Short Description: In this episode, former D1 Basketball Player and West Point Graduate Mike Canty shares his journey from West Point and Army service to becoming the founder of ARC, breaking down how military leadership, discipline, and decision-making translate into entrepreneurship and innovation.

Full Description: In this episode, Mike Canty shares an in-depth look at his journey from West Point and Army service to becoming a startup founder building mission-critical defense technology. This is a wide-ranging conversation about leadership under pressure, military decision-making, entrepreneurship, and resilience.

Mike reflects on growing up in Massachusetts, competing at a high level in sports, and attending prep school before being recruited to West Point. He walks through the reality of military training, leadership development, and the early moments that test commitment, discipline, and accountability. We explore what it’s really like to lead people in high-stakes environments and how those experiences shape long-term decision making.

The conversation moves into Mike’s time in the U.S. Army, including deployment experience, combat leadership, and the operational challenges that ultimately inspired the founding of ARC. Mike explains how gaps in battlefield communication and real-time situational awareness led to the core ideas behind ARC’s technology, and why solving real problems for people on the ground became a driving mission.

We also dive deep into the transition from the military to the private sector, including attending Columbia business school, Microsoft, and the leap into entrepreneurship. Mike breaks down the realities of building a defense startup, raising capital in difficult conditions, hiring the right team, and navigating failure, risk, and uncertainty as a founder.

This episode covers themes like leadership development, founder mindset, discipline, accountability, mission-driven work, innovation, defense technology, military veterans in business, startup resilience, and high-performance decision making. It’s an honest look at how hard experiences forge leaders — and why clarity of purpose matters more than comfort.

Whether you’re interested in entrepreneurship, military leadership, personal growth, defense innovation, or building something meaningful, this conversation offers practical insight and hard-earned perspective.

If you like Modern Wisdom with Chris Williamson, Founders Podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show, The Diary of a CEO, Lex Fridman Podcast, Jocko Podcast, The Shawn Ryan Show, How I Built This, Mike Drop, Cleared Hot, SOFREP Radio, or Zero Blog Thirty, you’ll love this episode.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

02:08 Growing Up in Massachusetts

06:25 Sports and Competitive Drive

11:42 Prep School and Recruitment

17:28 Choosing West Point

23:06 First Day and Culture Shock

31:42 Leadership and Attrition

41:28 Transition to the Army

50:37 Combat Experience and Decision Making

58:52 The Problem That Inspired ARC

1:06:38 Military to Business and Microsoft

1:12:08 Starting a Defense Startup

1:20:28 Failure Risk and Founder Mindset

1:28:12 Building Mission Driven Teams

1:35:07 ARC Technology and Real World Impact

1:42:47 Final Leadership Reflections

1:44:28 Closing and Where to Connect

Tags: leadership, entrepreneurship, military leadership, West Point, Army mindset, startup founder, business leadership, personal growth, resilience, discipline, decision making, leadership development, innovation, ARC company, veterans in business, mission driven leadership, mindset, high performance, overcoming adversity, founder journey, Columbia Business School Graduates