Remembering Jim Rutt (1953–2026)

A friend, an early guest, and one of the sharpest minds we ever put a microphone in front of. We will miss him.

We’re saddened to learn of the passing of our friend Jim Rutt, who died at home on May 27. He was 72.

Jim was one of our early guests, and one of the first to take seriously what we were trying to build. We’re grateful for that, and we’ll stay grateful.

What we loved was the engagement itself. Two hours with Jim — on nested OODA, Game B, the Santa Fe Institute, why so much of what moves a market is “fancy noise” — and you walked away sharper than you came in. He argued the way a man argues who had lost bigger fights to better people and enjoyed every one of them. He never closed himself off. CEO of Network Solutions, the man the New York Times once called the Internet’s bad boy, and still, at the end, more curious than anyone in the room.

We were lucky to know him and have him on No Way Out.

You can watch the epidsode here: