Hyman G. Rickover

The nuclear navy said, we don't know that you've got the safety and performance history that's necessary to be able to steward such a technology.

Because Hyman Rickover, who set up the nuclear navy, had been very exacting, almost to the point of madness, in terms of instilling in them the safety and performance standards you have to have for these sorts of technologies.

Because his view was one mistake and the whole thing is finished.

The whole program is finished.

Andy Marshall was one of your mentors.

Andy Marshall, like I did with Michael Pacht the other day about Hyman Rickover, I made the film with him.

Rickover was one of the great men of the 20th century.

A lot of people forgot about Andy Marshall, even more so than Rickover, one of the great giants of the 20th century, how he ran the Cold War.

And then he tells a story.

When Carter was a young naval officer, Admiral Hyman Rickover asked him about his academic record.

Carter probably said that he'd done pretty well.

Rickover asked him whether he'd always done his best.

Okay, I cheated.

It was Hyman G. Rickover.

Admiral Rickover.

Again, I don't know how I forgot this.

I've been hearing this name since I was literally like four years old.

And Dad was telling submarine stories.

But anyway, Hyman G. Rickover.

Awesome backstory.

capacity.

He was tasked by Admiral Hyman Rickover, who was the father of the nuclear Navy, with developing the capability to work at great depth in the sea down to 20 000 feet now that's what you find well that's what you find on the public record i gotta tell you i think they work a lot deeper than that

20 000 feet in itself is a staggering depth

it's almost four miles down um there are Well, that would cover all of the Gulf of Mexico.

Either do universities set the tone for culture or do they reflect the culture in which we live? I was thinking about this as I was doing some notes for this podcast.

And you know who came to mind? This gentleman, Hyman Rickover.

Do you know who Hyman Rickover is?

I do.

For those not familiar, this was a wealthy California primarily wanted to get their little precious kids into elite universities.

And the kids were just frankly not that bright.

So A very clever gentleman came up with a plan.

I would basically say that Peter Berkowitz was a world-class rower.

And Steve describes a story in his book The High Velocity Edge that makes this very concrete.

Admiral Hyman Rickover, who led the US Navy's nuclear propulsion program, asked Theodore Rockwell before a meeting to predict how he expected the meeting to end.

Not because Rockwell was supposed to be clairvoyant.

The point was to make his thinking visible before the result was known.

The professor

... his background was that he had got a business degree out of college, uh, gone into the Navy as an officer, and been a nuclear submarine officer, uh, at a time when getting through the nuclear submarine officer program, uh, you know, Hyman Rickover being in charge of it, was a big deal.

Uh, he went through that, and then, um, after I think seven or eight years, moved on to, uh, a career in Wall Street, on Wall Street, where he-

Mm