Episode Zero: Grok Bots, Geopolitics, and the Bat Signal

Our first podcast conversation. Two friends. Comics, movies, tech, politics, markets. Named, tongue in cheek, for a bat that wouldn’t let go.

In this Space Bat test run, John and I did what we always do: started with comics, movies, and pop-culture detours before ending up somewhere much bigger. We kicked around Spider-Man, Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom, Superman, Reacher, Dune, and why so many modern franchises seem determined to trip over themselves. From there, we moved into a theme I suspect will define this show: technology is changing everything. I talked through how I’m using Grok Build, bots, and custom workflows to build software for the distillery, automate business operations, and even experiment with AI-assisted trading, while John brought the skepticism, market instincts, and hard-won perspective you’d expect from someone who’s seen more than one cycle come and go.

After that, the conversation widened the way it always does with us: media distrust, AI regulation, geopolitics, Iran, prepping, health care, old Wall Street lessons, physics, religion, aliens, and the question of whether people are actually paying attention to how quickly the ground is shifting beneath them. We also compared notes on the podcast stack itself — Cleanfeed, VoiceMeeter Banana, BUTT, Podverse, Podcast Index and more — and wrapped by committing to a regular Wednesday night schedule. Consider this episode zero: a bat-signal test, a proof of concept, and a pretty accurate preview of what happens when John and I get on the phone and just let the conversation run.