Lt. General Mike Fenzel (Ret.) on bad data, bad experts, and why we can’t exit wars

Lieutenant General Mike Fenzel recently retired as a three-star Army General. He most recently served as the United States Security Coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority, navigating one of the world’s most complex geopolitical landscapes. His career is defined by high-stakes leadership, ranging from the immediate aftermath of the September 11th attacks, where he was stationed in the bunker alongside Vice President Dick Cheney, to multiple deployments to Afghanistan, to commandi...

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Auren Hoffman?

  Welcome to Summation, the podcast formerly known as World of DAS. My guest today is Lieutenant General Mike Fenzel. Mike just retired as a three-star Army General, who most recently served as the United States Security Coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority. He's also the author of No Miracles, a book about Soviet decision-making in Afghanistan. He's also had a great career. He was in the bunker with Dick Cheney on 9/11. He's had multiple deployments to Afghanistan. He commanded an airborne brigade of over 5,500 paratroopers. And also, last but not least, him and I have been friends for over 25 years. Mike, welcome to Summation.

• 0:40Speaker 01

  Thank you very much, Orin. It's a, it's a privilege to be here.

• 0:43Auren Hoffman?

  I'm very excited to dive in. You spent the last four years in Jerusalem as security coordinator. What, what are some like non-obvious takeaways about what is going on in that kind of region?

• 0:55Speaker 01

  I think, Orin, the, the one thing that was very upsetting to me after being there for a few months, and even more upsetting to me now, is this, uh, this conflation of the Palestinian cause with the Hamas cause. This is something that I, I find disturbing. I'm always pushing back against it. My experience is that Palestinians in general, 99% of them, they, they just want peace. They just want to live with security and stability and raise their families. And of course Hamas is the murderous terrorists that make up that 1% along with some other terrorist entities like Palestinian Islamic Jihad and, and others. They're the ones that are sowing violence.

• 1:38Speaker 01

  There's been a history of corruption within the Palestinian Authority. This hasn't been the case for the last, I'd say, seven years because they have no money to, uh, to steal, essentially. That they are in fact committed to peace and to, to living side by side with, uh, with Israelis. Helsinki Authority, their security force leadership and the Israeli security force leadership, they work together very well. This is not publicized for obvious reasons because it wouldn't be popular with either population. The other thing is the insidious nature of extremist settler violence on the Israeli side. This, again, a very small population of extremists among Israelis.

• 2:20Speaker 01

  A hilltop use, they're called in some cases, but they're not just a handful of bad apples there. They make up, let's say, 1% as well of the settler population of about 700,000. That's 7,000 bad apples. Extremist settler violence is, it also threatens Israel as much as it does Palestinians, which I found to be incredibly disturbing and something that gave common cause to both sides working together. That is what you hear when you are working with the security leadership. But the political leadership is very different, of course, as you might imagine.

• 2:53Auren Hoffman?

  Are you hopeful that we're going to reach some sort of more enduring peace?

• 2:58Speaker 01

  I am very hopeful. I'm very optimistic. The challenge is that politics get in the way. I had very clear marching orders from Washington DC in the White House before I went to Israel the first time. That was to set security conditions for the resumption of political talks towards a two-state solution. Clearly, with the current Israeli government, any sort of discussion of two-state solution is an ethema. I don't think that's necessary in order to make progress. Simply focusing time and attention on the resumption of political talks is something that can lead us to a place that's more positive than where we are now.

• 3:38Speaker 01

  I saw so much progress from the entrance of President Trump, given his extraordinary influence in Israel. As the hostages were released, the incredible confidence that the Israeli people have in President Trump personally, and his willingness to step on toes and to address areas that have historically been left untouched. When you're talking about needing to see change and being willing to use the leverage of the security support and assistance that we give to Israel, that is something that he's obviously been willing to do. That Time Magazine article, when he said if Israel threatens or intends on annexing the West Bank, we would cease security support.

• 4:23Speaker 01

  Before he arrived, when I would talk to one ambassador or another, and in my efforts to try and find a way to bring an end to extremist settler violence, this was something that I was told not to touch, not to mention, not even to bring up. But I think when it comes to our interests as United States, everything has to be on the table. All discussions have to be free and open. We're seeing that with the Trump administration. And I'm not politically leaning one way or the other. I'm just sharing with you what I see to be, have seen to be the most effective technique with Israel.

• 4:59Auren Hoffman?

  Even if you create a state, you have a state where it is not contiguous from a land. It's like the old partition in India where you had Pakistan and you had Bangladesh and they end up kind of going separate ways. How would one even like keep a state together with, without being able to drive from one to the other?

• 5:17Speaker 01

  I don't even know that two-state solution is the right solution. It could be, it could be a one-state solution. It could be somewhere in between, some hybrid. That's not what I'm necessarily advocating for. I can tell you also, there's been some amazing strategic work done on this challenge. In particular, a fellow by the name of Mika Goodman, who wrote this book called Catch 67. For the, for the reader, that Israel and Israelis are driven by fear and Palestinians are driven by humiliation and that the two can't be reconciled. That, that to me was eye-opening. The larger thrust of his hypothesis is that you have to shrink the conflict before you end it. He, he comes at this by talking about transportation

• 5:58Speaker 01

  corridors. Some of his more innovative thoughts are that you can create a highway of sorts between the West Bank and Gaza, one where there's no off-ramps. You just continue to move through. And, and I'm not saying that's the solution either, but that's the sort of innovation that we're going to have to see. I, I would also say, Orin, that the most impressive and powerful example of the need for peace I encountered in the private sector in Israel. My last two-plus years there, I realized the extraordinary importance of engaging the private sector in order to get to security solutions. One gentleman in particular, a fellow by the name of Yal Waldman, who sold his company Melanox to Nvidia.

• 6:43Speaker 01

  Totally devoted to defining a way to a Tuesday solution. This is his assertion and he experienced the most extraordinary pain that anyone can imagine and losing his daughter on October 7th, who was attending along with her fiance, the concert there in the desert.

• 7:03Auren Hoffman?

  You were on your job during the October 7 terrorist attack. What was that like?

• 7:08Speaker 01

  It's much like any other major tragedy and crisis that has to be managed. It was all consuming. The first thing I would say is we in particular were focused on ensuring that there was open dialogue between Palestinian leadership, both political and security leadership and Israeli political and security leadership. We were having four, five, six meetings a day and ensuring that this line of communication remained open through the initial stages of the crisis. From a personal level, most of the work that I got done was not in the Curia, but in restaurants across Israel, both Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ramallah and other places in the region.

• 7:52Speaker 01

  But I found in Israel, I of course have been to war, spent nine years of my life in conflict and have deployed repeatedly, but I'd never experienced being in a country that was mobilizing. This was overwhelmingly powerful. Trying to meet at a restaurant with one professional or another was impossible because all the restaurants were closed. Everyone had been mobilized to deploy into the IDF, either to the border with Lebanon in the north or to Gaza or into the West Bank because in the minds of the Israeli leadership, they had to lock down the West Bank so they wouldn't have to worry about a third front.

• 8:34Auren Hoffman?

  So much of the facts of the ground have changed as well, right? We see a significant degradation in Hamas and Hezbollah. Iran seems to be degraded. Could these dividends yield like a big opportunity?

• 8:49Speaker 01

  Think we're witnessing the opportunity present itself. I mean, as you suggest, the entire region has been transformed. All of the threats that surrounded Israel, they have largely been excised. We've seen with the overwhelming innovation and bringing Hezbollah to their knees, last remnants are being addressed on a daily basis through the IDF. And through diplomacy as well. Who would have thought that the Assad regime would fall so quickly? This government that was run through the sale and distribution of Captagon, this mind-numbing drug, and Iran being brought to their knees, their nuclear capability essentially being erased, their proxies, more importantly, being brought to

• 9:32Speaker 01

  their knees. We saw this on the ground in the West Bank because no longer was there money to finance attacks against Israelis, money funneled to either PIJ or to Hamas. This wasn't happening. The Houthis now are in the crosshairs and obviously Hamas is in the midst of its destruction. I don't think that there will be an opportunity for them to redefine themselves. We're seeing the end of Hamas. I know it's an ideology, but it's not one that is going to be in a position to wield influence. Not only will Israel ensure that this is not the case, but also the United States, regional partners, and the Palestinian Authority, who are their sworn enemies. This is another thing that's

• 10:14Speaker 01

  not understood very well by the international community, by our own population, that in fact, the sworn enemies of the Palestinian Authority is Hamas.

• 10:24Auren Hoffman?

  Israel itself is such a weird place. It's the only Western country with very high TFRs, high fertility rates. It's a thriving tech place. The economy is growing massively. What is your theory about why? It's almost like an N of one place that's out there. The things that you've been able to experience, why is that happening?

• 10:45Speaker 01

  I think the Haredi community, obviously, their focus on having between 10 and 12 children.

• 10:51Auren Hoffman?

  Well, you obviously have the Haredi group, but even a secular Israeli home is having three kids on average. You don't see that anywhere else in Europe. You don't see that in East Asia. Even in the US, it's pretty uncommon.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  But you don't see it in Tel Aviv. This is where the tech community is thriving, in particular, what I became most comfortable with, defense tech, the segment of the population that's growing so fast is the Haredi. And this is what's disturbing to me in talking to my dear friends, both Within government and out of government now, their their greatest concern is that, you know, 10 years ago, the the number of Israelis that that had served in the IDF or some form of service was upwards of 76%. Now, where I think we're at some somewhere at on the order of 56% of those, you know, youths are actually serving. The fear is

• 11:44Speaker 01

  within 10 years, it'll drop below 50%. Suddenly, Israel would transition from this nation of service, which is what's defined them, to something different. We're seeing that that battle right now with the the draft laws that are under that under attack from the Ereti community.

• 12:02Auren Hoffman?

  On the tech side, why? Why has there been such a tech powerhouse?

• 12:07Speaker 01

  The one thing is for sure is a necessity is the mother of invention. When you're involved in what is seen as an existential crisis and conflict against Hamas in Gaza, the desire to first get the hostages all out, which unbelievable, the amount of technical innovation that was brought to bear. The entire country, again, had mobilized around that one challenge, and it is driven innovation at a speed and pace. It's only rivaled in Ukraine. That that's the one thing that's made the biggest difference. Then there's this vibrancy that's difficult to describe. It's certainly in in Tel Aviv, in particular. I hadn't lived in Silicon Valley. I I live close to the Research Triangle in North Carolina.

• 12:49Speaker 01

  Seeing it up close and personal, you can feel the vibrance in Tel Aviv. It's amazing.

• 12:54Auren Hoffman?

  Your book, No Miracles, you show took the Soviets four years to leave Afghanistan after Gorbachev decided to exit. What keeps a superpower from leaving a failed mission once in some ways, once the decision is already made?

• 13:09Speaker 01

  That's such a great question, Orin. I think it comes down to a couple of things. It certainly did for the Soviet Union. You can draw the same parallel to our involvement in Afghanistan as well. First of all, it's reputational risk. Once you get involved in a conflagration, an intervention, a an invasion, you don't want to to end it until you've a Achieve success. Success begins to morph to something different than what you saw in the beginning. Whenever you're considering military intervention as a nation, you've got to think about what the end state is from the beginning. You can't allow the the objectives to change as you move along, otherwise it will become an endless commitment. For the Soviets, it was

• 13:54Speaker 01

  reputational risk. They were very concerned that their prestige would be lost if they pulled out and failed. This proved to be untrue as Gorbachev, nine and a half years in, decided to pull them out. He'd actually decided to pull them out at the outset of his tenure in 1986, but it took him two years to work through the bureaucracy in order to convince everyone within the Politburo that this is indeed essential to do. And the other thing, of course, in the case of the Soviets, was rapid succession of power, moving from Brezhnev to Ternenko to Andropov to finally Gorbachev. That was a problem. Everyone didn't want to

• 14:36Speaker 01

  enter their office and then say, okay, now we're leaving. They wanted a little time to demonstrate that they were a different leader.

• 14:43Auren Hoffman?

  Why did it take the US so long? We were there for 20 years. You could make an argument, we should have left 17 years earlier. Why did it take us so long to leave?

• 14:54Speaker 01

  Well, it comes back to to the one-year tours that that became part of the the fabric of the US military and their deployments, particularly to Afghanistan. One year was the maximum. It actually bumped up to 15 months. I experienced that myself. You had essentially 20 strategies, 21-year tours that were being led. I mean, I'm exaggerating for effect. When you brought in a new commander, they again believed that they had the recipe for success, and many times would change the strategy that was put in place by their predecessor. And despite the the tensions that existed and the facts that might prove differently,

• 15:35Speaker 01

  there was a momentum all of its own that showed signs of success.

• 15:40Auren Hoffman?

  After three or four things failing like that, three or four one-year problems, you would think somebody in Washington would have been like, all right, let's pull the plug. I know there's reputational things, and I know there's a lot of folks who want to move it, but it seemed, at least from my perspective, we were there way too long.

• 15:58Speaker 01

  We were, no question about that. The other strategic value of being in Afghanistan and at that point, you know, this sort of turnstile within South Asia, it's such a critical point. Being in a place where obviously the Russians didn't want us to be. We were in a strategically valuable place where we had a foothold and we were able to do other things from there as well. There was certainly strategic value to it. It comes back to this issue of reputational risk. Us pulling out and declaring failure was not something that any of our political leaders through those 20 years were willing to do.

• 16:37Auren Hoffman?

  Do you think they should have done it?

• 16:39Speaker 01

  I mean, there was, there was different points at which we had that opportunity to pull away because reputational risk is something that's overstated. President Obama reviewing this, but engaging with the military leaders and then deciding to stay on and actually increase the commitment. The way we left obviously was dramatically flawed as well. Just deciding to leave quickly is not, is not the way to end military intervention.

• 17:03Auren Hoffman?

  There's people in government, there's people in different army units. They'll slow roll it, the bureaucracy will change. You almost have no choice to leave in a chaotic way if you're going to leave. You disagree with that?

• 17:14Speaker 01

  I would take issue with that. The one thing we started doing in, in 2018, we brought in a negotiator, Zalmi Khalilzad, to talk to the enemy, to talk to the Taliban. I happened to be the, his military deputy for the first two years of those talks. That's where I, I saw the opportunity. If we had brought in a negotiator much earlier, let's say immediately, as we're the outset of operations demonstrating our effectiveness as a military force, that, that's when our, our leverage is at its highest. Even let's say, take 2018, when we began it, there was a disconnect between the negotiator and the decision maker.

• 17:58Speaker 01

  I'm not just talking about Trump administration or the Biden administration. I'm talking about both presidents as an example. He spent no time in the Oval Office. This is something that was a missed opportunity from my point of view. The negotiator has to be able to define what leverage he needs. He has to be a part of decisions that are made about reducing troop levels, all of those things that could affect negotiations. And there was a, a An enduring disconnect through the four years that Zelensky did his work.

• 18:28Auren Hoffman?

  If you go back in time, at least from a layman like me, my perspective is the experts have gotten so many things wrong on US foreign policy over the last 25 years. Do you agree with that? If so, what is the theory about why?

• 18:42Speaker 01

  The important thing to remember is how much more complex the world is getting. The media cycle is increasing in speed so dramatically. There is also this desire to, uh, to please a public, right? Because the election cycle seems to be ongoing. Um, already thinking about the next presidential election cycle now. We're seeing, uh, the Trump administration moving so quickly because they realize their time is very short. When you're driven by political expediency rather than, uh, national interests, vital and important national interests, when you veer from that, I think you set yourself up for difficulty and in, and in many cases, failure as well as surprises.

• 19:25Speaker 01

  Non-state actors of all varieties, not just terrorists, but also multinational companies and individuals with, uh, with, with great wealth, they've become disruptors. When their voices are heard, then whatever sort of policy path that has been forged, your inability to maintain that path from one congressional cycle to another, or from one presidential cycle to the next, that creates disruption that, uh, that prevents success as well. In years past, foreign policy was always seen as both a Democrat and Republican unifying point. Now it's not. Now you see the two diverge and, uh, and I think this is where not having that continuity is what, uh, what leads to both disruption and then failure.

• 20:10Auren Hoffman?

  From, at least from my perspective, it seems that the folks that have been successful in making transformation and making things happen from the US foreign policy perspective have almost no foreign policy experience. The ones that were quote unquote experts seem to either not be able to be effective at all, or even worse, sometimes Be massively wrong and do what's not in the right interest of the of the country. It doesn't seem like it's been an asset to be an expert in foreign policy in the last 25 years. It may actually be a massive detriment to both getting things done and for actually putting policy that's in the US interest. Do you not, do you agree or not agree with that?

• 20:54Speaker 01

  I agree, right? I mean, what we saw in with President Obama and the red line being crossed and then no action being taken. That that reduced our credibility internationally. That reduced the levers that we had in negotiations.

• 21:08Auren Hoffman?

  Do you think he just shouldn't have done the red line in the first place? That was the problem? Or do you think the problem was not following through with the threat with from the red line?

• 21:17Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't have a strong feeling about establishing a red line or not. But once you do, you have to commit to it completely. This is why what we've seen that's so different in this current administration. I don't have a political leaning. I'm just calling both strikes here. When a red line is crossed, there's immediate action. Moving forward and destroying the the nuclear capability of of Iran was was a powerful demonstration. What we did in Venezuela, which is just a remarkable operation by any stretch.

• 21:46Auren Hoffman?

  Yeah.

• 21:47Speaker 01

  Think about what happened with Desert One and Operation Eagle Claw in 1980, when this this operation was given the green light by President Carter in order to go and.

• 21:57Auren Hoffman?

  Same units too.

• 21:59Speaker 01

  And right. And the disastrous consequences. He essentially lost his reelection there with that with that mission. You think about President Trump committing to the Venezuela operation. Doesn't matter what side of the aisle you're on. It was remarkable operation in every sense.

• 22:15Auren Hoffman?

  I just think. Why, why were we, why were we so effective? Like, what is it just the relentless training? Is it, but why, why, why did it work so well? Because it does seem like a very complex operation that took place.

• 22:27Speaker 01

  First of all, he started immediately following Desert One and that disaster with Goldwater Nichols Act and driving our security, our, our security forces, our services together through jointness. Now it's a a common thing. To be purple, as we call it. I mean, I served on the Joint Staff myself for, uh, for two years. The, uh, the, the coherence of our, of our military is extraordinary. That's one thing. We work together routinely. The second thing is our commitment to lessons learned, right? I know this sounds pedantic or even lower level, but it's not. We have, we have training centers in, uh, Fort Polk, Louisiana and Fort Irwin, uh, California and in Hoennfels, Germany,

• 23:10Speaker 01

  all focused on moving our units through there and learning difficult lessons and then, and then applying them and then going again. And, and, and, and our commitment to sort of candor, honesty and integrating lessons learned is relentless. That's the one thing that I knew as a commander that we had to keep.

• 23:28Auren Hoffman?

  It's a focus on truth, essentially.

• 23:31Speaker 01

  Focus on truth and our commitment to improving every day and not convincing ourselves that somehow we are a great military that can rest on its laurels. I mean, this is what we saw, the disaster that was the, uh, the initial months with, with Russia and, uh, and Ukraine. I mean, they, they had no such mechanism and they had no such commitment to, uh, to integrating lessons learned. They're doing it, um, as they lose lives, which is what we learned, um, in the Korean War through something called Task Force Smith, which hadn't learned any lessons. They, they went into the initial days of the Korean War and they were devastated. One of the things that our army declared early on under Gordon Sullivan, who was our then Chief of Staff of the Army,

• 24:15Speaker 01

  said, no more Task Force Smiths, no more operations where we're learning our lessons in the midst of those things. We're going to learn them before. That's why that we saw that, but it's also leadership, right? We have a fantastic Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Again, no, no political leaning here at all, but our, our Secretary of War is committed to bold action. The willingness of our president to make a decision like that, that, that risks his presidency. And, and, and that, and that goes to trust as well between civil and military authorities. There, there's strains, of course, but there's also demonstrations of commitment right now that, uh, that lended themselves to the success we saw in Venezuela.

• 24:54Auren Hoffman?

  You and I, we've been friends for, as I mentioned, 25 years. I would say every year where we spoke over those 25 years, you would say, this is my last year in the army. But 25 years later, I mean, yes, I know you just left, but 25 years later, you're still there. What kept you there so long?

• 25:12Speaker 01

  I mean, it's, it's, uh, it's such an honorable profession to be in the, uh, to be in the military. The sense of duty, uh, the level of responsibility that's given to you with each successive year. I remember, Orin, I, I joined the army because, you know, I, you know, it wasn't because I was inspired, you know, my something post September 11th, I thought, oh gosh, you know, I could retire at 42 with a pension. That seems pretty lucrative, right? My dad, my dad also said to me, look, why do you want to go into finance now? When you could lead 35 individuals right away as a platoon leader? I said, oh, I didn't know you could do that. And he's like, yeah, I was a platoon leader. That's what drove me, the sense of teamwork as well.

• 25:56Speaker 01

  That was maintained until the very last day that I was in, in the military. And it was just an incredible amount of fun. As I got into the general officer corps about eight years ago, I was given the level of responsibility I had been working towards for so long. Suddenly I was involved in decision-making in a way that I, I hadn't been before. I will also say this, this is a really important, uh, reason why I stuck with it, especially the last 10 years. I spent the first 25 years of my career, Orin, fighting wars. I spent the last 10 years focusing on waging peace. And to me, pursuing peace and reconciliation seemed like such an overwhelming opportunity,

• 26:39Speaker 01

  particularly after the searing experiences of combat where I lost 13 soldiers and 164 wounded. So many awards for valor. All, I thought there's got to be a better way. That, uh, that movie called Gallipoli with, uh, a young Mel Gibson. At the very beginning, they, they demonstrate the romance associated with going to war. But then they shift to how horrifying it is. That was my experience every time I went into combat and finding a way through and creating alternatives to combat and warfare. To me, those things are incredibly honorable. That's why I stayed.

• 27:17Auren Hoffman?

  Being in the military is hard on families, right? You, you have these frequent deployments. I know your wife, you have amazing wife, you've got four kids. How does one make it work?

• 27:27Speaker 01

  Without Lisa, my, my wife, there's just no way that it, it would have worked. She was an international relief worker for UN High Commission for Refugees in South Sudan. She was in Mozambique with the Canadian International Development Agency. She's now a US citizen. She was a Canadian citizen for, you know, the vast majority of our, of our marriage. She just became a citizen in the last five years. It was, it began with her and her commitment to supporting me. When I was in command, we were basically a team. She worked with the families. I supported her in that endeavor. I would never, for example, in a family readiness meeting, I would never sit at the, at the front of the table. I would always sit on the side because you don't command families.

• 28:11Speaker 01

  And, and watching her commitment to, to, to, to helping families through deployments, through memorial ceremonies and all those things. I mean, that, that was what got me through command. And, and then all of the deployments, the nine and a half years away from home, my last nine and a half years in the military, it was because Lisa was willing to lead our family while I, I served our country. And, but it was also having some kids that were very resilient and tough. We also find a way to make the most of moments where we were together.

• 28:51Speaker 01

  Things like Facebook Portal I used just, just relentlessly, both with my wife and kids as well as my parents, remaining connected to friends. A very solid group of friends that I could turn to for advice on, on important issues and challenges that I was facing. Cause I, I will tell you also, I mean, I found it to be surprising that as a nonpartisan, apolitical military officer, having been in, in Israel for, you know, nearly four years, and then the administration changing and being seen as a holdover. I, I was confounded by that. There's no way to work beyond it.

• 29:32Speaker 01

  You're at the three star levels. You're inherently political. That's also going back to your previous question. That's how I knew it was it was time to go because it didn't matter what I said. My actions were going to be interpreted in a certain way. But I have to say, I mean, I was really feel fortunate to had a chance to work with Mike Huckabee, the ambassador or ambassador to Israel there is extraordinary leader. Politics aside, just a very good person devoted to taking care of both US interests, American citizens on the ground there and working closely with Israel.

• 30:08Auren Hoffman?

  Now, everybody in the military is also following the conflict in Ukraine. You mentioned it a couple of times already. It's starting to change the way we think about warfare. What is something about warfare that you think hasn't changed and will be very unlikely to change in the future?

• 30:26Speaker 01

  It's putting soldiers on the ground when you want to have enduring effects, when you want to have an enduring peace. That's that. I mean, we have, we can use AI, we can use cyber, we can use air, air power, and we will. But there's a quote from T R. Farenbach. He wrote this book that most all military officers read called This Kind of War. Or in there's a chapter in there, a chapter, a chapter called Proud Legions. And there's this quote, I'm going to try and remember it. You may fly over a land forever. You may bomb it, atomize it, pulverize it and scatter it to the winds.

• 31:06Speaker 01

  But if you, if you desire to defend it, to protect it and keep it for civilization, you must do this on the ground. The way the Roman legions did by putting your young men in the dirt. And, and I feel that strongly. And, and this is also why all of our services are so crucial. Now, one, one can't do the job alone. The jointness is terribly important. That's the one thing about warfare that won't change. The only way to hold ground is with people.

• 31:34Auren Hoffman?

  Now, on the side, you're on the board of Johns Hopkins.

• 31:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:38Auren Hoffman?

  We've seen universities have to make major changes. What do they really need to do to stay relevant?

• 31:46Speaker 01

  Have to be more affordable. There's no question about that. Someone with four teenagers looking at the the cost. And this is something that we all feel is as parents that has to be addressed. We've seen in some corners at some of the the more well endowed universities. But but cost is number one. Number two is, and we're seeing it, but we're seeing it obviously to an extreme. And that's with, you know, the focus on D E I. I mean, obviously, over and over correction, I would say. But but that that can't be the driver either. We've we've got to remain committed to the liberal arts and the manner in which it was attended. What's what's made our country so great? Having a liberal arts commitment that defines our values as a nation as well. We're the envy of the world.

• 32:30Speaker 01

  I think looking at the best and the healthiest things within our university system, which has made us so great and the envy of the world. We have to reinvest in those things and then determine the things that are not as healthy, which we're seeing, again, I would say, you know, certainly a very extreme approach to it. But it's bringing about some change that's healthy. I would point to universities like like Vanderbilt, Brown, Johns Hopkins, that are that are doing amazing things to address the the need for change. It's just perhaps, I mean, now there's a there's obviously a push to change quickly, which I don't think is necessarily bad. It's a matter of how we proceed from here, though. It matters.

• 33:13Auren Hoffman?

  Why? Why are all the, if you look at all the major universities in the U S, they're all, at least the top line price is the exact same price, literally the same, maybe within a tiny, tiny difference. Whereas if I want to go get a hotel right now in in the in Atlanta, there's I have many different price points to choose from, many different experiences to choose from. If I want to go get a university, I get the same thing, same thing. And they're all the, and they're often just a race to the top, gold plated dorms and this and that and the lazy rivers and all the other types of things, which maybe you want, but maybe you don't want. Why is there no diversity in price?

• 33:55Speaker 01

  I am at the outset of my tenure on the Board of Trustees at Johns Hopkins. And so we can get together at the future dialogue session where we can talk about that. I don't know. I mean, I, I, I'm not throwing my hands up. I mean, I know that there's got to be a reason. And the, again, one of the great characteristics of our nation is competitiveness, right? And I think that competitiveness can drive tuition down. Then we'll be in a much better place. I know that also the thing that makes our country great is, is our research institutions, right? I mean, the, the, the cutting edge nature, this is what is drove, has driven innovation within our country for, for decades, a better part of the century.

• 34:39Speaker 01

  As it transitioned away from Europe and into the United States, that's something we have to preserve, but it doesn't have to cost $98,000 a year necessarily. I think everyone is in that agreement. It's a question of how to address and inculcate a healthier approach to, to competition, perhaps.

• 34:58Auren Hoffman?

  Research institutions, why has the average age of the people leading these labs gone up? It seems to go up one year every year. You have so many people in their 60s, 70s that are leading these labs. When you talk about the heyday of the research in the U.S., the things that built the U.S., the people leading their labs were often in their 30s. Why has that changed so much? You would think that at least the stereotype would be innovation would go down if the age of the leading it was, was, was double what it used to be.

• 35:28Speaker 01

  It goes back to our, our previous discussion, right? It is, that must change, right? You've got to, they've got to make it attractive for young people to move not only towards STEM, but also towards research that's going to drive you have to make it impactful for them. It has to lead to other opportunities. And if we can make it more attractive among universities and among our, our academic system, and now also make it attractive, not just at the university level, but within high schools, right? I mean, to make it cool to, to pursue.

• 35:59Auren Hoffman?

  Well, I don't, I don't think the number of STEM people is going down. I think it's just the dollars are flowing to the old people and they're not flowing. If you don't get a lab when you're in your 30s, you're like washing beakers. The guy who's got the lab or something. Yeah.

• 36:14Speaker 01

  It has to change, how it needs to change. I'll check back in with you after I spend a little bit of time on the, on the board.

• 36:21Auren Hoffman?

  One other thing that's happening at a lot of these very great institutions that we have is that they have way more women than men coming in as undergrads. We're talking about 50% more women than men, 60% women, 40% men. We're seeing big affirmative action for men now. Often men are somewhere between 100 to 200 points lower on SAT on average than women are getting in. Of course, they have to do these affirmative action for men because if the balance gets too high, the women won't go. If it's two to one, I assume a woman's just not even going to go to that place anymore. It's not going to be as fun. That seems to have very long-term weird implications for society. How does one think about that?

• 37:03Speaker 01

  There'll be a self-correction, right? When the demand is addressed through, uh, through remuneration and when the tech world is demanding more, then I think that supply will address it in turn. It's a fascinating question that I just haven't given a deep thought to, but, but I'm going to.

• 37:22Auren Hoffman?

  Okay, cool. We have two questions we ask all of our guests before we leave. The first one is what is a conspiracy theory you believe?

• 37:30Speaker 01

  When, uh, when you start talking about something that you're interested in, or you know, if you're talking, having conversations about, oh yeah, my, my mother has just passed away. I mean, I suddenly you start to get, um, you start to get, uh, ads and, uh, requests for, uh, for funeral related items when we're interested in, uh, perhaps, uh, cold therapy, then you see, you get the, uh, the, the ice plunge notes as well. I think that it's, it's more than just, uh, now this being someone checking to see what, what the costs are and so forth. I think that there is a, there's some connection between the, uh, the tech and, uh, and, and your discussions and.

• 38:14Auren Hoffman?

  So either something's listening to you or they're reading your emails or that type of thing or.

• 38:19Speaker 01

  Something along those lines or some combination. It's obviously very lucrative.

• 38:23Auren Hoffman?

  Okay. I kind of like wish the ads were better. The ads are so terrible. So I kind of hope your conspiracy is right because the ads are just so bad. Sometimes you see these ads, you're like, how am I getting these ads? It's not even relevant at all. Ads are great if they're good content. Last question we ask all of our guests, what conventional wisdom or advice do you think is generally bad advice?

• 38:44Speaker 01

  I've heard many say that, you know, you, you know, the advice is follow your passion. And then I've heard many others say that that's terrible advice. I, I generally believe that if, yeah, perhaps that isn't the, the right advice to give. It should be coupled with a passion, with incredibly hard work and devotion. That's the, the way conventional wisdom should, should read rather than, than just simply follow your passion. I know also that, and I, I believe this strongly that, you know, your twenties, and I've heard people

• 39:27Speaker 01

  like Mount Scarp say like, look, if you're, if you're partying and enjoying yourself in your twenties, then you're going to, you're not going to be nearly as comfortable when you're in your, your forties and your fifties. I would say this balance in your twenties is what's crucially important. You've got to work hard, but I also believe that that's when you learn to deal with people, right? That's when you learn how to treat people. This is also how you learn to, to become a leader, if you're going to be one. I think that's, that's the critical time. So perhaps I don't believe in the conventional wisdom of follow your passion. I would add, I would add to it a number of variables, which includes hard work, getting to, you know, building your, your, your friendship. We met 25 years

• 40:11Speaker 01

  ago and it's, and it's, it's a relationship that you and I have decided to maintain because for me, anyway, I had something to learn from you, Warren. And, and this, the, the collection, the collection of your friends is, is what defines who you are. And I don't hear enough of that conventional wisdom. I, I got the advice from my mother and I think it's the best advice I've ever received. And I don't think that there's enough emphasis-

• 40:35Auren Hoffman?

  So what was the advice you got from your mother?

• 40:37Speaker 01

  Choose your friends wisely because you become who they are.

• 40:41Auren Hoffman?

  Okay, you're like an average of your friends, essentially. That's who you are.

• 40:44Speaker 01

  Or you, if you choose friends that are really good at something you're not good at, you continue to add those things over time. I do believe what did Warren Buffett say? That if you look at who your friends are, that is as close approximation to who you are as any other definition.

• 41:02Auren Hoffman?

  I have seen weird studies that you become the average weight of your friends, too. Even things like that are very, you're very susceptible for those things.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I would agree with that. I would agree with it, absolutely.

• 41:15Auren Hoffman?

  This has been awesome, Mike. Mike Fenzel, thank you for joining us on Summation, formerly known as World of Dass. This has been amazing. I follow you on LinkedIn. You're not yet a big poster on X, though now that you're retired, I think you can become a big poster, just like let it all out there. But it's been awesome, and I really appreciate our 25-year friendship as well.

• 41:36Speaker 01

  It's a privilege, Orin, and needless to say, so do I. Thank you for everything, especially the last 25 years, and looking forward to another 25.

• 41:43Auren Hoffman?

  Absolutely, another 125.

• 41:45Speaker 01

  Indeed.

• 41:46Auren Hoffman?

  One more thing before we go. I read a blog called Summation. It's the same name as the pod. Been writing it since I was 14 years old. It's a non-obvious idea, sharing on business, on talent, on data, on longevity, on random contrarian takes. Every month, I put out something called Five Links, which is something I'm reading, or watching, or listening to, that I think are worth sharing. If you like the conversations on this show, you'll probably like the blog. It's free. New content comes out twice a month. You could subscribe at orin.substack.com. That's orin.substack.com.