Defense Technology
topic on 4 shows · 13 statements across 10 episodes
Sourcery 
the a16z Podcast 
20VC 
Capital Allocators
13 statements about Defense Technology, every show
Younis: The belief that defense tech requires years of planning is false
“I think this view that everything's gonna take a long, long, long time, and it requires, you know, many, many years of planning is, this is false. And I think, especially within the reality of today, This technology needs to get out there faster and faster and…”
Steckman: Defense startups must win one of two major government programs to survive
“So in every technology class in defense, there's probably one, sometimes two actual programs that if you capture them, you have a business. And if you don't, you have no business.”
Cahn: Defense Tech Adoption Cycle Is Only 1% Complete
“We're like one percent there on catching up. Like we're actually so, so early in this defense cycle because, you know, now we have a few dozen companies, maybe a hundred companies that have sort of new innovations. They're not integrated into the force structu…”
Cahn: Few concentrated defense tech winners will emerge per country
“And I guess my framework, and this is the thesis that I've been investing behind now for the last couple of years is my framework is there are going to be fewer companies that succeed in defense for this reason. Defense is consolidated for good reason. There's…”
Stebbings: Defense tech is not a broad market category like SaaS
“I don't think defense is a category. And you're like, what? A category is enough that can support an ecosystem with its breadth and depth. I don't think defense is. I think there is your andrills and maybe two to three more in the U.S., and I think there's, yo…”
Cahn: Sequoia will only invest in defense startups every couple years
“I mean, my objective, I probably invested in a dozen AI companies in my career. I hope to invest in 20 more. My objective is not to invest in 20 more defense companies throughout my career. I think it's going to be a very small handful of companies. Maybe we'l…”
Brose: Defense tech reached billion-dollar milestones faster than expected
“To sit here five years later and, you know, look at a room full of founders who are working in defense technology, multiple companies valued over a billion dollars, performing on capabilities and programs for the Department of Defense that, you know, people wh…”
Ulevitch: Rival VCs who shunned defense for China are jumping in late
“Other firms, you know, were investing in China and had all this other activity and, you know, now they might be a little bit Johnny come lately and like excited about defense, but they used to say no way to defense, no way to those things”
Schimpf: Next 30 years of defense tech relies on cheap autonomous systems
“So number one, the tech for the next 20 or 30 years was going to be like primarily how do you just have more cheap autonomous systems on the battlefield, just more sensors, just more information flowing in.”
Hommels: Low-cost autonomous defense hardware destabilizes legacy military equipment
“You have a thousand euro drone that takes us a ten million tank. You have a 500,000 submarine, yeah, unmanned, which can take out a five hundred million The submarine, the classical one, and the same for basically every category.”
Battlefield innovation cycles render defense technology obsolete within two years
“What you're gonna fight with in two years is not what you're gonna fight with in a year, and it's not what you'd use today.”
Luckey: US Engineers Must Choose Defense Over Ad Optimization and Photo Filters
“Tens of thousands of engineers across our entire country that are not working on defense currently are going to have to ask themselves if there are more important things in their careers than building photo filters or doing ad optimization.”