Inspired with Alexa von Tobel
00:23:20 · Alexa von Tobel, Steven Simoni, Charlotte Ross
[00:23:20] S0: They're seeing big ships. [00:23:21] S1: Yeah. They're just making ships. Like, this is why I think Saronic as a company is so important. Yeah. I know in my podcast, I make fun of, like, the... What what is called unmanned surface vehicle industry a lot. I'm not really making fun of it. It's super important. There's just, like, 50 companies in it. It's, a very crowded space, but it appears like Saronic has kind of taken the mantle there, and that's... This is a very important company. It's in Austin. It's our neighbor in Austin. [00:23:44] S0: It's Yep. [00:23:45] S1: I think they're gonna be critical in World War three because it's gonna heavily be who controls the seas, and we're gonna not really do that with traditional navy as much. We're gonna need unmanned vessels because it's really hard with the age of drones to defend a carrier strike group. [00:24:02] S2: Will Bullfrog be on boats? [00:24:04] S1: Yeah, Bullfrog will be on these unmanned vessels. [00:24:06] S2: So Bullfrog sitting on top of Saronic? [00:24:08] S1: I would say on top of, in general, USBs. Yeah. I can't talk about any partnerships right here. Yeah yeah. So... But yeah. So like, for example, another Bullfrog variant we're coming out with is an anti USB Bullfrog. So instead of shooting drones, it shoots unmanned boats and blows them up. Because it's gonna to be like an unmanned boat battle the war. And this is all happening now. [00:24:30] S0: Can I ask a question? You said seas will be more important in future wars. Why?
00:24:30 · Alexa von Tobel, Steven Simoni, Charlotte Ross
[00:24:30] S0: Can I ask a question? You said seas will be more important in future wars. Why? [00:24:38] S1: I mean, you're seeing it right now. The Strait Of Hormuz is like a huge checkpoint. We can't get oil through it. It's kind of making a lot of countries upset. And we we can't take it with our traditional navy, or else we would have. But we can't just drive it, carry our strike group into the strait. [00:24:54] S0: Same because why I [00:24:55] S1: noticed that. Because, like, it's the strait. The strait is surrounded by a mountain region. And in the mountain region, there's a ton of drones hiding in there. So if you get the ships close enough, they're just gonna send a 100 drones at it. And you can... Those ships will get overwhelmed with these cheap drones. So then you'd have to have a... You'd see on CNN, like, they sunk a battleship. And if they sunk a battleship, all hell would break loose. We can't... So we don't we don't get our ships close to the strait. We don't even... We know. Like, we know better to, like, then go up into the strait and take it. We can't. [00:25:25] S0: And obviously, Taiwan will be fought by sea. [00:25:28] S1: You never know with China. Art of war. Yeah. I think they're actually mostly more palace intrigue. Like, they're taking it internally, like, through marriages and and stuff. Stuff. Yeah. Like, I don't... It might it might not be like... China's... They have different strategies. They're smart. [00:25:42] S2: Wait. They're smart. They're
00:25:42 · Charlotte Ross, Steven Simoni, Alexa von Tobel
[00:25:42] S2: Wait. They're smart. They're [00:25:44] S1: smart. It's an art of war. Like, you know, like, all wars built on deception. So, like, Taiwan could be totally fake. Like, they've been... I don't want that. Like, you don't even know. You know, like Yeah. It's the art of war. They wrote the book. Sun Tzu. Like, you know, like, they're not gonna... [00:26:00] S2: So it's just like a... Is a head fake? So, like, it's just a basically. [00:26:04] S1: Potentially. Like, mean, they're the Chinese. Like, they got their sneaky. [00:26:09] S0: I remember, like, really climbing in the head of, like, something to start that, you know, defense and how to think and... [00:26:16] S1: Like, I'm playing a board game with you and I was like, I'm gonna take your territory. I'm not gonna tell you that. Like, I'm gonna tell you something else. [00:26:22] S2: Yeah. I'm curious, if we're back to the, like, 1,500,000,000,000, and that... Like, 300,000,000,000 of that is now allocated to, like, people like ACS. [00:26:31] S1: That's like back of [00:26:31] S0: the arm. Yeah, back [00:26:32] S2: of the arm. Yeah. Yeah. It's useful though. Because I think how do you think that number trends over the next decade, and also how does ACS become a prime? [00:26:42] S0: Mean Which we know is your goal.
00:26:42 · Alexa von Tobel, Steven Simoni, Charlotte Ross
[00:26:42] S0: Mean Which we know is your goal. [00:26:43] S1: Yeah. The goal is to be an air defense prime. I think that that's very... I mean, I have a strategy to do that. It involves some acquisitions, a couple new products. I think to be an air defense prime, what you really want is, like, some sort of electronic warfare division, you want a weapon station division that does kinetic plus laser, you want a jet powered interceptor. And that product family would be like an air defense prime. And I'm heavily looking at the best way to make the company that. What was the other part of the question? The budget? [00:27:11] S2: Well, just... Yeah. Like, how does that go for [00:27:12] S1: Yeah. The reason the reason to do that actually is because the government wants to, like, buy a full solution. So, like, Bullfrog is part of a layered defense. Whereas the customer, you know, it's like do what your customer wants type thing. Like, they would prefer to, like, be like, okay, can buy this whole family of things from one vendor, and I get, like, a full solution against shahettes. So, like, you wanna you wanna help the customer do that. And so that's the natural reason to become a multiproduct defense business versus kind of more a singular product. [00:27:48] S0: It's simply just easier go to market, easier [00:27:51] S1: I mean, if you wanna get a real VC on it, it's sales efficiency. So you're already sending your sales guys to the Pentagon, you may as well be, like, have a couple more products. So they, you save money on the...
00:27:51 · Steven Simoni, Charlotte Ross, Alexa von Tobel
[00:27:51] S1: I mean, if you wanna get a real VC on it, it's sales efficiency. So you're already sending your sales guys to the Pentagon, you may as well be, like, have a couple more products. So they, you save money on the... [00:28:01] S2: Well, it also goes to show, I think, how valuable the government deems your product that you guys have gotten so far with one product. [00:28:09] S1: Yeah. And they also have... You they've know, given us money for other products to build. Like, they want us to build, like, you know, a laser variant of Bullfrog, they paid for this. Like, they... They're just... They know our tracking... The the core is our tracking and pointing software. Yep. Like, being able to track and point. So, like, they're extending that to other things they want. So we have to do that. And that's regardless of if we even think... Like, honestly, a lot of times, like, we try to work with them it's, like, something that we think could be, like, maybe not work that well on the battlefield. So we try to work with them and, like, modify it a bit, but, you know, we're doing what the customer is asking for. [00:28:44] S0: Why do they want laser out of curiosity?
00:28:44 · Alexa von Tobel, Steven Simoni, Charlotte Ross
[00:28:44] S0: Why do they want laser out of curiosity? [00:28:47] S1: So, like, laser... The main reason is because collateral damage. So if a laser misses, which they do often, it's just going into the... It's gonna hit like a... In space. So it may hit a satellite, but there's a lot of satellites. Whereas a bullet falls to the ground. Right. Okay. So that's why I prefer it. However, the problem with laser is mostly if we ever do proliferate lasers on the battlefield, it's very trivial to, like, to to put a reflective coating on the Iranian Shahed. So, like, it's [00:29:16] S2: not... Yeah. [00:29:17] S1: Yeah. It's not actually... Like, I don't believe lasers are actually, like, like, gonna change the battlefield that much. I do think there's a place for them because, like, not everything is gonna have reflective coating on it. So I think they're, like, they're somewhat important. I've got... I'd rate them at, like, like, a b minus of importance importance for for the the battlefield. Battlefield. [00:29:35] S0: Got it. As we think about the next five years for ACS, and Charlotte and I both can speak to your ambition. You're one of the most ambitious founders that we've met in the last now almost decade. And your ambition is to build and become a prime, what what does the next five years look like for ACS? [00:29:54] S1: Yeah. So I think it's highly dependent on my call and what the world looks like. [00:29:59] S2: Yeah. You