The Merge

The Pentagon wants thousands of autonomous systems. The question is who builds them and how fast.

Joey Arora sits down with Paul Lwin, Co-Founder and CEO of Havoc, to talk about collaborative autonomy and why the path to mass runs through software, not shipyards.

Havoc builds autonomy software that turns commercial platforms into autonomous systems across sea, air, and land. Founded in January 2024, the company has integrated on more than 200 vessels without owning a single shipyard.

Paul's take is direct. Don't reinvent the boat. Partner with the people who already build thousands of them.

Topics include:

• Collaborative autonomy and human-on-the-loop control

• Software-defined hardware and the 90/10 split

• The CSBC Taiwan partnership and in-country production

• Operating without persistent comms

• Two acquisitions before the company's third birthday

• The Rhode Island maritime innovation cluster

• Moving from prototype to production contracts

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It started with an email to 300 fighter pilots.

Joey Arora turns the tables on Mike "Pako" Benitez to get the full origin story of The Merge.

Mike spent 25 years on active duty between the Marine Corps and Air Force, flew the F-15E Strike Eagle, and graduated from the Air Force Weapons School. During COVID in 2020, he saw the defense world had nothing like the newsletters the startup world lived on. So he built one.

Six years later, The Merge runs three days a week, with a premium tier and a podcast.

Topics include:

• Writing op-eds on active duty

• Marine Corps enlisted to Air Force weapons systems officer

• The first newsletter in November 2020

• How Save Rounds and On the Radar were born

• The three audiences Mike writes for

• Merge Premium and the Thursday deep dive

• From newsletter survey to podcast

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Chapters

00:39 intro

01:37 getting into writing

02:45 a newsletter for defense

03:26 the first email

04:12 fun as the driver

04:48 how "on the radar" started

05:37 Mike's military career

06:21 Marine Corps to Strike Eagle

07:26 why it's called The Merge

08:35 editorial philosophy

09:33 the birth of Save Rounds

10:04 the three audiences

12:23 Merge Premium

14:51 the sixth anniversary

15:27 why the podcast exists

16:45 what's next

17:32 outro

#defensetech #podcast #military #newsletter #originstory #airforce #marinecorps #nationalsecurity #defenseindustry #f15e #strikeeagle #veteranfounders #militarytechnology

Buying a fighter jet is the cheap part.

Mike sits down with Jim Becker, President and CEO of Perfect Point EDM, to talk about the biggest line in any defense program: keeping the fleet flying.

Perfect Point builds the E-Drill, which uses electro discharge machining (EDM) to pull aircraft fasteners. Founded in 2005, it turned a lab curiosity into a fielded tool that removes a rivet in about 30 seconds instead of 10 minutes, with no debris and almost no rework.

Jim's take is blunt. The aircraft modernized, the maintenance tooling did not, and the industry keeps papering over it by leaning on a shrinking pool of skilled mechanics.

Topics include:

•

Operations and maintenance as the biggest cost in a program

•

Electro discharge machining applied to fastener removal

•

Cutting a 10 minute rivet job down to 30 seconds

•

Eliminating foreign object debris and rework on titanium airframes

•

Why maintenance tooling never modernized

•

Winning over risk-averse engineers with the material science case

•

The shrinking pool of skilled aircraft mechanics

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Chapters

00:00

00:28 intro

02:06 the MRO space

02:53 the founding story

04:38 from the Marine Corps to Boeing

06:10 framing the rivet problem

07:01 tooling stuck in the 60s

07:43 titanium and steel fasteners

08:54 no FOD, no mess

09:46 the three step process

10:27 four to five times faster

10:49 killing the rework

11:52 problems everybody just accepts

13:49 the miracle-worker culture

14:55 the aging workforce

16:49 winning over the engineers

17:32 the launch that fell flat

20:21 SBIRs and the valley of death

21:39 fall in love with the problem

22:09 conventional wisdom that's wrong

24:47 making do with less

26:03 go talk to the mechanics

28:29 the stance he'll defend

30:12 where to learn more

31:03 outro

Test is where new military hardware goes to wait.

Mike sits down with Jenn Wilson, Head of Federal at Nominal, to talk about test and evaluation, the least glamorous gate between a program and the warfighter.

Nominal builds test data infrastructure for hardware. Founded in 2022 by Anduril, Palantir, and Lockheed Martin alumni, it reached a $1 billion valuation in March.

Jenn’s take is that acceleration comes from optimizing what you test for. Cutting test points is the wrong lever.

Topics include:

•

Test and evaluation as a mission enabler

•

High rate, multimodal test data

•

Real-time telemetry and closing the test loop

•

DARPA CIPHER Forge and digital twins

•

Closing the sim to real gap

•

The F-35 crowdsourced flight data program

•

Knowledge parity between primes and government testers

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Chapters:

00:00

00:32 intro

01:47 why this, why now

02:32 test is not sexy

03:47 test as an afterthought

05:40 more data, less insight

07:18 where the name comes from

07:54 the founding story

10:43 Mike is a user

11:16 streaming telemetry in real time

13:14 design of experiments

15:17 the Fid Labs acquisition

16:31 DARPA CIPHER Forge

19:35 closing the sim to real gap

20:21 the commercial side

23:31 lessons from Ukraine

25:00 F-35 crowdsourced flight data

27:15 fleet bugs found in days

29:07 combined test force

31:50 experimental operations unit

32:34 speeding up test

33:09 the pilot taking fire

34:21 knowledge parity with the primes

35:18 a billion dollar valuation

36:03 hiring at Nominal

#defensetech #podcast #military #testandevaluation #flighttest #digitaltwins #darpa #f35 #autonomy #nationalsecurity #airforce #dualuse #militarytechnology

How do systems operate when GPS disappears?

Mike sits down with Kara Kramer, Vice President ofRaptor Sales at Vantor (formerly Maxar Intelligence), to discuss one of the most important challenges facing modern autonomous systems: operating when GPS is jammed, spoofed, or completely unavailable.

We discuss vision-based navigation (VBN), 3D geospatialintelligence, and why resilient autonomy depends on more than just the drone itself. From electronic warfare to contested operations, this conversation examines how software and spatial intelligence are enabling unmanned operations, and Vantor’s unique approach.

This isn’t just about navigation—coordinate generation and targeting elements are equally important.

Topics include:

• Vision-based navigation

• 3D geospatial intelligence

• Targeting without GPS

BONUS: Kara also shares her professional journey and how she got into the defense industry!

Whether you're building autonomous systems, working indefense technology, or simply interested in where drone technology is headed, this episode provides an inside look at one of the fastest-moving areas in aerospace.

TOGETHER WITH VANTOR.

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00:00

00:01:11 intro

00:01:54 Vantor history

00:03:26 Raptor origins

00:03:59 Vantor backstory

00:05:39 The SpaceX of VBN

00:06:32 Raptor VBN

00:10:11 issues with GPS

00:12:44 pre-GPS terrain nav

00:13:46 the Hub

00:15:20 no hardware?

00:17:57 how it all works

00:20:47 geo-registered coordinates

00:26:27 Kara's journey in defense

00:28:24 Vantor in Drone Dominance

00:35:19 Vantor partnerships

00:39:02 contrarian takes

00:40:37 fast cheap good triangle

00:42:01 final thoughts

#defensetech #dronetechnology #autonomy #gps #jamming #electronicwarfare #uas #drones #militarytechnology #geospatial #navigation #navigation #pnt #isr #aerospace #defenseinnovation #nationalsecurity #intelligence #intel #military

Anduril Industries raised $5 billion at a reported $61billion valuation—putting a nine-year-old defense tech company in the same conversation as legacy primes that have been building weapons for generations.

How did they do it, what is their strategy, and does the math make sense?

In this episode, Mike and Matthew take a deep dive inside Anduril’s products, revenue, contracts, and business strategy. They break down the Series H raise, the company’s rapid valuation climb, the difference between contract ceilings and booked revenue, and why visible federal obligations onlytell part of the story.

They also examine Anduril’s expanding product portfolio, anddebate the core question behind the company’s $61B price tag: Is Anduril the future of defense industrial production, or is the market pricing in near-flawless execution?

Topics include:

- Anduril’s $5B Series H and $61B valuation

- The gap between reported revenue and visible federalobligations

- Why Special Operations and the Border Patrol matter morethan most people realize

- The $20B Army enterprise vehicle—and why it is a rail, not acheck

- Barracuda, Fury, Arsenal-1, and hyperscale defensemanufacturing

- How Anduril compares to Lockheed, Northrop, GeneralDynamics, RTX, and Palantir

- The bull and bear case for Anduril’s long-term strategy

- What to watch next: IPO timing, task orders, deliveries, andrevenue growth

- The real bet: for Anduril to justify today’s valuation, ithas to grow from a $2B revenue company into a $20B+ revenue company very quickly.

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00:00

00:34 intro

01:20 Premium newsletter!

02:10 Anduril intro

02:26 Matthrew intro

04:32 Anduril 101

06:52 Anduril's fundraising

07:25 the next 24 months

07:38 revenue breakdown

08:23 happenings between the raises

14:10 last 5 years of sales

15:47 counter-UAS

18:22 Steve vs Steve approach

19:14 C-UAS durability?

21:04 Altius

21:52 comparing valuations

23:21 sources of new revenue

23:33 Barracuda

24:08 CCA program

27:28 Lattice

28:20 Eagle Eye

31:18 Golden Dome

35:08 Anduril's strategy

38:53 next acquisition?

41:25 wrap-up

What does it actually take to get new technology into thehands of warfighters—and why is it still so hard?

In this episode, Mike sits down with the co-founders ofDcode, Meagan Metzger and Meg Vorland, to unpack the reality behind defense innovation, acquisition reform, and the flow of capital into the sector.

Dcode operates at a unique intersection—working withstartups, investors, and the Pentagon—giving them a rare, inside-out view of how the system really works.

We break down why most acquisition reform efforts fallshort, whether recent policy changes are hitting the right targets, and what conventional wisdom in defense innovation is simply wrong.

If you’re trying to understand how defense actually getsbuilt, funded, and fielded—this is the inside baseball.

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00:00

00:44 intro

01:19 Dcode origin story

04:55 founders, funders, and fighters

09:27 acquisition reform

12:32 risk vs the no-monster

15:58 buying speed vs rigor

16:44 contracting officer shortage

17:55 bigger worse contracts

21:04 defense catalyst

21:57 leadership and training

23:05 the bigger picture

25:33 budget line-item consolidation

28:16 pass a budget

30:41 investing in companies

36:05 misconceptions

38:28 colors and fallout

39:33 conflicts of interest

41:03 RAIC

41:30 300

42:12 pilot programs

46:42 fielding

47:29 magic wand

48:49 crystal ball

50:19 outro

All modern hardware depends on good software, but in theU.S. military, most software sucks.

Rob Slaughter, co-founder and CEO of Defense Unicorns, joins the show to unpack why this is happening and what they are doing to fix it.

We dive into the rise of “software as a weapon system,” therole of open-source software in national security, and how Defense Unicorns is building an air-gapped, platform-agnostic software delivery model designed for real-world military environments.

This episode is a must for anyone in defense. You’ll learn a ton about software—we guarantee!

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00:00

00:43 intro

01:09 Defense Unicorns name

04:28 origin story

06:38 the 3 I's

08:46 software sustainment burden

09:13 wrong incentive structure

12:31 software as a weapon system

14:39 rising tech debt

16:18 open source

18:46 open is more secure?

20:43 SBOM

22:24 solutions

23:05 fighter jet software updates

24:43 submarine software

25:52 UDS

27:05 disconnected software

28:34 Chinese software underneath US systems

30:48 competition

33:43 crystal ball

35:15 $136M fundraise

37:56 magic wand - fixed price contracts

40:14 McDonald's ice cream

#AI #Technology #Tech #Innovation #Cybersecurity #youtube #Military #DefenseTech #MilitaryTech #Startup #Software #Business

This is the untold origin story of the Fury CollaborativeCombat Aircraft (CCA), as told by those who lived it.

Scott Bledsoe and Joe Murray join Mike to talk about Fury’s very beginning—way back to 2016.

Now known as Anduril’s YFQ-44, Fury originated as an SBIR project from Blue Force Technologies and may go on to become a poster child of SBIR success stories. But it’s not all good news.

The experience—and the decision to sell to Anduril—motivated Scott and Joe to start a new type of investment fund called the DoD Accelerator.

DoD Accelerator bridges the gap between venture capital and private equity, addressing the ‘funding valley of death’ they faced and the factors that led to the decision to sell their company—and Fury—to Anduril.

This is packed with never-before-revealed details and serves as the backdrop for a broader conversation about the realities of having a company in the defense industry.

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• Scott Bledsoe

• Joe Murray

• WOTR High-Low Mix Part I

• WOTR High-Low Mix Part II

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00:00

00:26 intro

01:50 Scott and Joe

07:21 DoD Accelerator

09:51 Fury origin story

11:24 SBIR

16:28 the high-low mix

17:11 writing to understand

18:29 F-117

19:04 no part 3

19:41 red air use-case

24:29 Bandit and ADAIR-UX

25:10 funding and the valley of death

28:04 the capital void

31:11 programs consolidate

32:28 Anduril acquisition

33:37 the small business divide

34:14 DoD Accelerator fit

36:12 Baxter Aerospace example

41:19 the cheat code

44:26 crystal ball

45:17 the prime cartel?

46:32 magic wand - IR&D policy change

49:10 policy hurts start-ups

52:51 DoD Accelerator focus areas

There is a strange set of organizations that live betweenindustry and government called Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs) and University Affiliated Research Centers (UARCs).

They play an important—but largely misunderstood role—in national security.

What better way to understand it all than with a guest who’sone of the most famous pop-culture examples: Christine Fox.

She was the real person who was portrayed as ‘Charlie’,Maverick’s civilian love interest, in Top Gun! She spent 40+ years working as an analyst in UARCs and a civilian leader at the Pentagon, culminating in serving as the acting Deputy Secretary of Defense.

Today, she continues to serve as a Fellow at Johns HopkinsUniversity’s Applied Physics Lab (JHU APL), which is the nation’s largest UARC.

This interview has a ton of inside baseball that you won’t find anywhere else!

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00:00 intro

00:35 Top Gun

01:33 Christine Fox

02:53 origin of FFRFC & UARC

05:36 access to classified info

08:30 tech transfer

11:33 independence

14:42 threat analysis story

16:35 misunderstandings

20:29 software and competition

24:32 fix the gray

27:11 what if they disappear?

27:39 Navy Red Sea support

28:29 hypersonics

30:08 Golden Dome

31:01 whole of nation approach

38:20 2026 resolutions

39:42 closing remarks

Mike sits down with Matt Hawkins and Nick LaRovere,co-founders of Pryzm.

Pryzm is building an Operating System for defense innovation—software that uses AI to generate capture intel to make sense of Pentagon budgets, Congressional legislation, program offices, and much more.

It’s AI to understand the Pentagon.

They help connect the dots between missions, markets, andpeople to power the future of national security.

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00:00

01:43 intro

02:30 origin story

05:57 disclosure

07:07 2 PMs

08:47 Air Force tanker program

21:47 Golden Dome

28:12 sales vs business development

33:04 proactive vs reactive

34:59 intel to flip the script

37:56 a bubble?

41:18 flat toplines

43:05 requested vs executed

46:38 fundraise

48:27 DIU project

50:58 2026 outlook

55:29 outro

Chris "Snooze" Kurek, Rob “Trip” Raymond, and Erik“EZ” Brine chat with Mike “Pako” Benitez on all things fighter pilot culture—toast, roast, and lore.

Better known as Dos Gringos, Snooze, and Trip put out 4albums of fighter pilot songs that are famous (and infamous) in squadrons around the world. EZ joined the duo to form Operation Encore in 2012, a non-profit that helps veterans get their music into the world.

We dig into a century of fighter pilot history and traditions, from the origins of Dos Gringos, the squadron culture, roll call,Jermiah Weed, the ribbing and roasting, and all the camaraderie associated with military aviation.

They recently brought all of that into their latest venture, Winglore Spirits, and are doing it in a unique way that brings you into the fold.

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• Support us on ⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠!

• ⁠Winglore Spirits⁠

• ⁠Winglore Spirits⁠ investing

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00:00

01:47 Dos Gringos

17:22 Operation Encore

24:03 AI music

27:27 The culture and bar origins

34:27 Jermiah Weed

38:13 Winglore Spirits

42:03 Bogey Dope

43:16 Nickel on the Grass

45:29 Winglore squadron

50:42 the Nellis Club

52:02 Dos Gringos concert?

54:45 outro

55:04 Carlos jumps in

56:23 I wish I had a gun like the A-10

Chris "Snooze" Kurek, Rob “Trip” Raymond, and Erik“EZ” Brine chat with Mike “Pako” Benitez on all things fighter pilot culture—toast, roast, and lore.

Better known as Dos Gringos, Snooze and Trip put out 4 albums of fighter pilot songs that are famous (and infamous) in squadrons around the world. EZ joined the duo to form Operation Encore in 2012, a non-profit that helps veterans get their music into the world.

We dig into a century of fighter pilot history and traditions, from the origins of Dos Gringos, the squadron culture, roll call, Jermiah Weed, the ribbing and roasting, and all the camaraderie associated with military aviation.

They recently brought all of that into their latest venture, Winglore Spirits, and are doing it in a unique way that brings you into the fold.

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• Support us on ⁠Patreon⁠!

• Winglore Spirits

• Winglore Spirits investing

• Dos Gringos YouTube channel

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00:00

01:47 Dos Gringos

17:22 Operation Encore

24:03 AI music

27:27 The culture and bar origins

34:27 Jermiah Weed

38:13 Winglore Spirits

42:03 Bogey Dope

43:16 Nickel on the Grass

45:29 Winglore squadron

50:42 the Nellis Club

52:02 Dos Gringos concert?

54:45 outro

55:04 Carlos jumps in

56:23 I wish I had a gun like the A-10

Nooks co-founder and CEO Sean Blackman spills all thesecrets about what it takes to do classified business with the Pentagon.

Nooks is a venture-backed startup founded in 2021 to solve amassive pain point: access to classified offices and networks to perform sensitive national security work.

Nooks is attacking the problem in an innovative way called Classified-Infrastructure-as-a-Service (CIaaS), which is a subscription access to a nationwide network of classifiedworkspaces and IT.

If you are in the defense industry—or even thinking about it—and there is even a sliver of a chance you will touch classified work, this episode is everything you need to know.

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00:00

00:46 intro

01:49 Nooks

02:52 origin story

09:49 name and logo

12:30 locations and spaces

13:30 location and the real value unlock

17:57 COVID

19:20 fractional labs

20:06 fundraising for a weird company

22:01 information disadvantage

23:33 myth of hiring security clearances

30:00 SCIF

34:09 mobile SCIF

39:23 touchpoints and impact

42:13 security in shared spaces

46:48 the real impact

47:36 magic wand - crystal ball

49:50 make the problem go away

secrets, top secret, military, technology, tech, defense, national security, air force, navy, army, marine corps, usmc

Red 6 CEO and co-founder Dan Robinson discusses augmented reality for pilots, the military metaverse, and the future of high-end training and tactics development.

Red 6 was founded in 2018 around a revolutionary approach to military flight training called ATARS—the Advanced Tactical Augmented Reality System—that creates virtual outdoor worlds to deliver threat-relevant,near-peer-level training scenarios.

It’s much more than an augmented reality helmet—it's rethinking the entire pilot training and readiness experience.

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00:00

00:42 intro

01:41 origin story

05:22 thesis of Red 6

06:17 co-founder meeting

10:43 lack of adversaries to train against

16:03 realism that gets missed

17:58 surface threats

21:03 progress and iteration

25:25 all of the technical challenges

27:20 suspension of disbelief

30:37 replacing helmet-mounted cueing

32:09 Enders Game

34:18 the Red 6 name

35:59 UK Royal Air Force

38:33 manned + unmanned

45:08 validating tactics and training

51:34 quality vs quantity training

54:30 the technology is coming

55:21 flying

56:43 the chief morale officer

Mike sits down with Steve “Wingie” Wingfield to discuss the Joint Direct Attack Munition, aka the JDAM—the world’s first operational GPS-aided bomb.

Wingie played a big role in the Air Force, doing weaponsflight testing and requirements writing, then went on to have another career at Boeing working on JDAM and other weapons.

He’s one of the few people who got to see the entire storyarc, from the pain points in Desert Storm that started the whole thing, to other evolutions like Laser JDAM and extended range JDAM, and how those programscame to be.

If you want a rare inside look at how one of the most successful acquisition programs in the past 30 years happened, this episode is for you.

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00:00

01:02 intro

05:43 JDAM name origin

06:56 accuracy spec origin

10:43 Desert Storm McPeak Memo

11:16 GAM before JDAM

12:29 Kosovo combat debut

14:39 40k for 40k competition

17:44 JDAM adoption

22:50 production feast & famine

25:19 9/11 demand signal

26:33 surging with standards

28:43 Iraqi Freedom GPS jamming

29:53 Laser JDAM origins

33:38 the impact

36:01 hitting moving targets

37:54 106 mph!

39:39 MOP

41:33 JDAM-ER

41:47 Ukraine

42:53 integration and modularity

43:41 aerial mining

46:22 outro

#military #airforce #navy #aviation #tech #technology #JDAM #boeing #GPS #defense #desert storm #iraq #syria #afghanistan #miltech #engineering #USA #security

In this episode, Mike sits down with Dan Jablonsky, CEO ofUrsa Major, to discuss solid rocket motors and how Ursa Major is doing it differently.

Once dominated by just two suppliers, America’s SRM propulsion base has been stretched thin—leaving gaps exposed by today’s conflicts.

Dan explains how Ursa Major is tackling that challenge withmodular production, 3D printing, Highly Loaded Grain propellants, and advanced manufacturing using what they’ve learned from their liquid motor product lines.

We also talk about the big picture: hypersonics, cruisemissiles, and upcoming programs with RTX (Raytheon), the U.S. Navy (SM-2, SM-3, SM-6), the Army, and Stratolaunch.

If you want to understand why missile production is one of the biggest defense challenges of our time—and how new entrants like Ursa Major are building solutions—this episode is for you.

Links

• Sign up for the newsletter⁠!

• Support us on ⁠Patreon⁠!

• Ursa Major website

• Ursa Major LinkedIn

• Ursa Major Instagram

• Ursa Major X

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00:00

00:42 intro

01:04 Ursa Major

02:22 company name

03:48 getting into the SRM business

05:29 SRM industrial base

07:15 doing SRMs differently

09:14 SRM 101

12:07 Highly Loaded Grain

13:08 increasing missile range

15:34 rapid development

16:44 scale with safety

22:25 rapidly adapting SRMs to the threat

23:03 3D printing everything?

24:59 hypersonic motors

27:20 missiles in space

27:47 affordable mass

29:14 outro

Electronic warfare is a crucial element of armed conflict involving controlling and protecting the electromagnetic spectrum, which is vital for communication, navigation, and target identification.

EW also permits the disruption and denial of adversaries' use of the spectrum, hindering their ability to operate effectively.

Benjamin “Chuck” Angus, Director of Business Development in Naval Power at Raytheon, a business of RTX, joins us this week to discuss Raytheon's involvement in EW, specifically offensive electronic attack, with its NextGeneration Jammer—an advanced electronic attack system that denies, disrupts, and degrades enemy technology, including communication tools and air-defense systems.

In this episode, Mike and Jake catch up on defense techhappenings.

Links

• Sign up for the newsletter⁠!

• Support us on ⁠Patreon⁠!

• ⁠⁠Website⁠⁠

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00:36 intro

03:31 defense tech investing

17:25 Anduril & Golden Dome

18:13 Golden Dome

25:51 frequency auctioning

28:12 Ukraine forcing a US reckoning

34:27 DIU criticism

42:24 the 4th offset?

46:39 Sun Tzu terrain

47:45 the torpedo

50:05 Ukraine drones and Israeli pagers

Tomorrow’s fight will be fast, complex, and contested. Victory won’t come from a single platform, weapon, or payload—it will depend on how well everything works together.

That’s where modeling and simulation (M&S) matters.

This week, Raytheon (an RTX company) joins us to discuss how they are leading the way with Rapid Campaign Analysis and Demonstration Environment (RCADE), a campaign-level M&S capability built to help decision-makers think beyond individual systems and enables them to see the entire operational ecosystem.