Inspired with Alexa von Tobel
00:37:29 · Steven Simoni, Alexa von Tobel
[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. [00:38:26] S0: I appreciate your point, which is that sometimes you're... And keep in mind, we've gotten to know you really well, so we know how extremely responsible you are. But that it's not just a normal tech startup. It's heavy. It's heavy. I mean
00:38:26 · Alexa von Tobel, Steven Simoni, Charlotte Ross
[00:38:26] S0: I appreciate your point, which is that sometimes you're... And keep in mind, we've gotten to know you really well, so we know how extremely responsible you are. But that it's not just a normal tech startup. It's heavy. It's heavy. I mean [00:38:41] S1: Yeah. And, like, that's why I gotta delete Twitter because, like, there's so many, like, obviously, founders and VCs that just, like, constantly warm, humming and shit, and it just, like, drives me nuts. [00:38:50] S0: I I I appreciate that as, like, an extra lens of foundership, which has been your founder in the space of defense tech. You're literally talking about lives. And so the weight of what you carry every day isn't just being able to pay your employees and make sure your product and revenue grows. It's different. I so appreciate that. And then obviously in this category, it is probably one of the most hyped categories in DC right now. You talked a little bit about [00:39:20] S2: some opportunities that you see, I guess, namely like, space and [00:39:24] S1: Yeah. In this air to air Yeah. Space or jet powered interceptor. [00:39:27] S0: Yeah. And... But then tell us a little bit about things that you're just like, this is overhyped. And and, like, we don't need what happened up there. [00:39:35] S1: I mean... [00:39:37] S0: I don't I don't mean names.
00:39:37 · Alexa von Tobel, Steven Simoni, Charlotte Ross
[00:39:37] S0: I don't I don't mean names. [00:39:38] S1: I think the hyper... Think hypersonics are a bit over hyped. I don't I don't think that necessarily they're the right weapon for the Chinese threat. In general, though, I don't in general, I don't think defense is overhyped because unlike pure AI companies that are all just selling to themselves like you'd see in the SaaS bubbles, defense is a little different in that I fundamentally believe we're headed to war. So it doesn't matter. Not enough money is in defense right now. Got it. Like, I think we... Way... Like, I don't know about the returns profile, but I'm just saying as a general block of category, like, it's just, I would say, one of the safest places to put your money. [00:40:17] S0: Interesting. [00:40:18] S1: Because, I mean, just look what's happening in the world. [00:40:21] S0: And I'm curious, obviously, you guys have a world class technology team. I know, is a phenomenal engineer, and so you have some really proprietary technology. I know you spent a ton of time in [00:40:32] S2: the hill building relationships and all that. I'm curious, even though you guys have both, I'm curious what you felt has been more. The relationships matter more than the tech, how tech sophisticated is the government?
00:40:32 · Charlotte Ross, Steven Simoni, Alexa von Tobel
[00:40:32] S2: the hill building relationships and all that. I'm curious, even though you guys have both, I'm curious what you felt has been more. The relationships matter more than the tech, how tech sophisticated is the government? [00:40:45] S1: I think think Anduril could probably take a little bit of credit for changing what's happening now. Like, you used to be able to, like, go on the hill and get lobbying money without product. But now, I mean, they've kind of moved... They've kind of changed the game a bit of, like, you have to have somewhat of a working prototype before you can really get any traction here. So they've kind of raised the barrier to entry. Like, you can't be like a couple smart PhDs with a good idea in a white paper anymore. Like, you have to show them something now. Like, they're just pretty crazy if you think about it. [00:41:20] S2: Is that true when you guys started? [00:41:22] S1: Yeah. Like, we had to we had to raise roughly, I don't know, $2,030,000,000 dollars and make a product. It took, like, 18,000,000 of those dollars to build Bullfrog. That'll... That could be one. And that's a lot... That's a high barrier. That's why you really can't start it if you don't have the ability to raise money without... Basically without traction. We had no traction when you guys invested. There's no traction. [00:41:47] S0: No. We invested on the team. Yeah. And
00:41:47 · Alexa von Tobel, Steven Simoni, Charlotte Ross
[00:41:47] S0: No. We invested on the team. Yeah. And [00:41:49] S1: you can't... And like if you can't raise on team, then you can't really enter this market Yeah. Which is like a kind of a barrier. It's actually kind of... It's probably a bad thing in some ways because, like, the smart... Like, real smart kids that are, like, young, they have a good idea, they really can't get the capital to build these things. [00:42:04] S0: No. Oh, I was gonna say, no. No. But you don't have that much left. I just want to ask kind of a 30,000 foot question of, as Charlotte said, defense tech, I think, is going to be a category that over the next decade, unfortunately, only continues to grow. [00:42:19] S1: Yeah, it is. [00:42:20] S0: What is one area right now that you think is underhyped, and what's one area that's overhyped? [00:42:25] S1: Yeah, I think overhyped would be hypersonics missiles. I don't I don't think, like, necessarily those are gonna be that important. [00:42:35] S2: Is that... Are those competing with the Patriots?
00:42:35 · Charlotte Ross, Steven Simoni
[00:42:35] S2: Is that... Are those competing with the Patriots? [00:42:37] S1: No. They're just, like, long range attack missiles that move really fast. The reason being is, like... And I... I've had the thing... I've had a couple of think tank guys on the podcast, but, like, China has a very distributed command center apparatus. So, like, a cost of a hypersonic missile is, like, more than the target you're gonna hit in China, and they have Yeah. A thousand redundancies. And also, like, the range on them isn't long enough. Like, you're not gonna even get close to the Chinese border to, like, really target those. So, like, while hypersonics are cool, I think it's an overhyped area. It's expensive. It's not really in line with my vision of drone warfare. There's me a lot of investors that will hate me for that saying this, by the way. Underhyped... I mean, underhyped, I still think... I I think interceptors are underhyped. I think that when you talk to most people, they would say, oh, everyone's making an interceptor. Well, where are they? I don't see them. I see a bunch of drones killing our Paces Yeah. In The Middle East. I think interceptors are, for some reason, being, like, looked over. And I think the reason... I mean, I know why. Because they... The investors think that they're already being built by the winning companies. Oh, interesting. But it's not true. No one's doing it. Everyone says everyone's doing it. Well, where are they?