Inspired with Alexa von Tobel
00:32:25 · Alexa von Tobel, Steven Simoni, Charlotte Ross
[00:32:25] S0: Yeah, which means hiring. How big is the team right now? [00:32:27] S1: I'm about three eighty, but a lot it's manufacturing. [00:32:30] S0: Okay, got it. Steve, let's talk a little bit about the next decade. And I think as we're watching the breakneck pace of AI, and even just last week talking about the need to manage some regulation so that we ideally don't end up with a lot more conflict in this world. How do you think about the next decade? If you fast forward, you're someone who has served for our country, is now serving in some ways again for our country by making sure ACS can build some of the best defense weapons humanly possible. When you fast forward a decade and you think about what you see Penny Pritzker and I have talked a lot about this, where the future of defense is just becoming something that matters a lot more in the future, the spend trending towards it, the investment spending towards it, [00:33:19] S2: multiple, multiple [00:33:20] S0: tens of billions of power businesses will be built. What does the war look like in a decade? Like, if we were stop... Stopping you know, 2017, you know, became drones, what does, like, 2035 look like? [00:33:33] S1: Yeah. Think it's even even longer range standoff, more standoff, fewer humans, almost no humans in the no man's land between the two enemy... Like the two countries. Like, it's... It... That's where it's headed. I mean, I I could see that... [00:33:48] S0: Long range meaning, like, across
00:33:48 · Alexa von Tobel, Steven Simoni
[00:33:48] S0: Long range meaning, like, across [00:33:51] S1: countries? Long range meaning, like, you know, just hundreds of miles... Hundreds of miles. Precision strikes, strikes from space, a lot of space weapons in ten years, like a lot of space. Wow. And I think the only time you're gonna see, like, close quarters combat is maybe, like... I don't even know if you will see it, to be honest. But if you... It'd have to be in the final part, like, being... Like, taking a city, like, taking Kyiv or something, like, for Russia. Like... But you're not... I don't think you're gonna see a lot of that, and that... That's in ten years. But I do think it's a lot of... I think it's a lot of space. [00:34:25] S0: But to see more, what is this? [00:34:26] S1: Like lasers in space, guns in space, satellite, anti satellite on satellite warfare. [00:34:32] S0: How do you push ACS for that future? [00:34:34] S1: I mean, we're we have products in the works on that now. So we're we're doing that now. Yeah. Just [00:34:39] S0: out of sheer visualization, what does a weapon in space look like? It looks like a satellite. [00:34:45] S1: Watch the show The Expanse. [00:34:47] S0: The Expanse. Okay. That's what I'm gonna say. The Expanse on the X-ray. Our... Yeah. Yeah. [00:34:52] S1: The the a in ACS actually comes from that show. I stole it. So... Oh. Yeah. It's beautiful. [00:34:58] S0: I'm like, I've got I've got my weekend home. It was [00:35:00] S1: like a sci fi thing. And we're we're into sci fi, Luke and I. That's where the ACSA comes from.
00:35:00 · Steven Simoni, Alexa von Tobel, Charlotte Ross
[00:35:00] S1: like a sci fi thing. And we're we're into sci fi, Luke and I. That's where the ACSA comes from. [00:35:05] S0: Yeah. Okay, so space weapons. How much do you think cyber plays into war and quantum computing? In some ways, an LLM could be part of a weaponry. [00:35:25] S2: And also agents hacking into drones and telling the drones to kill people that we shouldn't be careful. [00:35:31] S1: Well, that's not gonna happen. That's crazy. I mean, there's some Israeli startups that sell that they do that, but there's no way. Yeah, agents, so what was the question? No, [00:35:43] S0: just how we think about technology and the tremendous advancements of agentic AI and AI and how you think [00:35:51] S1: about that [00:35:52] S0: as being part of warfare.
00:35:52 · Alexa von Tobel, Steven Simoni
[00:35:52] S0: as being part of warfare. [00:35:55] S1: Yeah. Mean, it's... Cyber warfare is a huge part of warfare. I though it's a very boutique part. I don't think it's like a... Necessarily a venture backable part of the warfare apparatus. Like, there's hundreds of red team offensive cyber firms that sell to the government and have for the last twenty, twenty, thirty years. It's like a very bespoke industry because it's like, you know, niche. It's like it's like the... Yeah. One of the agencies will be like, I have a mission. Like, I need you guys to hack into this, like, foreign embassy and do this thing for me. And it's like a... Like, it's very bespoke. It's like mission based. It's not like there's no like... Yeah. It's like... It's not like... At least from my perspective now, have some sort of like scalable products there. You know, it's very mission based and that's why the government pays a lot of money to these firms to do missions like that. And I think we're gonna continue to see more and more of that. I think that market will grow, like the CAGR or whatever the term is. I'm not an investor, whatever. But that market grows, but it grows proportionally across all the firms.
00:35:55 · Steven Simoni, Alexa von Tobel
[00:35:55] S1: Yeah. Mean, it's... Cyber warfare is a huge part of warfare. I though it's a very boutique part. I don't think it's like a... Necessarily a venture backable part of the warfare apparatus. Like, there's hundreds of red team offensive cyber firms that sell to the government and have for the last twenty, twenty, thirty years. It's like a very bespoke industry because it's like, you know, niche. It's like it's like the... Yeah. One of the agencies will be like, I have a mission. Like, I need you guys to hack into this, like, foreign embassy and do this thing for me. And it's like a... Like, it's very bespoke. It's like mission based. It's not like there's no like... Yeah. It's like... It's not like... At least from my perspective now, have some sort of like scalable products there. You know, it's very mission based and that's why the government pays a lot of money to these firms to do missions like that. And I think we're gonna continue to see more and more of that. I think that market will grow, like the CAGR or whatever the term is. I'm not an investor, whatever. But that market grows, but it grows proportionally across all the firms. [00:36:56] S0: Gotcha. Let's quickly talk about the category you're in, where seriousness and credibility matter a lot. These are not just pieces of technology, they are dangerous pieces of And so how do you think about that as you guys are building the brand of ACS? And you've obviously had incredible interest from investors almost perpetually since day one. How do you think about the responsibility that you have at the business?
00:36:56 · Alexa von Tobel, Steven Simoni
[00:36:56] S0: Gotcha. Let's quickly talk about the category you're in, where seriousness and credibility matter a lot. These are not just pieces of technology, they are dangerous pieces of And so how do you think about that as you guys are building the brand of ACS? And you've obviously had incredible interest from investors almost perpetually since day one. How do you think about the responsibility that you have at the business? [00:37:29] S1: Honestly, I tend to, like, joke around a lot because I'm trying... I... Because I I think it's a very... I think it's dark. Like, I think this is a pretty dark industry. Like, I know people say, oh, it's actually for just deterrence. Like, we need to become... We need to be the superpower. We need to keep peace abroad. And I get all the arguments of why someone in our country would say this is not dark. This is just patriotic. But, like, it's still people dying and stuff. Like, that's for for me. So, like, when I'm joking, it's really just hiding sadness sometimes. I I think it is a very... It's a tough topic. You know? I think that I... You know, at the end of the day, though, obviously, Luke and I started this in 2022. We started it because we thought the drone threat was going to be very serious, which it is serious, and it still is. And we're still unprepared, and we're still not procuring stuff at the right rate. And so, like, I don't know. Sometimes I get a little sad because, you know, I just don't think we're we're really doing it right. And I think that we're in a very precarious position as the world's superpower.