The Exchanges

Q that means is just people could jam the spectrum. Like China could figure out, okay, you're talking to your 500 boats in this big battle this way. We're gonna totally jam everything. Boats can't hear from you anymore. Now you have all this autonomous stuff that's untethered. What's it do? Is it just stay there and get shot and destroyed then? Or can it keep fighting? Or how's that work?

A So jamming's interesting, right? It's not, it doesn't really zero out The communications bandwidth. What it does is severely degrades it, and only severely degrades in certain frequency spectrums. So you're, you're often able to get out snippets of information, and if you're able to, if you're able to use software to prioritize that information, you can keep connectivity back to headquarters. The other thing is, when you're using AI at the edge, each individual agent Is intelligent, and they know what to do. So each boat knows what to do, and then if they're able to communicate with the swarm, they're able to pass information amongst themselves. So Depending on the policies of the government, you could say, go out into this operating area, here's your mission, here's your objective, and if you get jammed, continue with the mission. So even if you're unable to get communications back, the platforms are still very, very effective.

AI assessment note: “if you get jammed, continue with the mission.”

Q And what were some of the most important lessons you learned being a Navy SEAL?

A Oh, geez, there's a lot. I mean, I take a lot of what I learned, and I try to impart it into the company across leadership, decision-making, Constantly balancing risk and reward. I'll tell you one of the most important lessons that I've learned, and I'll tell you the story behind it, is the difference between an amateur and a professional. And I learned very early on that an amateur does something until they get it right. A professional does something until they can't get it wrong. And I fortunately and unfortunately learned this the hard way, but in a very safe environment in a training base in San Diego, where part of SEAL training, they tie your hands and legs up, they throw you in the deep end of a 15 foot pool, and they make you float around and do things for about 15 minutes, and then they untie you and take you out and say you've passed the test. Well, I struggled with parts of that, and I went and practiced until I got it right. When test day came, I got it wrong. Right? So what that meant is I had to train until I couldn't get it wrong, so when the pressure's on, you get it right.

AI assessment note: “one of the most important lessons that I've learned... is the difference between an amateur”

Q So prior to Saronic, after being an AVCL for a long time, you, you came back and you worked on private equity. You were at Vista Equity, uh, which is obviously a very successful investment group, probably making a lot of money there. Why make the jump to a startup? You're already successful, have a safe, good life. Like, why'd you, why'd you come back to the startup world then?

A You know, it really was that, that call to serve again. It was the draw to get back into defense. You know, when I left the military, I didn't necessarily think I was going to work in defense over again. I kind of wanted to go the other direction and candidly needed to go the other direction for a little while. Um, What I was able to gain in the private sector, working at Vista Equity Partners, understanding finance, investing, operations, and then being able to combine that with my military experience to go and co-found and build Saronic has been invaluable. But again, it was that It was that draw to get back into defense. I started feeling that call to serve again, and we're at a really critical time in our country where we need to build new products and solutions for our defense industrial base in a way that we haven't done over the last 20 and 30 years.

AI assessment note: “You know, it really was that, that call to serve again.”

Q A hundred percent, and we started with you at the ABC Build program with you as the founder and CEO. If you're the entrepreneurs in our audience, can you tell us a little bit about your experience? Like, why'd you come work With AVC and what, and what, and how, how'd that work? How'd you decide what to start and what, what the process look like?

A Yeah, you, you know, for me, Joe, it was that first conversation that we had after I left Vista that convinced me that, that you and AVC were the right partners, and it was, when I thought about what I wanted to do in the defense space, it was, I want to go have a really, really big impact on the security of our country. Like, there are big problems. How do we have a really big impact? And hearing the work you've done with Palantir and Andrel and other defense tech companies, And actually the story about giving Palantir to the army for free because soldiers were losing their lives in Iraq, like that's the why, right? That's the why we're doing this. And then building out the what and the how with a partner that has been there before, took an idea and let me let us go execute on it very, very quickly in what would have taken eight or nine months to figure out the blocking and tackling. We basically stood the company up overnight.

AI assessment note: “it was that first conversation that we had after I left Vista that convinced me”

Q That's awesome. And you're building the company right here in Austin, Texas. Why did you choose Texas?

A Not the first time I got, why'd you build a maritime company in a landlocked city in Texas? But I'll tell you, it's been the best decision that we've made. The first thing going back to our, the underlying premise of the company, we're software and technology first, and it's all based around talent. So where do you find software talent? Where do you find hardware talent? Well, the type of talent that we're looking for, there were really only two options. It was Austin, Texas or Southern California. And then that was, we were looking at the defense landscape and building it here in Texas, pro government, pro defense, Pro-business type culture. It just made all the sense in the world, and we're really helping shape the defense ecosystem here in Austin.

AI assessment note: “we're software and technology first, and it's all based around talent.”

Q I love how fast you've been moving in general. This is one of the fastest companies I've seen from getting going to where you are. Uh, I think you're planning on ramping it up to, I don't know if we could say, but, but a large number of ships per month in the next year. Is there anything you can say? What's the pace you're trying to go here?

A No, I mean, we focused on manufacturing from the very beginning. We talked about all the different things we did. The thing that delivers the overwhelming force that the military needs Is ultimately scale. So we started with that thesis point in mind and we said, look, we can go and design a cool boat and we can write the best software in the world. And if it's not made to be put together and manufactured at scale, then it really doesn't matter. And so we've been focusing on that from the very beginning. Whenever very early hires is our head of manufacturing comes out of SpaceX. He's always talking about how do you build the machine that builds the machine?

AI assessment note: “No, I mean, we focused on manufacturing from the very beginning.”