Recorded just before the election - thought happily with almost nil election talk - we disuss a wide range of topics including:

What Nate does at Radify

Automation

The meaning of work

Technology in general

Future of banking and small business lending

Monetary Policy and Stock Buy Backs

Though he says he'll regret it, Matt and Nate say they're excited for Trump to shake things up

Legal Tax Havens

Escaping to Estonia

Working Abroad

The meaning of government in its most base sense

Reasoning from first principals

Processes for more productive work without distraction

How each Dan, Matt and Nate like to work without wasting time

Some apps we like:

Flowstate
Evernote
Timing App

NOTE: Dan decided to record the podcast in a really loud location outside of his office and contributed to most of the poor audio quality.

Twitter: CodyBrown

IRL: irl-vr.com

Inside the secretive augmented reality company, Magic Leap.

Dan's work on The Exorcist on Fox.

The scariest thing Matt has seen in the last few months, Edward Mordake, the man with a face on the back of his head. Though it may be a hoax.

The case against reailty. What you see in daily life might not be close to it's true form, and it doesn't have to be.

Look forward to new episodes with exciting guests in the next few weeks!

Belko Experiment Gets a 2017 IMDB Release Date

RJMetrics acquired by Magento

George Reefah - Paparazzi

Enemy

Friends and Family Film Feedback Platform

We mostly discuss a recent article by Juliana that depicts the sudden demise of the reputation management company Brand.com. We discuss how so many articles related to any industry are about meteoric successes or immediate crashes, without covering the day-to-day aspects of real working life. Juliana also describes her experience writing for Technical.ly Philly.

Lastly, we speak about how different industries can only last so long in a certain geographic area before their locality hinders their ultimate growth.

Some links:

http://badassdigest.com/2015/03/02/from-hollywood-to-homeless-the-writer-of-jason-x-and-drive-angry-on-screenw/

http://technical.ly/philly/2015/03/11/what-happened-brand-com/

http://technical.ly/philly/author/julianareyes/

http://johnaugust.com/2011/no-hollywood-for-him

@juliana_f_reyes

Some interesting VR-related links:

Grantland Virtual Reality has Arrived

HTC Vive Headset Cost

Sony Project Morpheus

More about Espree:

Espree Devora is known as “the Girl who Gets it Done” She has provided seminars in interactive content and social media to many corporations and universities including Disney, CBS, International Association of Skateboard Companies, USC Executive MBA and Georgetown MBA. She co-produced the panel “WHERE’S WALDO? Finding Social Influencers & Decreasing Your Costs” which brought in over 11,500 viewers in under an hour via live stream, making it the highest viewed independent panel at the time. She started her first online company at the start of college and fell in love with the start up culture.

Espree's Site

Espree's LinkedIn

Her Secret Hobby

Espree's Twitter

The guys manage to stumble across several topics including how London has emerged as Europe's answer to silicon valley, how technology is creating new jobs rather than killing them, how jobs in modern medicine and the military will be most overhauled in the next ten years and how cell phones in 25 years will be the size of red blood cells.

Oh, and we also talk about 2045 or as Russell calls it, "the year computers take over."

More about Russell:

*Russell Buckley is a UK Government Advisor helping UK startups raise investment and a leading practitioner, speaker and thinker about mobile technology. He is also a previous Global Chairman of the Mobile Marketing Association, an active Angel Investor (via Ballpark Ventures), and holds numerous non-executive positions in mobile technology companies.

Russell’s previous role was with mobile advertising startup, AdMob. He learned about AdMob soon after its launch and joined as its first employee in 2006, with the remit of launching AdMob into the EMEA market. Four years later, AdMob was sold to Google for $750m.*

More about Paul:

I'm currently an engineer with Boeing Satellite Systems based out of El Segundo at the largest satellite factory in the world. Previously, I was a researcher at various institutions on plasma physics as applied to space propulsion, studying at USC and Michigan, where I received my PhD on the topic, as well as summer fellowships at Princeton and Jet Propulsion Lab.

When I'm not working on these extremely complex problems on half-billion-dollar systems, I enjoy reading and teaching -- I'm involved with a few science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) outreach programs at local elementary, middle, and high school and I try to advise and consult in every way possible, both internally and externally. The internal consulting is proprietary but with the external consulting I try to keep fun and creative with an emphasis on understanding of the fundamentals. I think my first serious scientific consulting work with media in mind was for Dan's "For All Mankind" short -- there's been a few since then and this year I'll be rolling out a more focused effort.

Some more info on Nick:

Nick manages digital strategy for W.L. Snook & Associates, Inc., a digital asset holding company with a focus on Ecommerce and Software. He is also a founding partner at I'm From The Future, and an active investor and advisor to online businesses including SchoolSupplies.com, YourListen, Sports Pick Predictions, and others. Nick is the owner of top-ranked SEO Blog, SEONick.net and the creator of Master Keyword Research in 7 Days.

Some links from this episode. Mostly various companies we referenced and/or operations that Nick is involved in:

Traffic Safety Store
I'm From The Future
SEO Leads
Factor Media
Nick's Blog
YourListen:
Sports Pick Predictions
My latest product (Master Keyword Research in 7 Days)
Nathan Barry's site:
Nathan Barry's forum:

More about Mitch:

He is a social media producer for Sports Illustrated and has also had articles published by the New York Times, Huffington Post, NBC Olympics and Baseball Prospectus.

He graduated from Lehigh University in 2009 and earned a master's in journalism from Northwestern in 2014.

Rivalry Earns Its PInstripes

@mitchgoldich

Some Show Notes and Links

Chris Sparling on IMDB

The Atticus Institute Trailer

The Atticus Institute on iTunes

Screenwriters to Watch

Sea of Trees - Matthew McConaughey

Ancient Aliens Debunked!

Our hosts discuss past mobile app-creation disasters, the subtle art of sub-contracting, the worst pitches they've ever heard, how movie montages have made the American Dream seem more obtainable to lazy people and finally, just because you had the idea for something, doesn't mean you deserve all of the credit.

Email us at mercenary@toprightcorner.com and follow on Twitter @mercenarycast

Email us at mercenary@toprightcorner.com and follow us on twitter @mercenarycast

More about our guest:

My name is Peter Hall and I live in Austin, Texas. I used to work in the defense industry and left it to come work in the film industry. I was an editor at Cinematical when it died in the HuffPo/AOL merger and have since been the Senior Editor of Movies.com for the last 3 years. I am also an independent film producer (Grow Up, Tony Phillips; My Sucky Teen Romance) and writer (something unnamed, for now).

Send us questions at mercenary@toprightcorner.com

Don't forget to rate us on iTunes!

Links from the episode:

• The Dig

• The Den

We are joined this week by Matt Hess. Matt has worked in the education and behavioral health sector for over five years. He currently is the Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder of First Children Services, a diversified educational and health services provider throughout New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Matt attended Temple University with a concentration in Economics. He is an active investor in residential and specialized commercial real estate in the Philadelphia area.

A former Marine and a graduate of NYU's school of film and television, he has most recently been seen on Fox News in his position of the lead coach for the United Women's Firefighters in New York City, where he has groomed female candidates for the task of becoming a member of the New York Fire Department.

@thompsonplyler

I am Matt Monihan. I am a software designer for a business intelligence company called RJMetrics. I’ve designed software that helps hundreds of businesses run more efficiently by visualizing their data. I spend my time trying to find the common threads among the businesses we serve, and propose software that will save minutes, sometimes hours of time.

For most growing up, they choose an occupation from a list that their college advisor gives them without much research into what it’s like to be that person. I don’t just want to know what a person does every day, but what it feels like. To be known as a doctor, a plumber, a software designer, etc. Without realizing it, how our work reflects onto our view of ourselves has a major impact on our well-being.

I’ve spent my life being fascinated by the most obscure ways that people spend their time and make a living. After 27 years, I still find people who make money in new and unexpected ways. There’s so much to learn.

I know that there are some incredible jobs out there, and people that lead extraordinary lives. I created this show to document the lives of those people.

I am Dan Clifton. I am film producer who produces projects through my Los Angeles-based production banner Cliffbrook Films. Since 2012, I've also worked for The Safran Company President Peter Safran (Scary Movie, Buried, The Conjuring) as a producer on his independent film projects including Hours, Best Night Ever, SuperFast, The Atticus Institute and The Choice.
I look for original and provocative material to produce, then find new and inventive ways of doing so.

Ultimately, I’m fascinated by what successful people do on a day-to-day basis. How do people working in completely different industries deal with similar challenges? How are different people pushing the frontiers of technology, creative and communication? Results matter but process is everything.

Although we now live on different coasts, Matt and I grew up together and have always had an inkling to gather as many interesting/bizarre people together in the same room and hit the “play” button. The Mercenary podcast is a closer, albeit more practical, runner-up to that scenario.