected the location to the possible burial site at King. Recorded within the 10th Sumerian tablet, Sitchin had apparently translated a passage regarding a god known as Alalu, who requested upon death to be buried where he would be able to peer into space gazing upon Earth forever. Although many claim Sitchin's vague understanding of the writings may have led to mistranslations, Sitchin became convinced that this 10th tablet also laid claims to King being the constructor of the pyramids. People who knew these fragments of information actually connected a network of apparent extremely ancient pyramidal ruins resting very near to the face. These remnants of once great structures undoubtedly align with the star constellation of Pleiades. What is astonishing is that these ruins would not have been discovered without Sitchin's translations. Was Sitchin right all along? Is this really proof of ancient ruins on our nearest neighbor? The alignments are certainly compelling and must be more than just coincidence. As always, thanks for watching guys and until next time, take care. In 1910, construction workers in Mexico were building an insane asylum atop of what they presumed was an ordinary mountain. Upon digging into the earth, they almost immediately discovered the ruins of an extremely ancient structure. It was later realized, yet not largely shared with the world, that the hill is actually what is now classified as the largest pyramid on Earth. Hiding under the grass, trees and many tons of earth sits the once lost and now found Great Pyramid of Cholula. With a base four times the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza, just how did this amazing monument get lost to time? Also, why is it more heard regarding this enormous structure within modern academia? It sits just outside Puebla, the fourth largest city in modern-day Mexico. It is 450 meters wide and 66 meters tall, with a floor area comparable in size to nine Olympic-sized swimming pools. Not only is this structure the largest pyramid on Earth, but it is also officially and undeniably deemed the largest monument ever built on our planet. In 1519, Hernán Cortés, a Spanish invader, had his men march into the great Aztec city of Cholulu. They subsequently massacred 10% of the population and built a tiny church on top of the hill as a symbol of their conquest. The church they built is now known as the oldest continuously-occupied building in North America. Several records suggest that when Cortés arrived in Cholula, the pyramid was many thousands of years old and already entirely overgrown by vegetation. Additional legends state that the Great Pyramid was so sacred to the Cholula people that they covered it with soil in order to hide it from Cortés' army. We may never know how it became buried under the sediment it now rests beneath. Experts believe the pyramid grew in stages, successive civilizations improving on what had already been built. When an old pathway was removed in 2013 to make access for a drainage system, workers reportedly uncovered at least 63 complete and very ancient skeletons. Some of these remains accompanied by numerous alien-looking skulls absent their skeletons. Ancient myths from the region told of giants building the structure, with the city's inhabitants being of normal size. From the 1930s until today, great efforts had been made to fully excavate the pyramid. Although these excavations rarely gain any media attention, regardless of the pyramid's enormous size and possible importance, over five miles of tunnels have been dug inside the structure, all open to the public if you can get in them, as locals have reportedly reclaimed the pyramid as their own. Even though extensive exploratory research has been undertaken, the age or indeed the possible builders remain an elusive mystery. Just what type of tombs could still be buried beneath the largest officially-classified pyramid on Earth? Were alien remains really found amongst the ruins? And if they were, why was the world kept in the dark regarding the results of this testing? Official reports released at a much later date concluded that they were the decapitated skulls of deformed children. This conclusion, however, just raises more questions. We will keep you posted on further information discovered regarding the site. Thanks for watching, guys, and until next time, take care.


This is Jeff Deist and you're listening to the Human Action Podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back once again to the Human Action Podcast. Very pleased to be joined by a special guest, a friend of mine, Hunter Hastings, who lives in my one-time hometown of San Diego, California, and who is someone who has been involved for many, many years, both in entrepreneurship and in marketing, as an executive working for big brands that you've heard of, like Coke and Proctor and Gamble and Kraft and that sort of thing. So now in his second career of sorts, he's taken a particular interest in entrepreneurship and he works with people like Professor Peter Klein and Professor Pair Bieland in crafting and creating what we have as a new program, a new offering called Economics for Entrepreneurs. And many of you have probably already heard his voice on that podcast, which of course we feature at Mises.org. But I wanted to get together with him and talk a little bit more about the underlying Austrian economics that serves as a foundation of sorts for entrepreneurial activity. So all that said, Hunter Hastings, great to talk to you. Thank you very much, Jeff. It's great to be here. Well, I want to start with something that I discussed with Pair Bieland in an interview recently that we did for the Austrian magazine and you know, Hunter, this criticism. This criticism comes from people like Nassim Taub, who say business schools and economics departments can't really teach business acumen. They can't teach entrepreneurship. You've either got it or you don't. So I wanted to get your thoughts on that for starters. Well, I break that down, Jeff, into three components. One is there's a process of entrepreneurship and that can be taught. And the problem is that most business schools and most teachers of entrepreneurship get it backwards. And that's captured a lot in this idea of product-market fit, which is a perfect illustration of getting the process backwards, developing a product or a service and then figuring out how it fits into the marketplace. And the opposite is the right process, which is understand customers or consumers, understand the market that they make up, identify some need or opportunity which is unmet and then design your product and service to fit into that space in the marketplace. So product-market fit and most business school teaching about entrepreneurship is backwards and we can teach the right process. And we've had guests on our show talk about that. Kurt Carlson from a couple of weeks ago is a great example of teaching that. So you can teach the process, you can show people and give them case studies and case histories. The second component is tools and tactics and you can teach some of that. So you can teach financing, how to raise money, how to borrow money, what the meaning of debt is, what's a P&L, what's a balance sheet, how a growth company should think about that, how to hire people, how to put teams together. We can certainly teach the principles of that. But some other tools and tactics we can't. We talk a lot on economics for entrepreneurs about empathy, which is the individual art of getting into somebody's heart and mind and understanding their needs. We can describe what that is, but I'm not sure you can teach it. That's something that is inherent. Maybe people can learn it over time, but I'm not sure you can teach it. And then there is a third element which is personal attributes. And I believe that that's applicable in entrepreneurship. A word that comes up a lot is courage. If you're a small business owner and you're trying to make payroll, you're trying to sign the lease on your store, you're trying to introduce a new product or a new service, you're trying to deal with a client. A lot of times that requires courage or at minimum self-reliance. I like to call it individualism. The economists call it embracing uncertainty, which is, hey, you can't know what's going to happen, so you're going to have a pretty tough-minded approach to embracing uncertainty or have a bias for action. So I think some of those traits can be learned, but they can't necessarily be taught in school. So that's a long answer to a short question. Well, it's funny that third quality, we might have a different word for that that we won't use on air today. But when we talk about tools and tactics, I think sometimes we gloss over things like HR and finance and accounting. These are real skills that you can go learn in a class, and those are certainly important if you're going to be successful. Right, and I agree with you. We can teach those kinds of things and we can especially teach them for entrepreneurs who are usually dealing with greater scarcity of resources, as the economists would say, than a big corporation like some of the ones you mentioned in your introduction. So how do I decide on those hires? How do I decide whether to add a marketing capability versus another engineer? Those kinds of issues, their resource allocation issues, their team-building issues, we can teach the decision-making that helps folks make the right decisions and allocate resources in the right way. So yeah, we wouldn't gloss over those kinds of things. They're very, very important. I see them every day in venture capital funded firms. It's a big issue. Now, in your own work in venture capital, let me ask you a slightly personal question. Do you have skin in the game? You have your own money involved in some of the firms in which you invest? Yes, in two ways. One, I'm a general partner in the fund that I co-manage. So that's my money, as well as other investors' money. I really invest in some of the deals that come by, not all of them, but many of them. So yes, I have skin in the game. So at the outset, when you were talking about process, let's unwrap that a little bit more. Embedded in a lot of what you were saying is the Missessian idea of consumer sovereignty. What's interesting is Rothbard didn't particularly like that term. He thought it made it sound like the consumer was the boss of the producer rather than someone who was involved in a voluntary exchange with him. But nonetheless, talk about that. That seems almost entirely lost, at least when I watch things like, let's say, Shark Tank. People have some idea, and it's more about them rather than the need of the consumer. So what should we think about consumer sovereignty? Well, I'm a big subscriber to that idea. When I was at Procter & Gamble, and I was marketing soap and detergent and mundane sounding things like that, we investigated the need of the consumer. My particular consumer was mom. I was marketing tide. I needed to understand mom and help her to make decisions. So she would buy my product as opposed to somebody else's. And we came up with the phrase, or Procter & Gamble did, I didn't, that the consumer is my boss. And so my boss was mom. And that was ingrained in us. That was our process. And so an economist like Ludwig von Mises calls it consumer sovereignty. We called it the consumer as boss. And it is absolutely applicable because it's the second part of Austrian theory, subjective value that values in the mind of the consumer that helps you figure out how to meet the needs of the customer who's your boss. So I got to the point where I understood that mom's subjective need, I never used any terminology or words like that, was she wanted to be a good mom. She wanted to feel that herself and she wanted to have others recognize her as a good mom. And you can write all kinds of psychological analytics around that, but it was absolutely true. And if I could communicate that Tide was helping her to feel like a good mom, I was successful. And that's universal, that whole point is universal. So we're actually doing a lot of new research now about where value is formed. And the business schools talk about value creation as if an entrepreneur creates value. Well, in fact, they don't. The consumer creates value and in a very complex form of their life, and they invite you to fit in. And if you can fit into their life in a way that makes them more comfortable, makes them feel better, then they've created value from the offering that you've made. So I am an absolutely strong believer in consumer sovereignty and I think that's one of the great strengths of Austrian economics. That's what we keep trying to do on economics for entrepreneurs like the theory is customer sovereignty. What does it mean in real life? And if you understand that, you're way ahead. But talk more about value. That's difficult to understand conception. I mean, even Manger had a theory of value way back in the 1870s. He was talking about use value and exchange value and commodities and that sort of thing. But when we say the value has been created, there's buzzwords like value added or what's my value maybe it's become buzzy. What do we really mean? Does the consumer experience value? Does the consumer create value? Does the entrepreneur set the conditions for the consumer to attain value? How should we think about it? Well, you got the word exactly right and that is the consumer experiences value. So it doesn't happen until they've had that experience. And it's a feeling. That's what subjective value means. If you go back and read Manger, you said this yourself when you reviewed principles of economics on this podcast. It reads like 2019. It's all about subjective value and what the entrepreneur has to do to create that. So value occurs when the consumer or the customer consumes what the entrepreneur has offered feels like that's better than before and might be disposed to continue to consume or consume more or become loyal all of those things that we use. But value is a feeling on behalf of the customer. And so that requires the entrepreneur to have what the economists call empathy and get into people's lives. We had Elizabeth Isabella neighbor on our show a few weeks ago and she talked which was a great expression about understanding how consumers feel value and analytics and big data and those kinds of things they can give you some pointers, they can see patterns and they can give you some analytics that you can work on. But they can't give you that emotional understanding of how the consumer is going to feel value. And it's subjective, it's also idiosyncratic it changes all the time, it changes with context, it's a very elusive thing. So you can't create value. The consumers got to understand it, got to feel it rather, you've got to understand that feeling. And we say that entrepreneurs can facilitate value, they can make a value proposition, they can make an offer and hopefully that will be experienced as value by the consumer. So it's very humbling thought and that's one of the ideas that Mises had in human action. It's a humble idea. Well, it is humbling but I want to think more about this facilitating the process for which and values of feeling. That doesn't sound very econ-ish and I don't really like behavioral economics. The idea that something's a feeling, let me give you an example. I don't know if people know this but suede is generally very expensive and now that you can get what they call ultra suede in a sport coat, for example that's made of some kind of newfangled high-tech polyester that has a look and feel and that sort of sheen of suede and I happen to have a suede sport coat that I really like and I got a Facebook ping the other day of one that was very similar to it and I had sort of a strange visceral reaction. I'm not a big shopper or consumer type but that's pretty amazing because that's not even a human entrepreneur at that point, that's an algorithm although a human built it somehow. So they got to me, I didn't buy it by the way, but they got to me. So is that it? I mean that feeling that I might value that ultra suede sport coat more than whatever the price was? Well there are two parts to what you just described and entrepreneurs have to combine those two things. One is technical knowledge so the ping that you described from Facebook is some human being somewhere wrote an algorithm that said we can figure out how to send a ping to Jeff Deist about suede sport coats since he's been seen in one or has written about them or something like that. That is technological knowledge. The second part of that is human knowledge and the AI that sent you the ping has no idea how you feel and so it can attempt to write some words that might elicit some expressions of feeling from you. That's a kind of semantic analysis it can do but you have to have the feeling that boy this new suede sport coat will make me feel better than the old suede sport coat and you're creating that value that's Jeff Deist doing that not the AI. So the two go together the technological component and the human component but the human component is all subjective all human. But if that's the value lies it's on the consumer side of things and the consumer sort of creating it isn't that bad news for the labor theory of value a Marxist looked at things and in terms of how much time they took how many people the cost of the inputs and so isn't an entrepreneurial mindset almost by definition contra Marxism? Oh absolutely I no one equates cost with value anymore so creating value is entirely a it's a conceptual idea it's a theoretical idea you can't measure it you know that Rothbard's famous about that you can't you can't measure in utils or anything like that you can't measure value there's a proxy for it which is price somebody might pay a certain price but why does somebody pay $260,000 for the new Ferrari Roma as opposed to $35,000 for afford there's there's lots of reasons why most of them emotional and the cost has relatively little to do with it so I you can't even relate those two concepts today cost and value that they're just not related they're on the same field but do you think that's true do you think we really have defeated the concept of the cost area value or the labor theory of value or is that just in our circles where we think we've defeated it well you're talking about circles of economists I'm trying to talk about circles of entrepreneurs so yes theoretically it's totally defeated but that's not our concern our concern is thinking about entrepreneurs how can they create value and the second step is I've got to organize costs so that my cost is lower than value it might be by a lot or might be by a little and so again going to my training when I was in the big corporations the business schools used to teach cost based pricing so figure out the cost of your ingredients add 40% and that's the price to the consumer well I found out quickly it's the wrong way around again it's backwards the right answer is price based costing how much value does the consumer think they're getting out of this offering that you're making what's the price they will pay for that value that's the proxy now organize your resources so that your cost is less than the price the consumer will pay and that's called profit so even cost based pricing is the wrong way around price based costing and pair pylon talks about this with respect to iphone he says you know what's the next iphone 10 or 11 or whatever number we're on what's it going to cost people immediately begin to talk about components and how much development time apple has into it and everything and that's really irrelevant isn't it I mean it's going to cost what the market will bear but I want to add to that I want you to respond to this is cost does come into play in other words if the realities of payroll costs materials costs become too high and the market simply won't pay then a product might go away so cost does play a role well let's back to customer sovereignty again that the customer decides what the price is in the marketplace and if you can't control your cost as an entrepreneur to keep them below that price you don't make a profit then you can't continue so in that sense cost is a responsibility of the entrepreneur that they might get wrong the second part of it is competition might come along and say I can make that for less money I can offer it at the same price and make a big profit or I can offer it at a lower price and still make a profit so the competitive function is very real in entrepreneurship now what we try and make people think about is can I get to the point of uniqueness where I really don't have any competition my application is so specialized that I'm genuinely unique and that's the ideal place to be but it's a very hard place to be and it's very hard to maintain in a competitive marketplace so cost is the responsibility of the entrepreneur well there's also the point you made earlier comparing let's say a fancy high end luxury car or a sports car that cost $250,000 to a $35,000 or $40,000 Camry I mean you can reach a point where a Camry is half as good but it costs a tenth as much so again there's ranges of choices here we don't all have to own the latest greatest iPhone we can own a five year old Samsung or something like that. Yeah in the analytics of value to those two consumers are actually very very hard you've got that Ferrari what part of it is prestige how much value are you putting on the prestige how much are you putting on the tradition how much are you putting on the brand why does a Louis Vuitton handbag cost $15,000 because the consumer will pay that because they see that value in it can I understand that value perception on the part of the consumer I can try really hard but boy that's got to be tough I'm not a person myself who would spend $260,000 on a Ferrari so I've got to empathize with that consumer I've got to think about what would the mindset be what would the context be what would the circumstances be that would make that value and how many of those Ferraris can I make and sell if I'm Enzo Ferrari or as successor those are very very delicate calculations it's not easy. But again there are people and let's just say on the left who would resent the purchaser of the Ferrari the Louis Vuitton handbag saying you ought not to be able to to value the feeling you get from having a fancy car that much when there's privation and starvation and such in the world and we ought to spread that money around nobody ought to buy a Ferrari so the idea of consumers creating value for themselves and the idea of consumer sovereignty are again sound like they have an ideological tinge them because we're saying hey it's okay if you want a $15,000 Louis Vuitton handbag that's what makes you happy that gives you some sort of cachet knock yourself out a lot of people don't agree with that hunter yeah but there's no ideology and entrepreneurship Jeff so if the customer is boss you try and understand what it is that they want so maybe they want some superb piece of machinery and as Mises explained often in the beginning the market invent new technologies or new designs and new ways of doing things for the very few who can afford them first and there's an interesting concept in that kind of economics which is you want venture some entrepreneurs but you also want venture some consumers and venture some customers because they'll try the new technology first and then eventually if it catches on with them then some new entrepreneurs will come in and say interesting maybe I can make that valuable to more consumers instead of a $25,000 Rolex I can invent the $35 swatch and a lot of stops in between as well so eventually it benefits everybody and I've never understood the mentality that we shouldn't let our entrepreneurs try hard enough to create new value that's never been seen before because it always dissipates into the marketplace in fact there's never a huge profit in selling very expensive things to a few people there's a lot of profit in selling very attractive things to a great number of people well you mentioned that entrepreneurship doesn't have an ideology per se Austrian economics is viewed rightly or wrongly as being steeped in theory and ideology at least by some people so when it comes to the process of teaching people or learning how to become a better entrepreneur you see all kinds of online marketing you see all kinds of business self-help books at the airport there's a whole industry of podcasts and coaching and life coaching all this sort of thing I always sense that people don't want any ideology or theory snuck in they really just want the nitty-gritty how to and sometimes it feels like Austrian economics is encumbered with a theory well I'd separate those two things with a very very thick high wall theory is good theory is how we think about how the world works and if we can get the theory right then we can take that as a general principle and use the deductive method and figure out how it applies to our own individual business so in our new free e-book that we just released it's think better think Austrian that's not ideological it's theoretical so if you can think straight if you can look at data and figure out based on general principles truth principles how those work then you've got a better start then we talk about developing knowledge so Austrian economics has a lot to say about distributed knowledge and for the entrepreneur the implication of that is develop more and more knowledge that you can bring to the marketplace and it's got extra value develop some skills based on that knowledge that other people don't have be multidisciplinary think across a lot of different fields when you're applying your knowledge and then Austrian economics talks about imagining the future which is just the best way of thinking about innovation imagine what it will be like and then think better about working your way backwards to how you can implement it so all of those applications are applications of theory ideology there's nothing to do with ideology we look at the economy we look at it from the individual standpoint we look at it about individual serving individuals you roll that up into economic growth and betterment that's not ideology that's just how the economy works so I'd separate those two I'd a big green light to theory and a big red light to ideology well give us a couple of examples you've hinted at some what are some examples of Austrian theory that has real world applications for business or entrepreneurship well I think we've talked about the two most important ones one is customer sovereignty so if you think your way through that that's perfect for any business development we've talked about subjective value for example the advertising industry is an exercise in subjective value how can I communicate to a consumer that they will feel better as a result of trying or consuming my product that's the application of subjective value but a third one that's really interesting that that Per and I have been talking about Dr. Byland I should say and I have been talking about a lot is the economic name for it is Austrian capital theory and Austrian capital theory says your capital structure if you're a firm should reflect the consumers preferences in the marketplace and the consumers preferences are always changing so how can you do that how can you you flexibly build a capital structure that changes as fast as a consumer did and for a long time we never knew that and then we've finally started working our way towards that so outsourcing is a way to have flexible capital I'll make it with these outsourcing resources but as soon as I need to change I can because it's a contract not a piece of fixed capital and the latest thinking about agile which is an organizational approach Steven Denning who's going to be coming on the program soon wrote a book called the age of agile and it says it changes the structure of the firm think of it not as a a big building or a machine but think of it as a flotilla or a tiny speed boats that is always peeling off and peeling in and going in lots of different directions so how could you how can you build an agile company well it's Austrian capital theory and if you if you keep thinking about that how can I make my capital and my resources as flexible as possible so I can turn this part off tomorrow and turn that part on tomorrow that's a revolution and in organization so we've known this theory for a long time in Austrian capital theory and we just now learning how to apply it in real life so it's super exciting actually it's exciting to figure out how to apply that well one example I recall you pointing out to me is something like uber where they built this company based on an app and an algorithm and they've got all these vehicles in play and they don't they don't own them their fleets were sitting out there already in people's garages and they don't employ the drivers and they don't have to go out and find the customers the whole thing was was not only highly decentralized but it just represents a new kind of company where it doesn't have to own physically all the resources that go into the service it provides exactly so uber is a very as you say decentralized and agile company and the idea that the the benefit the value to the consumer comes a lot through the app through the software somebody was telling me the other day that one of the great values that has appeared in research is that little algorithmic visual of the car getting closer and closer to you so all the idea of waiting for a cab and you don't know whether it's coming you know whether it's yours you don't want whether someone's going to push you out of the way and you're replaced by that knowledge that is represented by the visual algorithm of the little car approaching the capital is as you say owned by others owned by the drivers and dispersed all the way through the the city or the country so yeah it's a great example another great example I think is is Amazon and in Jeff Bezos seven principles of running out it's up to 13 now maybe I'm not up to date but anyway one of them is customer obsession and that's his way of saying Austrian customer sovereignty theory so if you always think about the customer if you're always obsessed about what the customer wants then you're always going to make the right decisions you're going to allocate resources in the right way you're going to build your apps in the right way and Amazon now is basically infrastructure so there are third party sellers on Amazon there are people who are not employed by Amazon driving trucks and delivering your stuff it's a very decentralized operation from a capital standpoint but it's highly highly focused on the customer to an obsessive point of view so I think that's another good modern example but this is actually radically changed the structure of production itself right I mean Austrian customer control theory goes to the structure of production how long it is and how round about it is but here we have resources that were lying fallow for example in the case of Uber in people's garages and now they're being put to use albeit owned by someone else so this really changes things doesn't it if we think of companies as highly decentralized versus the old IBM or Ford Motor Company it was sort of a hub and spoke and everything went through corporate at the top well it's still very helpful to think about the production chain in the way that Manga did with higher orders of goods and lower orders of goods and they're all connected through a chain of production and the value of each one of those components no matter where it is is determined by how much value is created by the customer so you continue to think like that the difference is you don't have to own it so you can build your supply chain from Alibaba in China and bring it to the US on some transportation company that's providing a service and you don't own and then they'll get it to a third party warehouse or the Amazon warehouse you don't have to arrange that somebody else will then Amazon will deliver it and you've just got to focus on the value component of telling the customer that your product is available what price you would like for it and what its features and benefits are so yes it's changed ownership of the capital but no it hasn't changed the idea of thinking through the production chain from higher order to lower order but it focuses the entrepreneur on what do I do best what do I do best is facilitate value for the customer with my website on Amazon with my communication on Amazon on my own website and I don't do what I'm least able to do which is build the original capital it's a fabulous world for entrepreneurship now because it's so flexible it's so dynamic it's a great time to be an entrepreneur well let's talk about the entrepreneur as an individual this isn't always just some rich kid this isn't always just somebody who lucked into a business and this also isn't someone who's fungible they are just an input a widget that you can swap out with another human the entrepreneur has a very special role to play obviously Mises Kurzner talked at length about this so talk more about that to other schools of economics really understand the role of the entrepreneur and if not what is their conception of the firm is it flawed well I break down the concept of the entrepreneur in two ways the economic model which as you rightly say the entrepreneur's role in the economic system in the beneficent economy and that role is making the lives of others better and that's pure economics that's what entrepreneurs do and economists call it rearranging the factors of production I'll find the need and I'll rearrange the factors of production which means you invent something or you start up something or you're a marketer you're an engineer you're an innovator you can be an entrepreneur or an entrepreneur if you're an entrepreneur you try to do that by making a profit so that whole role of the entrepreneur that exists in Austrian theory it doesn't exist in mainstream theory because the mainstream looks at aggregates and mathematical equations and there's none of the emotion and subjectivity that we have in Austrian economics so yes that part of it is an Austrian economics monopoly if you like nobody else thinks that way but then individually the way I think about being an entrepreneur is being the best node you can be in the network that you choose to join so we just describe the entrepreneur who sells on Amazon and what that network looks like when you assemble it and you can certainly do that and you can play the best role and leave the other roles to others but you can do that if you're working for a company you can be on an entrepreneurial team trying to create value for customers you can do it as part of a small firm you can do it as part of a group or a team and your job is to assemble that specialized knowledge that we talked about and apply that specialized knowledge in network interaction with other people so again to quote the age of agile you call it the law of the network connecting yourself in a network in a way that produces value for customers and consumers I don't think other economics talk about that the theory of the firm is just not developed in mainstream economics they think of it as the components of a market structure so if there's a monopoly there's one firm as a few and if there's perfect competition there's an infinite number presumably but they don't actually think about people and acts of entrepreneurship and making lives better and facilitating value that's got nothing to do with mainstream economics well I think we should point out that even if you're not in an entrepreneurial situation per se let's say you're just an employee at a large company there are all kinds of entrepreneurial things you can do within any environment to sort of sell yourself or learn more market yourself or build up or develop within a firm so you don't have to actually be starting a business of your own necessarily to think and act entrepreneurly no absolutely not Jeff the firstly always focus on the customer always think of the customer first and modern thinking about the theory of the firm from a business standpoint rather than a textbook standpoint is everybody serves the customer you've got to think about what am I doing that helps my customer feel better have more convenience experience more value even if you're an accountant in the cost department try and think that way second collaboration is a big part of entrepreneurship so find out how you can work on teams how can you contribute the the thinking about teams right now is to keep them small keep them very specialized have multiple disciplines on them and have them work on a single end to get that job completed and then you roll up the results of those teams into a bigger project or a bigger division or a bigger outcome so be a great team member that's another way of being the best node you can be on the network you choose to join and then pick up specialized knowledge as you go along there's so much to pick up you know when I think about my entrepreneurial career I started a consulting company on global branding when I was in my late 40s I think and that's you know that's pretty typical for when people start companies so I worked for Procter & Gamble in multiple countries multiple categories I then worked in other large corporations with similar footprints then I worked in some consulting companies and then I started my own so by that time I picked up knowledge about global branding and a lot of categories a lot of countries a lot of tactics a lot of cultural experiments so as a consultant I genuinely had something to bring it took a while to accumulate that knowledge so you can be doing that while you're working for a firm and that's a that's a great way to look at entrepreneurship keep developing knowledge until I'm ready well the economics for entrepreneurs E4 E project and the podcast itself just tell us a little bit about them where to find them but but also the goal how do we deliver at least some Austrian theory applicable actionable Austrian theory to people and what's the format how should people consume this because I'm sure some of our listeners are interested and also I I view this long term as a project of the Mises Institute where where that can almost be a sister podcast to the human action podcast we have the the econ and the theory on one side and the application on the other so just tell us a little bit more about how you conceive of this project well you're right Jeff it's a long term project which the Mises Institute has funded and authorized and it's an exploration of how we can apply Austrian economics in business and why should we do that well we we're trying to help people we're trying to help people become better entrepreneurs but actually it's broader than that become more employable become more promotable become more fundable become more successful if you're a small business owner anything that helps people in in business using all of the applications of knowledge that we've been talking about for the past few minutes and the economics for entrepreneurs podcast which you can find on Apple podcast and other podcasting platforms and at Mises.org slash e4e that will get you there it's exploratory so our opening episodes have been an alternate of professors like Kerr Byland and Peter Klein and others talking about economic theory and how to apply it and then in the alternate weeks practicing entrepreneurs who may never have heard of Austrian economics but they'll tell us how they were successful how they learned when they weren't successful how they're recovered from that so we've covered many many categories with with real life entrepreneurs and every week we do what we call the key takeaways so that's a business way of saying hey what are the learning points that we got in this episode and we also have a free downloadable pdf that tries to capture that that you could pin on your wall or put in a drawer at least refer to and now we've just produced our first ebook which is a compilation of multiple episodes Kerr Byland always says for the entrepreneur if you understand the laws of economics and the mind of the customer you'll be successful so our first book is understanding the mind of the customer and it takes six of those episodes six of those tools and I will say I've used many of those tools in my consulting career I've worked on global brands in multiple countries using those self same tools so one of them just to illustrate is the means and ladder so Austrian economic theory says that people are always acting in the pursuit of ends and then they choose scarce means from scarce means in order to achieve those ends so that's theory so you put that in practice if somebody buys my detergent or my car or my website what are they trying to do that's the end if they buy the Ferrari or they're trying to drive 150 miles an hour or they're trying to impress their neighbor those are the ends you're trying to figure that out and then why do they choose these other means and can I persuade them to choose these other means and so the means and ladder is the Austrian tool and then we talk about how you apply that in real life and we've got more tools like that the brand framework tool the customer journey mapping tool you'll see them over time and then eventually we'll add more online courses we're working on our first releases now we hope to build eventually a community where entrepreneurs can come in and ask questions maybe there be some mentorship there that we could offer maybe be some service exchange the lawyers can get marketing from the marketers and the marketers can get legal help from the lawyer so that's all to come that's the future so the podcast is the first step we hope people will sign up but think of it as a long engagement stay with us for a long time and then please send ideas and questions and suggestions and I wish I used to have a tool Jeff when I was consulting I called it IWIC which stood for I wish I knew so a wiki is what I what I know is it's very assertive but an IWIC is hey I wish I knew how this worked well send us your IWICs and we'll try and respond well Hunter Hastings thanks so much for your time we're going to put ladies and gentlemen links to not only the podcast but also the e-book also the interview with pair byland and a couple of other helpful links this is the the topic that I think we all have to be thinking about no matter where we are in our careers no matter where we are in life the idea of a safe comfy paid job with benefits and a pension is you know quickly becoming obsolete and something that a lot of us will never achieve so we we need to be educating ourselves and thinking along these lines and Hunter we appreciate so much your willingness to roll up your sleeves and dive into this endeavor well thank you Jeff I appreciate it appreciate all the support of the Muses Dude and let me just re-emphasize to anybody who might be listening please send along your ideas and suggestions you can do that at the Muses.Business LinkedIn page or the Muses.Business Facebook page either one will get it so thank you very much Jeff The Human Action Podcast is available on iTunes SoundCloud, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play and on meses.org Subscribe to get new episodes every week and find more content like this on meses.org


One deeper play that you could look at is Trey Kwan Smith against Minnesota. With Ted Ginn now on IR, Smith stepped in and played over 73% of New Orleans snaps this past weekend. He wasn't overly productive in week 7, but he was also facing a really good Baltimore secondary and he saw 6 of a possible 30 Drew Brees targets. That's good for a 20% target share. That's really strong in a New Orleans offense. This week the matchup is a little bit better, they're playing in a dome, and the game has a 53 point over under. If Trey Kwan sees a similar target share in snap rate, his production should only increase.