Apr 14, 2025 · 40m · a16z
Autonomy is no longer a moonshot—it’s a market
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this a16z American Dynamism interview, Applied Intuition co-founder Kasar Yudis and Head of Government Business Jason Brown explain how dual-use software, commercial AI innovation, and pragmatic procurement reform are driving the rapid adoption of autonomous systems across commercial and defense domains.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. How this is scored →
The host as informed peer 3.0 Guest teaching 4.0 Guest disagreement 1.4 The host pushing back 1.2
speaking balance: gold is the host, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 33:43 Qasar reframes the host's premise on autonomy's 'ChatGPT moment'
Qasar politely rejects the host's premise that autonomy has achieved consumer ubiquity like ChatGPT, distinguishing web information retrieval from safety-critical physical systems.
Hardest push from the host ▶ 24:07 Host presses on organizational segregation between commercial and defense teamsThe host directly challenges the guest on internal friction and operational segregation, asking if engineers must be cordoned off between government and commercial business.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 28:16 Jason highlights the reality of defense venture spend metricsJason educates the host by putting DoD software reform in perspective, noting that excluding SpaceX and Palantir, top defense startups only secure about 1% of the total defense budget.
The host holds their own ▶ 20:49 Host connects enterprise sales dynamics to her background at PalantirThe host demonstrates deep domain expertise by citing her former career at Palantir, explaining how defense credibility directly accelerates high-value commercial enterprise sales.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The host as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The host pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Introductions: Applied Intuition's Leadership and Mission | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | The host asks standard background questions about the guests' paths into autonomy. Qasar and Jason share their technical origins at Google, General Motors, Bosch, and in defense. | |
| Comparing Waymo and Tesla: The Evolution of Autonomy | 3 | 4 | 1 | 1 | The host relates personal experiences using Waymo and Tesla FSD. Qasar breaks down the technical differences between sensor-heavy driverless models and camera-light driver-assisted models. | |
| Auto OEMs, China's Tech Ecosystem, and AI Model Paradigms | 3 | 4 | 1 | 1 | The host asks about standardization across commercial and defense stacks. Qasar explains how transformer architectures and scaling laws abstract away hardware dependencies across domains. | |
| Modernizing Defense Hardware and Retrofitting Legacy Systems | 3 | 4 | 1 | 1 | The host notes the multi-decade lifespan of defense vehicles like tanks and B-52s. Jason explains how Applied Intuition jailbreaks and retrofits legacy defense hardware with modern software. | |
| Entering Defense in 2019 and Building a D.C. Presence | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | The host highlights entering defense back in 2019 when it was unpopular in Silicon Valley. Qasar shares how commercial tooling originally resonated with defense prime General Dynamics. | |
| Market Shaping, Commercial Velocity, and Dual-Use Edge | 2 | 5 | 2 | 1 | Jason turns the question to Qasar regarding market shaping versus market serving. Qasar uses an analogy comparing DoD software procurement to designing smartphones without commercial benchmarks. | |
| The Dual-Use Software Flywheel and Shared Capabilities | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | The host actively demonstrates domain expertise by sharing her Palantir background and enterprise sales dynamics. Jason and Qasar explain how defense off-road engineering feeds commercial products. | |
| Rapid Maritime Simulation Development and Organizational Structure | 3 | 4 | 2 | 2 | The host asks whether defense work requires cordoning off engineering teams. Qasar dispels this assumption, explaining that core underlying software tools are shared despite compliance protocols. | |
| Overcoming DoD Procurement Bottlenecks and Software Reform | 3 | 5 | 2 | 1 | The host prompts on DoD procurement modernization progress. Jason offers a stark metric showing top VC-backed defense startups receive barely 1% of the annual DoD budget. | |
| Strategic Advice for Dual-Use Startups Entering the Defense Market | 3 | 4 | 1 | 1 | The host asks for tactical advice regarding prime partnerships versus direct government sales. Qasar and Jason advocate direct user engagement and radical pragmatism. | |
| Has Autonomy Had Its ChatGPT Moment? Safety and Autonomous Swarms | 3 | 5 | 2 | 2 | The host asks if autonomy has had its ChatGPT moment. Qasar reframes the term around safety-critical realities, and Jason details cheap asymmetric drone warfare economics in Yemen. |
Statements from this episode (25)
Yudis: Applied Intuition receives no American favoritism in global commercial markets
“If our products are not good, we're not gonna survive as a company. Full stop. We got a win in that very competitive global commercial ecosystem where we get no favoritism being an American company or not.”
Brown: Applied Intuition has 110 D.C. employees dedicated to government business
“So based here in DC, in our DC office, we have about a 110 folks purely dedicated to the government mission, but really the entire company works on government government work.”
Brown: Applied Intuition works with every U.S. military branch
“So we are working with Every service in, in the Department of Defense, we are actually expanding that government business internationally to U.S. Allies.”
Yudis: Automotive autonomy software dynamics mirror defense, construction, and mining
“And I think what we learned after we got into the business, we started the company was actually the dynamics that exist in automotive are the same that exist in defense, they exist in construction, mining, they exist in trucking, and so... And then they not on…”
Yudis: The next decade will bring widespread production and monetization of autonomy
“So now, I think we're at that threshold where, you know, the next decade, Is very much the productionization and proliferation of autonomy. And you can say, broadly speaking, the intelligent vehicle. And it is also the monetization of this technology.”
Yudis: Tesla and Waymo autonomous vehicle approaches will technically converge
“And so the next kind of 10 years is, and I think what you'll ultimately see is, like, somewhat of a very technical convergence, because the Tesla system is a very sensor light system. It's basically just a camera system. And the Waymo system is very sensor hea…”
Yudis: Waymo autonomous vehicles average tens of thousands of miles between disengagements
“Whereas the Waymo doesn't, generally speaking, has tens of thousands of miles between disengagements.”
Yudis: Applied Intuition's defense autonomy code is 90% identical to commercial
“The autonomy system that we have running, let's say, on a defense, you know, vehicle, let's say, it's a troop mover or a tank or something like that, It's like, 90% similar to what we're doing on the, you know, on the commercial side, on the, ah, trucking side…”
Yudis: Transformer architectures bring LLM-style data scaling laws to autonomy
“There's a similar you know, let's say paradigm shift happening in autonomy and in vision systems as well with transformers, and so what that ultimately means in autonomy is the similar dynamics in large language models, you can put lots of data in, and you get…”
Brown: The B-52 bomber will reach 100 years of operational service
“I mean, the B-fifty two will be a hundred years old. You know, here in, in, you know, and it'll, it'll still be flying. Right.”
Brown: Applied Intuition defense work is split evenly between retrofits and new
“Yeah, generally it's about fifty-fifty. So the 50% of our products are related to vehicles or autonomy that's in development, and then the 50% we're focused on, you know, essentially legacy vehicles.”
Yudis: Defense prime contractors face the same software problems as commercial automakers
“Actually, the primes, broadly speaking, have the same problems that the commercial side has.”
Yudis: The DoD cannot outpace the commercial sector in software innovation
“And imagine if the DOD was responsible for building the phone. Versus Apple, or versus Android, and, you know, it's very hard to imagine they can outpace the commercial side.”
Yudis: Defense-only software vendors lack rigorous commercial market benchmarking
“And I think if you're only serving sometimes a DOD, you sometimes don't get that commercial benchmark.”
Brown: Applied Intuition repurposes Army autonomy tech for commercial agriculture and mining
“The kinds of things we develop for the Army, for example, off-road autonomy has fed back into our commercial business, so into agriculture, mining, you know, and we just started to see this kind of flywheel start to affect that, to take place.”
Price-Wright: Palantir's role in finding Bin Laden drove its commercial sales
“A large reason why we were able to sell to customers like BP and others were, you know, people liked that Palantir was the software that they used to find Bin Laden. So, you know, it made it easier to sell to some of these more traditional enterprises.”
Brown: Applied Intuition built and deployed its Maritime Sim in five weeks
“We went from like zero, no product, to the first functioning use of the product in five weeks.”
Yudis: Applied Intuition spent $750 million building its core simulation software
“Our tooling that this is built on top of this Maritime Sin example is like, We've spent like, seven hundred and fifty million dollars of engineering costs to build.”
Yudis: Software quality depends on the CEO's proximity to software expertise
“In the companies, and you can literally measure from the CEO, how many levels do you have to go to where they really know software? Those companies are, you take a Tesla in this example, Elon knows software. So you're right at the CEO level and therefore the p…”
Brown: The top 98 VC-backed defense startups capture 1% of DoD budget
“If you look at the top 100 venture backed companies that are doing business with the Department of Defense, and you take SpaceX and Palantir, put it aside, so now the top 98 that's ten billion dollars a year of business going to those 98. That's only one aircr…”
Yudis: Defense startups must have a D.C. presence and military veterans
“I think, though, it's hard to have a real business in, you know, let's say, not only the DoD, honestly, but also if you're selling to the government broadly, without really having a presence in D.C. With, you know, folks, you know, who come from the ecosystem,…”
Brown: Startups must maintain direct relationships with government defense buyers
“The first advice I have is always as a company, no matter what stage you are, have a direct relationship with the government, with the actual government customer, and understand what that government, you know, who the buyer is, who the users are, have a relati…”
Yudis: 100% of global automotive OEMs are actively developing autonomy solutions
“Every, a 100% of automotive OEMs globally are working on autonomy solutions. There is not a single OEM who does not have a real effort in the space.”