Mission Critical: Building a Startup for America’s Next Fight | The Pair Program Ep72

Speaker A: Welcome to the PEAR program from Hatchpad, the podcast that gives you a front row seat to candid conversations with tech leaders from the startup world. I'm your host, Tim Winkler, the creator of Hatchpad.

Speaker B: And I'm your other host, Mike Gruen.

Speaker A: Join us each episode as we bring together two guests to dissect topics at the intersection of technology, startups, and career growth. All right, welcome back to the Pair program. I am your host, Tim Winkler. Uh, again joined by a, uh, familiar face, Sean, uh, Leahy. Uh, Sean, thanks, uh, again for tagging along with me on this one, man.

Speaker B: Stoked to be here, Tim. I, uh, got some great guests today and excited to be here.

Speaker A: Yeah, you're slowly locking in that permanent spot. Uh, we'll see, we'll see how this one goes.

Speaker B: You know, it's all about getting the good reviews from the guests. Last time Alex and Andy or Alex and Austin gave me some pretty good reviews. So hopefully the, the gents today will give me a high, uh, as well.

Speaker A: Yeah, we'll have to, we'll have to ask at the end.

Speaker C: We'll see. Yeah, we'll see.

Speaker A: We, we, uh, we typically start with a little bit of, of, of random banter. And so I was, um, recently, uh, reading that Amazon and Walmart are doubling down on drone delivery. Uh, so the FAA just opened up the rules so that drones can fly beyond line of sight, which means, you know, looking at millions of, of more homes, they're going to be getting groceries kind of airdropped, uh, to their homes. Um, so I was going to ask you, Sean, do you think, like, rural America is ready for that? Do you think Winchester is ready for that?

Speaker B: Okay, so there's going to be some incidents. I'll say that right off the bat, there's going to be a learning curve for some of the folks who have, let's say, ah, a rich skeet shooting hobby. They might take some liberties with the first incoming drones.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Um, but no, I think it's going to be great. Um, if they can help me get some new parts for my F150, I'm all about it. So send them on over.

Speaker A: Yeah, I was gonna say not, not far from, like, hunting permits being issued out that way for taking down a, uh, taking down a drone that's got some, some eggs. And the next shortage hits, Andy might, might even have some, like, buzzing over there to drop some FPV drone parts, uh, to the team at Vector at some point.

Speaker D: That'd be great. That would be great.

Speaker A: Good stuff. All right, uh, so let's jump in, uh, to a little, little opener on today's episode. So we're gonna be talking about a topic that is urgent, um, inspiring, you know, and it's centered around what it means to build a mission driven startup at a time when America's national security is demanding more from industry than, than ever before. Uh, so we're going to be going deep on, you know, this, this concept of what happens when you fuse these elite operators, uh, with advanced manufacturing, uh, a culture that kind of boasts, you know, no egos, and ask, you know, what kind of people truly thrive inside a company that treats its work as a national duty. And so I'm excited to jump into this important topic. Uh, we've got some excellent guests joining us, uh, today. So we've got Andy Yakoulis, uh, CEO and co founder of Vector. Uh, he spent nearly two decades as an army officer and special operations commander, has worked at the intersection of defense, innovation, private capital, and now is leading Vectors Charge to build tools and technologies for modern warfare. Uh, and then alongside Andy, uh, we've got Larson Jensen. Uh, Larson's a, I have to open with a former two time Olympic medalist, uh, Navy Seal, uh, Stanford NBA and serves as the founder and general partner at Harpoon Ventures. Uh, Larson was instrumental in bringing, you know, some of Vector's founding team together as well and uh, is going to bring, uh, some solid energy to the topic of building companies with, with mission at their core. So, um, you know, Andy and Larson, thank you both for, for joining us on the episode.

Speaker C: Thanks for having us. We're super stoked to be here.

Speaker D: Yeah, thank you guys. Larson's the type of guy that you don't want to tell your mom about because you always feel like you're not good enough and she always gives you that look when you, when you tell people about Larson. So, yeah, pleasure to be here.

Speaker A: Yeah, Larson, I caught a little bit of your episode with Mike Ritland as well. That was a, that was a good one, man.

Speaker C: Thank you. That was my first long form. You never really know how it's going to go when you're, you know, in the studio for four hours straight. Um, one of my, you know, investors in our venture fund said, you know, was this an interview or was this an interrogation? You know, is this like, you know, and so you're on the receiving end this time. And uh, it was great and I appreciate the compliment. It was a lot of fun.

Speaker A: I liked his icebreaker of have you seen Michael Phelps in the shower?

Speaker C: He didn't prepare me for that one, he's like, yeah, hot. Came in hot. I think my response was as good as I could have. It was good for it.

Speaker A: It was good. You held your own. Um, all right, cool. Well, before we jump into the main discussion, we like to loosen things up. A little icebreaker we call Pair Me Up. Uh, everyone just goes around the room, rattles off two things that just kind of go together. Uh, Sean, why don't you lead us off, and then I'll follow.

Speaker B: Well, you know, Tim, that, uh, a lot of my. My pair me ups have been inspired by my recent move out here to Winchester. And, uh, last weekend, I was finally getting totally unpacked, all the, like, the last items, so I was hanging up a bunch of art, uh, photographs, that kind of stuff. So my pair for today is a measuring tape and a level. Always want to be walking around with those. If you're doing some. Some work around the house, they tend to not go together. You forget one and then realize you need it. But, uh, yeah, if you're doing some of that handyman stuff at home.

Speaker A: Measuring tape and a level, it's gonna complement those, uh. Yeah, those posters in the back are perfectly symmetrical, man.

Speaker B: Uh, that's, you know, that's just a lot of the, uh, AI, uh, video filters. Um, these are also completely, um, totally original Kandinskies as well. Definitely not prints, but. Yeah, no, thank you. It's perfect over here.

Speaker A: Yeah, I hear you, man. Nothing like, more obnoxious than. Than looking at a piece of art. This looks, like, a little bit crazy.

Speaker B: It's just. It's sideways. It looks like you, you know, you hung it blindfolded, so.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: A little extra. Go the extra mile. Bring the level.

Speaker A: I dig it. All right, good stuff. I'll. I'll jump in real quick. So, uh, I had a annual physical yesterday and was, uh, was tempted to go with the physicals and that awkward hernia check moment where the, you know, you drop trowel and cough. But I'll spare, uh. I'll spare the listeners that visual. And I'm gonna jump and go with fasting and a renewed appreciation for black coffee. So obviously, you know, went and got some blood work done, foolishly, um, had it scheduled, you know, later in the afternoon. So had, uh, to do a little bit more longer fasting than I had intended to. Um, so I found myself kind of like, romanticizing, you know, anything that you're allowed to consume. And, uh, black coffee was that for me. So, ah, it became. Yeah, it just became a moment of gratitude for, uh, you know, drinking black coffee and uh, so I'm going to take the uh, the fasting and that renewed appreciation for, for black coffee as the pairing.

Speaker B: Do you think you'll, you'll step up to bulletproof coffee, Tim?

Speaker A: Bullet plume, maybe a black rifle? Who knows? You know, we'll, we'll see. Um, let's, let's pass it over to the ah, to the guest at ah this point. So Andy, maybe ah a quick intro and your pairing.

Speaker D: Sure. Um, so just like you said, CEO, co founder of Vector. Spent a career in the, in the military. Did about 18 years and a little story there of why I left at 18 years. Had a fortunate opportunity of serving special operations. About 10 of that uh, co Founded a separate company um prior to Vector in the health tech space of all things. And now all in on Vector right now for my pairing. Uh, I have to say at the start I was pretty scared where that story was going to go, Tim. And I'm happy it ended at black coffee. Just maybe to keep with the theme of some personal scary stories, uh, just moved to Salt Lake City here with the company over the last few months. Moving a lot of moving boxes uh right now. And there's nothing better after doing a lot of manual labor than getting like a Corona in the shower and just having a beer in the shower. So I'll say beer in a shower, shower, beers.

Speaker A: I dig it.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Since college so I'm glad that somebody's having a good time.

Speaker A: Uh, I had one last week. Man. It's. Yeah. You know, you don't kind of bring you back to college.

Speaker C: It looks like it's been a while since your last shower.

Speaker A: So I'm usually. Yeah I'm usually just a Coors like can in the shower. No koozie, you know, just kind of keeping it you know, exposed. But uh, Corona is you going, you going lime in the shower too with that?

Speaker D: Uh, I'm not that fancy. Just you know, just straight Corona. Yeah, I guess it's dangerous though you think about like glass in the shower.

Speaker A: That's why I go can. Yeah, you never know. Good stuff. When did you officially you know get relocated over uh, to, to Salt Lake?

Speaker D: I uh, I've been here roughly since April, but brought the family down once once school was out. So just this uh, the summer start of the summer brought the family down and just uh, finally got move uh last couple weeks.

Speaker A: Nice man. Yeah, love it out there. I even rocked the the High west hat just uh, in lieu of the great state of Utah. So excited to. Excited to hear more about that as part of this theme of the conversation. But uh, uh, let's pass it over, uh, to the, the co guest Larson, quick uh, intro in your pairing.

Speaker C: No, I appreciate it. I think, you know, I really appreciate the kind intro that you gave earlier. But I've been fortunate to represent our country across the playing field, the battlefield and now in the world of venture capital and startups. So it's something that's near and dear to my heart is representing the United States of America and our national interests and whatever career field that might be. And so I'm really happy now to continue that spirit of service with our venture firm and also with, with the team here at Vector. And it's an honor, privilege to be here with you and to help share some of that story. On a lighter note into the pairings, I actually recently did a fast as well. I told Andy about it, he thought I was crazy, but I think I'm going to get him to do it. I did the five day prolon fast. You can look it up. P, R, L, O, A, N. Um, or maybe it's oh, and it's five days. It's, I don't know, 600 calories a day for five days straight. Um, a little bit brutal, you know, towards the end of that. But my wife challenged me to it and so I definitely empathize with you at the end of that. It goes from Monday to Friday. On Saturday morning I woke up early, got the kids out of bed before they were even awake and we went down to the local diner and loaded up on, on waffles and everything I could possibly eat as prescribed, but I was starving. Um, but from a pairing standpoint for me I'd have to say uh, Hawaiian pizza to Mai Tai. That is, that is my pairing. I think you cannot go wrong with that. If you can, there's something wrong with you. It's like it's my favorite.

Speaker D: Mhm.

Speaker A: Damn, that sounds good.

Speaker C: Sounds like that's why I had to fast. I did that for like two weeks.

Speaker A: I was gonna say, man, it makes more sense.

Speaker C: Like there's some logic behind this.

Speaker A: Uh, that's an amazing pairing. We, we oftentimes will get pairings of like. Yeah, the great debate of you know, is is pineapple and ham belong together? And it's like it's a no brainer. Come on, it's, it's delicious. It's, it's fantastic. Um, and I'll, I'll say I feel like a little now that you know, you did five days And I did eight hours.

Speaker C: Eight hours. You just took a nap? You went to sleep?

Speaker A: Yeah, I was sitting here. I got like the itch of going scratches and like. Yeah. Now it's, it's uh, it's one of those things from. Sure. Like, you know, the longer you, you prolong it, the, the more gratitude you have and, and the better you kind of feel. But five days, that's, that's aggressive. I'll check it out, keep you posted if, if we experiment with that.

Speaker D: Let's do it.

Speaker A: Um, all right, good stuff man. We'll, we'll wrap up on, on the Pair Me up segment and jump into the, the heart of today's conversation. And so as I mentioned, you know, we want to talk about what it means to, to build a mission driven startup, um, here in the U.S. uh, at a time when our defense industrial base needs rebuilding locally and urgently. And uh, Andy, I want to kind of start with you so maybe first explain to our listeners, you know, what it is you all are building at Vector, uh, the mission and why now was the moment that you all decided was essential to launch this business.

Speaker D: We built Vector. I mean we found a Vector in. We'll tell the founding story maybe later here, but Larson is my co founder, he's my initial investor. Um, and so we came up with this idea together, um, early last year. We saw warfare changing on the battlefields of Ukraine, um, on the northern border of Israel and in Gaza. And we saw technology being used in ways never seen before. We saw the rate pace of being technology being used in ways never seen before. And the conversations that we were having last year is, well, if technology is changing the battlefield, we probably need a new model of how we provide that technology to the war fighter that required a new type of company. And so we call Vector Modern Warfare as a service. Um, the technology we're providing is as a service, we're very much in the drone space. Uh, right now. Every drone we have built and sold to the United States military has actually been underneath the service contract. And so that is what we are trying to do. We're trying to break down barriers of siloed technology. We're trying to integrate a lot of great technology together, but really we are trying to ensure our war fighters have relevant technology today. When I was in the army, we used to say, uh, we give our soldiers yesterday's technology tomorrow. And that used to kind of get a laugh around certain circles, but it's not funny anymore. It's now a national security vulnerability that we do have outdated Technology. And we created Vector to streamline a series of different things. Right now it's in the drone space and a little bit of autonomy on the drones was to streamline that technology to war fighters. So they have it today and then we refresh it for them as a service.

Speaker C: If I could add on that a little bit piggybacking on the things that Andy said. We both spent time. He spent a whole career essentially in the special operations world. Me a couple deployments. So very fortunate to have served alongside our nation's bravest who volunteer not only for military service, but to go into harm's way full well knowing they might not come home. And that is something that I think is one of the noblest things that a person can do is to actually go into harm's way in defense of their country, in defense of their brothers and sisters in arms. And you know, what we saw essentially happening through the GWAD era and what's changed now with technology coming into the battlefield is such a rapid clip, is that frankly we didn't believe that our own military was ready with the pace of change of what was inevitably going to come. And so if we didn't do something about it, um, like a whole of nation approach, our part of that is as a company, as an investors, to help modernize our capability to keep our bravest warriors safe in the times of the greatest consequence, then we're not fulfilling our duty to our nation. Um, fortunately many, um, in the department and many around the country see this still. As they say, it's difficult to turn an aircraft carrier quickly. And the aircraft carrier in this example is our government procurement processes, our requirement processes, uh, how we think about reshaping our technology needs as a country to keep our bravest warriors safe if and when they're called upon. Uh, there needs to be more that's done. And I think that we're proud to do our small part of that from our side of the table as a company trying to deliver on that more quickly.

Speaker A: Yeah, well said. And you know, obviously China controlling, you know, a over 80% of global commercial drone production. Right. Obviously a huge growing concern for, for the US Um, and Vector doing this in the US doing it, you know, in the middle of our country here in Utah. I wanted to make sure, I asked about that. You know, you could have built this company anywhere. Why bet on Utah and talk to me a little bit about what that ecosystem looks like, you know, maybe the next five years out. You know, if Vector succeeds, I don't

Speaker D: think there's an If Vector succeeds Tim, so start there, but we're going to build the next great uh, defense technology company here in Utah. We chose Utah for a variety of reasons. Um, when we started the company last year I had just finished, uh, my service in the army was in Northern Virginia and we took a long sort of look on where does it make sense for a variety of reasons, tech talents, um, access, et cetera, et cetera of where to put a company. And there's really three, maybe four locations that I thought made sense. The obvious, if you're going to create a venture backed company, Bay Area, if you're going to create a defense tech company, El, uh, Segundo is very popular for the defense tech community right now. Austin, Texas has emerged as a hotbed for a lot of defense tech companies and there's a strong investment ecosystem down there as well. Um, and then you have Utah, uh, we call Utah Silicon Slopes. Uh, once I started digging in a little bit more to Utah and looking at ah, the advantages for being a small business here, the amount of tech talent that is here. There's a lot of very well known tech companies and data centers that have a strong presence here in Utah. It's a, it's a state that's very easy to get in and out of. There's an amazing Delta Airlines hub here at the Salt Lake City airport. Um, and when you're talking to people about quitting their job, joining you on this crazy startup journey and moving their entire family, it's Utah's an easy sell. We have located, I think at this point, 25 to 30 people to the state of Utah, myself and my family included and we're very proud of that. Um, it is hard to, you know, get people to quit their jobs and then jump on a startup journey with you, bringing them to Utah and being a little bit different, being a little bit of contrarian from the rest of the ecosystem that goes to El Segundo or Austin, Texas helps a lot. We've got a very tight knit community here in Utah. Uh, Vector is a very tight knit community here. Um, what I think you'll see is you don't have this kind of rotational, uh, migration from startup to startup of individuals that you see in the Bay Area. And let's also throw shade on the Bay Area. But we kind of wanted to be outside of that, a little bit different than the rest and so far so great. Utah has just been fantastic.

Speaker A: Yeah. In our Discovery call you, you talked about that, you know, that feeling of weight, you know, relocating families to, you Know, to, to get behind this mission. Right. And that level of uh, service that you need to now provide to, to make sure this company is, it's going to succeed and provide for these families that are relocating. It's also interesting to me as well, like, you know, folks, um, coming uh, in, you know, full time, five days a week. Right. This is very different than what, you know, what we've seen over the last couple of years with remote first culture. Um, and so you know, obviously a manufacturing piece playing into that. But talk to me a little bit about, you know, relocating that many people and that kind of like trend that you're seeing, that folks are getting behind that mission from the conversations that you've had with folks, you know, what is it that you're seeing that maybe from a values perspective that they're getting behind and what kind of enforces that, um, you know, across the team on a day to day basis?

Speaker D: Yeah, uh, we still have some hybrid remote employees. We're having a lot of discussions right now about what, where does it make sense to have people that are hybrid remote and when do they come here? You know, I'll just say it off the top like I do not believe in remote work. I believe everyone needs to be in person five days a week. The energy you feel when you're working with somebody in close proximity, you just cannot replicate on any sort of medium. Otherwise the serendipitous conversations, especially when you're in the hardware space and we have a software component in the company as well, but in the hardware space, you know, it's a no brainer, you have to be in person. But even for those folks that are in business operations roles and other roles, um, having them see the fruits of their labor, so to speak, where they're working on a quote or they're working on something in the back shop and they see why they're working to do that. They see that drone being built and being shipped out to the war fighter. I think you, you just create the synergy and you create this energy and this motivation that you can't replicate in uh, any other capacity other than being in person. And so we'll always strive to have as many employees as possible, uh, here in person in our Salt Lake City offices at times you might have a hybrid remote worker, uh, if that makes sense. And we're always opportunistic and how we approach that. But for the most part we try to get everyone in the office every day.

Speaker C: I think I'd love to jump on a couple things Andy said There And I think they relate like the in person culture. Why Salt, uh, Lake City, Utah and sort of like our former backgrounds on the, on the Salt Lake City, Utah space. I think it really attracts the type of talent and sort of the ethos of the people that Vectors trying to hire. And you uh, know, when you think of you know, elite special operators, a lot of times, you know, post career they're interested in going to a mountain town. I don't necessarily know why other than they like to be in the outdoors. I mean that's all of our training is outdoors and rugged environments effectively. And that type of person, you know, enjoys mountain biking, skiing, hiking, seeing something scenic and they love doing that and sharing that with their family as well. I also think that the industries and the technologists that um, you know, Vector's done a great job of recruiting enjoy the outdoors as well, you know, some of which are actually extreme athletes themselves. And I think the industry broadly attracts sort of like these extreme athletes or like X Games style folks in sort of like the unmanned systems, uh, uh, um, career field broadly. So I think that interestingly if you look at what those folks are attracted to, Salt Lake City is a great uh, candidate to attract that type of talent. And then beyond that on the concept of in person work, I think we all live through the social experiment of uh, Covid. We're all locked down and we all got through it, needless to say. And businesses emerge somewhat fine. But if you just think back to any other career field, at least in my case, what if we had virtual swimming, uh, competitions where I just did uh, my time and I put it up on a chat box. It's like, you know, and nobody actually went in person to a race and got to compete against each other. I doubt that we'd have the amount of world records dropping like we do when we go to the Olympic Games or something like that. There's something with that in person camaraderie, that in person, uh, competition that brings out the best in people. And I think that's something you just cannot replicate virtually. And the same thing could be said in the special operations community. The tightest bonds happen by sharing um, very difficult experiences with people and going through a lot together. And you really can't feel like that the same way as if you're speaking to an avatar or in a chat box. Like sure, you can still do certain tasks, there is some work from home aspect that people can do. There's some administrative things. But if you're going to be on a shared mission Together you need to share physical proximity.

Speaker D: Maybe just tell a quick story about the type of people we hire and why they like Salt Lake City. So former special operator, works for the company. He's uh, in the Navy SEAL community prior to joining Vector. And there's uh, an 11,000 foot peak, uh, maybe, I don't know, about 10ish miles to the east of our offices. And so before work he climbed the peak and he parachuted down to the parking lot. I wish I could say I was joking. No, that's literally what he did. And that's why type of guys I hire like this ecosystem. And you know, on the other side of that, because we hire a lot of drone racing league pods. There's this great drone community here.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker D: And, and a lot of my guys build and fly drones throughout the course of the day as they're test flying. And then on the weekend they go out to the desert, the west desert, and they do drone races and fly drones on the weekend. And so it's, it's, it's a very sort of like there's a lot here in Utah if you're a former special operator and you want to parachute into work or if you would just want to fly drones either during the week or on the weekend as well, a lot here, you can't do that just to like Larson. Yeah.

Speaker C: You're not parachuting into work and not getting arrested.

Speaker D: San Francisco.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's not going to work outside of D.C. either. Yeah. So, uh, that's, that's amazing, man. I, I love those types of stories and you know, just as somebody who's um, you know, talked to a lot of individuals, uh, from a talent perspective, um, over the last few years, there's no doubt you see it from the parents too, where it is super difficult to, to work five days remote, you know, when a lot of times, you know, the kids are, are either also at home or you know, coming back home from school early or whatever it might be. Um, I've. The number of conversations I've had with parents like, oh, I, I would love to go in the office five days a week at this point because they've truly just kind of um, experienced the complete opposite. And they maybe thought the grass was greener, but it's bit distracting as well. Um, so getting into the space and staying focused I think is, is pretty, pretty ideal. Um, I want to talk about, um, you know, kind of building this mission driven culture and it's this interesting blend that you all have where you're bringing together, you know, special ops folks and you know, talented folks that are, you know, hardware, software engineers, manufacturing individuals. Not all of these folks are, are former military. Um, so how, how do you kind of bring that culture together? Uh, how do you unify that and yeah, what's the secret to maybe building trust and that collaboration across some of these different backgrounds?

Speaker D: Yeah, it's a great question. And so we're just under half, uh, uh, prior military or government, uh, civilian. So we're mostly non military. But we have a very rigorous hiring process, a very unique hiring process. Tim, you know this, uh, and I think as they go through that process, through a series of interviews, a little bit of a technical evaluation, some other unique things we do at the end there just to make sure that we finding the right people that not just have like the technical competencies, but are good mutual culture fit. Um, and I think through that hiring process people will self select out and that happens at times and I, and I think that's okay. I'd rather them self select out through that process than to get them on board, move them into Utah and then figure out it's not a good fit. And so we try to be very efficient with our time and get people through the process, but we still aren't shooting from the hip here when we're trying to bring people on board. Uh, you know, we kind of hinted at it here a little bit, but so we hire a lot of former special operators for a lot of former prior military folks that have some sort of tactical uh, experience, especially in the drone space. And then we pair them with a lot of drone racing league or drone manufacturers, uh, to do a variety of different things, mostly on service contracts. Um, what we have agreed upon with our engineering team is that this is what we call a war fighter led company, meaning Larsen and I, both former war fighters. Our other co founder, Matt is a former war fighter, uh, and then our fourth co founder George, never served in the military and is representing the leadership team as a non military engineer. And George still has very much a leadership role and leads as our chief technology officer. But the products that we are building, the approach we're taking to product development, the approach we're taking to um, how we instruct service members how to incorporate drones, the warfare capability that is always led by a former military service member or usually a former special operator service member. And having that warfighter led approach I think has given us an advantage to um, kind of meet our customer, which for right now is the entire United States military. Meet them where, where they have Their needs, build for them. Build for what I wish I had when I was in special operations. Build for what, you know, Matt and Larson wish they had when they were in special Operations. So having that warfare led approach, uh, and being very, very upfront and direct with our engineers that hey, we want your input, we want your talent, but at the end of the day we are building for a very specific customer and that's the American war fighter.

Speaker C: I think important thing to add on to what he was mentioning is that what your listeners may not know is that in the special operations community you have the operators, but you have a whole host of enablers, many of which are technologists in their own domains. And so, you know, even on sort of like what we'd call the vanilla sides or like the regular SEAL teams of which I was a part, to say nothing of the tier one units, like there's a huge host of that where actually it's almost the same thing as Vector in many ways, maybe skewed differently by headcount, but still sort of like operator led, mission centric. There's people that are going outside the wire in those special operations community, like enabled by you know, techs, technologists to actually prosecute the job and make sure that things get done appropriately. And so I think that we're fortunate than our former communities. That was already the DNA of the organization is like serving that higher, calling that team first mentality, that mission first mentality, um, but also supported by people that actually made sure that the technology worked and was operable when it was needed. And I think that's sort of the same thing when you think about it with this technology company being Vector, um, you know, maybe skews heavier by headcount on the tech side than sort of like the operator side. But still the same dynamics exist in terms of that, that balance of the technology experts and the people that are actually going to be utilizing it if and when called upon.

Speaker D: Yeah, I spent a lot of time later in my career in the defense innovation space and I would see a lot of engineering led companies that would pitch products to the Defense department and it's like the warfare doesn't need that, they don't want that, they're never going to use that. And I remember the same thing when I was in the military, seeing companies come to us and they would bring sort of like novelty devices or something that would never work in a sandy hot or super cold environment. And when we started Vector we wanted to make sure that that never happened as former military service members, but also through our, uh, very unique as a service model, we're so far embedded with our customer base, with our end users that that's never a problem. We're never building something that they don't want. In fact we're iterating on the design of what we are building with our customers on a service contract. I think that's a lot of the magic behind Vector is we will never build something that we haven't already talked to the military about, you know, a thousand times over and iterate on the design for them. And a lot of the products that you're seeing come, come out of Vector have been um, gone through that process of iterative design with our end users, our military service members, while on service contracts.

Speaker C: And I think that's one of the distinctions also, you know, putting my investor hat on for a second that, you know, one of the things that most excites me about what Vector is doing. Most of the, you know, modern defense technology companies, um, you know, they're very smart and they're brilliant engineers and they're doing a great job. I'm very proud of the broader ecosystem we have in America and what's happening. But at the same time, uh, the unique aspect or one of the unique aspects about Vector is uh, not only do you know what the customer wants, you have been the end user in those harshest environments and you might even know many people on the team know astronomically more than the best informed people inside of the United States government right now in terms of where the puck is going. They've literally lived it because they've experienced it. They've experienced what it's like to see how technology reshapes, how we project military power. They've seen it firsthand. They've experienced it firsthand. Um, they know the potential consequences because they've been through it. And it's like anything else in life. You can read as many books about something as you'd like and you are notionally an academic expert in the topic. But uh, I can read as many books as I want about going through buds and going through hell week until you got through hell or a five day fast or whatever. You don't really know what it's sort of like until you go through that. And I think that's one of the fortunate things about the team that we have here is they've literally been through it. So there's not really much guesswork, uh, in terms of like what's actually practically going to be utilized, I don't know,

Speaker D: under on uh, 36 minutes on when the hell week buds conversation came up.

Speaker C: But I'm here to talk about a new book that I'm writing. Uh, yeah, let's hear. Let's get the plug in the SEAL community. Who's going to write the next book? Now I have a. Probably getting me into hot water. All the books have been written now we run for Congress. So that's. The new books are done.

Speaker D: Are you announcing your, your political campaign?

Speaker C: I don't want to write. Read a book or read. I don't want to write a book. Um, nor do I want to run for Congress. I'm happy just doing what we're doing.

Speaker B: So, Larson, Andy, um, so you brought up an interesting topic here about

Speaker D: um,

Speaker B: looking at not just the business side of defense tech leading with mission, but um, I think there's a fundamental difference between doing defense and security related work and traditional commercial work, where in commercial work you're interested in customer tastes and customer needs. When you're talking about national security and defense, um, business, you're really talking about larger scale international geopolitics, security concerns, that kind of thing. But that's fundamental to your business. So how do you as business leaders view the world through that lens? How do you monitor, how do you forecast the changing environments geopolitically and from security perspective that are again eventually going to filter down to the day to day business decisions you make?

Speaker D: Yeah. Let me just start by saying if you are not paying attention to geopolitics, if you are not just a massive consumer of what is happening, uh, all over the world, especially my position, and I'm guessing your position as well, on the investor side, you are sorely missing out. And so I spent a good amount of my time trying to keep up, especially now, it's very hard to keep up. Spend a lot of time trying to keep up with what is happening with NATO, what is happening in the Pacific, what is this latest tariff deal that the President just signed with Japan, how does it impact things for our business and how is that going to trickle down? Uh, and so just trying to keep up with that at our level is, is a lot of what I spend some of my time doing. And so that's also part of the reason why I love building in defense is you can see geopolitics, you can see a conversation between, uh, you know, Trump just met with Putin in Alaska and how that trickles down to maybe a conversation with Zelensky here. How does that trickle down to our startup? And I love being able to trace that line from the most senior leaders of the most powerful countries in the world, all the way down to how does that impact our startup for how we are approaching our business and who are now going to spend a little more time talking to and doing business development with. Um, So I love defense tech for a variety of reasons. That is one of many. But Larson's used the term we're always trying to figure out where's the puck going. You are missing out defense if you're building for the now, if you're building where the puck is. And a lot of it is trying to read TE's. A lot of it is using a lot of pattern recognition to see how different world events play into, how does that lead into, uh, uh, appropriations language in the next bill from Congress and then how does that trickle down to the what programs are going to get funded. And so there's a little bit of gamesmanship here, there's a little bit of strategy here. It's a lot of reading tea leaves to try to figure out what makes the most sense and what should I build towards next and then how can I influence that program, how can I influence that requirement, uh, to make it where it makes a lot of sense for maybe Vector to win on that contract in the future and then running that cycle again and again, uh, throughout the process, sometimes almost like on a weekly basis, as world events just are changing so fast right now is, is a challenge to keep up with. But again, I think that's a lot of the passion and fun that comes with doing what we're doing.

Speaker C: Ah, there's an old saying that, you know, being too early or being too late is indistinguishable from being wrong. And so as you think about starting a company or investing in a company, you know, market timing and macro sentiment play into it massively. You know, many companies that now have reached very significant success were actually tried during the dot com era as an example. Now they're successful. You joked around about grocery delivery right now and we had Webvan in 2000 and just, just didn't work right. We didn't have sort of enough consumers online, didn't have economies of scale, all of that. And now we have, you know, Amazon grocery delivery and other services. And so in many ways there's, there's almost no new ideas. You know, broadly, um, there, there are some, but timing is just such a huge factor that's, you know, a factor in success over time. You know, one of the, or I think the collision that we saw right now is the collision of de Globalization, uh, as that relates to national security specifically and emerging technology and commercial electronics that have achieved such scale and volumes that they're actually extremely affordable now. So on the technology side, you have capabilities now that are possible at a fraction of the cost, let's just say hundreds of dollars from what you could, potentially you couldn't even do 10 years ago, period, almost at any cost. It costs you $100,000 to do that. So the price curve has fallen to such a point where now you actually have, as Uncle Sam has put out many, many times, the opportunity for attritable systems in mass. Right. So, meaning systems that are so, um, you know, so cost, uh, conscious that you can produce so many of them and reshape the landscape of, of the battlefield and, and deterrence before. So hopefully, um, on the other hand, when you think about deglobalization as a trend, uh, obviously, um, there's a huge trend politically towards more sovereignty, whether that be European sovereignty, American sovereignty as it relates to our supply chain. We don't want to be reliant on China, but also on our force projection. We served in an area during the global. Read, uh, again, global war on terror, meaning around the entire world for those that don't know what that means. Everywhere, all at once, all the time. All the time. I don't think that under the Trump administration and even during the Biden administration we wanted to fly, you know, uh, fight a global scale conflict anymore. And it's become more polarizing in terms of China, Russia, et cetera, the United States back to sort of like the great powers. And so as we think about what happens in the other areas where the United States has had people on the ground providing security and stability for commerce to occur, for perhaps democratically elect, uh, democratic elections to occur, there's sort of an argument right now to say, well, you know, is there potentially going to be, you know, less, uh, stability in some of those regions if the United States is no longer prosecuting a global war on extremist terrorism? And so as all these things convene, you know, we saw that read the tea leaves as and Andy so eloquently put to say, okay, all of these factors are colliding right here, right now. It's still possible or too early, but I don't think so. I think we're right on time for this thesis. And I don't think that this thesis probably would have worked 10 years ago because the cost wasn't there, deglobalization wasn't there, and now all of these factors are coming to fruition right now. And we're starting to see them play out in policy from, you know, both from Secretary Hegseth all the way up to the Commander in Chief, President Trump are instituting these things at a very, very rapid clip. And so I'm net bullish on the policies that our country is instituting because they clearly see a lot of the same things that we're seeing given our. That given our prior experience, uh, this

Speaker D: concept of timing and starting a mission driven company, when you start that company is, I think, really, really important. You know, Larson and I had a thousand conversations about Vector spring of last year, just like countless hours on the phone trying to figure out this concept of Vector. But then we started talking about the timing and when do we go? Uh, and so this is summer of 24, a year ago. I'm at my 18th year in the army. And I think most people probably understand, like most sane people go to 20 years. Um, but we're having conversations about, like, I think we can't wait two more years if you want to do this thing, Andy. And we made a decision, you know, Larson and I made a decision. My wife and I made a decision that the timing kind of makes sense to go now, meaning I had to get out of the army to go all in on Vector and run Vector full time. And that's the decision I made. Um, when we started Vector, like winter of last year or early, um, early winter of this year, I thought we were too late and I thought we missed it. And then I started realizing, no, like we're actually maybe a hair early or we're catching this thing on the upswing. And then we saw all these new legislation and executive orders and memos from the Secretary of Defense come out about, uh, drone dominance. And it's like, okay, now, now we know we're hitting this thing right on time. There's a little bit of luck involved there, if I'm being honest. But that's a lot of experience on Larson's side, on an investor, seeing a lot of different companies. There's a lot of experience on my side being in the military for so long and seeing defense acquisitions and seeing a lot of things change. Both of us watching and bringing in Matt Long, our co founder, and he had a lot of experience, uh, overseas in Eastern Europe and seeing how warfare has changed. All of this sort of came together for us last year. We realized the time to go was now. And I think that's a lot of where, like this mission and purpose and passion comes from. It's like, we know the time is now, but we have to aggressively pursue it fast. And that is part of the reason why Vector, uh, moves so fast is we're right where we need to be, but we cannot allow time to pass us by. We have to build fast.

Speaker B: So staying on the subject of timing, then, this is kind of for Larsen, just because of your background with, uh, Harpoon and investing, we've seen over the past couple of years this renewed private capital interest in defense and dual use. Part of that spurred by efforts like diu, Office of Strategic Capital, et cetera. Where do you think private capital is right now, uh, for defense and dual use? Is it, is it still in the upswing? Are investors looking for returns?

Speaker C: And I think what's, what's really interesting about it is like in a very short period of time since we started Harpoon, our venture capital firm, to say night and day is an under exaggeration of what we've seen. Um, when I was originally starting to invest in the space actually at another firm called Lightspeed, you know, I helped to do, uh, one of the first counter UAS deals in existence in the startup space. And that was an example of perhaps being too early and the company ended up selling. It was a reasonable outcome for the company, a reasonable outcome for investors. But ultimately. And that was when we started to see some early indications during the ISIS fight, uh, and also some early concerns from critical infrastructure that we're going to have drone incursions. And there's. This is a risk that we need to mitigate. But at the time it was like far from being front page of the Journal, you know, it was not, it was not front page news. It was sort of like page 10 or something like that. Um, and then all of a sudden with what we've seen and I think what's going to go down in as, as drone war one in Ukraine, like now there is, you know, thousands of counter UAS solutions of different form factors and types. Whereas at the time that we did this deal, there was, there was two, maybe three. Um, and so I think that we were arguably too early there and ultimately sold too early. And if that company was still around, I think it would, it would be probably a, you know, almost a five or $10 billion business today. Um, so I think it's really interesting, but also culturally, back then it was very faux pas to build for the national interest of the United States in Silicon Valley particularly. And in many cases, I mean, we built our whole franchise and a whole firm around that, that we thought that technologists should work on some of the hardest audacious problems. And if they're building something that's in the best interest of our country, what better way to dedicate your talents as an engineer, as a technologist, to build something that's better for the citizenry, whether that be in terms of our prosperity or our security, both I think are synonymous in my opinion. So whether that be a national security, defense or homeland security or Department of Energy or supply chain, really making sure that our united, you know, our populace is, is prepared for a future of abundance and greater security, uh, is why we started our firm. And when we started it, we found some fringe believers, you know, in terms of that thesis, but it was not mainstream. Now all of a sudden in the past two, maybe three years, it's become a mainstream consensus viewpoint across the technology industry, uh, young founders that I can't even keep up with the volume of young founders that are interested in building technologies that are in the best interest of the United States. And I've as a result of that, never been more inspired. It feels like going back into the military again, where you're around a group of like minded people that want to dedicate their lives to something that's bigger than themselves. I think that's what's happening in the technology ecosystem right now. And at least for me, and I imagine for founders out there as well, it makes it so much easier to get out of bed every day. When you're not thinking about the things that you're going through individually. You know, you're serving a higher purpose, you're trying to serve your people, uh, of your country, trying to protect them, trying to help them live a better life in the future. I think that you couldn't ask for a better dynamic in the ecosystem right now.

Speaker A: Yeah, well said. I, um, wanted to quickly just loop back Andy on the concept of Vector just running extremely fast and growing incredibly quickly. Um, ah, oftentimes we've seen there's issues with maybe talent retention or attrition when sometimes you're scaling so quickly and you're bringing folks in and sometimes founders are just overlooking some things. But you pointed out, and we've seen it firsthand as well, that you have a very, you know, um, specific kind of process and you also have some very specific kind of core values that you all kind of live by at Vector. I wanted to hone in on those values because I think values based recruiting is, is kind of run synonymous with, you know, kind of like mission driven culture as well. Um, what are Some of those values, and, you know, how are you going about the, the vetting out of individuals based on how they fit in with, uh, alignment with those values.

Speaker D: So we have three core values, and you never do more than three things because people won't remember them. You always try to come up with a good acronym. We talk about rep. So our first value is be relentless. Um, to build in the defense space. To build, uh, for the DOD is not easy, is a challenge. And you have to just relentlessly attack every day to whatever your job is. If that's trying to do business development, you're constantly out there beating down doors. If you're building a product, you're constantly trying to find more efficient ways to do that, et cetera, et cetera. And so the saying is, you know, someone closes the door in your face, go breach the wall. Um, and while you're being relentless, though, you have to be ethical, which is our next value. We are in a very highly competitive industry. Uh, we compete fiercely, but we never break the law. We never compromise our ethics. Your reputation is everything in this industry. And we never want to give people a reason to question our reputation, our ethics. So I always force the team to be very, or I always tell the team to be very, very ethical in everything we're doing. And then, finally, this is a serious business. The drones we're building could have a munition strapped to them, and they could go and, um, be used in war to go take out a bad guy. And that's, That's a very, very serious thing that we take seriously. This is not silly. This is not a game. We are building weapons of war to hopefully deter our nation's enemies. But if, if, if need be, service, uh, members will use our, our products, our drones to go and, and do battle with, with our adversaries and potentially take a life. And to that end, I expect everybody in the company to have a very, very, um, high level of professional professionalism because it is such a serious business. Safety comes into play here. And if you're building a drone or a piece of equipment or piece of software that ends up not performing well or being unsafe, um, that, that is, that is unsatisfactory. And so I expect everyone to always be at a very, very high level of professionalism. So relentless, ethical, professional, wrapping all that up. Uh, you know, I said we only have three values, but, uh, you know, wrapping that all up is humility. Um, again, always be humble. There's always more to learn. There's, you know, we don't always have the best solution. We're always striving to get a little bit better and, and to be humble in all those three values. It's very, very important. Uh, we actually do every week a value shout out. And so every week, values aren't just something we wrote on a slide somewhere. We never talk about it. We talk about every week. And every week, um, you know, either myself or one of the senior managers from a different section of the company will give a shout out of who led, uh, with that certain value, who. Who embodied relentlessness in the previous week, who embodied something very ethical, or who was highly, uh, professional in the previous weeks. So there's tangible examples. And I don't just say words. It's. No, you know, uh, Robert did something incredibly professional. And let me tell you exactly what he did. I say, when I say professional, that's what I mean. Giving those concrete examples, I think, is it has helped to instill that culture. And people talk a lot about the values. Um, you know, we like to say we hire and fire based off the values. Obviously, you have to be technically competent in your job, what you're doing. Um, but you can't. You know, you. You won't. You won't be able to run with us, uh, at the speed we're running if you don't embody those values.

Speaker C: I think it's one of the unique things that Andy's done from day one. I think we started, you know, kicking off every meeting, it seems like almost every meeting, but certainly weekly with, you know, recounting our values, talking about the rep. And even when we had four people on the team, it was a little bit awkward, at least for me directly. It's like being on this call right here we're talking about, all right, you did something, you know, ethical last week. Good job. And, uh, really pointing out what that was and commending each other. But now, as the team is scaled, like, it's just. To me, it was just great forethought by Andy and the team to constantly be bringing that up. And, um, because you. You expect what you inspect, right? Like, so if you're inspecting, this, like, shows the expectations. And every single week, this is something that, you know, we're inspecting across the team and reinforcing as being, you know, important and critical to the franchise.

Speaker A: Yeah, I really. I love the, uh, that last one too. You know, I know it kind of exceeds the three, but the, The. The Be humble, the no egos, leave your ego at the door. I think that's one that is super critical. In startup world because especially with tech too, and engineers, right, it's easy to come across, you know, savvy engineers that, you know, think they're the, and they probably are the shit. But to bring that kind of mentality into the culture where you want to kind of lay it out, where everybody's on this, you know, level playing field, um, can easily screen folks out, you know, they're like, oh, it's not really for me then, um, and to catch wind of that and to root that out early I think is so valuable in early stage startup life because one bad hire is just super timely.

Speaker C: I think it's actually a byproduct and credit to Andy and the team. Like I walk in here into the office and have this total inferiority complex. Like you know, every, I think everybody does, which is really everybody to a man and woman here operates with a little bit of an inferiority complex when you consider the other people that are on the team. Because there are literally some of the most decorated warriors in our country's history working at this company. And so if you think you're the, I guarantee you're not compared to a handful of people here, like, I don't

Speaker D: care who you are.

Speaker C: It's really remarkable. And the same thing on the technology side. And what's really interesting is the humility of these decorated warriors. You know, they're the most humble people in the, you know, in the world, interestingly. And they have every reason to not be, but they exude that and it's easy for them to be humbled frankly, as you see the, the technology team and vice versa. And so I think it's a really interesting dynamic and culture that's been created and I think something that you know, uh, you know, creates the conditions for future success.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. And I wanted to kind of, you know, lean into that a little bit but, but focus it and hone in a little bit on founder fix. I think that's always fascinating to how founders collaborate, how they complement one another or don't. Um, you know, you all have, you know, somewhat different but also very, you know, some similars, uh, some similarities in your background. Uh, what, what would you say are some of the common themes in your leadership style and how you all complement one another when it comes to scaling vector and leading under pressure.

Speaker D: I think at its core the four co founders all have ah, this immense like passion and love of country. Like it's just like rampant. I mean we always, anything we do, we have the American flag on our Shoulder. In our, in our factory, we've got this massive American flag. Um, and it's, it's a constant sort of, uh, drive to build something that is meaningful to the country. And I think if you have, I mean that's a fairly simple sort of common trait. It's a big profound sort of commentary, but it's also simple and I think it always kind of comes back to that. Most of our conversations always kind of lead their way back to like, hey, what's best for the nation? What's best for the war fighter? How is this supporting and making sure that we are defending the amazing values, uh, of our nation? And so we started there. You know, Larson and I had the benefit of knowing each other for a number of years before we started even talking about Vector. And so kind of having that common ethos, uh, you know, very, very similar personality and traits there. What we did was ensuring we rounded out our traits with, you know, Matt Long, who's an incredible tactician and understands modern warfare, I think better than anybody on the globe at this point. And then George Matuse on the technology side. You know, I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a technical founder. Um, and so, um, striving to find a technical founder that still meets your values and your passion, your love for the nation and the military and country and technology, but also has the technical chops to sort of make up for that. Um, we all four of us, I think have very different leadership styles, but we all kind of fit together in a very unique way. And taking the time as co founders to making sure that you understand each other, understand how you complement each other, where you overlap, where you're similar. You know, as an example, George and I are similar in a lot of ways and sometimes that's great and sometimes that's bad. We lean on Larson and Matt to ensure that, you know, if George and I are too ambitious or too optimistic about a thing, you know, Larson kind of grounds us and brings us down to making sure that we're thinking about that very pragmatically. Uh, pragmatically. I think that is so important to have the all co founders, um, on this level playing field similar, but also different enough to complement each other for your blind spots.

Speaker C: I think oftentimes, and you probably see this in your roles, but I mean a lot of people talk about co founding teams and do they complement each other, are they well rounded? Absolutely. But I've seen enough co founding teams that are on paper quite well rounded and you know, in a Number of conversations, you know, quite well rounded and it seems logical, but they don't have that glue that transcends that, you know, complementary or, you know, different skill sets. And I don't know many founding companies that frankly, many of the original meetings amongst us were, you know, conducted walking Arlington National Cemetery. Um, like that's. And this isn't just like. I think there are some companies out there that wear Team USA on their sleeve as sort of a PR stunt, to be frank. And I think some probably won't be here in the future because it's pretty obvious it's a stunt to me. Uh, uh, we did that. I didn't expect to even tell anybody about that. This is the first I've probably even told anybody about it. I'm doing it here, uh, for better or worse because that's just something about how we think about our country and you know, visiting the gravestones of the people that we served with that, that didn't come out. And so we understand the consequence, we understand the bravery that's required of our, of our nation's elite and we're, you know, we're honored to continue to support them.

Speaker A: That's powerful. Thanks for sharing that. That's, that's very cool. Um, I'll close with, you know, just a question around the outlook for Vector over the next five years of what success looks like for you all. So, yeah, what, what does success look like for Vector in the, in the eyes of the country, not just, you know, uh, for investors.

Speaker D: Yeah. So we've got a lot of interesting things coming up. We've got a lot of really exciting announcements to make both on the fundraising side, some additional products, uh, and we'll release that all here in due time. But I think looking forward, what we are building is this attributable defense Prime. You know, we think technology is the future of warfare, attributed being this concept that Larson described earlier about consumable technology that's at a very cost efficient price point so that if it's consumed, if it's used, if the drone doesn't come back, that's okay because you can afford to have another one and another one and another one. And I think, um, the, the nature of the drone or the piece of technology attrition gives you this very unique opportunity to improve on it once you replace it and provide it to the service member a better version of what you gave him before, what he previously attended. And so we're looking at horizontal expansion of a number of different systems, uh, that are serving to uh, support Both kinetic and non kinetic operations for the American warfighter, our international partners and allies. And we're really excited about this concept of, uh, building out a series of products but selling them as a service. Always selling them as a service. Almost a subscription of a triple technology. And so you can refresh it very, very fast and you're not beholden the procurement process. That's what we're building out for and we're excited to make that reality. At the end of, of all of this, um, you know, what Vector is trying to do is in some ways trailblaze a new way of selling technology to the DoD. We've already started and seen a lot of early indications that we are starting to make some changes of how the DOD buys technology. Uh, but I love it in a number of years if we look back and say like this, this is the company that changed how the Defense Department buys technology.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. God knows we need it. So appreciate the, the mission there and keep keeping up the, the good fight. Uh, we're going to wrap uh, up on that note and just close with the final segment. We call the five second scramble, which is just some rapid fire Q and a. Uh, 10, 10 questions to each of you. Try to answer within five seconds. Sean, why don't you start with Larson and I'll, I'll close with Andy.

Speaker B: All right, Larson, you ready?

Speaker C: Send it.

Speaker B: All right, first, uh, question. What's one workout or PT routine, uh, from your Navy or swimming days that you do not miss?

Speaker C: It'll work it of a 20 by 1500 meter, uh, repeats. So 20 by 1 mile repeats.

Speaker B: Swimming sounds pretty easy, but you know, I get it.

Speaker D: Yeah,

Speaker C: I die if I did that today. Man. I tried it a 3K recently swim and that was, that's two of those. And I like. No thanks, that's enough.

Speaker B: Yeah, sounds, that sounds, sounds very rough. Um, number two, what's the most surprising skill that you've had to learn in your career?

Speaker C: Mental pliability. Just recognizing that you'll be more successful if you think you know less.

Speaker B: Okay. Uh, number three, what's the best under $20 piece of swag you've ever received or given?

Speaker D: Got one today. You got one today.

Speaker C: I don't know if that was under 20 bucks.

Speaker D: We'll call it.

Speaker C: Yeah, I don't know. I think it's 30 really nice hat. It's a braided bills hat, American flag on it, Vector logo. It's a nice hat. But it might have been over 20 bucks.

Speaker B: Well, of course the, the $20, uh, threshold is for anyone who's doing work with the government, there's some, uh, some rules around what you can and can't give.

Speaker D: So, uh.

Speaker B: All right, Vector hat.

Speaker A: Waiting for that. Vector Hat, too, Andy.

Speaker C: Company swag. That's like, uh, know, a coffee mug and stuff like that. It's high quality. So, like, get a nice coffee mug for 20 bucks that has a company logo on it. And those are fun things for me because I. I love coffee.

Speaker B: Um, what was your most unexpected. I really enjoyed that moment in your career?

Speaker C: Hell Week.

Speaker A: Really?

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: All right. Turns out that that was high quality fun.

Speaker C: Yeah, I don't want to do it again, but yeah, it's like one of the things I'm most proud of. Yeah.

Speaker B: What's something random that you're surprisingly good at that has nothing to do with work?

Speaker C: I'm not good at too much, man. Uh, you got the only things I'm good at out of the way, so. Um. I think I'm a good dad. I think I'm a good dad.

Speaker B: There you go. Excellent. Uh, what's one book or movie, uh, you'd recommend? Everyone read or watch.

Speaker C: I like the Dune series of movies.

Speaker B: Okay. All right. Uh, and then what's one book or movie that you enjoy but that you would not recommend? Maybe a guilty pleasure?

Speaker C: The new Jurassic Park.

Speaker B: Oh, okay.

Speaker C: Jurassic Park 7 or whatever it is.

Speaker B: All right, we're almost there, Larson. Only a couple more here. Um, what's your favorite everyday piece of technology that isn't a smartphone or a laptop or a drone? I'll add that as well.

Speaker C: The absence of it.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Nice. Nicely done.

Speaker A: That was deep.

Speaker B: And then what's the worst piece of advice you've ever received? And you don't have to name the source?

Speaker C: Follow in somebody else's footsteps.

Speaker B: Yeah, there you go. Very motivating.

Speaker C: Your own path or you're never going to be happy.

Speaker B: And then final, uh, question. This is a tradition on the para program is what is a charity or philanthropic effort, uh, that's close to your heart that you really believe in?

Speaker C: Ah, there's too many to list off. Um, the Navy SEAL foundation is probably the one that, unsurprisingly, I'm the biggest proponent of.

Speaker B: All right, outstanding. Thank you, Larson. 10 for 10.

Speaker A: All right, Andy, ready?

Speaker D: I don't know if I could call that, but I'm going to try.

Speaker A: Yeah, you got this, man. Um, if Vector were an animal, what animal would it be?

Speaker D: Lion.

Speaker A: Nice. What are some of the, uh, key kind of roles that you are hiring for over the next month?

Speaker D: To three months, uh, a couple different, uh, sales roles, um, and probably, uh, some high end finance roles.

Speaker A: What's a lesson from special ops that applies to startup leadership?

Speaker D: Oh, be humble.

Speaker A: What was your dream job as a kid?

Speaker D: I wanted to be a cop. And my uncle was a cop, and I wanted to be a cop like him.

Speaker A: Nice. What's, uh, some of the best leadership advice that you've ever received?

Speaker D: Take care of your people. Kind of obvious. It applies in the military. It applies in the commercial world as well. You take care of your people, take care of you.

Speaker A: What's your morning routine look like?

Speaker D: I, uh, get up and I go straight to the gym. Don't pass go, just go straight there before anything else gets in the way. Yeah.

Speaker A: Brush your teeth before or.

Speaker D: No, I'll brush my teeth before. Uh, but that's, that's about it. Nothing else gets in the way. You start checking email and doing things like that and you start ruining your, your, uh, routine there. So things, uh, go better for Vector when. When I get a workout.

Speaker A: I hear you. Good stuff. What is the largest land animal you think you could take in a street fight?

Speaker D: Largest land animal on a street fight? Um, I'd like to say like a bear, but I know that's not true and I know I get my ass kicked, so I don't know, maybe. Maybe a dog. As long as it's not like a working dog. Yeah.

Speaker A: All right, well said. Uh, what was the first job that you've ever had?

Speaker D: I was a golf caddy.

Speaker A: Oh, sweet. And last question. Favorite, uh, piece of gear from your military days?

Speaker D: I really thought pelotors were the coolest. Like, I just loved how they project your ears, but you can still talk through them, plug them in your radio. Like I was just a fiend for pelotours. Favorite piece of gear? Hands down.

Speaker A: Nice. All right, boys, that is a wrap. Uh, thank you both for speaking up on such an important and timely topic and setting the stage for what success looks like in building a mission focused startup in our country. So appreciate you all both joining us and thanks for joining us on the pod.

Speaker D: Thanks, guys.

Speaker C: Thank you. Appreciate your time.