Rune Technologies' Peter Goldsborough on modernizing military logistics with software built for the trenches

you your backstory and kind of what the company does today yeah absolutely absolutely happy to give you an intro and then tell you more about the company great uh myself I'm I'm the CTO of run I lead the product engineering team here and uh before run I was at andal for four years as a software engineer had some incredible opportunities there with some amazing teams and before that I was at Facebook for three years uh Facebook a research you're the meme you're the meme of like you were building ads and then Palmer said hey come do something meaningful with your life you over by Palmer I love it yeah it's amazing it's real and um actually dropped off College to join Facebook when I was 19 you in London at the time and um I'm originally um from Austria so I like to consider myself the most patriotic austrian-american since Arnold Schwarzenegger Arnold Schwarzenegger I was it going to say exactly but I had the opportunity to come here when I was 19 and you know participa in the American dream and I'm grateful for that ever since that's fantastic yeah what about R can you tell me yeah so about R so you know in short we're a military logistics technology company okay and really the the realization was that you know over the past few years as defense technology companies have invited on on drone swarms and Hypersonic missiles and autonomous submarines you know what they haven't had the focus to think about is you know well if that drone breaks down in the fight you know where do it spare parts come from right or if you shoot one Hypersonic missile or do the next 30 come from or if you have a collaborative combat aircraft where does the fuel to charge the battery to get it off the ground come from right those those logistical considerations and you know as I as I looked more into Logistics I realized that it was sort of the Forgotten part of the military especially at the Tactical level and I realized there was an opportunity to bring you know the great Innovation that other companies had brought to intelligence and command control and fires but now bring it over to to Logistics because you know I also knew that you know the great quotes of amateur talk tactics and professionals talk Logistics and you know I knew how much Logistics mattered to patent's third Army and so it was just such a stark contrast between Logistics really matters but then when you look at logisticians in the field they're using whiteboards and Excel spreadsheets and you know scraps of paper and there was a gap and that's why we found it ruin to fill that yeah I don't know if you ever played like hearts of iron 4 but it's very funny that uh you know Call of Duty is wildly popular but Hearts of Iron 4 is this like intense military simulator where you can spend 12 hours just optimizing like the flow of oil to the front line it's very Logistics based and people say it's like never never play the game because it's too addictive and you'll just be playing it all the time but you're playing it in the real life uh can you can you talk to me more about uh what contested logistics mean I've heard that term thrown around but I don't really understand it is that is that relevant to your business yeah know it's an interesting term because when I when I you know started out with Rune I also really tried to dig into what does contested logistics mean because that you know it's a buzz word it's out there yeah the more and more I spoke with logisticians they actually laugh when they heard that term because all the logistics of the military they've ever done is contested right the military operates in contested spaces so the contest Logistics is is is really not you know it's actually not necessary it's just Logistics so you know we're what we're building is not software for contested Logistics we're building software for Logistics got it can you take me through some of the history of uh Logistics obviously was like pen and paper and uh I don't know even before that probably like carrier pigeon um but then of course you know we've heard that like Microsoft has actually been a great partner to the dod and they've vended in everything from Microsoft Outlook to Excel and those tools although they seem silly they're probably very helpful in terms of just understanding like how many bullets do we have in the be in the in the Armory or how many rations do we have um but but has there been uh what what has the progression of technology and the adoption of Technology looked like over the last 20 years like post uh global war on ter yeah I mean you Logistics always has mattered right there's actually a great quote all the way back from alexand the great where he he called his logisticians a humorless lot because they were the first to be slaughtered if anything went wrong right so it's always mattered always been important um you know when it comes to technology one thing that's interesting about the global war in terror is that Logistics wasn't actually really the focus there because you know we really had air suppor so every shipment from you know Germany or the US that had to get to the Middle East made it there in one piece right it really wasn't the primary focus and it's really now more so as we're looking towards Ukraine and you know future conflicts within your peer adversaries the logistics is stug to matter again the way it did in past large scale conflicts right and you know seeing you know Russia for example really almost fail at taking KF in large part because of logistics where kind of people up to that problem again now in terms of the technology there's been less focus on it and you know of course you know Excel and PowerPoint are great general purpose tools but you know what Logistics is a really you know focused um you know specialty with lots of Doctrine and you know tactics and procedures and so you know you can solve any problem with PowerPoint but that doesn't mean you should and so you know the software re building is really focused on what does a logistician need when they're in the field and solving their problems yeah how how do you think about the trade-off between flexibility of the design of your system versus uh creating something that's more deterministic more enforcing rules on on the user you obviously like the worst thing when you're building software is like yeah we did the demo we did the install and then a week later they fell back to excel right I'm sure you want to avoid that yeah you know working with with um our customers it's often a back and forth between understanding their current workflows and supporting them then also showing the art of the possible with what new technology can bring to the into the four right um you know what you can do in Excel you know isn't isn't what you can we do with AI for example and so it's actually showing them as possible as well as supporting their current workflows you know at the same time and you when it comes to generalizing the software that's where you know we work with a lot of different service branches now you know with the army with the Marine Corps you we're looking you looking very closely at the Air Force and other branches and so looking at how Logistics is done in different parts of the military helps us build really general purpose software that could even scale Beyond just the military one day right and disaster and rescue you know oil and gas also have similar logistical needs and also comment you mentioned earlier you know Microsoft there's also something that you know is unique realization for us is that you know the military doesn't always have perfect re um infrastructure available when it comes to its internet bandwidth and whatnot and so we we've also really focused on you know building the software to run on a laptop in the jungle in the Philippines in the trenches and the way you would write your software in that kind of environment is very different than in a stable you know data center with infinite band with infinite resources and so you know supporting that tactical you know trench warfare kind of environment is also what's unique about what we're doing so gpus every time you fire up a query and Rune yeah it's to me the interesting thing is you know if you look back at the start of the Iraq War the iPhone didn't release for years after that right so I'm interested to think about how you think about mobile and now there's just like in theory like an order of magnitude more devices out in the field that theoretically could be used for you know uh to to make what you know the sort of logistics operations more efficient so so uh is mobile like you know sort of widespread with these systems to date or is it or is it again like you know that the sort of laptop scenario in in the jungle and and just yeah I'm curious how you think about mobile broadly yeah mobile is popping up a lot especially at the lowest levels where you really have you know soldiers or Marines uh with their phones typing in logistical reports that's that's happening right now and we're working on projects to integrate with that but you know what's I think even more interesting is how do you get away from humans even doing the county right now so you be very honest the way the military right now knows how much fuel is in a certain place is that you have you know private dip stick in and see how far up it goes right and so you know that's how it's done right now and you phones get you to you reporting that perhaps more quickly but what we also want to get to is how do you not of a human in the loop in there at all with you know sensors to just measure that you know whether it's ammunition in a in a base or fuel you know ideally that's all automated how do you how much sorry how much uh you talked about Ukraine uh and and learning you know maybe what not to do from from the Russians uh how much do you think that the US has to learn in Ukraine around Logistics or is is is Ukraine doing anything really well uh are we being sort of efficient there they're making a million drones a year already so it seems like there's some industrial capacity there and then I've also heard those reports that like Russia was like ripping like semiconductor chips out of like washing machines in like old Ford F-150s because they were so out of of like supplies and I I don't I never know what to believe with these stories but I'd love to hear your take yeah I certainly think that United States you would have fared better in Ukraine right the way we fight is different but you know what's not too different is how we track Logistics at the Tactical level right now you know the ukrainians are using you know papers and whiteboards and that's why there largely isn't data at the Tactical level and what they're actually consuming and the United States military isn't too different from that right now so you know even when it comes to Tactical Logistics you know the US Military has a lot he can modernize on that front and you know that's what we're interested in doing right now MH um and so you know that's that's what our Focus has been do you find who who do you connect with most on the customer side like are there people you know within the dod that are just like Clearly Logistics nerds and you guys just like you know have a 30 minute call and end up going two hours and it's just like you know you finally are like yes like you getan uh because I feel like if you're you know anybody that's a true sort of student of History you know could get to the point where they're like yeah actually I care less about like the sixth generation fighter and more just like the basics of like how we get one thing uh from point A to point B yeah you know honestly from from the get-go the one thing we've never had to convince somebody of is is that what we're tackling is a problem everybody understood that Logistics matters everybody understands that you know the the technology that logisticians have in the United States military is not where where it's supposed to be and you you there's obviously the logistician branch of the military and when we work with them and they've been you know our closest design Partners so far you know they understand these problems because they live them every day but even other War fighting functions and other you know military members understand the problem as well they they sometimes need to be you know they need to understand why Logistics needs to matter to them you know when you're talking to an artillery officer for example you know they do sometimes have to you be led to understand how can AI for logisticians allow them to be more lethal right because they're going to have Munitions when they need them before they need them in the right place so that's sometimes you know something that we show The Art of the possible but in general everybody understands this really matters uh how are you thinking about the go to market like the revenue side of the business is this uh the standard like get some SBI money then make it through the valley of death land it program of record or is there just like a very different model because you're selling software in logistics you know the good thing is that you know over the past few years the military has woken up to Logistics really mattering a lot so you know there's a lot of Buzz around it now and you know in terms of what that allows us to do is one we can both go to operational units in the field who actually need the software right there'll most often be our design partners and help us develop that's not going to be the big dollars but it's really important for us to build the best product and then we're also going to The Innovation Labs you know across the services there's organizations that you know help feel technology you know um from The Innovation stage and then there's also the program offices themselves and you know across the services there's very large projects or programs underway that include sustainment now they maybe wouldn't of two years from now two years ago but they do now and so it's really across the board from the largest modernization projects in the Army to The Innovation labs to the operational units we're you going to all of them and having success with all of them as well what kind of skill sets are you hiring for right now it feels like AI would be really important but maybe not today uh what's like the kind of the the the type of engineer that fits in really well at Ru today yeah you know also we've we've been um you know scaling rapidly we're 12 people now we I've had an engineer on board every single week for the past four weeks ni you know so that's that's been really exciting growth for us we're actually now looking for more product minded individuals so product managers that you know have lived the dream and you know perhaps were you know veterans themselves but now want to build technology and understand that as well so we're looking you know to scale our product team right now um you know and as we grow you know further you know engineering will always be our greatest asset so Engineers that have you really cared about the mission before right you know we both cared deeply about the mission of what we're building for as well as you know having the right engineering skill sets so Engineers that identify with wanting to you know like I did not build ads anymore but um you know build military technology you know that we're always going be looking for those Jordy got anything that's it um I I had one more question about kind of uh just on the data integration side is it important for you to build uh Integrations into different uh data Lakes data warehousing uh is it important to just do really great like like PDF ingesting how are you thinking about actually getting I mean I'm sure as you grow and scale like there will be times when you run into like okay there actually is a lot of data here let's bring it in and and onboard it uh is paler a piece of all this like how do you see Rune playing into like the broader ecosystem of like military data broadly yeah so it's important about logistics that it does really require very holistic decision making and then you you can't just know what you have on hand but also what Transportation you have so get it from A to B along which routes with what Crews to actually move that equipment if you don't have any of those pieces you're not making holistic decision and it might actually just you break down when it comes to the real world so we're very you know interested in in Integrations we have a super you know open architecture let lets us integrate with programs of record and other systems you we're talking to lots of other companies that want to integrate with us and then we're also allowing you know manual inputs as well you know like you said whether it is you know like PDFs or excels or your manual inputs too it's kind of like a mix of of you know other Integrations manual put and you're combining all of that to give that you know real world recommendation that connects all those pieces that I just mentioned yeah that's great well good luck to you thank you so much for stopping by this is a wonderful conversation we'll have to have you back when there's more news yeah yeah thank great to meet yeah have a great day very cool we got Sam we're Switching gears here we're going into uh from uh defense Tech into hard tech impulse stoves I want to talk to Sam about what big stove is doing in reaction to uh the tariffs well before we get into this yeah you know what somebody that's selling stoves online should use oh I know I think you know John numeral baby numeral for sure put sales tax on autopilot they put it on autopilot for thousands of leading e-commerce and SAS businesses it is the platform for sales tax compliance you want a guy like spending any more than five minutes per month five minutes is is honestly 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filters you can filter for great Wi-Fi has pool uh king bed all these different things you want I want to know if there's an Impulse stuff anyway we got the founder of impulse coming into the studio welcome Sam boom how you doing hey great to Great to chat with you guys live yeah yeah I'm so glad