Justin Fishner-Wolfson on 137 Ventures and late-stage liquidity for pre-IPO founders and employees

expanded, right? I imagine uh early on, you know, even in the last few years, I'm assuming that people came out seeing your success being like, "Oh, we're going to do applied intuition for XYZ. " And then you're probably sitting there being like, "Well, applied intuition is applied intuition for XYZ.

" I think that's the normal competitive situation, but but has your vision always, you know, been or we're not a meek, we're not a meek company, you know. We're like, we're like Street Fighters. How long you been doing this? Don't let Don't let the suit uh don't let the suit uh you know I come from Detroit.

You're a brawler. You're a brawler. No, but how much how much years overnight success? Yeah. Yeah. I'm assuming your vision always was was massive but but now uh you know seeing the the technological advancement are you discovering new markets every month? Yeah.

I think our the the the core hypothesis that we had the core like you know quantum of idea that we had was we saw Tesla emerging this is 2016 2017 and it was like oh the car is going to be a software thing. Yeah. And we just don't know what that means but we ultimately want to participate in that.

So I you know I grew up in Detroit. My co-founder grew up in Detroit. Our we're a family of automotive folks. My parents in factories his parents and engineers. Uh I went to the General Motors Institute.

So we saw, you know, I worked in factories for a bunch of years and so you just you just see the car business and you're like this business is going to change. So I think that was the very vague rough idea and then the product strategy over years has been let's build all these products to make cars more intelligent.

We got into defense about a year after we started. So now very early on you know it's not random like General Dynamics and General Motors their their technical headquarters are like you know 5 minutes from each other. So you you were dual you were dual use from almost early.

How worried do you get for founders that are here that are not that aren't dual use given your experience working with the government? I'm just trying to eat. I I don't know about their businesses, man. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

No, no, but but but I imagine like if you had started out and you were just doing defense and you was autonomy and it was, you know, whatever 8 years ago, you may not automotive.

I think I think it's you know it's there's a our our company values we have these values that run the company but they can all be reduced to two words radical pragmatism automotive specifically and defense are anticyclical. Sure. So you know it helps like that's not random.

So so I think I think it's posit I think just a for us the problem space in a car and a tank are actually surprisingly similar. They're both human operated. They both are large machines that are electromechanical and then now are becoming more software.

Yeah, I think if I'm a defenseon company, I think it's I think it might be easier to be a commercial company to come in defense than a defense company to go out to commercial. The main reason is in the commercial ecosystem, you got to fight the globe.

You there is you got to fight everybody and it's not about I know the DoD procurement methodology and therefore I get a big contract. It's like I have to have the best product has to be priced the cheapest that it can be bought globally. Yeah. Because otherwise I'm not going to I'm not going to win.

I think for us the transition into defense being from Michigan. I mean take homecom you know the the tank and automotive the where they build tanks and the Detroit arsenal literally a mile from where I grew up. Wow. General dynamics 3 miles. I mean Detroit is a defense ecosystem. It's the building.

How do you So you you're clearly much more focused on existing form factors, right? Cars, tanks, things like that. Drones. Drones. Uh when when I'm sure you've been approached by humanoid robotic companies. Look at this this guy. You're Are you a plant by one of our investors? No, just Josh Wolf or who earlier.

No, but I but I I'm curious to think, you know, hear about how you're thinking about these new form factors. We don't know at all how they're going to play out, right? So, we have been we have been approached by I would say about three humanoid companies now who've said, "Hey, can we use the tooling?

Can we use some of the technology? " I think for us we like to enter markets where there's a bit stability and maturity because you don't want to build a bespoke thing for company A and then you know bespoke company. We're a product company right services company. Yeah. Humanoids will get to that.

The macro thing that you're tugging on is actually this abstraction from hardware or software. There is a company actually that that's like applied in the past which is Microsoft.

Microsoft started as a tooling company then got into operating systems then got got into applications but they did it all on the PC in the 80s. We're doing it on the vehicles in the, you know, 2020s, but it's the same thing.

It's you're abstracting away from the hardware that exists in a car or, you know, whatever truck, commercial truck. The humanoid is similar. There's a hardware software bifurcation that's going to happen.

How do you how do you how do you balance how do you balance then wanting to be a part of the the sort of evolution of these new form factors, but not overinvest too early is like that that that's, you know, billion dollar question.

Yeah, I think I think most companies have we have uh Mark Andre is our first investor and our largest shareholder and uh he's our sole official board member. Oh, nice. So, so Mark's been with the company a long time and Mark has this great line which is uh companies are almost always too early. Yeah.

And that's super counterintuitive because you always think don't be late, don't be late. Actually, the mantra everyone should be saying is don't be early. Don't be too early. Interesting. Don't be early. And so I think that I say like right now is the best time to get into self-driving. Interesting. Interesting. Yeah.

Because the all the technologies kind of figured out.

So now you're gonna enter against a Whimo or against a Tesla with none of the cost of the 15 years and you to take all of these engineers who are at Cruise and Argo and Whimo and a Tesla and you recruit them and you build some crews with all the all the tribal knowledge of what works, what doesn't work and they get to work with you.

Yeah. And they have more than tribal knowledge. It's like actual hard tech. And so they now know, you know, it's like building the first web application in the mid '90s. That's a miracle. Today, junior high kids build web apps as a part of their class project. Autonomy is going to be the same way.

Human robots are doing the same way. It's just the time factor we're looking at. So if you're trying to monetize, that's the business we're in. You know, that's what commercial the world is, private business.

You have to find where's that meniscus line and and as soon as something becomes mature enough because you also can't be too late. If you're too late then there's a bunch of players in the ecosystem. Actually, you talk about defense tech.

My actual fear for a young defense tech company isn't can you make it a commercial. I think you can build a very viable vibrant defenseonly company. Yeah. It's just there's a lot of defense only companies now. Totally.

And suddenly, you know, the pricing pressure goes down because you're the fourth company that's doing the same thing. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I can't wait for the next season of Battlebots.

I'm sure kids will be building all sorts of crazy autonomous solutions cuz there's so many open source packages that they can piece together. Surprised, by the way, um the the new spending bill allowed for like $500 million of autonomous systems.

A lot of people said that felt low that but but we had Sean Magcguire on the show earlier and he was like, well, it's not low if it if that's the starting point and we go up from there, which is I think what people I don't generally use proxy I don't use dollars as a proxy for importance.

you the deepseek uh you know outcome uh is a very clear example that you can do a lot with limited resources.

I think the the more important message broadly speaking is autonomy is where you know AI meets the war fighter that me I mean I've keep saying that again and again I you know trade trademark copyright whatever it is uh the but the point being is like it's the thing the the teaming aspect yep of the war fighter with the machine that's the future.

Y how we get there that's all details but we all have to agree that that's what we got to get to. If we agree to it then we can figure out the you know reconciliation and this specific bill well all that will get shaken out. I don't think enough people still agree that that of that vision of the future. Yeah.

It really does feel like of the other there's probably 20 other line items where autonomy will be stuffed in but it won't be headline autonomy spend. Yeah. Exactly.

And I think like you know even applied for our company we don't cast ourselves as an autonomy company we cast ourselves as an intelligence company a vehicle intelligence company right and so like why do we do that because autonomy is a is a component of component it's a component it's kind of like saying that you know is the government funding enough engines it's like well the car