Apr 27, 2023 · 33m · american-optimist
Ep 55: Nathan Mintz on Directed Energy, a New Space Age & the Final Hurdles to a Driverless Future · Joe Lonsdale
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In this episode of American Optimist, host Joe Lonsdale interviews defense entrepreneur and Spartan Radar CEO Nathan Mintz about revolutionizing defense technology, solving autonomous vehicle challenges, and driving technological innovation across space and industry. Mintz shares insights from founding Epirus and Spartan Radar while critiquing legacy defense procurement, discussing hardware talent acquisition, and offering an optimistic vision for space commercialization and AI-driven automation.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Joe holds 27.6% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Joe as informed peer 4.3 Guest teaching 3.9 Guest disagreement 1.4 Joe pushing back 1.6
speaking balance: gold is Joe, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 26:16 Reframing AV job disruption as a solution to labor shortages
Mintz rejects the common panic framing regarding automation destroying blue-collar jobs, citing an immediate shortage of 80,000 drivers and an aging median workforce.
Hardest push from Joe ▶ 33:14 Host challenges aggressive 2026 Mars timelineWhen Mintz asserts Elon Musk might land on Mars by 2026, Joe immediately interjects with skepticism over the pace, teasing how long it would take to tweet from Mars.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 16:44 Mintz explains electronic foveation and radar response ratesMintz explains the technical mechanics of electronic foveation and dynamic context switching in software-defined radar, prompting Joe to clarify to the audience that he already understood the concept.
Joe holds their own ▶ 7:24 Host validates contractor dysfunction using Palantir's origin modelJoe demonstrates deep domain knowledge of defense tech venturing, citing Palantir's strategy of deploying tens of millions of private capital to build software prior to government RFP commitment.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Joe as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Joe pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Optimist Opening Title Sequence | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Joe introduces Nathan Mintz, reminiscing about their Stanford days and political campaigns in California. The exchange is warm and collaborative, with Mintz recounting his assembly run and noting spending statistics on Sacramento homelessness. | |
| Defense Engineering and Legacy Aerospace Bureaucracy | 5 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Mintz analyzes structural dysfunction and risk aversion in legacy defense contractors under the DoD framework. Joe actively connects this to his own experience founding and funding defense startups like Palantir. | |
| Founding Epirus and Directed Energy Warfare | 5 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Mintz recounts the origin story of Epirus after the Gatwick drone incident and the engineering of solid-state directed energy systems. Joe brings insider familiarity as an early backer, discussing gallium nitride chips and AI power management. | |
| Transitioning from Aerospace Manager to Startup CEO | 4 | 6 | 1 | 1 | Mintz explains Spartan Radar's technology, breaking down angular resolution, aperture physics, and electronic foveation in automotive sensors. Joe asks layman-oriented clarifying questions while noting sensor scaling physics. | |
| Hiring World-Class Hardware Engineers and Managing Dissent | 5 | 3 | 2 | 2 | Mintz discusses vetting hardware talent and rejecting Silicon Valley brain teasers, prompting Joe to tease him about his past interview with Peter Thiel. Joe quotes Alex Karp to reinforce managing elite technical talent as artists. | |
| The Timeline to Full Autonomy and Commercial Fleets | 4 | 5 | 2 | 2 | Mintz critiques current brute-force AV development, arguing for DARPA third-wave AI and machine common sense to handle edge cases. When Joe asks about driver job displacement, Mintz counters with demographic realities and truck driver shortages. | |
| Sociological Benefits of Automation and the IoT Expansion | 4 | 4 | 2 | 2 | The conversation covers IoT proliferation, space commercialization, and lunar resource extraction. Joe connects space manufacturing to discussions with Larry Page, while lightly questioning Mintz's aggressive 2026 timeline for Mars. |
Statements from this episode (17)
Mintz: Special interests control Sacramento assembly votes and punish dissent
“Well, one thing I learned is that Sacramento is basically locked into a number of special interests who pretty much called the shots in the state, and the assemblymen mostly on the majority side, but some on the minority side, Show up, and they get their votin…”
Mintz: California spent $20B on homelessness as homeless population rose 20%
“The state has spent twenty billion dollars on homeless services in the last five years. Twenty billion dollars. The number of homeless people in the state's gone up 20% in that time.”
Mintz: Legacy defense primes offer great early-career multidisciplinary training
“I would say it's a great place to start your career. You spend the first five years there, especially if you don't just stay on one program, you get into a development environment, you work on a few different things and see a few different disciplines. The, th…”
Mintz: Legacy defense contractors wait on government and deliver obsolete tech
“I think that, ah, the biggest issue they face is that they kind of wait around for the government to tell them what to build, rather than going out there and trying to invent New solutions for the problems, and the government does things on a, along a structur…”
Mintz: Big defense contractors punish downside while offering zero upside for innovation
“That's the underlying problem is that in big companies like that, you own none of the success, and you pay for all of the downside risk. So there's really no incentive for you to take a risk, whereas in startups, it's the inverse.”
Lonsdale: Palantir spent tens of millions before customer commitment
“At Palantir, we also were spending tens of millions of dollars on something we were very confident in well before there's any suggestion they were going to pay for it.”
Mintz: 90% of 200 counter-drone systems were ineffective garage-built jammers
“And so there had been a study published that showed there were 200 different systems for counter UAS and 90% of them were crappy jammers that somebody built in their garage for like 40,000 dollars and didn't work.”
Mintz: Directed energy weapons eliminate battlefield ammunition and magazine constraints
“The way I see it, directed energy weapons are a game changer on the battlefield. They don't have any of these magazine depth problems. The headlines right now are plagued with ammunition shortages and missile shortages and how are we going to replenish all thi…”
Mintz: 60 to 70 million automotive radars ship annually
“There's probably something like 60 or seventy million radars that go out the door every year. I would say probably 60% of the cars on the road have one at least in the Ford.”
Mintz: Passenger car OEM design cycles range from two to ten years
“The passenger car design cycle, depending on if you're talking about a Chinese OEM an American OEM, European or Japanese can go from two to 10 years even”
Mintz: Early startup hires should bring their own talent networks
“When you're building an early team, you really need to look at, are these people that are going to scale? Right. Are these people that come with a team of their own? And when you recognize that maybe those wells are a little dry, it's time to bring in new peop…”
Lonsdale: Managing top talent requires accepting dissent and unruly behavior
“When I deal with very top talent, you have to be deal with, you have to be okay with dissent. You have to be okay with people being maybe quirky and difficult to manage and Unruly and telling you you're an idiot and all this stuff because the best people are j…”
Mintz: Fully autonomous vehicles are at least five years away
“I would say we're at least five years away.”
Mintz: US lacks 80,000 truck drivers with median age nearing 50
“We have 80,000 we're 80,000 truck drivers short. The median age of truck drivers in this country is approaching 50 years old.”
Mintz: 8,000 People Die in Truck-Related Accidents Annually
“I mean, we have 8000 people that die in truck related accidents every year, and it's just, it's unnecessary, and it's wasteful.”