Are we overthinking the DoD’s valley of death problem?
Here’s an interesting exchange from the Feb 9, 2023 House Armed Services Committee hearing on the future of war between Representative Ro Khanna and Christian […]
Anduril
Consortia-based OTAs larger, but slower growing than stand-alone OTA
The same day I dropped the podcast on Stephanie Halcrow and Moshe Schwartz’s event on industry consortia, the GAO released its own report Other Transaction […]
How the geometry of investing in defense startups is different
Here’s a few slices from a great Venture Stories podcast with Alex Moore, an investor at 8VC and before that he was one of the […]
The Trojan Horse: Wrapping software in metal to make the sale to DoD
Here is Trae Stephens, partner at Founder’s Fund, talking with Vago Muradian on the Defense and Aerospace Podcast. We found that selling software was incredibly […]
Anduril releases mission document: Rebooting the Arsenal of Democracy
Here is an interesting slice from Anduril’s mission document: Rebooting the Arsenal of Democracy. In the early 1960s, under the direction of then Secretary of […]
Podcast: Opening programs to modularity and iteration
In this special episode of the Acquisition Talk podcast, we listen into an event that explores how defense programs can harness modern development practices. Center […]
Highlights from Defense Innovation Unit’s 2021 annual report
Here are some excerpts from the Defense Innovation Unit 2021 annual report (I compiled the table below for your reading ease): In fiscal year (FY) […]
Podcast: DoD, Silicon Valley, and American Dynamism with Katherine Boyle
Katherine Boyle joined me on the Acquisition Talk podcast to dive deeper into her stark warning on DoD’s relationship with the tech community. “After five […]
Palmer Luckey on rapidly fielding counter-UAS
Here’s a very interesting story from Palmer Luckey, co-founder of Anduril, at the 2021 Reagan National Defense Forum. There was an event where we were […]
Podcast: Injecting tech in today’s weapons with Maj. Gen. John Ferrari (ret.)
I was pleased to have John Ferrari join me on the Acquisition Talk podcast to discuss a wide range of issues facing DoD’s ability to […]
Reverse innovation, allied partners, and getting more bang for the buck
Consider an American company with a good-better-best product lineup with 80-90-100% performance at 80-90-100% pricing. When seeking to sell in an emerging economy, like India, […]
What’s holding back SBIR and new entrants from transforming DoD?
After proving the efficacy and competitive strength of the technology procured via a SBIR award, federal agencies are required by law to work in good […]
The investment thesis behind Anduril
Here’s Katherine Boyle from General Catalyst talking on the Venture Stories podcast about her rationale being funding Anduril in the early days: Anduril’s a company […]
George Mason kicks off an acquisition playbook for the information age
For the past 50 years, there has been a stable consensus about the benefits of competition in the Department of Defense. Unfortunately, infrequent “winner-take-all” programs, […]
Can the military’s operating system for war succeed at scale?
Anduril is best known for supplying surveillance towers and software used to watch over the US-Mexico border and some US bases. Now, it is retooling the software […]