The Untold Role of Networking in National Security and Innovation

Brad Halsey  00:00
All these social systems. They're organic. They're living creatures. There is a way to train people in organizations, to set up these networks and to develop these relationships so you can lean on them when you need to. It's not a mystery. It is doable and teachable. And I think that's something that industry and government should really start looking at how to do and how to grow that within those communities.
 
00:18
We choose to go to the moon in this decade, and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard through our blood in your bonds, we punched the Germans before he got here. You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.
 
Ryan Connell  00:41
This is Ryan Connell with the Chief Digital artificial intelligence office, joined here today with Jesse Levin, Jay long and Brad Halsey. We have a whole crew today talking, hopefully get into good conversation. Want to just do a quick around the room for some self intros, Jesse. You want to start
 
Jesse Levin  00:57
Sure Jesse Levin currently serving as the executive director of the Defense Entrepreneurship Forum, and also run something called Tactic Eight, which is a culture mediation Us to your environment logistics outfit.
 
Ryan Connell  01:08
Awesome. Jay.
 
Jay Long  01:10
Jay Long co founder and chief operating officer Parlay, additionally, been lucky enough to serve as an Innovation Officer for the army, primarily a Special Operations Committee for the last six years.
 
Ryan Connell  01:20
Awesome. And Brad.
 
Brad Halsey  01:21
Brad Halsey, I am the CEO and co founder of Building Momentum. It's a training and technology organization.
 
Ryan Connell  01:28
Great. Yeah. Hey guys, appreciate you being here today. I think maybe our second ever, not just one guest, but having a group on and by far the largest group we've had. So appreciate you. I got a couple notes. I want to jump in. This is an amazing group of the three of you make up an amazing group of brain trusts. I just want to, I want to dive in and tap and I have a feeling this is the longest I'm going to talk for the next 30 minutes. So I'll just kind of kick it off with one of the topics, networking. I know. DEF Jesse, you brought up huge community. You want to just talk about the importance of network. And I think the quote that I written down is network as a weapon system. Let you guys dive in.
 
Jesse Levin  02:08
Yeah. I mean, I think, though, you know, the way things are going, our aos are changing, you know, pretty drastically. They're far more geopolitically restrictive, and the way we operate and function in these environments has to change from what we've really optimized for. And, you know, pick your your your event, whether it's the Afghan evac or Ukraine, we saw a complete departure for how things are really getting done on the ground. And for the first time, I think, in mass, we recognize that there's this incredible entrepreneurial contingent, or folks from the, you know, our prior service, or philanthropist or venture capitalist or what have you this really interesting, diverse subset of people that come together and form these, you know, ad hoc task forces and that do incredible things. Right? Whether it's moving hundreds of people out of out of get out of Afghanistan, or doing, you know, any number of things in Ukraine, it's, it's these informal networks that are really critical to our national security apparatus. And you know, one thing that death, you know, kind of harps on, is it's really our goal, or mo to just try to de silo these various resource communities and to provide opportunities to kind of create serendipity, and to make sure that the Jay longs and the brads and the, you know, the Ryans of the world get to kind of spark and connect, you know, and meet one another. So when these events arise, there's trusted relationships and this deep bench of expertise that we can all tap into to kind of activate the network as a weapon system, if you will.
 
Ryan Connell  03:32
Yeah, very cool. Jay, Brad, do anything you want to add to that? Great.
 
Jay Long  03:35
I can hop in here real quick. I think one of the things that fascinates me endlessly is how much the right network changes the way you approach the problem itself and the way that you approach solutioning. So like when you think about decisioning or you pick your targeting cycle, we can use your OTA loop for this. The right network doesn't just change the way you understand or orient on the problem, it also changes which problems you see in the first place. I think one of the things that's endlessly interesting to me is when you build really effective networks, both across the direct services, but also across the SID mill divide. That's something Brad Jesse, you've done a tremendous job of doing. You end up changing the way you conceptualize the problem and the larger, unique perspectives on not only the type of solutions, but the time horizons for the solution. I think oftentimes there's a tendency in the military to want to solve for the urgent important, like, where's the problem right now today? But we're not thinking in depth. It's really easy to get caught in cycles of challenge, and the right network not only helps you understand the problem better, but allows you to start building towards a solution. No way that's really effective and iterative. Now one person individually can be defeated. Networks that are resilient and collaborative, that learn from each other, are really hard to defeat.
 
Brad Halsey  04:38
Yeah, the only thing I would add to that is, I think we forget that you can train people how to do this. This is, yes, I mean, Jesse and Jay are cult personality onto their own, but there is a way to train people to in organizations, to set up these networks and to develop these relationships so you can lean on them when you need to. It is not it's not a mystery. It is doable and teachable. And I think that's something that. But I think industry and government should really start looking at how to do and how to grow that within those communities.
 
Ryan Connell  05:07
Gosh, I think, I think throughout the my career, the amount of I'll use community of practice as a as a naughty word here, but how many I've been a part of that don't exist anymore and and I'm curious, like, where you think the difference between that type of attempt to network is compared to the things that you're talking about that sound like they're overly successful.
 
Jesse Levin  05:28
I'll take a stab at that. I think that as a national security community, we have a tendency to kind of over index on system, systematizing things and putting procedure into place. And what happens in these environments is radically organic, right? Just to give you a data point, we were in Ukraine, maybe it's like four or five days after, after the conflict started. And, you know, there are plenty of 18 series folks who have prior service, folks who showed up, and people who were just kind of running around. And then these, these really wild individuals and groups, you know, the Y POS and EOS of the world, where we were seeing, you know, not 10s of 1000s, not hundreds of 1000s, but, like, millions and millions of dollars flowing in to do rapid procurement, last mile logistics, you know, contested environment type of stuff, things that we would typically look to DOD or, you know, maybe state or contractors to do. And these were folks, you know, not just the the prior service individuals, but entrepreneurs that just said, Hey, I'm really passionate about this. And they just showed up and they really figured it out. And I think we'd be remiss to underestimate the efficacy of, as Brad mentioned, that this stuff can be trained. And we're seeing an increasing number of individuals who just say, Hey, I don't know what this is, but I've got a skill. I've got a network. I want to get involved. And I would call it our force structuring is really changing. And you know, last point I'll say is, you know, as an example, Joe disena, who's the owner of Spartan Race, you know, got to hold us that, hey, I just want to do something. I don't know what it is. I've got this but, you know, this plot of money, you know, guys tell us what we should do. And in less than a month, you know, we procured over 100 vehicles, got them repaired throughout Eastern Europe, you know, delivered with volunteers. You know, hundreds of generators, hundreds of thermals, you know, all kinds of stuff, distributed last mile to units that we were working with for less than pennies on the dollar, right? So it's really kind of forward leaning, kinetic stuff being supported by individuals who would never otherwise necessarily have a role to play in the national security arena, which is really worth taking note of.
 
Jay Long  07:14
Yeah, if I could build off that point, Jesse and Ryan, to your point, I think it's worth remembering that social systems, at least the way I think about it, are closer to biology than engineering. And by that, I mean like it's one thing to say, like this community of practice data to not have this input, and it didn't fit the structure. I find more often that it's helpful to think of these as ecosystems where you have cross pollination in a complex first, complicated environment, complicated environments I can engineer my way to success, and if I have enough time with enough whiteboards, I can solve it. I think a lot of the environments that we're used to working in are Mergent systems, and the reason that's relevant is an introduction I make now. Might not be relevant for five years, but that does make it ineffective. I think it just makes it harder to measure. And so I think it's really important when you have these fluid social networks, to not mistake what you can see today with the aggregate outcomes. And so there's a lot of value thinking setting conditions for effective communication, collaboration and cross cultural competence and making sure people can listen effectively. Jesse, to your point earlier on, like veterans cool and over to Ukraine. There's a lot of power in equipping our ambassadors to go out and be translators between the worlds. And I think the more we can build those bridges, the more effectively we can react. And inherently we can't predict the future. I think we've all been told to quote, like we have a perfect record of predicting a future. We've been wrong every time. And so I think instead of trying to design the perfect mouse trap, we're empowered when we have said, Ask what elements of an ecosystem we want to call it?
 
Brad Halsey  08:37
Yeah, but to Ryan's point, you know what makes us more indelible? And it we may this may not. DEF may fall apart at some point it is. All these social systems are just like Jay said. They're organic. They're living creatures. I think the thing that Jesse and I have been thinking a lot about for death, though, is activating it with purpose, and that's where I think these organizations do come together. I mean, think about every cocktail party you went to where it was some meet and greet, and you don't remember anyone from it, because it was just set up to be its own contrivance, right? But with death, especially in some of these networks that all three of us have, we pulse test these things with something important. We have to get somebody into a country. We have to help solve a problem. And I think that's that is one of the critical components, and it's a sort of a cultural component of these organizations get that you have to pulse them with purpose and activate them with purpose. And so that's something that I know Jesse thinks a lot about with the defense entrepreneurs for.
 
Ryan Connell  09:33
Yeah, and that makes a lot of sense, right? Because as you guys are talking I'm thinking about like just the ability to give a damn or finding the right people that care, I am assuming I could be wrong, like those that have gone to Ukraine to support were kind of doing it out of their own free will, because they felt like they needed to. They felt like they were passionate about it, which is incredible, right? The fact that you've effectively created this network of, I don't know how to say, but people that give a damn, that actually care about the problem and want to solve the problem. So as opposed to a checkbox on a resume or something that my boss asked me to do, or, like, whatever, those 9000 other things that are templated from a career standpoint. So am I leaning towards the right answer there? I feel like there's a difference between the Hey, hey, my entire team, you guys should join this cop because it's going to be good for you to learn something. I'll call it solving an informational problem versus being there because they want to be there individually.
 
Brad Halsey  10:29
I think you're hitting on something that we all collectively were just talking about not too long ago. Is, you know, give a shit is teachable too? Or it's at least, it's at least parameterized. So you you think about how to get through to kids in school. You think about how to get through to employees in an organization that are just demotivated. There is a pathway to give a shit. There is a pathway to getting people reactivated and excited. It just you might not have those skills as a manager to do something like that, or as a leader, and so by sort of inculcating some of those skills through purpose, through activation. I think you can actually bring, you know, give a shit, to the purpose or to the surface, versus, I think, you know, some of the people that is just apparently woven into into their fabric, like Jesse here and Jay where that is, they always have the stink of of that on them, to just push the metaphor to the right. But, but it is something that you can activate. And again, especially with Gen Z ers and millennials, it is they're waiting to be activated in mass space. And once you do, I think you're going to have something pretty special.
 
Jesse Levin  11:30
I want to tee up Jay here. I think, you know, this gets into something that I know of us really passionate about. This call is education, you know, enforce modernization. You know, are we training our young war fighters to think like this. And we, a lot of us, are on the term cultural empathy, right? And we have civil affairs. We have four foreign area, you know, officers, what are we doing about innovation in those educational pipelines? You know, with the emergence of innovation, officers, what does that training look like? You know? And Brad, you know what say here. Brad, you know what I love about hanging out, you know, in your space. And Ryan, your point is you will come across any walk of life, from kids to the most forward leaning tier one units being educated on call it a hard skill, but really it's the soft skills that not building momentum, pushes and I would say it's almost allegorical, to help people understand how to think and feel and perceptualize their environments and their selves in relation to place, very differently which I'm not so sure is something that we're really effectively training, you know, in the national security apparatus writ large.
 
Jay Long  12:30
Yeah, if I can lean into a bunch of parts that you both made the first is, I think when you look at leading change effectively, it's hard to overstate the importance of both expanding awareness and increasing confidence. And the reason I bring that up is, I think one of the first steps to leading change leading change effectively is to know that the current state doesn't have to be the end state. Like, there's a classic Henry Ford quote, like, if I ask people that want to do what I said a faster horse. And I think what we've seen with change in government, the first break or the wall to break, is being limited by the bounds of the gnome. And to Jesse's point, I think one of the challenges often with leading change in government, especially on the military side of the house is that for the average officer, and I come from an army background, so I can speak to that, there's no point in your normal progression where you're gonna be exposed to a digital technologies can do to enhance your organic requirements, organic warfighting mission. So it's really easy to see this as an extraneous other, or like this novelty that's off to the side, but as soon as you start breaking down the preconceived perceptions that leaders have about the role the technology or innovative capabilities play in their mission, that awareness is the first piece. The next is like, how are we effectively enabling confidence and leading change? And how are we starting to move through these massive organizations ideas that can capitalize readiness and performance and responsiveness? And I think what we consistently see is that organizations are going to struggle because they're deterministic and they're really like complicated. There's a lot of assumptions they have to make things work. Networks are fluid, like ideas can move across networks, talent can move between networks. And so I think the more we focus on equipping individuals to navigate effectively and to build these resilient networks, the more we also share ideas, and the faster share ideas, more effectively, you can see them spread. And I think one thing that you can shape at the institutional level, though, is that the more we raise the baseline of education for the force, and because this is the CEO, I'm thinking about, like digital literacy, understand the role of technologies. If we can increase general competence in these highly technical domains, you enable more effective collaboration, like in an acquisition side, like the more informed the customer, the more effective the outcome. And I think in a lot of other spaces, the more I can curate the problem and a really tailored ask for what I'm seeking to achieve, the more effective I can work with others to get there. And so I think we need to enable decentralization and fluidity at the edge, while making sure that the core is enhancing both the infrastructure enablement to achieve the mission and also quality of questions getting asked by looking deeply at our schoolhouses of centers for changing leading culture.
 
Ryan Connell  14:50
Yeah, no, I love that, and I think there's so let's kind of dive into the human capital, people side of things. I. Earlier, we talked about the Gen Z, the millennial like, like, what can we what's working, what's not working, in terms of, I'll call it acquisition of human capital.
 
Jesse Levin  15:09
I think there's really interesting people doing, you know, great work. I mean, you know, Jay can speak to gig Eagle, Colonel sailing, sailing with, you know, usurak and the new innovation Directorate. Folks are thinking about like, how do we adapt the message, you know, that there's a lot of work, I think, great work, being done on the inside, and models being looked at, you know, to include direct commissioning, which, you know, I think Jay is also probably best suited to speak to. But, you know, one thing I think there's a huge opportunity to improve, is that the vast majority of the capability and capacity that we need that one of our greatest advantages as a nation is our entrepreneurial prowess. It's just deeply baked into us. And, you know, that's what we call a weapon system, right? And I keep coming back to Ukraine, not because I'm like virtue signaling and forget the geopolitical you know, whatever your stance is, but it's a really important sandbox, right, to look at the types of people and the organizations and how things got done and what was moving. And at least, you know, all we can do is speak from our personal experience. But running around in these places all over the world, whether it's Philippines or the Hades or, you know, what have you, it's the local small business owner or the truck driver, or the young, you know, small, tiny, little NGO, or these young teenagers, like in Puerto Rico that are moving mountains and like doing incredibly forward leaning, you know, important things, and we've always had a hard time recognizing and supporting that informal capacity. And I think we're really, you know, if we need to do one thing a little bit better, is we need to lean into celebrating that as a true capability, and figuring out beyond the traditional contracting constructs that we have with the primes or otherwise, how we can more effectively delineate or welcome in these informal actors and give them the top cover required to empower them to their maximal effect.
 
Brad Halsey  16:49
Yeah, I think the case study that is really interesting on this was with the Marine Corps. So we've been training, we've trained something like 10,000 Marines to date on how to build drones, how to make their own robots and networks and use, you know, ChatGPT and weld, and, you know, think of any skill you might need to learn to get yourself high tech or low tech out of a situation. But we started applying this initially, about nine years ago, it was met with like, marines can't do this. Marines should be shooting and end of list like that was, that was the way the core kind of looked at it. And what happened then is we would, you know, we would start training these kids. They would, they would really be empowered to do something. But we the, the greatest takeaway from the training was a permission structure. And so when the pandemic hit, the groups and organizations that were making the most gains within, within the core, actually, within the entire DOD, were these little marine groups that we had just trained that had three printers and laser cutters and, you know, drone capabilities and robot capabilities, and they were just going for it. And the reason that was, is they just felt like they had the permission structure we had trained them. And then everyone kind of got out of their way, because there was, you know, we taught them some alien new technique that no one had ever done. So they must be the only one that can Shepherd this through. And it was just, it was a really interesting case study that if you just, even if the training is almost really about anything, it's really the permission structure to say, Okay, now, go be a maverick. Now, go be a vanguard in this space. And then they do. It's actually pretty remarkable to see.
 
Jay Long  18:21
Building off those points, I think something that we need to be willing to have a hard conversation about as a department is for getting to the point where there's a new set of foundational design assumptions that need to govern how we think about talent. Like, one of the stats that always gets my attention is Instagram was acquired for a billion dollars with less employees than I need to run gate guard at Ford liberty. Like, at a fundamental level, the way we think about power, laws and talent and exponential impact requires us to have really different approaches to how we recruit, train, develop and deploy, and that extends not just in recruitment, but it also comes into like, how we lead. Like the Napoleonic staff structure was great for a long time, but it's also worth asking, can that decision making framework keep up with machine speeds. And so as we think about talent there, come to a point where it's not just about bringing new generations into what is, but what, at what point do we do a Goldwater nickel style rebuild, or start to burn down to the existing assumptions and create something that new, because the foundational constraints are scaled. Like an example of this, the military, historically has recruited younger people to serve 1824, whatever, then they have a 20 year career, and then they retire on the other side. As robotics shift the way we think about the work to be done and as more and more can be done remotely, it might be worth asking questions about what is the right senior age limit. I think we've all seen a lot of people that have retired and done really well in industry that want to serve, and historically, it's been really hard to come back in on the other side, it's seen as like something you missed. But if I'm looking for judgment, and I'm looking to turn insights into code that can scale algorithmically across the force, I might not need someone who is 18 to do this work. I may actually benefit from someone who's got really refined judgment, a lot of experience. So. I think we need to be willing to ask, like, what do I actually need from which parts of the service and what capabilities are most relevant to the problems we're solving? And at what point do we start to deconstruct foundational assumptions that are arguably based on linear and industrial models and move to like, a much more emergent form of organizational architecture? And I think we're seeing that modularity in different parts of the DOD, but I don't know that we've taken that to core. And the consequence, then is we're treating a lot of individuals like interchangeable parts, and inherently, I just don't know that that's our construct for where we are as a nation.
 
Brad Halsey  20:32
Well, just to jump in on there really quick, Jay, you say something really interesting that made me think that we take these young kids in the military that are extremely open minded. They are coming into this with just no preconception and no prejudice based on their learning or whatever. And then we homogenize them, shave their heads, March and then, over the course of their career, we asked them to start thinking, you know, more critically, thinking outside the, you know, the quote, unquote box, as they get older. But humans naturally aren't that way, right? We, as we get older, we get more set in our way. So it's interesting. It's a really fascinating cultural experiment that we've, you know, we've built, like, the Henry Ford model is still in place in assembly lines within the DOD. But talk about talent, like, we should really think about taking these young kids who are, who are really brilliant thinkers and just pour gas on that, instead of, instead of, like, homogenizing everybody. And I'm just wondering if there's an opportunity here for the DOD to really kind of embrace it.
 
Jesse Levin  21:26
It's almost like an hour, you know, like an hourglass, where you have, like, these beautiful tons of resources and creativity and wide open mind that we pinch them and constrict it, and then we expect it to open up again, you know, on the on the down, spot on the downside, like that,
 
Jay Long  21:39
And to build up both those points, like a model that gets my attention I spent a lot of time meditating on, is the power of trapped capacity. So if you look at some of those valuable businesses the 21st century, they're about resourcefulness, not resources. So Uber, for example, or Airbnb, it's about what is all the existing under leveraged capacity around me, and how do I create new mechanisms to match that capacity to a need in real time so I can more effectively solve a problem. And the reason I think that's relevant is a lot of service members under immense stress, and it's definitely challenging to serve. But I think based on my experience, if you ask them, Do you honestly believe that 100% of your gifts are being used 100% of the time? The answer for people who say yes, that might be a little bit less than we might like. And the reason that's powerful is if you can build systems that start to break down these barriers and enable more effective decentralized excellence, like suddenly you're using more of the capacity we already have. And I think that allows us, you know, everyone laments a no growth environment, but I think that's only real constraint if every dollar or person you have is used to 100% of capacity. I don't know that that's usually the case, and that means that, instead of asking for more, we might be better served by challenging the how for utilization and then so doing really unlock a ton of incredible opportunities for service members, for this many communities around us, and then for national security.
 
Ryan Connell  22:57
Yeah, no, this is a this is a great conversation. And Brad, you reminded me of, I think it was just last week we had Matt Pine on from the Marines, talking about everything he's doing with advanced manufacturing production at the point of need. And I didn't say to him at the time, but my immediate reaction was what you just caveated, which was, Wait, aren't you a Marine? And so what are we doing here? And so I love that we're tearing down that stereotype.
 
Brad Halsey  23:21
I mean, that's a great example that, right? He, I trained him eight years ago or something. And I think, you know, the time, I mean, the Warrant Officer now, but there's still, like, a little bit of, am I going to use this, you know? And it's, again, it's not that you're going to learn how to build a drone and use that immediately, which is, I think, again, a little antithetical to training. It's sort of like we talked about this the other day. It's sort of like first aid training, right? You get first aid training, but you hope you never have use it, and you have to get it again. You have to kind of get researched. Why does anyone get first aid training if they don't get to go use it, you know? And, and I think that's a lot of the skills that at least my company teaches, but I know that I think would be useful to be sort of more pervasive across all these communities is skills that you may not need now, but that you will need later. And Matt was a perfect example, because they did some amazing stuff on a ship recently where they needed a part fix. I think you probably talked about that, and he came to the rescue, right? So did we teach him how to fix that part? And we never did, no way, but we did teach him to think differently about problem sets. And again, it's about this permission structure and the empowerment to just get after it. Like, go give a shit, right? Like, go do it. And he did. And the guy is a legend because of these types of movements that he's made within the Marine Corps. But again, it can be taught. It can be inculcated in culture.
 
Jay Long  24:39
If I can build off Brad's point real quick, because I think it's really Tom another one of those critical designs. Those critical design assumptions that we have to break, is service member as creator versus service member as consumer. I think we grew up with this model that's like a one way factory where, like, factories produce a widget and then it goes to the soldier, and the soldier uses it, but he doesn't shape it. And I think what we've seen with AI to see, or the army Software Factory or customer run, or. A litany of other efforts to include the printing so I can just mentioned Brad is that service members can now create, and that seems like a semantic difference, but philosophically, I think it's massive, because you're shattering walls about who gets to solve problems and who gets to make capability that, in turn, requires that very hard question about how to reorganize, to empower them. And Jesse and Brad, I know you're both passionate about that? Yeah,
 
Jesse Levin  25:22
I think the biggest thing that, you know, interests me is, you know, we look at like, you know, requirements, right? And, you know, the the gold standard is, you know, I want to get the best technology into the war fighters hands as soon as possible. And one of the major hang ups, and, you know, the contracting world and the dual use world was, man, I wish I had more insight from the war fighter, right? And one thing I would argue, and I think, you know, there's a real opportunity here to kind of broaden the app kind of broaden the aperture is, you know, the exception of, like, the IC and, you know, soft, you know, I guess, how does the war fighter know what we need, given what we're currently facing, right? And, I mean, that's to be a slight, and I think that's a very kind of grandiose statement, but there's, you know, given these, these geopolitical realities, we don't have a lot of people on the ground really, truly observing what, what the nature that the Institute realities are, and then relaying them back to a system that that can empathize with that, right? And certainly, there's, there are, like, I'm not saying there aren't kind of, you know, carte blanche, but I think we've got the opportunity to leverage, you know, whether it's prior service folks or particularly, we can start training people to be more training people to be more observant, getting them into these environments and learning to be but truly empathetic, right? Not going back and, you know, and we still see a lot of our capacity in the US. And I'm not poo pooing this, but all these companies focusing on developing widgets and sending things and hardware into these various environments as the fix when you know, and very blatantly, that's not what the environment needs or calls for, right? So I'm curious as to how we can leverage existing talent, maybe outside the traditional force construct, to identify those needs quicker, feed them into the system, and then how we can get the system to start training around being able to kind of train for those observations and to ingest them so we can start developing things that are, you know, most relevant for our partners.
 
Brad Halsey  27:04
Yeah, it's kind of like dumping a whole box of screwdrivers and saying, there you go, go fix your problems. And, you know, it may require not screwdrivers. It may require other things. I think creativity is a really interesting comment that Jay made, and we were chatting about this earlier too. It's that is the technology is dying for that creativity to be unleashed upon it like think of the technological inflection point, you know, during the 50s and 60s and 70s, even NASA, DARPA, CIA, you know, the arls of the world. These were the boundary layers of technology. This is the forefront of technology. And then that is not the case anymore. And so the consumer world has driven technology to be a lot more, you know, accessible. Take a software defined radio, something Ukrainians are using left, right and center on the battlefield right now. Five, eight years ago, it took a PhD to build and construct one of these things on breadboard. And so, you know, every piece of technology is getting to be more user centric, like if look at everything from what iPhones and all these sort of engagements that you have on your device. Everything has gotten easier. Cars have gotten easier. Everything's gotten just more accessible. So it's dying for us to use it. Creativity. Creatively, I think it just comes down to the permission structure and allowing and allowing that to go even to ends that are not, you know, advantageous, even to disasters, even to failures, let that creativity be unleashed.
 
Jay Long  28:23
Yeah, sorry again. We're just broken off. I think what's worth noting is failure is a relative term, and to lean into Brad's point, like in Silicon Valley, investors know that you're gonna need 100 companies supply without data to find the two that are gonna make it work. Like Google is the 20th search engine to market. So we need to have the space for fluidity. And something else that both these guys have had on that just want to underscore is we don't know what we know that we don't know what the future holds. Like NASM Talib wrote a fantastic book called anti fragile, and he goes into the fact we don't even have conceptual models for handling chaos, but you want to architect for our system to actually get better with chaos. And I think when you start decomposing, where do we find that to be true? It's when we really empower individuals and give them the tools and the training to understand how to decompose chaos into signal and make really informed decisions. And then you have to empower those individuals by placing out the networks that can move fluidly. And the tension there is that inherently you're decentralized. You can keep standards high at the core in terms of training and who you let in, but to maintain pace with chaos, you have to permit people at the edge to move. And so I think we're gonna have to be really comfortable with new management style so I can be mission command to the next level, especially as you start looking at moving at machine suites.
 
Ryan Connell  29:39
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. You hit on the tech. And Brad, you talked about software defined radios. And, you know, I live in the acquisition world. We're constantly talking about taking advantage of new new technology, the commercial side of things, you know, integrating Silicon Valley, all of that, I have a note written down about dual use companies. And potentially that's not the sole answer to national security. So wanted to let you guys dive into that.
 
Jay Long  30:02
Oh, pick me, pick me, pick me, pick me,
 
Ryan Connell  30:04
go for it.
 
Jesse Levin  30:06
I think, I think what's happening is awesome, right? I think we are adapting, and we're adapting pretty quickly. And I hate to keep using Ukraine as the example, because there's so many more examples of this, but this is where I saw it. It was so stark, right? You know. And, you know, week two, week three over there, became very evident as to the dynamic and the tech cycles and what was happening and how the whole, whole of society truly mobilized. You know, every 16 year old college, you know, was in the basement, hacking to solve something, and very quickly, you know, private businesses adopted, you know, units and supported them. And that dynamic like that, that social construct, I would argue, is the innovation, right? And yet it took, and we're now seeing, like, you know, this huge surge in defense investing and venture capital firms that are popping up in dual use companies. And it's like, you know, the cool guys space of the day, and that's great. And we're seeing phenomenal resources being pumped into the system. But I think we need to get better and quicker you know, and I think Jay can speak to this, and it kind of ties into parlay, in my mind, is we need to identify and really be able to celebrate what the ground truth is. I know we say that, and it's kind of a capital statement, but again, week two, week three, the needs in Ukraine were evident, and it wasn't until about a year and a half, I would say, a year, we really start seeing the dual use community, in the venture capital community split up and say, I got a guy in Ukraine, we're tied in with the drone units. We know what's going on. Their tech cycles are in 20, you know, and that's great, but it took us way too long. And, you know, I would argue we need to expedite that, that that adoption cycle. And then secondarily to that, I would look at our our investment thesis and our revenue models, and are we incentivized economically to really create advantageous solutions, to provide the actual, true needs of the environment? And I would say currently, that answer is no, right, because a lot of these funds that I'm personally invested in, these companies I'm involved with, which, again, I think are tremendous, are still trying to create in their best intention, like these things, these technological, you know, physical outputs, and sending and sending them into these various environments when they get thrown in a real closet, you know, and not used. And I think that's a huge disservice and a tremendous waste of brand capital, resources and time, and, you know, to quote Alexis Bono here, like, you know, time, you know, harvest, rephrases, it is, is the most critical resource and asset that we have to treasure, and we just have to get better at identifying the true needs and then figuring out the populace that can address them in a more sensitive way.
 
Jay Long  32:29
If I could hop onto that one, Jesse, I think one of the challenge pro I'm awesome to see the Silicon Valley's embracing the defense and doing this can. So let me begin by saying, like, let's acknowledge and appreciate that very much. I think one of the challenges, at least from my foxhole, is if we make the presumption that the key to success are like certain technical capabilities and multi capabilities for the fight right now, I can't help but wonder if we're mischaracterizing the threat environment itself, right and making it more explicit. If this is about great power competition, and I'm engaged in what might be an intergenerational struggle, then it's not enough to necessarily be able to, like, find, fix, finish today, if the fight doesn't happen for generation, right? And so what you're forced to do as national security community, and then, like American people, is balance, like readiness today with enduring capability. And what that means you'd actually have to ask really hard guns versus butter questions about, How do we want to balance emerging requirements and future optionality and having a base of strategic decisions? And so I think what we're seeing is the health of the country writ large, and to Jesse's founding FinTech that helps with small business access to capital. Because what we end up seeing was, you know, by the time we have troop recruitment shortages today, and the army misses its numbers, and then you the five why analysis. And behind that is, we can't have enough healthy, fit or educated individuals interested in service. And then behind that we find, well, health outcomes are usually tied to healthy food access, and that's usually tied to not being a food desert, which is usually tied to having access to capital. Or education outcomes are tied to tax bases, which are tied to home ownership. You end up seeing that a lot of the investments we need to make are these very important but sometimes hidden below the waterline climates that allow us to be much more effective as a collective and so I think there's a lot of power making sure that we don't over optimize for one type of threat, especially if it doesn't end up being the challenge we face.
 
Brad Halsey  34:16
Like the the new Abrams tank Model coming out in late 2037, or something. It's, it's those, is those decisions, right? It's like, it's not realizing that you can already see some of the future. The dual use technology word kind of rubs me the wrong way, because I think it's a lot of times building something that the military thinks they need, and then, oh, can we sell it to industry somehow? You know, ask industry they're going to just build what they're going to build, and if the military can use it, then that's fine. That's great. And I so, I feel like the dual use tech, you know, phraseology, is just a little bit weighted towards trying to drag, you know, trying to tie a rock to a rabbit type thing. The, you know, it's the government trying to speed up to the pace of industry. But industry is moving so fast and and right. Quickly if you're gonna go, you know, like again, Ukraine, perfect example. You grab, you grab this on your shelf, right? And you grab what you know. And so you know, as much as they would love to have Reaper drones and all these types of they don't. They just grab what they know. And they went off with the technologies and the and the access of things that they had. So I think there's that notion of, like, we can see, we can already see the future. We just have to realize someone has to make some hard decisions. Like, why are we building another Abrams tank variant for 2037 you know, every country in the world by then will have a very good, robust, you know, small drone program. You know, like, what cultural shifts do we need to start thinking about for real, like, hard cultural shifts for real.
 
Ryan Connell  35:40
That's super appreciated, and I agree. I know the three of you have super entrepreneurial backgrounds, obviously, all running various startups, getting a little close to time here. So I just wanted to go around the room and anything related to entrepreneur spirit, or even just closing remarks, in terms of wanting the listeners to take away, and I'll toss it over to you all and go around the room.
 
Jesse Levin  36:04
Yeah. Also, I think that I think the country and the population writ large is starving to be of service. I think that there's a general lack of modern pathways to make that happen, right? And a lot of folks just haven't put on the uniform yet, or, you know, will not, for whatever reason, but that doesn't mean that there shouldn't be a way for them to have impact. And I think that, you know, this day and age again, I think that there's venture capitalists and entrepreneurs and teachers and logisticians and, you know, folks who are vitally important to our national security community, and that we need to do a far better job getting the whole of society involved and on board with this conversation, and not from like a fear mongering, you know, the world is it's cataclysmic, but like, Hey, you have a lot of value and critical skills and resources and cultural expertise and connections and networks that are really, really important. We'd love to involve you. So, you know, our personal passion is creating models. You know, entrepreneurial startup businesses that leverage existing constructs. Call it climbing gyms, parking spaces, nightclubs. We had a readiness training social club. It's just, how can we onboard more people, bring families and people in and teach them these skills? Yes, medical skills, know how to read a map. But again, it's not about the hard skills. It's just seeding the conversation, exposing them to veterans and first responders and folks, and creating those cross pollination so folks become accustomed to and understand that there's value across spheres, and they make those connections, and they find pathways to get involved, and whether that's becoming a firefighter EMT or just somehow supporting one of our crazy, random adventures, there's a lot of ways to get involved, and we need to support that as a country, and look at service more auction.
 
Ryan Connell  37:37
Thanks. Appreciate it. Jay.
 
Jay Long  37:39
Yeah, there's a scene I love. And we were soldiers where Mel Gibson is talking to one of his junior officers, and he's asked, like, how does he reconcile being a father and officer? And he says he hopes that being good at one makes him better at the other. And I think my experience so far as a founder and entrepreneur has been that that's true in the service capacity. Like, there's skills that you learn in one domain that I think really enable you with the other and if you're effective about consistently finding alignment and calibration, I think you're able to be much more effective, right? So the military teaches you to focus on disciplined execution and gives you the skills you need to withstand a lot of the uncertainty and chaos that comes as being an entrepreneur. But I think entrepreneurship treats you about the importance of making sure you're really efficient with time, and that you're always asking questions about optimizing value, that you're building systems that are really impactful and effective. And I think what we're seeing is that a lot of the traditional walls around what constitutes effective service are breaking down, and there's a lot of opportunities to continue advancing the mission and the learning skills you might not be able to learn in uniform as a civilian or as a founder, as an entrepreneur, that you can then connect, either directly or indirectly to military mission and needs. And so I hope that we start encouraging people to lean on entrepreneurship, not as like an either or binary transition, like I'm a service member, and then I go through one way shoot, and I'll never, ever be of use again to the military and traditional sense. And instead, we ask much more empowering question, which like, how can we equip our teams, our people and and service members to be all of themselves. And if we do that effectively, I think you end up growing economic strength, which is critical, while training your people to handle a whole new type of problem that then allows them to continue serving a way that's really impactful. So I think it's really important that we expand the conversation and make this about building collaborative networks, and we recognize that all things come in seasons, and there's a lot of power in giving people space.
 
Ryan Connell  39:25
Yeah, awesome. Brad over you.
 
Brad Halsey  39:26
I just think we got the next title of the of our next podcast. It's because Jay, you said something really cool that it made me think about this while you were talking. Is that I think veterans, or people in the military are they're sort of organically entrepreneurial on onto their own right. They've been, you know, go take that hill. Go take that hill any way you need to. And then they'll people figure out how to take that hill. And yet, I think this is my this is my hypothesis, does technology actually remove that go take that hill with this radio and this. On, not go take that hill with anything you can find. And and, you know, you start to really start, you start to narrow in that entrepreneurial spirit, because being an entrepreneur is really having your back against the wall, and either you're going to sink or swim. And you just look around and with what you have in front of you, and you you just make it happen, right? That is, that is being entrepreneur use make shit happen with what's around you. And the military is actually really good at teaching the the hang in there of that, the just, you know, suck it up and keep going. Because that's another, that's the other part of the volunteer criminal spirit. You just got to suck it up every day something's gonna be thrown at you, and you just can give up. Can't give up. You have to keep going. And so the military has that part, but then they start putting these platforms and procedures and technology around those, those kids that are given that, you know, the ability to go, take that hill. So I think part two of this podcast, does technology actually reduce our ability to be creative? And that's like, again, antithetical to what I was saying earlier. So I don't know.
 
Ryan Connell  41:03
A precursor. I don't want to give away the name, but I think for an upcoming conference, we already have something in the works of AI, doesn't make you dumb, I think is the name of it. So we may have already concluded it from our end, but on a very specific use case. No, awesome. This was a great conversation. Jesse, Jay, Brad, uh, just thank you so much for being on today.
 
Jesse Levin  41:26
Thanks for having us.
 
Brad Halsey  41:26
Those have been great.
 
Jay Long  41:27
Grateful to chat with everyone. Thanks for the opportunity.
 
Ryan Connell  41:30
Thanks.