The Profile: The Boeing employee who blew the whistle — and died & the founder using nuclear fusion

This edition of The Profile features Zach Bryan, JC Btaiche, Reese Nelson, and more.

Good morning, friends!

To get what you want out of life, you need to master the skill of negotiation.

Former FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss says, “Whether we notice it or not, we spend our days negotiating for something — for our spouse to do more housework, a child to eat just three more bites or go to bed on time, an extended deadline on a project, a salary increase, a better rate on a vacation package.”

In other words, honing your negotiation skills can save you a lot of time, energy, and nerves. As author Chester L. Karrass once said, “In business as in life, you don’t get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate.”

For the last month, I’ve been reading as much as I can on the topic of negotiation and tried to extract the most fundamental techniques that are applicable to any situation.

I documented what I found in my article titled, “*How to Become a Master Negotiator Using These 7 Practical Negotiation Techniques.”*

It was a challenging (but fun) guide to put together. (And I even got to use a scene from The Godfather to illustrate a point about maintaining emotional control.)

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it:

How to Become a Master Negotiator Using These 7 Practical Negotiation Techniques

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PROFILES.

— The Boeing employee who blew the whistle — and died [**HIGHLY RECOMMEND**]
— The founder using nuclear fusion to solve our energy problems
— The 11-year-old skateboarding prodigy
— The Navy vet-turned-singer-songwriter
— The next Sriracha

PEOPLE TO KNOW.

The Boeing employee who blew the whistle — and died: Mitch Barnett was an aircraft quality inspector at Boeing, where he had worked for more than 30 years before he retired in 2017. Since then, he had been telling anyone who would listen — reporters, documentarians, federal regulators — the same things he had been telling Boeing managers for years: So many corners were being cut, so many rules ignored and laws broken, that he feared jets would start falling out of the sky. In early March, he was deposed as part of his federal whistleblower complaint. He testified for two days, and on the third day, he was found in the driver’s seat of his orange Dodge Ram in a Holiday Inn parking lot, shot once through the head. (New York Magazine)

“Boeing has fingers everywhere. So, you know, you’re fighting a lot of things and a lot of people.”

The founder using nuclear fusion to solve our energy problems: Twenty-four-year-old JC Btaiche has raised $20 million and signed on Iran’s former top nuclear scientist and former Pentagon officials with an audacious goal: using nuclear fusion to solve all our energy problems. Batche is a high school graduate who immigrated from Lebanon to North America in 2016. He has sold investors and employees on the idea that private industry can do for commercial fusion what it did for spaceflight: accelerate progress by solving the $24 billion National Nuclear Security Administration’s problems along the way to developing a viable fusion reactor. “Fuse wants to become to the NNSA, what SpaceX is to NASA,” he said. (Forbes; if you can’t access the article, try this link.)

“This is the first time in history where the U.S. has two potential nuclear peer adversaries. This really puts us in a position where we have to build now.”

The 11-year-old skateboarding prodigy: Reese Nelson is a happy-go-lucky skateboarder who won over fans globally at X Games 2023, earning a silver medal in the Pacifico Women’s Skateboard Vert at just 10 years and 8 months old. Her mentor? Tony Hawk. “Very quickly, I could tell that she had something extraordinary,” Hawk says. Meet the 11-year-old poised to be skateboarding’s brightest star. (The Athletic)

“She is fiercely determined and dedicated, almost to a fault in terms of she will not give up.”

The Navy vet-turned-singer-songwriter: By the numbers, Zach Bryan is the second-biggest country musician in America, and it’s not like there’s a drought of country hits about bars: presently at #2 on the Hot 100 is Shaboozey’s boozy breakthrough hit, literally titled “A Bar Song (Tipsy).” But Bryan doesn’t really make country music, nor does he really make “hits.” Raised in Oologah, Oklahoma, he joined the Navy at 17, posting clips of his music to Twitter and self-releasing his first two albums in his downtime. It was not by choice that he was honorably discharged to pursue music full-time in 2021, having never played a concert or set foot in a studio. And though his current tour is filling arenas on either side of the Mason-Dixon, he routinely turns down high-profile interview requests, perhaps sensing the media’s thirst for any indication of which political party might deputize him as a mascot. (GQ)

“Everyone thinks they know me now in these closed-minded, leave-me towns.”

COMPANIES TO WATCH.

The next Sriracha: Justin Gill transformed his grandmother’s beloved family recipe into the fastest-growing condiment brand in America, Bachan. The mass appeal of Bachan’s is one of many reasons why Gill’s sweet and savory sauce started to stick soon after he launched the brand in 2019. A beloved family recipe is another. Bachan’s, named after the Japanese American term for granny, originated from a sauce his own grandmother-made for decades. Bachan’s is now the top-selling barbecue sauce at both Amazon and Whole Foods, and the fastest-growing condiment brand in the country. With estimated annual revenue topping $70 million, Bachan’s is having the kind of moment that made Sriracha founder David Tran a billionaire. (Forbes; if you can’t access the article, try this link.)

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