May 22, 2026

Navigating Toward Freedom: The Entrepreneurial Journey of Ben Koether

At fourteen, Ben Koether snuck aboard a research schooner and talked his way into a summer at sea. At twenty-three, he was charting Antarctic coastlines no ship had ever reached—and got trapped 600 miles from open water with winter closing in. A few years later, he was quietly switching cars in Nixon's inaugural motorcade to foil an assassination plot no one would ever hear about. Then he built a company in his garage that ended up in nearly every fast-food kitchen on earth. Dead Reckoning is the story of how one man kept finding his way through the fog—and why his method might work for the rest of us too.