White House Innovation Advisor Turned Sane “Prepper,” John Ramey – Love Your Work, Episode 115

March 05 2018 – 07:30am

john ramey

John Ramey (@jpramey) found success as an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. He dropped out of college with only one semester left, moved to Silicon Valley, and built a successful startup.

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After he sold his startup, John traveled the world helping budding ecosystems promote entrepreneurship. He ended up setting up a program called Nomadic Mentors, which pairs experienced entrepreneurs with incubator and accelerator programs around the world in developing markets.

By the way, I’m one of the mentors in Nomadic Mentors. I’ve done a trip to Greece and to Serbia where I spoke and helped entrepreneurs.

After John traveled the world, he served as the Innovation Advisor to the Obama White House. He set up a program at The Pentagon for making government innovation happen in months, rather than decades.

Now that John has had that success, has traveled the world, and has seen firsthand how governments work, including very intimately with the U.S. government, and a trip to North Korea that you’re going to hear about, what is John dedicating his time to now?

He’s actually running a site for “prepping.” You may have seen some reality shows with shifty-eyed people prepping for nuclear fallout or a zombie apocalypse. This is not that.

John affectionately refers to himself as a SANE “prepper.” If you go to his site, which is at theprepared.com you can see that John is quite sane. He provides incredibly-detailed and practical information on all sorts of disaster or emergency-preparedness supplies.

On theprepared.com you’ll find prepping checklists for emergencies such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and car accidents. You’ll find detailed reviews of supplies such as water storage containers and non-perishable food. You’ll find everything you need to be informed on how best to prepare you, your family, and your home for an emergency.

This is a very long conversation. John has really seen The Matrix, so to speak, that rules our daily lives. Hear about:

How he lived in Silicon Valley on $2.85 a day.
How did he end up working at the White House?
What was his trip to North Korea like, and why wasn’t he, as an American, allowed to use the bathroom on one ocassion?
After all John has done, why has he decided a “prepper” site was the next project for him?