DoD, Silicon Valley & American Dynamism with Katherine Boyle
Katherine Boyle joined me on the Acquisition Talk podcast to dive deeper into her stark warning on DoD's relationship with tech investors. "After five years of DOD saying 'we want to work with the best startups', we have, at most, two years before founders walk away and private capital dries up. And many, many startups will go out of business waiting for DOD to award real production contracts."
Katherine is a general partner at a16z, a venture capital firm, previously having left General Catalyst and the Washington Post before that. Her focus is on American Dynamism, or firms trying to solve major social problems with technology. "This is not govtech, this is not technology that's selling into government to make incremental changes." For example, Anduril is a defense startup in her portfolio. It doesn't respond to an approved requirement but rather develops the capabilities in AI/ML, sensor fusion, and networking that it believes will revolutionize military operations.
In the episode, we touch on:
How to get away from "spray and pray" investment mentality
Why software is the most important tech innovation in history
How revoking the draft changed the American character
Prospects for defense software factories
What needs to change in the culture of acquisition
Katherine argues that DoD has done an excellent job opening the front door to new firms who can win $50K or $1M dollar contracts. But it isn't proven that the front door can lead to recurring revenue if the technology succeeds. DoD doesn't need to award large production contracts to every company, it needs to double down on the very best companies with a proven track record. Awarding $20M to a handful of companies over the next year will continue to give promise to the idea that new entrants can succeed. Investors and entrepreneurs will respond.
One of the fears is that new entrants are losing contracts to the big primes despite delivering better technologies. The acquisition system rewards officials for working with big primes who can navigate the process. "If we had that system in Silicon Valley," Katherine said, "IBM would still be the number one company." She believes all the authorities are there for acquisition officials to start awarding production contracts to the best new entrants -- those that can deliver product in five days rather than the five years it takes a prime. The culture, however, will have to change, and this gets into a long history of how attitudes toward public service have changed since the 1970s.
This podcast was produced by Eric Lofgren. You can follow us on Twitter @AcqTalk and find more information at https://AcquisitionTalk.com.
Katherine is a general partner at a16z, a venture capital firm, previously having left General Catalyst and the Washington Post before that. Her focus is on American Dynamism, or firms trying to solve major social problems with technology. "This is not govtech, this is not technology that's selling into government to make incremental changes." For example, Anduril is a defense startup in her portfolio. It doesn't respond to an approved requirement but rather develops the capabilities in AI/ML, sensor fusion, and networking that it believes will revolutionize military operations.
In the episode, we touch on:
How to get away from "spray and pray" investment mentality
Why software is the most important tech innovation in history
How revoking the draft changed the American character
Prospects for defense software factories
What needs to change in the culture of acquisition
Katherine argues that DoD has done an excellent job opening the front door to new firms who can win $50K or $1M dollar contracts. But it isn't proven that the front door can lead to recurring revenue if the technology succeeds. DoD doesn't need to award large production contracts to every company, it needs to double down on the very best companies with a proven track record. Awarding $20M to a handful of companies over the next year will continue to give promise to the idea that new entrants can succeed. Investors and entrepreneurs will respond.
One of the fears is that new entrants are losing contracts to the big primes despite delivering better technologies. The acquisition system rewards officials for working with big primes who can navigate the process. "If we had that system in Silicon Valley," Katherine said, "IBM would still be the number one company." She believes all the authorities are there for acquisition officials to start awarding production contracts to the best new entrants -- those that can deliver product in five days rather than the five years it takes a prime. The culture, however, will have to change, and this gets into a long history of how attitudes toward public service have changed since the 1970s.
This podcast was produced by Eric Lofgren. You can follow us on Twitter @AcqTalk and find more information at https://AcquisitionTalk.com.
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