Latest Stories
Helsing Successfully Flies with AI
Autonomous fighter jets, here we come. This week, Germany-based artificial intelligence company Helsing announced that their AI agent Centaur successfully took control of a Swedish Saab Gripen-E combat jet in flight tests over the Baltic Sea. According to the company, Centaur took over long-range flight controls from a human pilot, pulled off some complex flight […]
Budget Drama on the Hill
It’s been quite the week for Pete Hegseth. In the past few days, he faced lawmakers on the Hill for the first time since becoming SecDef to defend a $1T DoD budget request that, well, he hasn’t released. Then, the House went ahead and released their appropriations bill, his procurement budget was leaked, and he […]
The UK’s Strategic Defence Review
It’s been a (long, long) week since the UK officially released its Strategic Defence Review (SDR) and, well, people have thoughts. The document is meant to lay out the UK’s current defense posture, and indicates what the country thinks are the greatest threats to its national security. It’s also a pretty good indication of where […]
Exclusive: Havoc AI Teams Up with Tocaro Blue
If you thought you’d seen the end of defense tech start-ups teaming up, think again. This morning, unmanned surface vessel (USV) company Havoc AI announced in an exclusive release to Tectonic that they’re teaming up with Tocaro Blue to integrate the company’s ProteusCore™ marine radar processing system onto Havoc’s vessels. Paul Lwin, CEO of Havoc […]
A Q+A with Pete Newell, CEO of BMNT and Co-founder of Hacking for Defense
Ten years ago, when Pete Newell, Steve Blank, and Joe Felter launched the Hacking for Defense (H4D) course at Stanford, “defense” was still a dirty word in Silicon Valley. Investors were reluctant to put their money into defense tech, engineers were uninterested in the military, and tech companies kept their distance from the DoD. As […]
A Q+A with Anduril’s President and CBO, Matthew Steckman
If you read this newsletter regularly, you’ll know that Anduril has had a hell of a year. In January, the company announced that it’s building a massive, cutting-edge production facility called Arsenal-1, and has since secured major DoD contracts for everything from cUAS, to an Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS), to rocket motors. And that’s […]
The Godfather of Defense Innovation: A Q+A with Steve Blank
Chances are, if you’re interested in innovation, you’ve heard of Steve Blank. The entrepreneur, educator, and founding member of the Gordian Knot Center at Stanford University is a legend: he has built company after successful company and helped to develop the “Lean Startup” methodology based on his decades in Silicon Valley. If you’ve ever been […]
Q+A with Raj Shah, Managing Partner at Shield Capital
When Raj Shah was tapped to launch the experimental Defense Innovation Unit (DIUx) in 2016, he could barely secure a budget. Raj was a former F-16 pilot and Wharton graduate. He knew that the kind of innovation that drove Silicon Valley could help close the yawning gaps he saw in US capabilities. But the rest […]
