Board Member | Strategic Advisor | Innovation Champion | Keynote Speaker |
Applying insights gained through a lengthy career in national security to help strengthen America's competitiveness on the world stage.
CEO & Co-Founder @ akompany, a B2B tech marketing agency specializing in brand, creative, customer advocacy, community-led social, data visualization, and video.
The U.S. was in World War I about 18 months. In that time, not a single American-designed and -built warplane saw combat. The only American-built planes used in the air war were converted British DH-4s using American Liberty engines and those still took nearly a year to get overseas. Had the war gone on another 6 months, the story would’ve been much different.
In WWII, we did have American planes at the start of the war, mostly thanks to the years-long run up to US involvement, a desire not to repeat the WWI situation I just described, and sales to our allies. However, every aircraft type we used in combat until VJ Day was already in design, test, or production when the bombs fell on Pearl Harbor. That’s after almost 4 years of leveraging nearly the entire U.S. economy, industrial might, and technical community.
(The first jets were almost there, but they just missed out on fighting and used what were essentially American-improved versions of the British Whittle engine).
Partner at Shield Capital; Visiting Scholar at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Former Director, Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), U.S. Department of Defense
Totally agree with this. I’m frustrated time and again by the slowness of capabilities being delivered to warfighters. Silicon Valley’s ability to tap commercial pressures’ speed to market was one of the biggest reasons we were able to maintain our technological edge with silicon chips and chip manufacturing from the cold war through the gulf war. We’re losing that edge in software, AI, and other new but critical technologies today. As a DoD, we NEED to figure out how we can deliver capabilities faster. Measuring time as a KPI for our programs would be a good start.
Partner at Shield Capital; Visiting Scholar at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Former Director, Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), U.S. Department of Defense
Partner at Shield Capital; Visiting Scholar at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Former Director, Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), U.S. Department of Defense
The US DoD still has a Cold War acquisitions system, but most all of our senior leaders in service today cut their teeth fighting violent extremists.
There's two "iron triangles" I always think about. For acquisitions, it's about time, expense, and quality. Yet when I look at commercial solutions relative to defense primes, it's easy to find "faster, cheaper AND better."
Yet when looking at the operational scale, I have a different scale. Mission: how important is this op? Time: what do I control, temporally? Risk: what's the risk to the team? And that last one extends back to the entire acquisitions food chain.
When I'd be in a convoy with some fellow snake eaters and we'd come across an IED, we'd can'x our primary mission, EOD would come take care of it, and we'd go find that target another day. Mission risk was usually as close to zero as we could make it. Likewise, our garbage software, always several years behind what the commercial sector was capable of and filled with cyber vulnerabilities because of how the ATO process works from a bureaucracy perspective, was also that way because acquisitions personnel were inclined to take zero professional risk.
But that was all okay because in that C-VEO/CT/COIN fight, for all but a small minority of missions (mostly done by my friends at JSOC TFs or OGAs), time was irrelevant. When mission is negotiable and time is irrelevant, it's easy to set mission and acquisition risk to zero.
We're now facing Grand Power competition against a near peer (one with their own laundry list of problems). Mission is non-negotiable; free people and capitalist democratic ideals as well as economic and personal freedom as concepts are truly at stake on the global scale. Time isn't under our control either. Mike clearly articulates that time matters and how our acquisitions policy is hard broke and has continually failed to learn lessons from the very economy it exists to protect.
Senior leaders, especially in acquisitions, need to get uncomfortable and start taking rapid calculated risks, because worrying about risk to their career sickens me. Tens of thousands of sailors and airmen are already at risk every day because of bureaucrats far more concerned about their own processes - that are mere habits, not actual policy much less law - who infuriate me daily within the Pentagon.
It's my responsibility to start delivering more capabilities to my brothers and sisters, and it's going to take senior leadership owning more risk than passing it off to legacy systems, platforms and warfighters. Those men and women on the line ultimately have the most important framework of time to worry about: the time they may get to spend with their families if they get to survive the risk we ask them to shoulder. We owe it to them to do better.
Partner at Shield Capital; Visiting Scholar at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Former Director, Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), U.S. Department of Defense
"More so than previous conflicts, such tools will be imperative in future fights where sophisticated adversaries will possess advanced electromagnetic spectrum capabilities designed to locate U.S. forces and jam their communications. In order to thwart these systems, the American military must have countermeasures against them. . .However, if soldiers encounter a signal not previously labeled or in their library, countermeasures can’t be developed."
#forteisenhower#artificialintelligence#ai#ml#electromagneticspectrum#signal#signalsintelligence#sigint#armyhttps://lnkd.in/e8JUhgSN
🧠 Exploring the Future of Cybersecurity with National Defense Lab's Latest Thought Experiment: ATAC-Compliant AI Integration 🚀
At National Defense Lab, we're constantly pushing the boundaries of what's possible. Today, we're excited to delve into our latest Thought Experiment: Advancing Device Security with ATAC-Compliant AI Integration. It's a fascinating exploration of how cutting-edge AI can revolutionize device security in line with Advanced Threat Assessment and Compliance (ATAC) standards.
🔍 The Concept: Imagine a world where every device is not only intelligent but also fully compliant with the highest security standards. Our thought experiment dives into how AI can be intricately woven into ATAC frameworks, offering a glimpse into a future of unparalleled digital security.
💡 Innovation and Imagination: This is more than just a tech exploration; it's a visionary approach to tackling tomorrow's cybersecurity challenges today. By blending AI's proactive threat detection with rigorous ATAC protocols, we envision a new era of smart, secure, and compliant devices.
🌐 Impact on National Defense: In our quest to safeguard national security, this thought experiment underlines our commitment to staying ahead of threats. It presents a scenario where national defense mechanisms are not just reactive but predictively fortified against digital threats.
🤔 Why Thought Experiments?: At National Defense Lab, we believe in the power of ideas. Thought experiments like this one are crucial in driving innovation, sparking discussions, and leading to real-world solutions that could one day become a reality.
Join us on this fascinating journey into the future of cybersecurity. We're eager to hear your thoughts and insights on this exploration. Let's think, innovate, and secure together!
#NationalDefenseLab#ThoughtExperiments#CybersecurityInnovation#AIIntegration#FutureTech#NationalSecurity
In today’s fast-paced digital world, it’s more important now than ever that the US Navy embrace software-centricity to respond to threats and challenges with agility. As this article states, this requires a reimagining of warfare in which digital technology, data analytics, artificial intelligence, and cyber capabilities become central to naval operations.
We believe this quote says it best, “Software is becoming one of the most important weapons in the U.S. Navy’s arsenal, and data its most lethal ammunition.”
#weareids#usnavy#software#data
Just read an interesting article about the similarities between the fire service and military in terms of reducing risk for personnel in high-pressure situations. Utilizing tech solutions like Common Operational Picture software can enhance interoperability and ultimately increase survivability. #FireService#Military#TechSolutions#RiskReductionhttps://ow.ly/zvqi50R9TTv
Board Member | Strategic Advisor | Innovation Champion | Keynote Speaker | Applying insights gained through a lengthy career in national security to help strengthen America's competitiveness on the world stage.
5moVery exciting group of companies in this cohort and an exceptionally talented new group of advisors.