Sea Change: How Autonomy and Acquisition Will Shape the Future Fleet | The Pair Program Ep78

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

Speaker B: of Hatchpad, 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. Welcome back to the, uh, PEAR program. I'm your host, Tim Winkler. Again today, a little bit of a different setup. Uh, my usual co host, Mike Gruen is off. Uh, uh, at the moment, I'm pretty sure he's just generating his ideas for his next fantasy football draft or something. Something really important. So I'm subbing him in with a, uh, familiar face. Uh, to step in as my guest co host, we've got Sean Leahy. Uh, Sean's been on the show before as a guest talking, uh, all things kind of defense tech innovation. And, uh, since then he spent the last year launching a new startup, and now he's doing, uh, a lot of independent advisory work for some really cool companies that are navigating the defense tech space. So, Sean, appreciate you, uh, stepping in on short notice, my man.

Speaker C: I'm happy to be here. I feel like this is what it feels like to host the oscars or the ESPYs or something. Stokes.

Speaker A: It's like a high school reunion, you know, it is. It's a little awkward, but, uh, we'll get it. We'll get through it. Um, yeah, so, you know, you and I were catching up. You know, this morning you mentioned that you had moved out to Winchester, Virginia. And so folks not from around here may refer to Winchester as, like, the boondocks or the sticks. Um, what was the, what was your motivation for, uh, behind that move?

Speaker C: So I grew up in Nova, Northern Virginia, so Fairfax county, and then only left for four years to go to school in New York and then came back. And my whole professional life has been there. And straight up, Nova's just changed. The data centers in Ashburn, Uh, the Ballston Mall, where my brother was living for a while, is this amazing, metropolitan, sleek spot. Now, when I was growing up, it was dilapidated and kind of dangerous to go to the Ballston Mall before they revitalized it. So I don't want to be like an old FUD or anything, but it's not what it used to be, man. So I got all my stuff in my F150 and my U Haul, and now I'm out in Winchester. And 20 minutes from now, after this podcast I could be up on Great North Mountain, you know, looking for, uh, a trailhead or something. So, um, I still spend a lot of time, obviously, with. With the industry that I'm working in and that these gents are working in. There's still a huge connection to North Virginia and D.C. but, you know, you make it work, right? The remote is real and asynchronous. Asynchronous communication works out. So, uh, yeah, man. But, yeah, I'm out here in Win City, home of the, uh, home of the Winchester Royals College Woodbat baseball team,

Speaker A: home of the Apple Blossom Mall.

Speaker C: Only Apple Blossom Mall. 20 different breweries. It's a big deal. It's a big deal, man.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Well, I know, uh, you're into hunting, too, so next time you're. You're on your big hunt, just we want to see some pictures of that ten pointer come fall time.

Speaker C: I'm good at hunting. I'm not necessarily good at hunting, but, uh, yeah, ten pointer. Okay, that's. That's not my to do list.

Speaker A: Good stuff. Well, again, yeah, thanks for filling in. Um, so, just a little context for our listeners. Today's episode, we're going to be diving into this collision of Autonomy and Acquisition, uh, specifically in the maritime domain and, uh, exploring, you know, what happens when hundreds of years of this shipbuilding culture runs kind of headfirst into AI, uh, autonomy. Private capital in the mix. Uh, so we're looping in a founder who's, uh, building autonomous ships for the Navy, along with a Defense kind of expert to talk through what happens when this much needed innovation meets the existing Defense Acquisition system, which anybody who's privy, uh, to Defense Acquisition is. It's not always smooth, uh, sailing, if you will. So, um, to break this down, we've got, uh, a couple of great guests joining us. We've got Alex Campbell, uh, who recently directed the maritime portfolio, uh, at diu, uh, and served as the chief of Staff at diu. And he's worked everywhere from JSOC to the Navy Yard, uh, and now helps shape how emerging tech gets into the hands of the fleet. Uh, so we'll no doubt bring a strong perspective, uh, to the discussion when it comes to acquisition. So, Alex, thanks for. For joining us. Um, and then alongside Alex, we've got Austin Gray, who's the co, founder and chief strategy officer of, uh, Blue Water Autonomy. Uh, he's a Navy intel officer in the reserves, and he spent some time inside a drone factory out in the Ukraine. Uh, and so now he is helping build autonomous warships designed to scale so, Austin, Alex, thanks again for joining us on the podcast.

Speaker B: Thanks for having us.

Speaker D: Yeah, thanks for sure.

Speaker A: And, and before we dive in, we always, you know, uh, loosen things up with a little segment, uh, we call Pair Me Up. Uh, it's where we go around the room, we spitball. Uh, a pairing of our choice. Um, Sean, you, uh, you lead us off. What, what do you got for us?

Speaker C: So I know that the, the pair me ups are usually a little more leisure oriented, you know, like baseball and a beer or something like that. Um, I'm trying to be locked in, as the kids say. And so my theme for, for, for Pair Me up is going to be work. So what are work activities that, that go well together? And uh, this one goes out. It's summertime. It's going. Goes out to all the dads out there. But mowing the grass and then cleaning your garage, that's the pair that I think goes well for, for summertime activities. M. Activities.

Speaker A: Yeah. You know, you went right into some, some labor right there. Um, what kind of garage are you working with? You got a, a large detached garage. You got something?

Speaker C: I, um, I have a bachelor's garage, which is a storage unit two blocks away. But what made me think about this was a couple weeks ago I was actually at my mom and dad's place visiting them. And that's exactly what I, I did with my dad is hemo the garage because he's not going to let me. Well, it's grass. I'm a grown man. But he's not gonna let that happen. So he knows my, my capability level.

Speaker A: It's a very personal thing.

Speaker C: It's a very personal thing. A man is lawn. Uh, but then afterwards, uh, helped him, you know, organize some stuff around, around the garage. And it was, uh, It's a good way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Speaker A: Yeah. And it's always a summer activity, isn't it? Like, I just did the same thing. It's super, super hot. Not, not ideal timing, but it, it is, uh, it is what it is. All right. Mowing the lawn and clean out the garage. I dig that. I'm, uh, gonna go with something completely different. Uh, uh, I'm gonna go. It still could be relevant for dads out there. I'm gonna go with, uh, toddlers, uh, in cribs and escape artist. Uh, so our daughter is just over two and a half and uh, she's been in the crib every night since she was a baby. And last night was, uh, her official formal escape, uh, from the crib. So, yeah, we put her down for bed. You know, she kind of goes through her little screaming routine five to ten minutes usually. Uh, it just, you know, simmers out from there. But then we just heard, like, a loud thud and so ran into the room and sure enough, she had, uh, hit that stage where she's just kind of tall enough, just, uh, enough strength to pull her, you know, her little body over the side and, uh, just drop down to the floor. So after this episode, I will be converting the crib into a. A big girl bed, uh, which is, I'm sure, going to bring its own wave of new challenges that, uh, now that she has open access to the ground floor, it's, uh, it's a little terrifying. But.

Speaker C: Wait a minute, Tim. This is. We're having a show about autonomy. You've talked about defense tech innovation 100 times on the show. You're not going to go for, like, a sensor setup. Like a whole C5 is our platform for detecting crib escape attempts.

Speaker A: We got a ring camera. Um, that's the. That's the extent. So, um, we got a pretty. A pretty comical video that we can look back at, uh, down the line.

Speaker B: But that's toddler denial. It's like, see denial, but toddlers.

Speaker A: Yeah, this is a. This is a Shark Tank pitch here. Let's. Let's think through how, how we can, you know, navigate the. The toddler escape artist. But, yeah, that's it for me. I'm going to go with, uh, yeah, toddlers and cribs and escape artists. And, uh, I'll pass it along. So, Austin, quick, uh, intro and your pairing.

Speaker B: Okay, so, uh, uh, Austin Gray, Uh, I think, Sammy, you have a great intro of me already, so I'll skip the personal bio, but I'm gonna pair up Dr. Uh, pepper, uh, with Tex Mex enchiladas. And I just. I thought of this. I was having a great lunch earlier when you texted me. I was like, wow, what do I. I really want a soda right now. Because the dude across me ordered a Coke. But I, like, sort of stop drinking soda. I don't really know why. I just, like, don't order it much. But the one time that I always order, uh, Soda, it's always Dr. Pepper is when I'm eating really good, heavy Tex Mex enchiladas.

Speaker C: And so I.

Speaker B: Growing up, I spent a lot of time in South Texas with my grandpa. Also, uh, hunting a fair amount, Sean. Like, nothing better than for a long day, you know, out there. Out there stalking a deer. Like, sit down for a Late lunch, you know, order a big plate enchiladas and order Doc's pepper. And I'll still, still drink soda in those conditions, so.

Speaker A: Damn, that's a strong pairing right there. That's a good one. Yeah, it's something about, you know, soda when you, you don't drink it very often. It's just like that reward. It's those, those bubbles, man, they're super satisfying. But pairing it up with Tex Mex, that's a good one.

Speaker C: Pairing, that's a pairing that leads to a nap pretty soon afterwards.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Out, it's game over.

Speaker A: Uh, I dig it. I dig it. I'm glad we got a little food. Food and drink into the mix. Uh, awesome. Alex. Yeah, quick uh, quick intro and your pairing.

Speaker D: No, right, uh, right on. Thanks Tim. Um, yeah, actually I think, I think you have the intro. Great. Um, uh, Navy officer, uh, a lot of uh, tactical experience, combat experience and then a lot of acquisition experience. Uh, so, so happy to be here. My, my pairing uh, is gonna be um, 6:30am M. Uh, work phone calls daily. Daily work phone calls, uh, and streaming toddlers. Um, because that I think, I think, I mean a good, A good year of my life was exactly that. Um, so as, as the sole west coast representative, uh, on, on the Replicator Replicator, uh, initiative team, um, we had a 6:30 daily. Um, and uh, and, and that was tough. Uh, my daughter definitely liked to participate in those calls. Everyone, um, was well aware that my daughter was participating in those calls. Um, you know, I think there's probably some moments where her input um, and its volume were probably more appropriate to, you know, more value added, uh, than, than my own. So that's my uh, that's, that's my pairing.

Speaker A: Oh, uh, man, you know, apprecia.

Speaker D: Appreciate those early mornings and uh, all that.

Speaker C: Yeah, right on.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's uh, that sounds brutal. Um, the old, the old 6:30 on, on the West Coast. Nobody cares that you're on the West Coast. They're like you're gonna, you're gonna accommodate our schedules over here.

Speaker D: That's right. If you were wondering where the center of the Earth is, um, it's in Arlington in a five side building.

Speaker B: So Al, Alex Hilberry says we have, we have one guy at Blue Waters on the West Coast, SF based and the other 26 people are based on the east coast. So we treat him very well.

Speaker C: Obviously.

Speaker A: Yeah, he's working around your schedule. Awesome. Uh, I love it. Thanks again for joining us guys. Um, excited to jump into the heart of today's discussion. So, um, I wanted to just quickly start by painting the picture on the current lay of the land. Uh, we're at this moment where autonomy is advancing very fast. Startups, uh, like Bluewater building real platforms, investors are leaning in, um, but it's hard to envision, you know, how the, the current structure of our defense acquisition system is going to be able to keep up with the speed of innovation from companies like Blue Water. And so Alex, I'll start with you. You know, you've been inside both Special Ops, Navy's acquisitions. Uh, from your perspective, you know what, where are the bigger disconnects happening right now?

Speaker D: Yeah, no thanks. That's. That. I uh, think that's perfect. Perfect sort of starting point. Um, you know, I won't, I won't try and recap. Um, you know, no less than 10,000 articles and opinion pieces on, on, you know, how, how the defense acquisition system is, is functional or dysfunctional. I, I imagine the audience here is probably pretty familiar with some of those basics, right? But, but those basics matter, right? And, and from, from a uniformed military perspective, um, accountability is everything, right? Um, and in this case, ah, you've got, uh, one set of leaders responsible for the finance and the requirements and um, they have authority to make decisions and I've got another team responsible for actually going and building, uh, fielding and sustaining the capability. And they have different authorities and they don't necessarily overlap. But the synergy that's required, right, the sort of multi variable calculus to cause that synergy to occur, to make the best decisions along the right timeline, um, is just tough, right? So you've got some sort of just I think fundamental friction points, right? Again, I think folks are probably pretty familiar with this. Um, another thing, and this is sort of specific to how I've seen the world through the lens of DIU and the commercial solutions opening, um, you know, acquisition tools and processes that we've pioneered here is that a lot of, you know, a lot of my time in the traditional acquisition system was, was all around very prescriptive requirements, um, where you had, you know, frankly, really smart and dedicated people in the government who, who were trying to basically prescribe what the solutions would be, right? And we create big R requirements, right? Or uh, essentially framed that way. Um, and I think at DIU we tried to flip that and instead of prescribing what the solution should be, we outline what a problem is. We outline a war fighting problem, right? We provide some specifics, right? It's not the Wild west. Um, but I think putting a problem statement out there and then turning that over to both the traditional defense industry and the non traditional defense industry, um, to say, hey, I can solve your problem in this way that maybe you hadn't thought of. Right? Or I can solve it this other way that's actually like incredibly economical, um, and really open up that aperture. Um, and so I think uh, that's an important fundamental, that prescriptive requirement versus a problem statement. Right. Um, and then you know, again these are old topics, but um, the pace of tech now versus I think even a decade ago, it's certainly, you know, in the heyday of the um, um, you know, PPB and E&J SIDS and defense acquisition system. Um, and really the sort of, you know, centrally, uh, managed portfolio that the department has. Um, in, in, in the pace that the tech is moving today. Um, the idea that someone, uh, two, three, four years, uh, before they're going to go spend the dollar, can predict what that dollar should be spent on, um, I think is now beyond absurd. Um, and literally no one in the commercial space are making those sorts of wild predictions and those sorts of bets. Um, and so it's going to take, you know, I think you see, you see things like the Forged act, the um, Speed act, right, which are proposed, you know, proposed legislation, um, that really start to get after, um, you know, how do we move at a tempo that really matters. Um, and so I think I'll sort of leave it there with that framing of some of the, you know, some of the friction points and some of the things that um, you know, frankly present opportunities for the department to adapt and to change, um, and really bring, you know, the full might of the United States is um, you know, uh, industrial based, right? Not defense industrial based, but broader industrial base to bear.

Speaker A: Mhm. Yeah, well said. Um, Austin, I want to just kind of pass it over to you, get that industry perspective on the same kind of question. I was reading a piece that you put together on War on the Rocks last month. It was a, a good one around Navy's shipbuilding crisis. Um, was not just like a supply chain issue, but you know, one of culture and incentives and what. Just walk us through, you know, what you're seeing firsthand and where those cracks are most visible for a company like yours.

Speaker B: You know, I, I think the picking up, where Alex lets off the Speed act and the Forged act and the, you know, the, the lines of attack against speeding up, uh, the way that the Pentagon decides what it's going to buy or really where it anchors down, I think there's five key pillars of the Speed act that I looked at this morning for something else. Go after acquisition reform, go after requirements, deregulate a bit, uh, help the acquisition workforce out and then help the actual industrial base itself. And if you think about that, four of the five, if you take down industrial base, four of the five are inside the government. Right. And the fifth one's the industrial base. And I think if you step back in there, it's like, well, what Alex said, we need to unlock the full potential of the American industrial base and really the whole American economy. Right. The whole American population. What I see on the private side is if we have a good enough idea, we can go raise insane amounts of money very quickly. Right. Like in a few months, if we have, uh, a real good idea and the right backing and process and plan and pitch, we can go hire really good people in a few months. And hiring takes a little bit longer to get the right people and onboard them and get them up to speed. But in three to six months, hiring teams can be in place pretty quickly to move out and change things and we can then go build stuff. And so we could create a whole company, uh, inside of the cycle during which the government could decide to just spend a dollar in five years. Right. And so I think many of the companies that are out there, Bluewater's been around for a little over a year, we're pretty new still. But there are, I think companies are very important for the defense industrial base right now that have only existed for two or three or four years, all of which are inside the, uh, cycle that the Pentagon set up to make decisions. And obviously it was set up that way decades ago in order to make it hard to change your mind. That was the whole point, uh, in the early Cold War. Uh, and so it's really around making sure that all the different parts of the cycle that are feeding into each other, if you do a big process pool map that they can speed match, because if one of them is much slower and everything to some degree depends on that slower one, then it's going to slow down the entire American economy.

Speaker A: Mhm. Yeah, Sean, I'll pass it to you because I know that you had a couple of thoughts on this as well.

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, to a big sense here, you guys are appreciative of the choir. Uh, Alex is right in that, you know, everyone sees the issues. I think we've made progress. Um, if you go back 10 years ago, people weren't really talking about acquisition and procurement reform outside of a pretty Small group of folks, uh, who had really, you know, kind of grown up in that, um, in that world. And now it's, yeah, it's French page dues. You know, Palantir is putting out their, whatever 13 theses or however many it was. And you're having Palmer Luckey getting interviewed and talking about it on Bloomberg. Uh, and then, yeah, uh, thousands upon thousands of blog posts. People know what kind of needs to happen, but there's also some fundamental tensions. So Alex, you started off your comments by saying that for uniform military personnel accountability, responsibility is always paramount once we start moving faster and moving faster with bigger dollars. So you take something like small OTA program, maybe through DiU, and now it's getting to the point where it could really scale, come to that program of record status. Well now we're talking about hundreds of millions or billions of dollars. And so DoD, but also Congress wants a lot of visibility into how that money's spent. They want that accountability at uh, PEO level and subordinate levels to it, uh, on how the program development is going to. But that observability in and of itself can slow things down. So to the point you made about two to four year technology cycles are just way too long. Well, for us to make sure we cross all of our T's and all of our I's in terms of accountability. It's just going to take longer. So I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on managing that essential tension between some of the accountability that's mandated by law. We can't break the law ultimately in what we're doing versus that need for speed, to use a very cliche but very good defense technology term.

Speaker D: Right. No, I think, um, that that's such a great question. And it's like so sort of pertinent to at least where like DIU is right now, um, as, as you guys might, might have been tracking, um, uh, you know, DAU was, uh, provided funds, uh, to support services and support the combatant commanders. Um, and that money was uh, in short, colorless. Um, it was not aligned in very specific ways in a budget exhibit as we see in um, most of these cases. Um, and so what came with that was this necessity for observability, for transparency specifically, um, through the department, um, and with our partners on the Hill, um, and so that came with a process to provide that observability, um, and that transparency so that you were able to create this trust and this relationship, um, between um, the decision makers on the Hill and between the team down here at the ground. Level executing. Um, and that works tremendously well. Right. Um, because, you know, at the beginning it's like, okay, what are you doing? Oh, I see what you're doing. Um, and then the more and more, ah, you know, work that we were doing, um, the more that trust was built. Right? But then that runs into. That was a very, and that was a very manual process. Right. Um, even at diu, that was, you know, that was spreadsheets. Right. Um, and so while that sounds great, right, this, this magical, um, you know, transparency with, with, with Congress. Right? And Congress really appreciated it. Um, that isn't going to scale to a hundred acat ones or 100 acat 2s, right? It's just, it, it just, it just isn't the amount of data, right, that a human being would have to pour over to figure, you know, to, to, to, to make, to come to any assessment or conclusion is just not, it's just not practical. Right. Um, and so, you know, what's needed there is, is essentially you still need to input all that data, um, one way or the other, you know, to, to create the foundations of that transparency. Um, but then that needs to be essentially, um, you know, transformed, uh, into a digestible, um, product. Right. That, let's say, um, you know, a Hill staffer can make sense of. Right. Um, because I can't, you know, I can't, I can't. The whole department can't shoot over a 300,000 line spreadsheet. That's not, that's not practical, obviously. Um, and so the next step and die is working on this is how do I synthesize my execution data, um, to create that transparency. So all of this is serving the speed that's necessary. Right? Right. Uh, so transparency into trust into speed. Um, and then what are modern tech tools that we can use to create, um, to earn. Not to create, but to sustain that trust. Trust in the relationship.

Speaker C: I think that's a, I really like that you built it out that, that final way there where trust is in the, in the middle and building those relationships. We've seen a lot of new entrants into the defense industrial base for the past roughly five years. Some of these people have no prior military or federal experience and they're learning the ropes as they, as they go on how the government buys and what it's like to have a relationship with a federal Air defense customer, intelligence customer. Austin, from your perspective, you're obviously not a neophyte, you know what you're doing here. But, uh, as someone who's running a Defense tech startup, uh, where are your kind of pain points or concerns in developing trust relationships with your defense customers? What do you try and establish up front and then what do you frankly look out for to, you, uh, know, be a good steward of your business?

Speaker B: Yeah, I, uh, think that, you know, trust is the most important commodity in any relationship as far as I'm concerned. Uh, I think I've, you know, I've probably like, said that in the office. You know, I've like, said that in, like, personal relationships.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: I think it's like a huge, huge thing. I've built relationships, I think, and really started Blue Water, uh, and the thesis for it based on listening really closely to. And this is kind of a unique founder thing, right? Like, I went out and basically did BD before I had a product, before I had anything to sell. And I just called and listened to people, uh, like Alex and like, people who, you know, have, like, maritime portfolios and shipbuilding portfolios and are, you know, end users out in the Pacific about what they need.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: And how the tech is changing and all, right? And we skate to where the puck might be, right? And it's nice in that situation because you can go in and they know you have nothing to sell, and, you know, you have nothing to sell. And you're just listening to. Try to establish, like, I might go try to solve this problem. Would you just help me with some information so that, you know, if I get the right information and some information from some other people, maybe then I'll go try to solve it. Right? And I'll use that information to, you know, to convince other people, uh, that we could, in fact, you know, skate to where the puck's going to be and go solve that problem. And so that's the basis for me of building trust, is we're not even selling anything yet. We're just going and listening to people and talking about how we could solve the problem. And I think people appreciate that because people joined the military. I joined the military because, uh, they want to execute a mission they're passionate about. They want to serve their country. Uh, some people want to do cool stuff. People want to travel, uh, see the world and help their, their countries and the men and women stand next to them. And if you come to them kind of on a similar mission of, hey, I want to solve this national terror problem, they're probably going to try to help you out. That's a lot different than being a used car salesman. So that's the number one thing that I think can work and to answer the direct question of what's the pain point, I would say building trust with people when you have that approach isn't the main challenge. The big challenge that we face every day is how do you find, you know, how do you find the people in the government who have the right tools and the, in the right money and the right, you know, and like they have been ordered by their boss, right, to solve that problem with that money and they have the right shape tool, you know. And so Blue Water is a great example because like we're building a ship. How many people in the government are allowed to buy a ship? Right? There's like there, if you like, I can name them all, but there's very few. If I was, you know, if I was selling a keyboard, I actually as an ensign, an O1 in the Navy, I bought keyboards. There's a lot of dudes and girls in the military who could buy keyboards because a lot of offices need keyboards and you can get them under different acquisition thresholds and all that. But a ship's probably on the opposite end of the spectrum. Very few people can buy a ship. Uh, and so we need to shape uh, the acquisition tools we have such that uh, everything can be purchased by the right purchaser and the drones and the new tech. Sometimes that's hard, that's hard to pull off, you know, at the right level.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I wanted to actually touch a little bit on you know, the money aspect of things here in terms of, you know, there's obviously been a huge wave of, of private capital that's backing startups in, in this space. Um, Austin, for you, you know, when you're, when you're talking to investors, you know, how are you communicating or, or how are you kind of like streamlining, you know, the, their understanding of how long or complex that the, the shipbuilding timelines, I mean we're, we're talking, you know, just for context that they used to mention, uh, or what I read was 100 foot, uh, unmanned vessels, um, uh, at Blue Water, how are you kind of like describing the timelines for you know, platforms like what you're building, uh, and you know, kind of communicating that tied to the dollars that are being invested.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think that we seek to find ways we can match the product development and build cycle with some sort of sales cycle. So fortunately there's different types of money and tools the government that can uh, invest in us in different ways. Uh, and the good investors know that what's unique here for me and probably very few stars for this problem is that I'm actually building something that takes forever to build. It also takes forever to buy. So we kind of have some speed matching. It's definitely high risk because you only get a few shots on goal over time. But what if you could build software? Say you built software to move all the acquisition data and replace spreadsheets for Alex. Right. And you built the best software in six months. Uh, I don't think you could solve that problem six months, but you built like a really good VP in six months because you can code really fast and got a bunch of guys who are good at coding. Well, guess what? The airman's not going to be able to buy enterprise software to go into all their most sensitive acquisition systems in six months. So the speed match between the acquisition, uh, you know, the acquisition cycle and the product development cycle is very different. But for me, with ships, they're actually both really slow. And so it's, that's, that's the glide path that I'm on. But it's not the case for, I think most, most, uh, matchups.

Speaker A: Yeah. And then the defense budget for, you know, your kind of category of unmanned surface vessels. I think you, in your article I mentioned something around 2. Little over 2 billion. 2 billion.

Speaker B: Uh, the House version of the big beautiful bill was 1.8 billion for medium USD. And the senators came in on top and they pushed up to 2.1. And the senators were victorious over the congressman and it finalized at 2.1, which I was obviously excited about. Yeah.

Speaker A: Alex, uh, you know, on our discovery call, you had kind of, I think you had put it, you uh, said that we're at this moment that is, uh, catastrophic success. You know, there's tech, there's funding, but the fielding pathways just aren't. Aren't there. Um, I'd love to hear a little bit more of your thoughts on what, you know, what an ideal scenarios could look like, uh, to kind of bridge that gap.

Speaker D: Yeah, um, thanks. I think that's.

Speaker A: I wrote it down specifically.

Speaker D: Um, I probably overuse that term these days, but it's, it's a good one. Um, I think that, um, frankly, the, the, the department just doesn't quite understand the role of, of private capital. Um, like there's a muscle memory thing here. Right. That, that I think really matters. Right. So if you train a workforce over the course of 10, 20, 30 years in the way that our acquisition system is structured, um, you know, we write a lot of. Not exclusively. Right. A lot of cost based, cost plus type. Type contracts. Right. And we fund the development of things of capabilities with government, RDT and E dollars. Right? And we're very used to doing that.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker D: And we're very used to doing that. Um, and in that structure, you know, most of the risk is really on the government. Um, because in that cost, cost plus sort of structure, um, you're able, uh, you know, industry and the government are able to, you know, manage risk in such a way that if something slips or the tech doesn't deliver or you know, whatever the friction point might be, um, you know, there's an opportunity to sort of continue to stretch that schedule, right? Continue to stretch that, that budget. Right. And in contrast to um, you know, some of the non traditionals that, you know, the DAU and more broadly the department are working with, um, all of that risk, right. Is not all of, but most of that risk is being born through the investment of private capital. Right. Um, in terms of delivering some MVP or delivering some product, um, that can be brought into the defense market, you know, very quickly. Um, and the thing here, or the friction point that I see is that um, a lot of folks in the department have this muscle memory from that government funded RDTNE activity plus these cost plus contracts, uh, and they're trying to apply some of those mindsets and thinking to what is fundamentally a very different set of incentives both for the government and um, for commercial industry, for private industry. Um, and so I think that there's just a lot of work and a lot of education that needs to occur and frankly we need to get some wins on the book so that people in the government and people in the department, acquisition professionals can see those as exemplars. And I think we're starting to see some of those exemplars come through. But at the same time I've seen DIU projects that are using the commercial solutions opening, using other transaction authorities, right? And then you move into production, right? You move into an OTA production, right, where one of the services is going to, you know, go let a production contract. And then what I've seen is again because of muscle memory and comfort, um, and, and you know, again, viewing risk, I think a little bit, you know, viewing risk in a traditional way, um, I watch, um, essentially, um, Defense Federal Acquisition regulation clauses, um, get cut and paste into OTAs. Um, right. And so at that point you have an ota, right, and you're using that authority. Um, but, but essentially now you've built in terms conditions and now you've built in the structure of a traditional contract, um, which, which is all, you know, fundamentally based on that sort of legacy or older incentive model. Right. In terms of who owns, who sort of owns the risk and, and, and who doesn't. Um, and I think that that's just a product of you know, like I said, decades of training. Right. I took this week long course at the Defense Acquisition University called, I think it's called Understanding Industry. Um, and that course is based on all those legacy sort of incentives and models. Right. Which is really the symbiotic relationship with the traditional defense industrial base, um, and the traditional defense acquisition System and the PPB&E system, the requirement system that we have. Um, and the Defense Acquisition University is very rapidly adapting to teach this workforce new things. But this workforce is hundreds of thousands of people. It is a lot of people. Um, and so there's a tremendous amount of learning and adaptation and comfort, um, that's going to be necessary, um, to give that workforce the tools to be able to operate seamlessly in both environments and be able to switch, you know, their mindset from one set of incentives to another, um, in order to, to um, really achieve that catastrophic success. But achieve it at you know, at a scale that matters and not just sort of one offs here and there. And we were talking about it before and achieve it um, for programs that have $2.1 billion in, you know, in a reconciliation.

Speaker A: Sean, did you have something to add on that? I was gonna. Before we jump into another thing.

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean Alex's comments were outstanding because it kind of gave me a little bit of a light bulb moment here. Air, which is um, when federal acquisition regulations FAR and DFAR and so forth were primarily written and implemented when you have PPBE, which I think goes back to when Robert McNamara was set dev. That's the 70s and 80s and that's before venture or any high risk capital investing was really uh, a well understood or mature investment style or whatever you want to call it. I mean there's some OG VC funds that were doing that back in the 70s and 80s, but a lot of what when we think VC or venture style investing, we're actually talking about things in the 2000s, maybe late 90s. Um, Alex's comments are just great, highlighting that the whole acquisition workforce, how they grew up culturally and across Federal Dodge, um, that was just not a world that they were exposed to. And so um, sometimes these transformations can be really, really slow because it's a learning process at scale and then learning at scale is hard unless you're an LLM. But uh, that's a different Episode we're doing AI later on, right Tim?

Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. Um, I wanted to jump into uh, a segment that we. It's talking a little bit more about like measuring readiness, uh, in more of like a modular world. And that term obviously is going to mean something very different. We're talking about you know, large destroyer, you know, warships versus like 100 foot autonomous vessels. So um, I'll jump to you again Alex on this one. Um, you know, what kind of like metrics needed to shift when it comes to more like software defined hardware and building unmanned vessels like, like those from, from like a blue water.

Speaker D: Yeah, no thank, thanks for that. Um, yeah, when, when you take an approach. Well, first of all, um, I think there are ships and then there are ships and then there are destroyers and submarines and aircraft carriers. Right? And, and um, if you look through the, if, if you're a ship build, if you're, I'm sorry, if you're a destroyer builder. Right. Um, and I think that you know, there's some, some echoes of my previous comment here. If, if you've been a destroyer builder for 10, 20, 30 years, right. You see the world through the lens of a shore builder and like, and that's okay because you're probably really, really, really good at that and America needs it. Right. Um, and then I think when you look at, you talked about sort of readiness and I'll call it sort of sustainability and I'll call it um, you know, reliability. Right. Um, when we look at you know, some of these autonomous systems and we look at the price point that is necessary to buy them at scale, right. To make them, you know, to cause the effect that is necessary on the battlefield. I, I don't know that looking through them, looking at them through the lens of a destroyer builder is going to yield the best result. Right? Um, I would argue that when you look at um, like we've, like we know what it means, right. And we've tested this to build a ah, propulsion system with the necessary reliability. Right. Um, we can build 100 fit 100 foot commercial ships that aren't necessarily up to the standards of a destroyer. Right. And in this case if I build that 100 foot ship and I never intend to put human beings on it, I can build that ship very differently, um, in terms of how it behaves in terms of sea state tolerance and these sorts of things. But my point here is that um, you look at a destroyer versus when you look at some of these autonomous systems, um, I think you're, you're More able to leverage the commercial world. And essentially the, the hardware platform should, should be trending towards commoditization, um, and the software therefore is what really matters, right? So I talked about the lens of a destroyer builder, right? Um, and I want to contrast that with looking, looking at an autonomous system or in this case a ship that isn't a destroyer through the lens of a software developer, through the lens of an Autonomy, uh, developer, right? Through the lens of an automated target recognition developer, through the lens of a, you know, hardware, ah, system automation and reliability and failover like software engineer, right? Which is, which is just different than a destroyer builder lens. Like, and that's okay. Um, um, but it really matters where you start, right? If you start from the lens of a destroyer builder, um, I think that there is risk in terms of building, um, um, almost building the wrong thing, um, or not building the most, uh, sort of effective and efficient thing based on what the actual task is. Whereas I think if you look at it from the lens of a software developer, right? Again, software defined hardware, um, I think you're more likely to make the trade offs, right? That gets you to the most effective and most economical thing which ultimately gets you to the scale that is necessary to achieve the effect on the battlefield, right? So, um, so that's my sort of sense of things in terms of, in terms of what we're building, how we're building it, right? Um, what the readiness sort of needs to be. Um, and then the other thing, I'll sort of, you know, maybe a bit of a tangent here on the Autonomy side. Um, there's also a lens of a government software developer and a commercial software developer, right? And those are, and those are different lenses too. Um, uh, and the point here is to pit those two sort of teams against each other. In fact, we should be doing the opposite. Um, the way that the government, um, does, you know, sort of government lab engineering, if you will, right? Is like all of those labs exist for a really good reason. They exist to build things that there is no commercial market for, right? Or no, no commercial market that's going to exist in let's say the next couple of years. And like America should have that. It's really important, right? Um, like from, from my own perspective as an explosive ordinance disposal technician, right? There wasn't a huge commercial market for bomb disposal tools, um, but it turns out, right, global war on terrorism and the counter ID campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places, right. A commercial market grew, um, for those capabilities, right? Um, and so the government which had Been building all of these bomb disposal tools themselves. Um, right. Worked through the process of adapting itself um, to this commercial market that now existed. Right. And so we, so we had to work through what do I do with, with the engineering team and like, like dedicated, smart, amazing Americans, um, that were in these government labs doing things that there was now commercial market for.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker D: M and I use that and that I, I, I bring up that anecdote one because it's personally super relevant to me. Um, but I think it's very similar to what we're seeing in the autonomy software space 10 years ago, 15 years ago, um, when the government was starting to make a lot of decisions, uh, early stage decisions about building ah, Autonomy software, right. They um, looked around and there wasn't a commercial market for self driving cars, right. It wasn't, it just wasn't really a thing, um, certainly not one that it could like really tap into. And so it did what it is supposed to do which is started to develop those things on their own. Right. Um, but you know, here we are in 2025 and there are very mature commercial, you uh, know, both platform and collaborative autonomy, ah, you know, development going on in the commercial world. Um, and so you know, how does the government adapt to that changing commercial and technology marketplace, um, to you know, to take advantage of the, of that, you know, that, that, that part of the industrial base. Right. Um, and not, and, and not only do that simply because, um, you know, it's, it's better. Um, but also like, um, you know, and I get, I get um, uh, if I say far like five times on this podcast, I get right. Um, far part 37 literally like highlights that federally funded research and development centers and university affiliated research centers, uh, and in the, and government labs, right. Um, they, they should not, shall not, right. Compete with commercial industry. Right? So once you've identified that there's a mature commercial, you know, sort of industrial base out there to do these things. Um, you've really, you've got to tap into it, right? That is like, that is how our system is like fundamentally designed. Right. But I've personally observed and I totally get why it's like hard, it is hard to make that transition, right? Because the government has invested a tremendous amount of blood, sweat, tears and money in developing these things when there was no commercial market. And so you have this whole sort of government business ecosystem uh, around these capabilities. Um, and so how does the government identify investments it's made where there's now commercial market? And how do we sort of do an Orderly transition from a government sort of ecosystem of development to a commercial one. So, uh, yeah, I think, I think,

Speaker B: I think, Alex, your point on reliability as the, as part of the answer, you know, with software, but to the sustainment cost is really interesting, uh, because if I think about, you know, the parallel like a destroyer compared to a regular ship. So, like, if you're going to the Hill and you're saying, hey, we're going to build this, we're going to build this ship and every people on it, it's like, all right, uh, is it going to be safe? Right. But if you're going to build the ship, there are going to be people on it. It needs to be cost effective and needs to be reliable and not break down and cause media problems to cause the CO of a destroyer to have to go and pick it up and rescue it. And so you design everything totally differently. And then when you actually have a fleet of them, let's say of whatever the type of vessel it is, you've got a, uh, hundred of them, right? And if they're crude, you have to keep all 100 of them in your OFRP, like in your operational cycle to keep them manned and trained and keep the sailors trained and keep them not rusted. Right. And keep them, uh, just certified to operate. But that's because humans need to keep learning. If they're unmanned and the software is the thing that's learning, you could leave 90 of them stored during peacetime, right? You know, under a tarp, uh, or in a dry dock and have 10 of them out there on patrol learning for the rest of them. And the software updates can then push to the central brain. I know it sounds like Skynet, but you could have 10 of them out there for a fraction of the cost. Invest a bunch of those savings in a bigger software team, uh, and just have a few of them learning for the rest of the fleet. And that'll, I think, create a lot of savings for you to, uh, be able to scale up, uh, the intelligence and the production later. So that's just like one example of where you're, your resourcing really changes about what you're prioritizing, uh, you know, over the course of the lifecycle of these, these vessels.

Speaker A: Yeah, Sean and I were talking, uh, a little bit offline, and it's a little off topic of like, you know, the technology side of things, but we think about like, just the infrastructure, um, like, do we have the shipbuilding infrastructure, the ports, you know, to, to move, you know, the type of work that you're doing, Austin, like to scale, you know, I, uh, think, Sean, you're kind of thinking like the dry docks and stuff.

Speaker C: Um, yeah, I have a quote here. Most complicated hardware, such as warships are not only time and capital intensive to produce, they face hard constraints in workforce, infrastructure and supply chain. That was from a guy named, let me see here, Austin Gray, also in War on the Rocks. Little tip for podcast hosts. If your guests, uh, write something, you should read it. I mean, yeah, Austin, do we have, what's the current situation with that? Uh, production infrastructure, ports, et cetera, um, when we're looking at autonomous maritime systems.

Speaker B: So you know that quote, a plot building hardware is hard. Building, you know, complex warships is hard. Exquisite warships. The way they go through the requirements process, the way they're procured and the way that we, uh, expect them to be survivable and tough and very, very, very lethal. They're hard to build. Rene can only build destroyers in two places, period.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: Those two yards are really good at it. If you're building simpler, uh, vessels, even big 150 foot ships, they're pretty big. Right. But they're actually really small for ships. They're just bigger than the other robots that we normally think about. We think we can build those in 20 or 30 or 40 yards. In the United States. The, uh, DARPA guys say 44 probably, I think for their unmanned ship, but it's probably 20, 30, 40 yards thing that size. That's because those shipyards are building with steel and, or aluminum, depending on your choice of hull. They're building things of the same size, like ferries, like tugboats. Right. Like offshore supply vessels. And so it's really a design for manufacturing approach where you just work backwards, uh, from what can we already build and what do we already build in these ports? And then let's think about if we have some requirements that fit into what we can already build. What will we do with something that had those, those requirements and those specs?

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: So that's the building answer. Um, I think there's a lot of work to be done to increase the basing, especially the forward basing, uh, for sustainment, you know, for wartime launch operations. The army announced maybe two weeks ago they're opening a Palawan based, uh, watercraft facility. Uh, that's really important. I was not aware of any, uh, you know, U.S. dOD, uh, port infrastructure within at least 500 miles of Palawan. Palawan is an island on the southern Philippines on the South China Sea.

Speaker D: Right.

Speaker B: Like very strategic areas near some important choke points. Um, So I was really excited to see that announcement. Uh, I think there's a lot to be done though for sustainment, you know, for spreading out, you know, different, uh, sustainment locations around the Pacific theater because you can't have one or two central, uh, hubs, you know, where everything's going to go through. You need to have some distribution. And then I think we probably also want some west coast shipyards. Uh, although I'm arguing that there are many shipyards that can build, uh, unmanned ships, I think even more parts of the supply chain that can build, uh, very small, simple drones that are truly very expendable and triadable. Most of those are for the shipyards in the south, uh, and then some on the east coast and only a few on the West Coast. There's this thing called the Panama Canal tax that really jacks you up, uh, if you build on the East Coast. And so it would be great to have a little bit more capacity on the west coast and think the same thing will apply for repair because we're going to need to repair on the West Coast a lot.

Speaker A: Can we talk about the ships themselves that you guys are building? Because I'd, uh, I don't just add a little bit of, uh, clarity for our listeners, like, you know, what you can disclose with regards to, you know, the size, the capacity, the, you know, how much cargo can it carry and the purpose behind them.

Speaker B: So, yeah, so, you know, like, thank you for asking. I didn't come on here to like pitch, you know, pitch my product. I came on here, talk with you guys, right? And I was, I already talked about, hey, we're building trust, but I just talked about the problem. So we're building, uh, we're building the Liberty ships of the 21st century. These are mass producible unmanned ships. Uh, if you go and read the uh, proposal or the rfp, uh, sort of an rfp, but rfp, um, from navsea that came out uh, earlier this week. Uh, they're asking for three, uh, different sizes. Uh, there's sort of three, three buckets. Uh, it's not really prescriptive over spec requirements that Alex was describing earlier on the call. It's kind of broader buckets of three different sort of payload sizes. One of them has a speed requirement too, of going 25 knots for 2500 consecutive nautical miles. Uh, but the core, to answer your question, Tim, is we are building, uh, a, uh, medium unmanned chip, uh, that can carry, uh, several 40 foot containers, uh, at trans oceanic distances. Right. My company is called Blue Water autonomy. Because we are building ships for America's blue water Navy. Ours, uh, happen to be unmanned, think we can produce them, uh, you know, at much greater scale and that they can learn together with software. Uh, but America has a blue water Navy. And we were, we were inspired, I think, by the early wins and successes of the, uh, sort of like the speedboat USV and the renewably powered USV communities and companies, uh, and everything the government's been able to do with those. And we want to make sure there's also a company focused on ships.

Speaker A: Very cool. Uh, curious. What, uh, is like the range for some of these.

Speaker B: Yeah, thousands of miles. When you ask range. And like Alex Proceeding, it's like, well, the range is at a certain speed. And so does the naval architects have a power curve or a speed range? There's a speed range tradeoff curve derived from a power curve. Um, and at every range there's a speed and the, you know, I was an intel officer, not a, not a swo, but the swos love driving their ships really fast. So you've got to find out what's the speed or what's the range at at a pretty high speed because that's probably how they're going to drive it. I think some of that will change, uh, my personal deduction. If I look at where the market is, I think that you need to be able to sustain a, an effective operational speed, uh, at 3,500 nautical miles, because that's a round trip, uh, from Guam or Yakosco, uh, to Taiwan and back.

Speaker A: Very cool. Um, I want to just kind of put a bow on the, you know, kind of like the acquisitions conversation. And uh, then we'll segue into our final segment here, uh, and, you know, let's try to close it out with a constructive look forward, if you will. Um, Alex, you know, if you had the power to, you know, to change, you know, some of these structural or cultural elements and how, you know, defense is acquiring, you know, autonomy. How, how would you, how would you envision it?

Speaker D: Thanks. I think, I think like the, you know, we talked about this a bit before, um, the Forged act and the Speed Act. Um, I think both point in a very, you know, constructive, achievable directions, um, for how to, how to reorganize, uh, and then ultimately how to sort of re. Incent or, you know, incentivize different behaviors.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker D: Aligned to move at the pace that's, that's necessary, uh, and, and, and move at the pace of, of industry and tech. Right. Um, so I think, um, you know, seeing, seeing something like, uh, those, those pieces of legislation come to fruition would be huge. Right. Um, but that's only half the story. Right? Right. Because, you know, um, the implementation of it matters just as, just as much.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker D: We talked about OTAs and then, you know, DFARS clauses getting sort of cut and paste in. Um, you know, great concept, great idea, the right direction. Um, but then, you know, you're changing, you're changing incentive to something you're comfortable with. Right. So it's going to be a huge sea change to implement those things. And so, um, you know, I think the sooner the department can get after, you know, what those acts described as a portfolio acquisition executive. Right. Where you, where you sort of synthesize requirements, resourcing and acquisition in terms of, uh, accountability. Um, right. To, to really focus that accountability, I think, I think is, is huge. Um, and then I'll, I'll sort of throw another one in there that's a little bit different. Um, and it really gets to the sea change necessary to realize the opportunity of private capital investment and defense capabilities. Um, and that's the department, um, finding a way to be comfortable forecasting, uh, to investors, the directions that they're going. Right. Um, so that they can make investments early enough. Right. To catch when an RFP comes out or an area of interest comes out. Um, you know, for that, for that tech. Right. Because there's this sort of like chicken and egg thing that goes on, um, in that the department is like, well, I have these incumbents and they feel like low risk to me. Um, because this other. Because the, you know, the other alternative is this startup that's never built anything. Right. Um, and so, you know, if you can create the space for those startups to have, you know, another six months, another 12 months, another 18 months. Right. Um, you then start to change the risk calculus from the lens of someone in the department. Um, as they look at the difference between a startup that maybe hasn't built something yet, but has really credible tech, has incredible engineers, has the capital backing versus going with a more traditional approach, and all of that is to say it's effectively, uh, helping the private capital markets and helping the startups. Right. To level the playing field. Right. And ultimately grow the entire defense industrial base. Right.

Speaker A: Yeah, well said.

Speaker D: Yeah, those are, those are my sort of, you know, let's go, let's go

Speaker A: get after that, uh, Austin, I'll give it. Give you the mic, uh, for the final word, I think.

Speaker B: So everything Alex said about the good work that's happening on the Hill. I mean, there are some great Americans who are being very, very thoughtful, and many of them have been doing this for a lot longer than we've been paying attention, especially I've been paying attention for. And they deserve a lot of credit for the words that are in the Forge and Speed Acts. And I hope that a lot of that language, uh, becomes law probably in the ndaa. I'm sitting in my lobbyist office right now, so you can see that I'm, like, locked in trying to, you know, try to help push this a little bit. Um, but that. That work is very important. And the other thing I think is very important is, uh, something that I went on the record with Politico about a few weeks ago. There was a. There was a story, uh, in Politico, pretty widely passed around, saying, oh, they're going to the executive branch. The administration is going to fire a bunch of admirals and navsea, and they're going to, you know, they're going to do this whole, like, crazy reorgan. This can disincentivize people. And so, you know, there's a discussion there. The White House Shipbuilding office, I think, is kind of scattered and done so in reorg. But there's also a lot of really good work going on behind the scenes in the executive branch, I think, you know, at the political level, at the DoD level and in the service, the Navy. And I think, uh, that should not go unrecognized. And there is a lot of reason for, I think, hope and optimism about the types of instruments that are being used to procure technology and get into the hands of war fighters. Um, I am very lucky to be working with a program office that's really leaning into a new way of, uh, buying technology for sailors and for warfighters. And I think that there's a lot that's yet to come where the executive branch is going to implement. Ah, a lot of, uh, good, exciting ways of doing business and buying stuff quickly. And I'm excited to see what's ahead in that space. And I think that we should be rooting for those great Americans, too.

Speaker A: Yeah, well said. And, uh, thanks for spending time, uh, with us to just kind of voice your opinions and continue to build awareness, because I think it's obviously front and center and, uh, something that a lot of folks are, um, yeah. Wanting to push more reform, and, uh, it's the efforts that you guys do to kind of move the needle. So appreciate it. And, uh, we'll put a bow on this conversation and kind of wrap, uh, just a quick little fun final segment. It's called the five second scramble. So we're going to run a little rapid fire Q and A with you guys, put you on the hot seat, some business questions, some personal. Try, uh, to keep the answers under five seconds. Uh, Sean, why don't you lead us off with Alex and then I'll close with Austin.

Speaker C: All right. Um, so remember, five second Alex. So first thing that comes to your mind, first one is what's the biggest misconception people have about the defense tech industry?

Speaker D: Um, that it's a bunch of tech bros who are just out to be tech bros.

Speaker B: Ah,

Speaker C: great answer. Uh, great answer. Um, what's your go to method for staying productive during super, uh, long work days? 14 hour days or 16 hour days? How do you, how do you stay productive?

Speaker D: Uh, I walk.

Speaker C: Oh.

Speaker D: Yep.

Speaker C: I was, I was expecting an answer about ripits or monster energy drinks, but. All right.

Speaker D: No, no, that was, that was when I was 25. That's. Yeah.

Speaker C: Uh, number three, what's the most surprising skill you've had to learn in your career?

Speaker D: Being patient.

Speaker C: All right, uh, what's your most unexpected. I really enjoyed that moment from your career. Yeah.

Speaker D: Uh, unexpected moment that I thought was, was compelling. Um, just seeing CSOs that started out as bar napkins. Ah. Turning into ACAP programs.

Speaker C: That's cool. That's very cool. And then, uh, what's your one piece of advice for people who have zero background in defense tech, no prior service or anything, but who hear this conversation and say, hey, I want to get involved. Um, what's your piece of advice for them?

Speaker D: Yeah, don't be deterred. It is 100% a navigable maze. Um, just dive in.

Speaker C: Just dive in. Love it. All right, so now some more kind of fun or personal questions away from the career stuff. Uh, if you weren't in this industry, if you weren't in defense tech, uh, what completely different career path do you think you'd be interested in?

Speaker D: Oh, I'd be a farmer.

Speaker C: Any particular crop or good question?

Speaker D: Oh, uh, I think, you know, a little, A little of both. You know, I think I, uh, think my sister would call it a, you know, a trust fund farm in New England. Um, you know, and you're running, running a, uh, never profitable, you know, community supported agriculture business.

Speaker C: Awesome. All right, um, if you could have dinner with any defense tech leader, who would it be? But I'm going to limit this to historical figures. So deceased, for lack of a better term. But who'd you have dinner with? Going all the way back through history.

Speaker D: Rickover?

Speaker C: Uh, yeah. That's a good one. What's the best concert, uh, you've ever been to?

Speaker D: I went to a Grateful Dead concert when I was 17 that I probably should not have been at, and it was. I don't even know if it was a Grateful Dead, because I think half of them weren't even there.

Speaker C: Uh, there's a double entendre in there about the Grateful Dead being dead, but we'll move on. Um, what's something that you're. What's something random that you're surprisingly good that has nothing to do with work?

Speaker D: Um, yeah, I spent Covid learning how to make, like, artisan pizza, and I'm pretty good at that.

Speaker C: Do you have a pizza oven or some sort of.

Speaker D: Oh, yeah.

Speaker C: Oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker D: It's like a full thing. It's, uh, it's. It's. It's, you know, sometimes obnoxious.

Speaker C: All right, so we'll look for Alex's farm to Table pizza restaurant coming up here. Ah. And then, uh, final question. This is. This is the kind of tradition on the. On the podcast here, thanks to Tim. What's a charity or corporate philanthropy effort that is near and dear to you?

Speaker D: Uh, yeah, so I'm, uh, uh, Explosive Ordinance Disposal. Right. Bomb technician. And so the, um, Naval, uh, Special Operations foundation, uh, is a big deal charity to me. It takes care of a lot of families, uh, of, uh, brothers I've lost.

Speaker C: Outstanding. Awesome. Awesome. Cause, uh, thank you, Alex. I think you crushed it. 10 for 10. And I'll pass it over to, uh, Tim and Austin.

Speaker A: Yeah, Good stuff. Uh, all right, Austin, you ready?

Speaker C: All right.

Speaker A: All right. Uh, if Blue Water autonomy were an animal, what animal would it be?

Speaker B: A blue whale, I think.

Speaker A: Yeah. Nice. What's your favorite part about the culture at, uh, what you're building at Blue Water?

Speaker B: Everyone's obsessed with what we're doing every day.

Speaker A: What are some of the roles that you're hiring for over the next, say, three to six months?

Speaker B: Ooh, we. We have doubled the size of the company in the last eight weeks, so it's. It's a bad time to ask that question, but we. Yeah, yeah. So we don't want. I don't want to hire anyone else right now, so.

Speaker A: I catch my breath. Um, good stuff. Well, kudos on that. Uh, what. What did you learn building in Ukraine that kind of changed your perspective on building, uh, a defense tech startup here?

Speaker B: The speed. The speed thing really matters.

Speaker A: Nice. What is, uh, your Go to kind of late night snack when you're working around the clock, working those entrepreneurial hours. Late night.

Speaker B: If I'm at the office, I get Indian food from across the street. If I'm at home, I eat ice cream.

Speaker A: Nice. What kind of ice cream you going with?

Speaker B: Depends.

Speaker A: Depends. Whatever's in the freezer.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah. Honeycomb. Honeycomb. Van Leeuwens is really good.

Speaker A: Oh, man. Sounds nice. Uh, favorite war, uh, movie of all time.

Speaker B: Dunk Turk.

Speaker C: Nice. Oh, that. That's kind of a hot take. It's.

Speaker A: Oh, now we gotta debate it. I love it.

Speaker C: It's kind of polarizing, that one. There's some people who love it, some people hate it.

Speaker A: I, uh, thought it was fantastic. Um, all right, what's a charity or corporate philanthropy that's. That's near and dear to you?

Speaker B: Easy. Zero odd.

Speaker C: Yeah. Shout out to Evan. Nice. Yeah.

Speaker B: Zero lot. 640 grand.

Speaker A: What was your very first car?

Speaker B: My first car was a 2005 Chevy Tahoe. I drove it for a long. I drove until it was totally destroyed and I had to give it to Habitat.

Speaker C: Nice.

Speaker B: Take it.

Speaker A: That's a great ride. Uh, what's one thing you hope AI never replaces.

Speaker B: Emotions.

Speaker A: Well said. And then last one. What was your dream job as a kid firefighter?

Speaker B: I was in Manhattan on 9 11, so

Speaker A: that's cool. All right, that's a wrap. Um, Alex, Austin, thank you both for. For joining us. Uh, Sean, thanks for stepping in. Quick, quick. Uh, question for the, you know, for the guest scale of 1 to 10, how do we. How do we rank Sean on. On the. The co host step in? M like, Tim being great.

Speaker D: Uh, have you guys seen the movie Babe?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker D: Okay, that'll do, Pig.

Speaker C: That's. That means m a lot.

Speaker D: I say that to my wife sometimes, and it doesn't land.

Speaker A: I don't know why it seems like such a compliment. Um, awesome. Yeah, thanks, Sean, for. For stepping in. This was a. A great look at, you know, where autonomy meets bureaucracy and, and how we're trying to move things forward. So appreciate you guys sharing the intel and, uh, joining us on the podcast. Thanks for joining.

Speaker C: Thank you, Tim.

Speaker B: Thank you, Sean.

Speaker D: Yeah, right on. I. I screwed up the band question there or the concert question, I feel like.

Speaker C: Which was. What. Where was. What's the.

Speaker A: We'll just dub it. We'll just dub it in.

Speaker D: Better answer was George Clinton and the P. Funk All Stars.

Speaker C: That is a better answer.

Speaker D: It is a better answer.

Speaker A: Well, I haven't stopped recording, so we'll keep this in. This will be your. This will be your.

Speaker D: Yeah, I went. Yeah. Uh, I think it was like on a Wednesday night, I drove down to Amherst College to go see George Clinton when I was a senior in high school. I don't know how my parents. Thumbstuff that.

Speaker A: It's a hell of a story. It's a story for a follow up episode there.

Speaker D: Yeah, that's right. That's right.

Speaker A: Awesome.

Speaker D: This needs. Right on, guys.

Speaker C: That's also, uh. That's also a story for an SF86, probably. Let's. Let's not put that one on the. On the final edit there.

Speaker D: Before Plebe Summer. Before Plebe Summer.

Speaker C: Okay. All right. Yeah.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker A: All right, we'll stop recording on that note.

Speaker B: Sa.