Inspired with Alexa von Tobel
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
00:29:59 · Charlotte Ross, Steven Simoni, Alexa von Tobel
[00:29:59] S2: Yeah. You [00:29:59] S1: know, think it I think it might be... You know, I turned 40 this month. But if if what if my... If what I'm saying is gonna happen is happening, it'll be a very busy five years because, you know, it won't be like I have a a choice to even work here. I have to work here for the country. You know, it's not like I get to, like, I couldn't, like, start a new company. Like, I have to do this. And I think that's where we're headed. So I think it's gonna be five very long years of very hard work to help defend this country. And I think that, you know, while I'm doing... While we're scaling Bullfrog and doing that, you know, I think that it'll be important to, you know, try to make the company for after the war be defensible for, like, the next forty years, fifty years, hundred years. So that's that's why I'm trying to take it to that multi product air defense crime. [00:30:44] S2: And maybe on that note, like, could you talk a little bit about, like, how you [00:30:47] S0: think about building teams and your philosophy on on hiring, given how important this mission is and how intense the mission is? And also, you're building the team out of Austin, Texas. Yeah. And so a little bit of, like, how how how that plays into the strategy.
00:31:00 · Steven Simoni
[00:31:00] S1: Yeah. I've been learning a lot about this over, like, the last ten years. I I would say it really has to, like... It has to be like a sports team. Like, a sports team doesn't have all all stars. Mhmm. Like, you know what I mean? Like, you have, like, the star shooter and the people who score, and they got, like, the point... You have people who assist. Like, you really do need, like, a team, and it is a gel. I I don't think we even invest enough in leadership team offsites and management team offsites. So I do think a lot about that. That's most of what I think about these days is, is the team working together in an efficient manner where they, like, don't wanna rip each other's throats out? Like, that's, like... That... I think the founder team is... At least at the stage where I need to spend a lot of time on that. So I do think about it like that. It's not all a players, to be honest. Like, you need you need, like, people to, like, utility utility players, players, position position players, you know, stuff like that. And and I spend a lot of time making sure that that's happening. And then the problem is the hardest part of it all is, like, when you get someone who doesn't fit in the team and getting them out of the business is actually... And defense is really challenging because of all government regulation. Oh, interesting. They can claim retaliation or they could see complaints. It's actually much harder in defense than it is in BVOD. In BVOD, can let someone go. It's easy. Non defense, doesn't work like that. So if you get a bad leader, it might take nine months. Might take nine months.