S01E05: “The Self-Licking Ice Cream Cone” The Feedback Loops We Built—and the Hemp Industry Can’t Seem to Escapeby Aaron FurmanApril 14, 2025
There’s a phrase from military slang—“self-licking ice cream cone.” It refers to a system that exists solely to sustain itself. No clear mission, no outside impact. Just a perfectly closed loop of meetings, metrics, and mutual validation.
Sound familiar?
In this week’s podcast, we unpack the cycle of inertia that’s quietly stalling real progress in the U.S. hemp industry. It’s not just outdated regulations or public perception—sometimes the biggest barrier is us.
From hemp summits with recycled talking points to advisory councils that avoid hard questions, we’ve created a professional hamster wheel. Policy talks that lead to more talks. Task forces that circle back to the same recommendations. Organizations that prioritize staying relevant over being effective.
We’ll take a close look at:– Why “thought leadership” in hemp often looks like a rerun– The structural incentives behind our most persistent echo chambers– How advocacy can turn into preservation of power, not progress– The real cost of chasing momentum without direction
And most importantly: what it takes to break out.
If you’ve sat through one too many panels, read one too many reports, or joined one too many calls that left you asking “What exactly are we building here?”—this episode will feel uncomfortably familiar.
But discomfort is where movement starts.
Join me as we take a hard look at the systems we’ve created, the roles we play in sustaining them, and how we can shift from performance to progress.
Because an industry can’t grow if it’s stuck feeding itself.
