It certainly seemed that the team from Failure - the Podcast went into Covid-induced hibernation these past few months. We might say that we spent them on a promotional tour to shore up flagging subscriptions in Wisconsin….

Before starring as the criminal mastermind, Wo Fat, in the CBS television series Hawaii Five-O, Mark Dacascos emceed the Food Network hit, Iron Chef America. Though he probably never uttered the words himself….

Have you ever looked out over the Midwest farmlands while taking a cross country flight? Just another pretty view, you ask? The guests of today’s podcast think not…..

It takes a lot to rile the team from Failure - the Podcast — especially, when they’re recording an episode. So much so that one wonders whether they spend more time listening to themselves than to their guests….

We were curious. Just what is a skeeter? In the midwest it’s slang for mosquito. Perhaps, everywhere. Wikipedia thinks so. It lists “skeeter” as one of ….

Jennie Nigrosh’s epic failure on ABC’s “Shark Tank” in 2013 is the stuff of legends. The rising entrepreneur and founder/CEO of eco-friendly laundry-bag maker The Green Garmento got her legs cut out from under her….

This episode has nothing to do with Amy Cooper. In fact, it doesn’t mention any Karens or their victims. Amy’s dog was named Henry. He’s not in this podcast. Last we heard, he was back with the cocker spaniel rescue league. They are not mentioned in today’s episode, either.

This episode has nothing to do with coronavirus. Nor, vaccines, anti-vaxxers or Betsy DeVos. In fact, although the episode was recorded at socially-acceptable distances on the order of miles (and, in the case of our guest, a continent’s worth of them), you will hear no discussion of health today. Not a memorable one, at least.

Did we mention X Æ A-12 — or Little X, as Grimes more affectionally calls the tike? We might have, here, but not in the podcast. Speaking of Elon, the Gigafactory is in Nevada. Neither come up in today’s episode. Nor do the Kardashians, Kanye West, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner or Blitzen.

What is this episode about?

We’ll give you a hint: Tim Forbes. He’s in sports management. He worked his way up through the PGA, became an acclaimed author and now runs his own sports business. Tim has quite a story to tell, and if you listen to today’s episode you might catch a little of it.

So, let’s talk Internet. For sure, it had a beginning. Conventional wisdom says Al Gore gets the credit. The facts say otherwise — but who listens to them anymore.

Haven’t you ever wondered how the Internet got started? The team from Failure - the Podcast hasn’t either. Given the number of times we repeat that old saw about Veep Gore, we really should, though.

Our guest, for today’s travesty … er, episode … is Tim Horgan, the former web services guru of Digital Equipment Corporation. Haven’t heard of DEC (rhymes with “deck”), as it was known? Ask your grandparents. Perhaps, they’ll remember. Anyway, Tim was there when it happened: he witnessed the dawn of the Internet era. Join the team for Failure - the Podcast in a rousing, coronavirus-era, socially-distant, Zoomtastic call with Tim Horgan. You’ll be the better for it.

Abby Hoffman would not be pleased. The Vietnam War-era activist and author of the iconic work, Steal this Book, had values after all.

So why might today’s episode of Failure - the Podcast have Hoffman rolling in his grave? Perhaps, it’s because Hoffman was anti-establishment, whereas our guest, Jason Kraus, is an investor and author of Prepare 4 VC. He is a capitalist. Worse yet — we’re channeling Hoffman, here — he’s a capitalist who’s intent on spawning others through his writing.

Join the team from Failure - the Podcast in a half-hearted discussion with Jason on investing, publishing and the life of a millennial. Whether you’ll learn anything from it is a mystery.

“Timing. Timing. Timing. …. ?” Yep. You read well.

It got the team from Failure - the Podcast thinking about the seafood wholesaler/restaurant supplier who opened his new business three days before the lockdown. By any standard, this was a no-brainer. People like fish, but don’t like to prep, cook and clean. Restaurants are good at that. The product’s known: no need to create a market, like, say, Henry Ford did with the Model T in the early 1900’s. The infrastructure is in place. Unemployment is down and wages are up. Good price, quality and service should clinch it. Like our co-host Mic might say, “opening a seafood supply shop in the 2020’s, what could possibly go wrong?”

Join the team from Failure - the Podcast in a discussion with Garrett Weinstein, of TravelEZ. The Boston-based startup is hoping to define a market that the novel coronavirus just rendered an oxymoron: worldwide travel for the elderly. If the fundamentals are good, hopefully for Garrett, it’s now just a question of timing.

It’s tricky how the same word can mean so many different things. Take the word “is,” for example.

At a low point in his presidency, Bill Clinton came up against a perjury charge when his own lawyer, Robert Bennett, told a federal judge that “there is absolutely no sex of any kind” between Clinton and then-White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Confronted with the obvious lie, Clinton argued that the statement might nonetheless be true if one took “is” to mean “is none” rather than “is and never has been.”

OK. So where does that leave the team from Failure - the Podcast? Join us and learn even less about the novel coronavirus, remote computing software, the new iPad and, yes, the multiple meanings of “appendix.” We weren’t any better off for recording this episode, and you won’t be either for listening to it.

Some things just aren’t easy. Try explaining the presidential caucuses, for example. Even the NY Times has trouble with that one. Just because you’re a pro, doesn’t mean the words come easily. Writing an intro to this podcast has proven no exception. Regardless, join us in a discussion with Ron Murphy, CEO of Boston-based medical device company Theromics, and perhaps it will all come together for you.

We thought long and hard about publishing this podcast. With no guest in the mix, we were torn between absolute silence (“dead air,” as they say in the business) and pointless chatter between Mark and Dave. (We tried to drag Mic into the fray, but he said he’d be busy cleaning the rotary dialer on his cell phone). In the end, our poor judgement prevailed. That, and the fact that we simply had nothing else in the can. Hence, you’re stuck with drivel. Forty-five minutes of it. Mark in Hawaii. Dave in Boston. Mic … well, who ever knows where he is…

Corporate board failure. Is it possible? What do boards do, after all? If their mission is to rubber stamp the CEO, that leaves a big margin for error. You’d practically have to have sat on the board of directors to Theranos to run into trouble. Oh wait, we forgot. They didn’t get into trouble either. But, some boards do. Believe it or not, there are standards, even for corporate boards.

Join the team from Failure - the Podcast as they explore the duties and failings of corporate boards with Joseph Ayoub, of Varuna Strategies. Like Ben Solo née Kylo Ren’s return from the dark side in the latest of the Star Wars saga, Joseph is a litigator turned corporate consultant, specializing in forming and fixing corporate boards.

Notwithstanding what you may have thought about college psych, communications and business majors, the instructors who teach those disciplines can be as nerdy as any academician. Take the guest of our latest episode of Failure - the Podcast. Elaine Chen is an instructor on technology innovation, entrepreneurship and strategic management at the Sloan School. That’s MIT’s prestigious B-school. (OK, technically, she’s a senior lecturer at Sloan. We suspect the students don’t know the difference. Remember, this is B-school.) Elaine is as nerdy as they get and proudly admits it. Why shouldn’t she? We certainly are not going to be able to MAGA (make America great again) without MANA (make America nerdy again).

Taking the plunge into entrepreneurship can be a scary thing. Seasonally speaking, you could think of it as the Halloween of job changes: it’s best for young or the steel-nerved. (Yeah, we left out ignorant and desperate, but go with us here ....). For those who have what it takes, the plunge can be well worth it. Not only for the excitement of building a business from scratch but, for the lucky few, the handsome financial returns.

Join the team from Failure - the Podcast in a disjointed discussion of startups, the young, the steel-nerved and, well, the life of entrepreneur Marc Held. Now, the head of IoT Solutions at Turvo, you could say that Marc was a serial entrepreneur before even finishing college. Who amongst us can beat that?

Back in the day, the sale of land was consummated by a ceremonial act: the buyer gave to the seller a fistful of dirt from the property being sold. It was beauty in its simplicity. And, what could possibly go wrong? Either the buyer delivered the dirt or she didn’t. Well … the parties might have different understandings of the tract being sold. The supposed sale of the “back nine” of one man’s yard might spark a country-wide invasion. (OK, it’s a stretch. But it’s based on something we read in Wikipedia).

Today, we are more sophisticated. Buyers and sellers located continents apart may negotiate and close deals for land that they’ve never seen, much less, held the dirt of (yep, you caught us, a dangling preposition). All of this, through middlemen, like brokers, lawyers, and escrow agents. With such an august crew facilitating the transaction, what could possibly go wrong?

Join the team from Failure - the Podcast as they explore the wild world of title insurance with Ethan Powsner, Vice President of Market & Technology Development, for the Fidelity National Title Group. You’ll be thankful that there’s someone there to make right things that go wrong.

Listeners more erudite than us — yes, grammarians, it could be “we” — are undoubtedly familiar with Carole Cadwalladr.  Her work was the subject of the recent Netflix documentary “The Great Hack,” exploring the weaponization of social media.  

The Cadwalladr and Netflix work adds further fuel to an on-going debate:  would society be better off regulating Facebook, Twitter and the like as proposed by certain now-vacationing Washingtonians, or is Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” the answer?  

Economists might argue the latter:  that aggregate consumer self-interest, unhindered by governmental or capitalist influence, will always produce the best outcome.  But, if that’s so, how do you explain the 300,000,000,000 burgers sold by McDonald’s?  

Join the team from Failure - the Podcast in a discussion with Nadeem Mazen, co-founder of fabrk.io, a social network that is powered by cryptocurrency and consumer choice, and decide for yourself.

Our guest walked in saying he had so many failures, he kept a notepad to remember them.  Even showed us the pad.  Our mistake was we didn’t look closely.  Surely, though, we should have known something was up when he said he had already listened to some of our episodes.  In retrospect, we had to wonder whether that was casual listening — or something more akin to Belichick and Brady watching Rams videos in the run-up to the Super Bowl.  This was clearly going to be Christopher Mirabile’s podcast.  Managing director of Launchpad Venture Group, chair emeritus of the Angel Capital Association.  You got it.   Join the team from Failure - the Podcast and Christopher Mirabile in a wandering story of consultancy, the auto business, entrepreneurship, investment, and you name it.  It’s a nail biter.

You’d think the team from Failure - the Podcast would learn. Screen, screen, screen.  We have to screen our guests before making the invite.  Certainly, we have to have a word or two with them before pressing the record button (assuming we remember to do that, at all).   We think Mic’s confusing his cold calls for Failure - the Podcast with those for our favorite angel investment group.  Instead of bringing in guests ready to pitch their stumbles, he’s getting ones that stumble through their pitches.  Join the team from Failure - the Podcast in an uproarious discussion with Bob Allard, co-founder and managing partner of Extension Engine, a consulting firm that’s trying to Make Education Great Again!  What will you learn from today’s episode?  Who knows?  What do you ever learn from this podcast?