Securing the Supply Web: From the Global Network to the Tactical Edge | The Pair Program Ep83

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. Welcome back to the Pair program. I'm your host, Tim Winkler, joined again by my co host, Shawn Leahy. Sean, how's it going man?

Speaker B: It's going great, Tim. I, um, am super excited to talk to our guests today. Um, I was doing my show notes, research, and I came up with the ultimate quote about what we're talking about today, which is amateurs talk about strategy, professionals talk about logistics and sustainment. Did a little research there that was attributed to, it looks like the former commandant in the Marine Corps, Robert Hilliard barrow in the 70s. Uh, I hope I got my, my research on that. If that's wrong, tell us about it in the comments. But today we're being professionals and we're talking logistics and supply chain.

Speaker A: Yeah, man, supply chain. Uh, obviously super, uh, important subject. Um, I had a question for you. Just uh, what's the last thing that you ordered that got, got delayed?

Speaker B: Oh, that got delayed. That's a good one.

Speaker C: Um,

Speaker B: I actually think it may have been a book domestically from, ah, a specialty publisher. So that's kind of a bad answer. I was looking into some stuff on uh, LLMs, and instead of using an LLM, I actually bought a book. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but that showed up late. But I think you're looking for, Tim, I think you're looking for something about maybe a piece of uh, uh, computer equipment that didn't show up as fast as I wanted to. And I can't actually call anything to mind right now. What about you? You have something in mind?

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean for me it was uh, a couple of subs from Jimmy John's I ordered yesterday. And, and they're like, uh, you know, their claim to fame is freaky fast. And it was like an hour. So I called up there and uh, yeah, they, they had a new driver that was having some issues. But you can track anything these days. You can track your, your pizza, you can track your subs. We're obviously going to be talking about something a little bit more, um, less minuscule from a supply chain issue. We're talking to our guests today, but uh, yeah, we're going to be talking a little bit about, uh, our Nation's most critical infrastructure verticals like defense and national security. And so, um, give, uh, a little bit more, uh, preview of who we're talking to and what we're going to be talking about. So today's episode dives into the hidden kind of backbone of national security. It's the part of defense, I think, that's not always making the headlines or isn't as sexy as talking about drones, uh, per se. But logistics determines whether a mission succeeds or fails. So we're going to be talking a lot about the future of defense logistics, um, how AI, data, collaboration, edge computing, uh, are all transforming everything from global supply chain to battlefield resupply. Uh, and to help us break this down, we've got two great guests. Uh, we've got Evan Smith, co founder and CEO of Altana Technologies, uh, the team behind the work world's only intelligent AI powered map of the global supply chain. Uh, a platform that connects governments and enterprises to predict and prevent disruptions before they happen. Uh, Evan, thanks for joining us. And alongside Evan, we've got Peter Goldsboro, co founder and CTO of Rune Technologies, uh, defense tech startup building Tiros, the Edge first operating system for military logistics. Thank, uh, you both for joining us on the pair program.

Speaker D: It's fun to be here.

Speaker C: Yeah, thanks for having me. M. Yeah.

Speaker A: Good stuff, guys. All right, now, before we get into the thick of it, we, uh, like to kick things off a little icebreaker we call Pair Me Up. Each of us throws out two things that just go together. Could be serious, funny, random. It's kind of dealer's choice. Sean, why don't you, uh, lead us off? What do you got for us today?

Speaker B: Yeah, so in thinking about, um, these really complex global supply chains, I'm going to nerd out for a little bit. For a second here, I started to think about graph databases, something I've got some experience with for my professional past. And, uh, what pairs really well with graph databases is really high cloud service charges. Because if you mess up your query and you're doing a full graph traversal or something like that, all of a sudden you're blowing through your AWS budget and you're getting a call from your cto. So, uh, I'm sure that both Evan, uh, and Peter have solved this problem for their customers. But for me, from personal experience, nothing goes with graph database is quite like a huge, unexpected cloud. Bill.

Speaker D: That's, that's why you, that's why you shouldn't use a graph database with lots of data.

Speaker B: There we go. You already got A hot take, right?

Speaker A: Hot take. Sounds like a future episode, uh, in the making right here. All right, you're going to make my pairing sound amateur here. I'm going to go with apple cider and bourbon. Uh, it's just a pairing I lean into every fall season. Um, I like with cold cider. I like it with hot cider and little bullet. Can't. Can't really go wrong with it. It's perfect for the fall. Uh, it's, uh, 75% bullet, 25% cider.

Speaker C: Okay.

Speaker A: Yeah, I don't have a problem. I just like a little bit of a bite. Um, cool. All right, let's pass it to our guest. Evan. Ah, let's start with you. What's pairing, uh, for you today?

Speaker D: I'm just going to be on the nose. I'm going to say, uh, logistics and trade are inseparable.

Speaker B: M. Perfect.

Speaker A: Sounds like you got a background in the. In the space. Appreciate it. All right, Quick, quick hitters. I love it. Uh, Peter, quick, quick, uh, intro, uh, pairing from you. Yeah.

Speaker C: The thing that came to mind for, uh, me right now is deadlines and caffeine. Um, yeah, it was one of those. Recently had this thought, you know, those Celsius boxes we keep buying, they keep disappearing. And if you run the numbers, you get to, like, I think, uh, I've gone through, like, 200 Celsius in the last four weeks. Um, that's crazy. But, yeah, gotta do what you gotta do.

Speaker A: That's so good. Um, yeah, we might need to get Celsius as a sponsor at some point.

Speaker B: I was just about to say our. Our last episode that we were recording, we, uh, we had Zins pop up a couple of times.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Kicking things off with Celsius. So Celsius, Zen, you know, if you're. If you're out there. Um, good pairing.

Speaker A: Good pairing as well.

Speaker B: Good pairing for sponsorship.

Speaker D: Somebody listening could give me some Zen. I just. I. I'm curious. I'm Zen curious.

Speaker A: Oh, man. Yeah, it's just taking over.

Speaker C: How it starts.

Speaker A: That's how it starts. The gateway. Uh, man, that's perfect. Awesome. Well, again, thank you guys for joining us. Excited to talk more about, uh, the topic at hand. So, uh, let's jump into the heart of today's discussion. Uh, it's kind of the beauty of the paraprogram and this format of having two perspectives, you know, tackling this subject. We got Evan at Altana, Peter from Roon, and together, you know, this partnership, uh, they're building this connective tissue of modern readiness, securing the Supply web from the global network to the tactical edge. Evan, I want to start with you. Um, you know, you've described Altana as the world's product network. You know, for our listeners who might not live in the logistics world, what, what does that mean? Maybe expand a bit on that.

Speaker D: So when most people think supply chain, they think about, um, where's my couch? Like, where's my thing? In transit I sent an order to a factory or to a website, and when is it going to get to me or to my customers? Um, and the way that we think about supply chain is it's the entire interconnected web of production from the raw materials all the way to the finished goods and everything in between. And so, um, there's a kind of wonky term for that called a product value chain. So for every product on earth, it has a value chain. It starts in the ground and then it turns into a finished product and is consumed. And in a lot of cases it goes back to the ground. So that's the value chain. And um, another way to think about the supply chain network or the value chain is every product has an input and output relationship to another product. If I'm your supplier, my thing goes from me to you bolt it onto something else, you fasten it, you melt it or whatever, and then you make an output product and so on and so on. And so that's the shape of the network we've actually built at Altana. Uh, it's both data and collaboration and AI all coming together to say, what is the nature of the goods, where are they made, by whom? And then as they're moved, uh, and made and transformed through that extended value chain, what are those inputs and outputs? And then the most exciting piece now is we're enabling all of our users on the network to actually work together. And that extends not just uh, between buyers and suppliers and their suppliers, it extends between, um, enterprises doing importing, doing cross border, uh, movement of goods with their logistics providers. And the most radical thing we're doing is we're connecting the public and private sectors. So we've got a big announcement a couple of weeks ago with U.S. customs and Border Protection where an Altana product passport is now like a global entry for goods. Right? You can actually convey the, that whole product value chain to the regulator. You can do the whole component based tariffs, the forced labor, the China security stuff like everything is in the passport. And you've now got a collaborative, uh, sort of beneficial framework between the public and private sectors to build trusted supply chains. And um, we're not quite in a position to talk about some of the stuff we're doing in the, uh, defense space. But, um, same principle holds, right? Uh, the buyers of these programs of record ought to be, um, in a trusted value chain network with the primes and with their subcontractors and with their subcontractors. And it behooves all of us to have secure and resilient military industrial bases. And we think that public private partnership is the key to that.

Speaker A: That's awesome. And congrats on the. Yeah, that recent big win. Um, just, uh, before we jump onto the Rune side, just a couple of quick hitters on Altana. How long have you been building the company for? What are you guys at, from a headcount standpoint?

Speaker D: Yeah, it's. It's been, um, this is years coming up in year seven. And we're uh, about 250 people headquartered in New York, um, but offices in D.C. and London. And probably half the business and revenue base is in the public sector and the other half is private sector. And um, you know, that's kind of core to the mission is, is we're explicitly trying to connect the two and build these new ways of working through the global supply chain and trade network.

Speaker A: Nice. Uh, Peter, I'll jump over to you. Um, Rune's kind of sitting on the opposite end of that pipeline where those supplies kind of meet the mission. Um, before we dive deeper into the product of Tyros, I want to begin by having you maybe paint the picture for us on maybe how a unit today in the military kind of manages sustainment and tracking of logistics and supplies. Because that'll help paint this whole picture for us on how your solution solves those pain points.

Speaker C: Yeah, it's a great question. Um, um, we're definitely very focused on the uniquely military aspects of it. And of course powerful things happen when you connect to the commercial supply chain and commercial aspects of logistics as well. But, um, I often actually like to, especially when interviewing candidates, show them how military logistics looks like today. Because you'd be horrified. Um, because what I show them when I do that is I show them a folder of Excel spreadsheets. Right? And so it is actually incredible that the entire military logistics apparatus, especially at. We think of as, ah, different echelons, tactical, operational, strategic, at the operational and tactical level and down, which in the army is sort of the core level down. Marine Corps, like a method down. It is actually entirely the Wild west in terms of what tools exist. Um, so it is typically spreadsheets to Report inventory. Think of that as at the lowest levels, um, some soldier counting MRE boxes manually by the way, um, putting that into a report or um, um, over the radio to the next highest unit that gets aggregated there into a next level spreadsheet. That spreadsheet gets email, perhaps the next echelon where somebody gets eight spreadsheets, adds up the numbers manually, uh, or. Military logisticians are probably the best at Excel macros in the entire DoD because they run their entire operatis on Excel macros, um, you know, aggregate that and send it up. So it's all entirely Excel spreadsheet based. Even their um, Gantt chart and um, other matrices like that are often Excel spreadsheets. And so um, that was really the key realization when I started looking at logistics. It's wow, there's so much innovation happening in defense tech and in the DoD in general. But so a little bit seems to be applying to military logistics, ah, specifically. And so you know, just saw that there was, there was a lot more possible when you get to the more strategic levels. There is a lot of software. I think, um, you know, if you talk to a military uh, sustainer, they would not tell you that there's a lack of software because they deal lots of software. But it's, it's often you know, tracking uh, parts in a depot or tracking ah, maintenance back orders or tracking ammunition requests. But it's ah, it's very disparate, ah, requires logisticians to go through many different systems to make really any decision they're making. Um, and I think that's one of the unique insights we had early on is that logistics decisions are inherently very holistic, maybe more so than other kinds of elements of the military. Because if you're thinking about resupplying a unit, you have to think about inventory on hand transportation vehicles to get that from A to B. Crews that have to man those platforms if they're crude, and routes that are accessible to actually um, go along. So there's so many different pieces of the puzzle for even just a single decision of how do we resupply this unit with fuel. And so um, it actually behooves software to look across the deal that exists out there to help with those decisions. And that's really what we were focused on. Yeah.

Speaker A: Can you uh, just dive right in and paint a little bit of uh, the picture of the Tyros platform? Give us, give us the overview.

Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. So, um, at the most basic level, Tyros helps with tracking of inventory of supplies, vehicle, personnel, routes. But Then more importantly, what we do with that data is where the power lies. Because if I know where my inventory is and what vehicles I have available and what routes exist and what crews exist to man the vehicles, that I can actually very rapidly help with decisions on, well, how do I resupply this unit, right? If I have a drone missing spare parts on an island in the Pacific, or I have a, uh, company on a hilltop there that needs ammunition. Well, if I know where I have my ammunition and what ships or aircraft I have to get it there, then I can actually give you courses of actions for the best way to do that. And if I'm tracking your inventory over time, I can also predictively tell you you're not low on fuel right now, but based on your consumption, you will be three days from now. And so you ought to resupply now rather than when it's too late and your jerry cans are empty. So at the most basic level, we track, but then what we do with that data is really the power that we're trying to enable.

Speaker A: So, Evan, I'm curious, When you, you know, kind of, you know, collaborate or partner with, uh, a, you know, the company, like Rune, for example, right? There's this. You disconnect, I guess, between, like, data and then, like, the. The decisions that are. That are being made. Can you give us the. The big picture, I guess, in terms of, you know, what. What's one of the hardest challenges on linking these kind of like two worlds together from. From your perspective?

Speaker D: Well, and I. And I'll be humble about this and say that our companies, um, are answering that question, and we haven't answered it all the way. So in other words, um, uh, if you think about, um, what Peter's trying to do, it's intelligently deploy assets, replenish, um, at the edge. And I'm sure where this gets to is, um, more, uh, sophisticated inventory pooling. And then I can only imagine in contested environments what some of the implications

Speaker B: are for,

Speaker D: uh, where inventory exists and where it needs to go and what routes it needs to take. So, um, there's sort of a massive space for value creation there. And then, um. And then the question then becomes, um, okay, well, how do those inventories actually get, um, stocked in the first place? And then from a sustainment perspective, if they're drawn down, can you surge back up? Can you sustain? Or can you, you know, can you double or triple capacity? And, um, and that's where, uh, you start to shift into the supply chain and like, deeper value chain, uh, kind of uh, network and workflows and problems to solve. And uh, we all remember Russia invaded Ukraine and then we ran out of 155 shells. And then we couldn't make stingers, we couldn't make Javelins. And so those were all uh, I should say those were almost entirely um, problems that were deeper in the value chain of the defense industrial base. You know, so, so like rocket motors, um, antimony. So you go down to like specific component parts and mater that couldn't be surged and uh, and so those turned into the bottlenecks. So um, so those. That's kind of the handshake uh, between our worlds, right? Like what, what can the industrial base do? What are the kind of structural uh, vulnerabilities there that you know, in the worst case, you know, your, your adversary can turn your defense industrial base off, um, or you know, somewhere in between is, is uh, you know, hey, you've got these um, ch. Um, long lead time items and blind spots in the network that uh, when there's a disruption or there's a surge in demand, um, associated with a conflict, then uh, you kind of can only learn the hard way. And then you're in a reactive mode after the fact. Um, so that's kind of the longer range planning and multi tier value chain kind of collaboration uh, and resilience that Altana enables so that goods can get to the depots, uh, or to the staging areas or even all the way to the front line. Um, and then where Rune takes over is of course, and I'll let Peter speak for himself. But um, uh, in that entire intelligent distribution and replenishment and routing and security of those, of those logistics, uh, you know, once the goods are made.

Speaker A: Yeah, you touched on something that I want to make sure that we kind of dive a little bit deeper into and that specifically kind of operating in these resource constrained environments, um, that are going to be a little bit more off the grid, um, connectivity's you know, gone, uh, pretty commonplace for, for military, military operations. So. So Peter, when, when you're building Roon, I came across a phrase that I thought was really interesting which you say is a cloud capable, not cloud required. Uh, can you just describe a little bit more on this kind of offline first architecture and how you think about really data prioritization and those kind of constrained environments when you're building tiros.

Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. Happy to answer on some of our technical architecture and our decisions there and then also I'd love to expand too on how that feeds into the larger question of you know, how is military, our military environments different than commercial environments as well. But um, certainly for the approach we've taken technologically, we, it starts with empathy for our customers. Our customers are um, military operators. They're often environments that are very different than ones we're in right now. Right. They're often in a trench in Ukraine or in the jungle in the Philippines. And you know, a lot of things that we take for granted right now, like Internet connectivity, data centers, uh, bandwidth are just not present there. Even availability of resources to compute. So from day one we focused on, well, how do we make software work in uh, a triple canopy jungle in the Philippines. And if you start thinking about it from that lens, you make different technological decisions. Like you start with, well, we're not going to have a cloud available. I need to run at the edge. If I'm running at the edge, I can't use many of the commercial services that I may rely on if I'm building something for the everyday environments, um, here in the US So even simple things like, well, maps, I can't use some sort of online mapping service that gives me my maps and routes. I need to actually build that into the software I'm deploying, um, to the tactical edge. So it really just drives different technological approaches, um, and keeping things small and nimble and disconnected. Most importantly, um, as well, it also changes your strategy around how you deal with data synchronization, uh, as you touched upon. So you know, in those environments, the units we're working with, they often actually don't have connectivity at all. And so, you know, with the last known information they have, they still need to be able to make decisions and operate locally. And then when they are connected, uh, which could be once a day for a couple of minutes over very, you know, low bandwidth networks, then they want sort of an update of what the larger picture looks like. Um, and that's also just, you know, a unique aspect is that the ability to run in disconnected situations for, in extended periods of time, but then synchronizing data when connectivity exists. And so that's something we have focused on, um, those networks when they are, exist and when they are online also are not often those um, 100 gigabyte per second data center bandwidth speeds, they're often 5 kilobytes per second, something quite terrible like that. And so if you have such low connections, you also think about how you use that bandwidth differently. You have to be a little bit more conservative. And so the way we've thought about this, and we have a unique advantage of you know, knowing the data and the domain that we're working in and that we've approached this as well. If you have 5 kilobytes per second and you have a ton of data, you need to synchronize, you need to start with the most important data because your connection may get interrupted. Um, you may not even get to everything you have. So when it comes to, let's say, munitions, for example, if you have that limited bandwidth, you need to start with your important exquisite munitions first. Right? And like send the HIMARS data first, send the bayonets and other auxiliary munitions later on so that you start with the most important things. The direction of the data is also important in that, um, data going from a lower echelon unit needs to go up to its higher headquarters first before it maybe tells other units left and right to it what they have as well. That's useful. But if we're staying limited and constrained, we need to really prioritize what data we're sending in what direction. And those are just some unique technological decisions we've made and sort of constraints we've worked under, um, specifically for our customers. And I think, and that's also why to the broader question of how we're approaching military logistics uniquely. I think the reason why military logisticians often still are working with spreadsheets and aren't using sort of commercial software is that if you took your typical Amazon warehouse management software and give it to the military, they would actually have very little use for it. And that's because the, the constraints or the, the doctrine that drives military logistics is very unique. The way they do logistics today is unique and it requires a behooves software that matches those requirements uniquely. Because there's also certain constraints that commercial logistics companies or providers don't have to work with. Right? They, their, their convoys don't get blown up most of the time. Uh, right. They don't have to deal with that. They don't have to deal with a limited bandwidth. The constraints are also different, right. If you're Amazon and you're coming up with a distribution plan, typically the only thing you care about as a commercial logistics provider is cost. Right. And so you can spend honestly as much time as you want. If the final solution is the most cost efficient, that is a good solution. Whereas if you're fighting and you're in the military, the most optimal solution is actually if it takes a long time, not what you want. You want a correct solution that gets, uh, the job done, uh, as optimally as possible. But it needs to be quick. And so the constraints in which we operate in are also just unique and why the platform we've been building is unique for our customers as well.

Speaker D: Evan, uh, I should know the answer to this, given that we work together. But, um, to what extent are you guys integrated or integrating into things like, uh, you know, transportation management system and uh, freight forwarder world? Like, in other words, does your system need to, or want to connect to the more business, uh, as usual, global freight forwarding. You know, if, if we, if you need to get, um, items from US factories to overseas staging to the front line, uh, and interact with a commercial provider of, um, shipping or air freight or whatever it is, are you kind of hooking into, um, that universe or is it all kind of air gap from it?

Speaker C: That's a great question, Adam. So I think that's right now versus where you, um, look to go at the operational and tactical level. So kind of natively within the military, a lot of the logistics is actually still just native transportation. Um, there is, uh, an emphasis on contracting. Even, uh, during global war on terror, a lot of logistics is actually contracted out to like local freight forwarding. And so we are thoughtful about that. In interiors, you can effectively so put in your contracted platforms and then use those for distribution planning. Um, but at the more strategic level, uh, I believe 70% of army logistics actually happens through commercial vessels like Maersk and other merchant marine sort of vessels. And so that is absolutely what we are working towards is to tie into those strategic level commercial transportation networks as well as, um. So that is very much in line with the philosophy of what we're building.

Speaker D: Very cool.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Evan, I was curious because, uh, a partnership like this, or really working with governments, but obviously when you get into defense, a lot more sensitive information when you're thinking about data. Um, but at Altana's data layer, it's depending on a massive global visibility. Right? So you're building something that is catering to a global audience. But how do you build something that has resilience built into it, but also at a global scale? Like when you're, uh, catering to a customer that is the US Military, how is that done without kind of offsetting some of the product that you've been building at large?

Speaker D: I'll answer it in two ways. So one's kind of at the, um, data architecture and infrastructure level, and then the other's more around just the business model serving the different customer sets. So, um, on the architectural level, the founding idea for Altana was that a federated data Platform or federated data network, was it going to be the big unlock for achieving what you said in the very beginning of this conversation, like a Google Maps for the supply chain? Um, and so in other words the open source data space can only take you so far and we have all that data. So if it's in the open source we have it, um, maybe something here or there on the margin. But um, so the challenge is to kind of get at the kind of problem sets we're focused on. You really need privately held data to contribute to that picture of the world. And then naively you could just tell everybody, hey, um, Maersk, um, ups, whoever has a bunch of data, why don't you guys all pour your data into this big data commons and it's going to be nirvana. And um, that's been attempted in a bunch of different ways and of course it doesn't work. So our answer to that was we need a contributory network that allows our customers to have their cake and eat it too. Meaning they need to preserve their data sovereignty, their uh, data security and um, most of their intellectual property. And I'll get to that in a minute. Um, while at the same time contributing toward this, you know, network visibility and to AI that's been training on the data. Right. So you're tapping into a network and contributing to it at the same time. So uh, so that worked. And that's kind of the data network effect and flywheel that underpins our business. And um, what we uh, what we don't do is you know, have classified uh, data or you know, protected government data feeding that picture. Right. So we can, we can deploy the platform on a federated basis into a government environment. And I can talk about a few of those. The UK Global Supply Chain Intelligence Program is us, right? Well it's a program that we power, but it's our data platform doing all of the fusion of the United Kingdom's import export data, national statistics data. There's uh, NHS data, there's mod data getting fused in and they source 28 different data sets from the commercial space. And we of course have our own data picture. So our platform is fusing it all together in a secure environment on their certified govcloud. It's single tenant. Right. Uh, it's um, operated by folks with clearances and that's serving up multiple mission sets across the UK government in both civil and kind of national security contexts. And that's a one way flow and that's kind of uh, the paradigm of doing business with governments. What we are Doing, uh, in terms of sharing across governments or within, across agencies within a government is giving them a collaboration layer. So you can share models, you can share, uh, investigations, um, and you can share kind of snippets of data, uh, both high side and low side. And um, in the context I described earlier, we're enabling um, public private collaboration on a shared view of the world, which is this shared graph with the same ID structures. Um, that's the half cake Eat two data architecture, uh, that we pioneered seven years ago. And that's been, um, that's been the real flywheel of the business. Now, um, then the question becomes, okay, you're in, you know, you're in a defense, uh, context and there's classified programs. And if, uh, if a company comes onto Altana and its bill of materials becomes, or, you know, it's effective bill materials like it's supplier relationships and subcontractors and so forth becomes available to everybody else, then in some cases there's national security implications to that. Now I would argue in most cases, um, the benefit of having, you know, this kind of shared network visibility outweighs the cost. And if you think that our adversaries don't understand the bill of materials of our important programs, like, we're kidding ourselves. Um, but that said, you know, there are some, some spaces, some programs that you know, are highly classified and you got to kind of tailor to that within those deployment architectures. And um, so that's, that's uh, you know, that's the cost of doing business in this context and supporting these missions. And then you need cleared personnel, you need to be atoed in classified environments. You've got to go down the whole, you know, government, um, contracting path as a software provider. And um, that's a high hurdle. Like, you've got to have a lot of money in the bank. You've got to have the domain expertise. It's a dark art to even get in that game in the first place. There's only a couple playbooks and only a few people know them and um, so recruiting the people and, or learning the hard way, so you have to really, really commit yourself to that. And uh, you have to care about the mission. And you know, I'll put it this way, it's not the easiest way to make money.

Speaker A: Yeah,

Speaker B: so I'm, I'm detecting kind of a theme here between both, um, both, both products. Um, it's easy to, to, to kind of look at both of uh, what Altana and what Rune does as kind of a data, um, naively as like a data platform or just a data data service. Right. When it's a lot more than that. Like Evan, especially your comments about this being a network and uh, the shape of a network with a common kind of operating picture and platform to operate on. Um, and then, um, Peter, with your comments on TRS and its positioning is kind of a really decision support tool. Right. It's not just about understanding, like you said, how many jerry cans of fuel do I have? But what's the best or most effective decision that I need to make in terms of my logistics and supply in order to go execute my mission. Um, and whenever we're talking about decision, decision support, the other side of that coin is risk. And so I'm wondering if you guys can share a kind of more of an open topic question kind of here, but just what you've learned, uh, working with your customers about how they think about risk in all these different contexts that you guys have spoken about before. How are they thinking about, um, making the best possible decisions when the data is going to be necessarily incomplete or incredibly complex and therefore difficult to sort of process, um, cognitively. So Peter, I think I'll direct it to you first and like I said, take any direction. But just what you've learned about how your customers think about risk.

Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. And I think on to your uh, point about data Angel. We often comment on the fact that logistics is actually probably the most data driven aspect of military warfighting, uh, which is therefore surprising that it's been the least technologically enabled. But it's inherently driven by so much data on what exists in inventory and various planning factors that go into planning for logistics as well. Uh, our customers, when it comes to risk, think about it in two aspects. One is risk to mission and the other is risk to force. So risk to mission is, you can imagine from a logistics standpoint is are we supplying units that need supplies ahead of time before they run out? And so very much with what we're enabling, whether decision support or even just situational, um, awareness and visibility, is ensuring minimal risk to mission. Ah, so that units that need fuel, demand of fuel, units that need to keep shooting and keep shooting. So that's where our decisions help with risk to mission and risk to force is that, uh, lack of, uh, logistical, um, backbone can of course cause uh, harm to individuals actually in the fight. That can be either from, um, recommendation that can be convoys that get scheduled in areas that are high threat and could be actually attacked by the enemy. Um, but it could also similarly be of course that if units run out of munitions, they're also not able to keep fighting and are therefore more targetable. Um, the other aspect of risk to force and risk submission as well is often will happen, especially in the DoD because it's um, in operational environments, because it's less, it's a little less cost sensitive in the sense, in the sense that the most important thing to them is to be able to keep fighting. What they'll often do is hoard, right? If I don't know exactly what I need with precision, I'll just ask for three times more than I think I need because then I'll definitely be safe. And that may seem like a good solution. It's obviously not cost effective, but it comes with its own risks because if I'm hoarding too much for a certain location, I become targetable. It also means that those supplies I didn't actually need can go to other places that need them more. More with, uh, you, uh, know, with higher urgency. And so lack of data and lack of analysis of the data can actually lead to risks in terms of even where we're replacing supplies because we're hoarding them. Um, but overall always boils back down to risk submission and risk to force for us.

Speaker B: That's a, that's a really good, um, illustration there, especially on that hoarding concept where um, you know, for me to de. Risk myself might actually mean introducing systemic risk at a, at a larger scale. And all of a sudden I'm accidentally causing problems for, for my comrades and for, for sister units. Um, so thanks, thanks for bringing that up. I think that's a really key and non obvious, um, outcome or uh, emergent property of these really complex systems. Evan, uh, I wonder if you had some, some additional thoughts here on sort of risk in general.

Speaker D: I do. I, uh, I have something that'll kind of rhyme with what, um, with what Peter said. But um, so one version of this is obviously resilience or kind of business interruption risk so that, you know, uh, are there literally kill switches in the satellite? Um. Right. You know, that's kind of the most extreme version of it. And then that gets more into, kind of goes down the chain into, um, you know, do we have material dependencies? Do we have single source suppliers? Do we have geographic concentrations in a value chain of uh, you know, these, um, these products, these programs? Uh, do we have. The classic one is like the mom and pop machinist in Ohio who are, you know, retiring, and then there's nobody with that, you know, metallurgy or whatever expertise. You know, for that specific program. Um, so there's all that. And you know, that to me that all adds up to, you know, is the supply chain itself resilience, is there like a business interruption risk? And um, and then that insight can then be operationalized in a bunch of different ways. You can, you know, you can dual source, you can vertically integrate in different parts of the value chain, like we're starting to do with the critical minerals and magnets, uh, slice of the, of the value chain. You can, um, you can buffer up inventories, you know, so that the defense industrial base, um, you know, fortunately did buffer up on critical minerals and magnets, but a lot of those are getting drawn way down. Um, so there's all kinds of things you can do operationally as, as like the, the. So what of that risk insight. But I would push the conversation further. I think the, um, uh, the way we ought to be having the conversation is around trust. So how can you trust your gear? How can you trust your readiness? How can you trust your primes and your subcontractors? How can you trust trading partners? How can you trust your logistics? Right? Like it's got to go through the South China Sea. Um, so to me, the answer for trust, uh, is a little counterintuitive to some of the people in the national security space, um, because, you know, managing risk is about compartmenting, uh, information. Right, right. Um, and creating really strict controls, uh, and in the context of a complicated global supply chain and a complicated product value chain, um, and no amount of us near shoring anytime soon is going to solve this, so let's not even have that conversation. Um, so in the context of a global value chain, uh, how do you build and maintain trust? And you do that through collaboration, and you do that through information sharing, not hoarding. Right. And so it's engaging in, um, some sometimes counterintuitive behavior in this context. Right. It's not about hoarding information and, uh, looking at a counterintelligence PowerPoint, ah, deck and a skiff. That's not how you build a trusted defense value chain. You do it through collaboration.

Speaker B: Uh, I appreciate you saying that because the, uh, only reason you're going to say that is if you really believe it, uh, that is, uh, kind of a countercultural way to think about it. I think it's a valuable way to think about it as well. But the knee jerk, uh, um, tradition, uh, within national security is definitely much more compartmentalization and very strict, um, data protection, data hoarding, uh, whatever you want to call it, um, But I think there's some value to be gleaned from you just said there. Evan.

Speaker D: You want to know a crazy thing we've learned in the last few months?

Speaker B: Yeah, hit me with, um,

Speaker D: takes typically three months to get goods across borders in NATO.

Speaker A: Three months.

Speaker C: Wow.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker D: Uh, and it comes down mostly to, um, a trade process which, in the name of trade facilitation and kind of coordinating this stuff, it did the exact opposite. And then every NATO member nation had their own, like, little version of the thing. And now it requires, uh, literal paper documentation and triplicate to get anything from food to a missile across borders and to the front lines. And, um, and to me, this is an example of, like, where information hoarding, compartmentalization, everybody kind of doing their own thing is, is leading to this insecure outcome where it's like, uh, you. You literally can't deliver, you can't replenish the front line for months. It's crazy. And instead of, you know, all the memorizations and the, and the, you know, the defense industrial base working kind of proactively in this same construct, like sharing information, getting on the same page, like, we've actually optimized for. We've locally optimized for information security at the expense of national security.

Speaker B: Yes, Tim, go ahead.

Speaker A: I was just going to say that's horrifying. I'm sure. Like, I was going to. I got a great one to, you know, that we close with on, uh, the five second scramble about what keeps you up at night. But I'm sure you could go on for hours on some of those answers.

Speaker D: Yeah, I can spook people.

Speaker A: Um, I did want to kind of just dive a little bit deeper into this partnership between Rune and Altana. And it looks like you guys have also tapped OpenAI as a strategic partner to kind of connect your two worlds. But, Peter, I'll start with you. I guess what was the idea, I guess, behind the, uh, collab with Altana? Um, how did it come about? And you know, what. What were you envisioning when you're, you know, looking to a partner? Like, what it would unlock that, you know, you couldn't do alone?

Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. You know, this, you know, for. This was for a specific combatant command customer. And I think, um, you know, the key insight there is you're really about, you know, military supply chain and supply chain in general is that, um, wherever you. Wherever you think the supply chain stops is, you know, where problems start to form. And so, uh, you know, we're obviously very much focused on how does the bullet get into the, the gun and then where does the bullet come from within the military supply chain? But as we've seen from Ukraine, as Evan, or comment on, if you stop, if you stop there, if you stop within the military supply chain, that becomes a problem very quickly as we saw in Ukraine. And so really our insight was, you know, partnered with Altana, we can actually complete the supply chain from the manufacturers and um, even rare earth metal providers that actually go into, you know, those munitions or other supplies in the first place before they even get to duty warehouses and that in a full scale conflict. That entire supply chain from the bullet and the weapon all the way back to you know, the mine that produced the ore to make that bullet, that, that connection is really what's going to drive value and going to drive insights and drive insights into where bottlenecks are. And so together with Altana, we feel that we are actually completing that end to end supply chain. And then the partnership with OpenAI is really about how uh, do we surface the incredibly complex data that goes into sustainment in user friendly ways. Because very often what our customers are looking for is what they call course of action generation or what if analysis, which is, well, let me come up with a plan for I'm going to sustain an invasion of certain enemy territory, but now I need to plan for contingencies. What is that port in the Pacific that I was planning to like throw flow my goods through goes away. How does that change my environment? Right. What if um, the factory that's producing maybe 75% of my gunpowder gets interrupted? How does that change my flow of goods to even produce um, um, that equipment in the first place? And so really what we're trying to enable there is through generative AI and sort of the chat interfaces that we all are probably enjoying now in our everyday lives we can actually expose that very complex decision making in very user friendly ways in an almost conversational way where if you had an oracle or a crystal ball to ask it questions about, well, what if our partners go away? What if that port goes away? What if our capacity is reduced? We can surface very insightful natural language, uh, responses through that three way partnership between us, Altana and OpenAI.

Speaker A: Yeah Evan, I guess same on your side. You all have this massive bird's eye view of the global supply web, but how does plugging into Rune on more of the edge level logistics data make that picture maybe more actionable?

Speaker D: Well, you just said it. So it's the connection between the strategic to the tactical, um, so how Can a program executive office buy from the right primes, manage a trusted, ready, you know, ready, secure, resilient value chain for the program? And then, you know, from there, and especially in the, in the context of um, sustainment, um, how do you connect that to the, to the tactical edge? How do you, how do you um, you know, go from something coming out of a factory to getting to uh, a fighter? And um, and our job stops at that factory piece. Right. So the partnership is kind of a natural handshake.

Speaker C: One other thing I'll add, otherwise, you know what we're, we're talking a lot about sort of the blue side of the picture. And there's an equally interesting discussion about the red side of. You know, as much as we want to understand our supply chain and our bottlenecks, we also want to understand the enemy supply chain. Ah, right. If you think, if, if you look at, you know, many of the missions that were flown in Europe by like um, bomber squadrons or whatnot, or they were targeting, were factories. Right. They were targeting Nazi ball bearing factories because those were producing ball bearings going into tanks. And so the, the, the adversary supply chain is actually often the number one thing to target. Even our fight with, with Japan during World War II was actually focused on interrupting their supply chains, uh, to reach mainland Japan. And so understanding the adversary supply chain is going to be just as important as understanding our own supply chain. And that's where obviously global visibility into the supply chain of our adversaries, as can be provided by Altana, is just as important as the blue side.

Speaker A: Yeah. I wanted to take a moment just to kind of touch, uh, on your background, Peter, because it's an interesting background that kind of comes from the Silicon Valley side of things and working in defense, working for companies like Meta and Anduril, um, what kind of lessons would you say you've kind of brought from those experiences to where you're at now with, you know, building a, your own defense tech startup?

Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. I think the, well, I'll say what drew me to um, the so I defense space in the first place when I was still working at Facebook was really two things. One was it was the mission. I think the mission was very compelling. I think I at a point become a little disillusioned that making the world more open and connected was my true calling. And I felt that um, supporting national security, um, was a more noble mission. Um, also for me personally, I, uh, I'm actually an immigrant. Um, I grew up in Austria. Um, um, I'm, um, also American, but I came to this country because I believed in the American spirit and the American dream. And contributing to the protection of that dream and our freedoms that we have here is actually very core to my beliefs. It's also core to what we're enabling with Kuros, with Rune. In general, um, we could call ourselves a military logistics company, and of course that's what we focus on. But really I think we are focused on supporting the military and the American warfighter in general. We just think that logistics is the most underserved and perhaps most critical aspect of war fighting. And so that's what we're focused on. But the mission is much bolder. And so what I take from, um, the commercial background I have is certainly technological insight. We built great things at Facebook. It's an incredible global platform. And that same level of innovation that technology needs, um, to come, um, to the DoD as well. And so we're bringing technology, we're bringing insights and adapting it to a mission that I think is very important.

Speaker A: Evan, I just want your kind of point of view on the broader ecosystem, on government modernization at large. You've worked across both commercial and government worlds. Where do you see as the, your biggest opportunities for acceleration right now? And we're like defense innovation.

Speaker D: Well, I'm deciding how spicy I want to be.

Speaker A: Spice it up. I, uh, like Sriracha spice.

Speaker D: You know, um, I think, I think we need to give credit where it's due. This administration is doing a great job of, of pushing the bureaucracy to procure commercial technology. And um, and that's good for our, uh, economic security, it's good for economic growth, and it's good for our national security. And um, and nobody needs to hear me complain about, you know, the big, like, uh, professional services and defense contractors. And you know, that. So that's a sort of, well, well worn, um, talk track. The um, the thing that um, is maybe new to that whole picture. And, and I think, um, I, I had a conversation this morning with somebody who was, you know, in the cabinet in the last administration. And um, we were talking about how at one agency, so we, um, you know, we know this agency well, we've done a lot of great work with them over the years. And there was a, you know, executive order establishing this big kind of supply chain resilience initiative. And um, you know, we did 12 months of free pilot work where we proved the technical capability, um, you know, on the data fusion, on the AI, the scenario analysis, to really go at exactly the thing that was in the executive order and what was in the appropriation against it. Um, uh, there was um. So we get to the end of this 12 month period where we're kind of circling up ah, around a contract and a lawyer, uh, within the agency at the, you know, two yard line decided that um, their appropriation didn't really give them the ability to procure commercial software and that they could only spend their AI budget on um, in house

Speaker B: personnel, uh,

Speaker D: to go after the problem. And um, it's like, you got to be fucking kidding me. And so I think there's a um, pendulum swing right now toward not just commercial technology, which I think is a good thing, but um, especially as it relates to artificial uh, intelligence and some of um, these new capabilities that uh, can drive efficiency, that can drive new business models within the agencies. And um, it requires some courageous contracting officers and some courageous lawyers to say yes to. And they're out there. We know and love a number of them. There needs to be more of them.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think uh, everybody here would agree on the take. There's a lot of work to be done and um, we've had a lot of guests over the last few years here that it's certainly a huge shift uh, in the amount of startups that are getting investment, uh, that are tackling some of these problems and founders uh, like Peter that are stepping up to the plate and taking that challenge on. Even though the common theme of an answer is usually if I wanted to make a ton of money quickly, this would have been the vertical I chose first. But um, the biggest problem set to solve for sure. One of the biggest problem sets to solve.

Speaker B: You know what Tim? I'm thinking about modifying uh, that quote that we kicked off with about amateurs talk about tactics and strategy, professionals talk about logistics, supply chain sustainment and then masochists talk about procurement and acquisition. That's the third level under the third party.

Speaker A: We'll dub that in post production. Um, but yeah, I mean we could talk at length about some of those other problems. But just being mindful of the time, I'm going to actually just put a bow on the main conversation here. And we like to close every episode with just a five second scramble. So it's just kind of rapid fire. Q and A for each of you all. We'll keep them light hearted, they're not going to get too deep. Um, Sean, just in the essence of time, maybe trim a couple of questions from your list and then uh, start with Peter and I'll wrap with Evan.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So Peter, five second scramble. I'm going to give you some easy questions here. Just quick, ah, answer off the top of your head. Um, if you could automate away one part of your weekly routine, what would it be? Work or personal?

Speaker C: Um, right now it's recruiting coordination. First thing that comes to mind.

Speaker B: All right. Um, what's a product or service that you use that's so good you can't believe it's free or very low cost chatgpt by now. Excellent. Yeah. Um, more, uh, work related. What jobs or roles is Rune going to be hiring for over the next three to six months?

Speaker C: Um, most importantly, front end. That's our number one priority right now. We want to build an awesome app and keep doing so it's front end. Um, and then we're focused on non engineers who know how to deploy to tactical environments because that's our bread and butter.

Speaker B: All right. All right, two more. Um, what's the strangest place you've ever taken an important work call?

Speaker C: Oh, boy. Lots of cracker barrels. Waffle Houses. I actually love doing that. But it is strange just being on

Speaker B: the road and deciding to just take it right there from the table. Huh?

Speaker C: Huh? Yeah. Work from Waffle House is. I love it.

Speaker B: All right, I got a T shirt idea now. Work from Waffle House. Here we go. Um, and then to close out, this is our standard and traditional final, uh, five second question. Five second scramble question, which is, is there a charity or a philanthropic effort, organization that's important to you or close to your heart that you want people to know about?

Speaker C: Um, yeah, there's a number of veteran organizations that, um, we actually contribute to that we care much about. Um, you know, happy to talk to you. Is interested in, which specifically there's, you know, some better than others, but that's like a cause we obviously care about and supporting veterans. And so, um, that's. I would.

Speaker D: I would go with outstanding.

Speaker B: All right, thanks so much, Peter. You crushed it.

Speaker A: All right, Evan, let's, uh, let's rock. You ready?

Speaker D: Um, yeah, I'm. I don't know if I'm getting the same questions, but they're going to be

Speaker A: different, except for the last one will be the same.

Speaker D: All right, cool.

Speaker A: Um, if Altana was an animal, what animal would it be?

Speaker D: Um, first thing that popped m my head was a lion.

Speaker A: It's a strong answer. Um, if AI could solve one global trade problem overnight, what would you pick?

Speaker D: Customs, uh, clearance.

Speaker A: What are some of the most pressing positions that Altana is hiring for over the next three to six months?

Speaker D: Are really beefing up on global trade and customs Both domain expertise and, uh, kind of forward deployed solutions architecting capability.

Speaker A: Nice. Uh, who's one person that has had a massive influence on your career?

Speaker D: Alan Burson. He was the former commissioner of U.S. customs and Border Protection. He's been the border czar twice under different administrations. And he's, um, he's, you know, part of my founding team at Altana, and uh, you know, friend, mentor, and his imprimatur and his expertise really has turned Altana into, uh, what it's become.

Speaker B: Awesome.

Speaker A: Ah, nice shout out. Uh, what's your favorite city for personal travel?

Speaker D: Oh, I love this question.

Speaker A: Um,

Speaker D: Yeah, I'll answer it this way. The best solo travel I've ever had in my life, uh, was, um, was about a week and a half in Madrid, and I would drink a bottle of Rioja, uh, in a plaza, um, and read Ernest Hemingway every day.

Speaker A: That sounds awesome. One of our, one of our teammates is out in Madrid. Um, been there before. It's beautiful. Uh, you're from Homer, Alaska. Y. Uh, what's one word you would use to describe Homer?

Speaker D: Confused. It's a wacky place. It's, it's part, you know, uh, hippie, part libertarian. Um, uh, yeah, it's a lot of weirdos who converged in one of the most beautiful places in the world at the end of the road.

Speaker A: Yeah, we'll go with confused. I like that. What's, uh, your guilty pleasure when you need to unwind?

Speaker D: There's a massage parlor. Parlor? Sounds shady. There's a place where one can get a massage about a block and a half away from me. And it stays open till 10pm so it's like you could just go get a great massage with somebody's elbow in

Speaker A: your shoulder and, uh, it's necessary. Yeah, I gotta go monthly. Um, last one. Yeah. A charity or corporate philanthropy that's near and dear to you.

Speaker D: So, um, personally, I really like, uh, breaking ground in New York City. And when you're in a big city, you see the problem of homelessness, um, and, uh, you know, people in need of transitional housing. And they do a great job of, you know, not just kind of throwing money at a structural problem, but like, bringing structural solutions to a structural problem and getting people off their feet, um, or up onto their feet, rather. And, and, uh, in job retraining, workforce reentry, sobriety, um, programs. So it's, you know, transitional and supportive housing, uh, to deal with the homelessness problem.

Speaker A: Very cool. Awesome. Uh, well, that is a wrap. Uh, Peter and Evan, thank you all for joining us on this conversation. Super helpful for, uh, our listeners, and, uh, appreciate you joining the podcast.

Speaker D: Thank you, guys. It was fun.