Will Hurd: ex-CIA officer and congressman on Icon Prime's 3D-printed military barracks and a $201M Fort Polk contract

to the show, but this time he's live in person in the TVPN Ultra Dome. We have Will Herd. Welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for taking the time. Um, you know, you've been on the show before. Uh, I know we have some exciting announcements today, but I was hoping we could sort of, uh, since we have 30 minutes, we have some time. I was hoping we could go back and tell a little bit more of the well heard story because I it's one of my favorite stories, but uh does that sound good? Can we start at the beginning? Where did you grow up?

I grew up in San Antonio, Texas.

Okay. How was it?

Born and raised. I loved it. I was the baby of three.

Okay.

Um my my So my father's black, my mother's white, and so growing up as a biracial kid, that word biracial didn't exist when when when I was growing up, but love San Antonio. Love San Antonio Spurs.

Uh love everything about it. Did you play sports in high school?

I did. I played basketball and and so um uh and I I was on the practice squad at Texas A&M for three days. U when I went to when I went to college, I realized I'm going to I going to play I'm going to only play defense

and maybe get to ride the pine later down. So then I got involved in student government.

What? Okay. Student government. I want to ask you like what was your perception of the US government at that time?

I I I didn't have one, right? like I I wasn't, you know, I wasn't reading the Constitution when I was nine or things like that, right? I I I

I I played basketball. I loved um robotics. I um I got to intern at um the Southwest Research Institute when in San Antonio, which is the largest private um research institution in the United States. And I worked for this woman who graduated from Stanford and she had she was doing some cool robotics stuff. And I'm like, I want to be like her. And that's why I decided to I knew I was going to major in computer science, but I thought I was going that route. Politics wasn't anywhere on my on my radar. But my freshman year in school, somebody said, "Hey, you should get involved in student politics and help because you meet a lot of people that way." And I ended up as a freshman running this guy's campaign for student body president. He won. And so that's kind of how I got involved in in in student politics a little bit.

Yeah. I I I'm always so fascinated by your story

marketing hacks.

What?

Uh look, so so so for us, he used this is this is I'm dating myself, right? Um

he had the first guy we we built the first website ever used in in student politics in in in 1995, right? And it was it was like earthshattering. Um and and it you know it's like we were still using you know 2400 baud modems at the time. Um and so so yeah so that was really that was really the beginning of kind of digital marketing.

Have I ever told you the story about when I ran for uh I didn't run for student body president but I ran for class government and my entire philosophy was just name recognition and like ad impressions effectively. Yeah.

So I just put up huge banners everywhere that said vote Kougan. I made every single person in the school a t-shirt that said vote Kougan. I bought these like cheap shirts and would spray paint them on so they were really efficient to make. So everyone had everyone was very aware. They didn't know what I was running for. They didn't know what I stood for,

but they knew my name. And so when they went to the ballot, okay, I guess I'm voting Kugan because I've been told vote Gooan so many times.

Name ID.

Name ID, right?

Is the most is the most important thing. So you knew that. You knew that at an early age, you know. Uh but I mean the the the reason that I'm I'm I'm so fascinated by this interplay is because it feels like

computer science and government have been on a collision course for years and we are now at this moment where there are very serious discussions. But I want to continue into uh you know actually studying computer science like

what was that like? Where did you think that was going? Did you think this was was this like uh the the you know the the the birth of big tech? Were you watching that? like where were you what what what was were you just interested in the technology broadly like what how were you processing computer science

so I I was interested in technology broadly I was interested in the problem solving for me what I always say what's great about computer science is it teaches you a way of solving challenges and and and and regardless of being able to vibe code now and all that that that mentality is 100% and so so I thought it was going to be cool to be on the cutting edge of stuff and look I I had some pretty cool offers out of school um my first offer in the CIA was in the science and technology department. Um, basically the queue of of the of the CIA, but I knew I wanted to do ops and recruit spies and steal secrets and and so I I I went that way instead. But it but it really is weird this this um uh this understanding technology enough and the implications of it and how it's adopted and some of the the consequences um and how you use new technology uh to solve old challenges is is it's it's funny sitting here thinking about go back my life is like those are things that I've been focused on since I was 19.

Yeah. Uh take me through the decision to run for Congress. Look, I um in addition to recruiting spies and stealing secrets, I had to brief members of Congress. You know, I I lived I was in DC for two years at what I used to call our super secret CIA training facility called the farm. Now it's on Google Maps. Um I did two years in India, two years Pakistan, two years um doing inter agency work in New York, and then a year and a half in Afghanistan where I manage all of our undercover operations in Afghanistan.

Yeah, I was in Afghanistan. And and so my career started with the USS Coal bombing. This is, you know, this is when a lot of uh uh uh the public uh first became aware of al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden had been along for a long time.

And then my career kind of ended in with right before Coast. Coast was the deadliest attack in CIA's history.

Um a a double agent got onto our one of our bases and blew himself up and and killed uh many of of my colleagues at the time. So, so I was there in the, you know, in in the global the global war on terrorism. Um, and in addition to recruiting and doing that job, I had to brief members of Congress. And I'll be I was pretty shocked by the caliber of our elected leaders. And there was this time in Afghanist

Negative. Yes. I had a negative impression. I had a negative impression. Um, and and I

I I I I've had some interactions with members of Congress and I've been shocked to the upside on how good of people they are, like how much they're trying, but shocked to the downside of uh just you regurgitate some basic fact and they just have a surface level understanding, but then you dig a level deeper and you're like, is it how like what would it actually take to have an encyclopedic knowledge of every discipline? And so there's a lot of uh it's sort of galman amnesia. Whenever you're talking to somebody in government, you come in, you're the expert in media or you're the expert in technology or you're the expert in oil and gas and you come in and you're like this person doesn't know anything about oil and gas. It's like well they have to know 1% about everything sometimes. And so it is somewhat forgivable, but you clearly thought that it could be done better.

And and let me be clear like there are there are many members of Congress that are fantastic and I just didn't get the chance to meet them, right? And there was an experience in Afghanistan where um um a bomb went off in in front of our our compound, killed some of our local guards, took out a section of our our protective wall, and my unit was responsible trying to figure out what happened. And and basically, we conducted a bunch of operation, a short period of time, and I had a a briefing with members of HIPSY, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

And basically what happened in the meeting, someone asked, "What's the difference between a Sunni and a Shia?" and I'm started explaining, you know, uh the the the divide between the two. Excuse me. I he asked why the question was actually about Iran. Um why was Iran not supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan the way they were supporting other groups? And then I start explaining the Sunni Shia divide

and and and this person raises his or her hand and says, "What's the difference between a Sunni and a Shia?"

And I'm thinking, this person is about to make a really inappropriate joke and who am I to deny them that opportunity? And I said, "I don't know, congressman. That's the difference and I'm getting ready to go but I'm

bump.

They didn't know that difference in Islam. And and that was really the one I think it said for me. It's like hey my mom always said you're the part of the problem, part of the solution.

Yeah.

And decided to move back to my hometown in San Antonio and run for Congress. And I had been student body president. And I only needed like 6,000 more votes in a primary to win. And when I got when I was student body president, I can I can do this. I can do this. But look to to your point, right? But the the the amount of information that members of Congress had to deal with like a a day like when I was in there, you know, my I would do probably 30 35 meetings a day.

Yeah.

And that started with

How does that how does that actually work? What does your calendar look like?

Uh look, your team is is is what matters. My my scheduler is like the single most important person. Pre-briefs, read the briefs, have the information down, right? Like it's it's and it's like a 5 minute 5 minute meeting here, 30 minute meeting later, 10 minutes.

Usually about 30, right? Usually about 20 20 to 30. Um and some of that may be speeches, some of that, you know, all the different kinds different physical activities that you got to be prepared for. and and the um uh and what one day you would start about the sheep and goat herders of America which is a true like I had a lot of sheep and goat herders in my district to the San Antonio chamber of congress to a company that's putting um technology along the border to uh some um issue in cis lunar space with overhead architecture so you had to deal with with all of it right and and for me what I try to do is focus on technology because that's what I had experience experience and I had helped build a cyber security company before I I I was in Congress. And so so I that's where I tried to focus my lane on and and and and it goes back to that intersection of technology and and national security and to be able to help continue to make sure that America stays the greatest country on the planet. Um and so and then now in my post career to be able to be involved in companies that do that and with you know to work with friends um on this on that intersection right because the company Icon right I'm the president of Icon Prime we 3D we build 3D printed structures right and and all those places I lived I lived in some pretty crummy places and people were living in shipping containers like my colleagues and I were in shipping containers we're we're working 18, 19 hour days putting ourselves in harm's way and we're going back to basically a cot in a shipping container. I'm sorry that's not

what what what what's the first thing uh first thing you do if you get in a shipping container? How do you make it comfy?

Uh you get a good mattress.

Good mattress.

Yeah, a good mattress is

you try to insulate it at all.

So some of these did come with with insulation so you didn't have to have that and they would have a AC unit, right? Right. So they were they were a little kided out before you got in. But it's still a box, right? And and and and men and women in that are putting themselves in harm way deserve deserves better. And that's one of the that's one of the things we're focusing on on on Icon Prime. Like it starts with barracks. There's like the black mold and um uh there's like 19 billion dollars worth of problems from from um weather events that our our soldiers, sailor, airmen, marines, and guardians are living in. That's unacceptable. Um Secretary Hicks has said this is an erosion of our military readiness, right? And so that's, you know, to be able to use big robots to to help, you know, repair military readiness as one as one thing at part of what we're doing at Icon Prime is is pretty exciting.

Okay. Uh we I think we have some photos of the actual uh structure. So we we're going to have the team pull them up. Um, walk me through the the bullcase for 3D printing because I've talked to some folks in construction and they've said that, well, uh, 3D printing is great when you need something very unique, but a lot of houses are just flat walls. We're actually pretty good at just milling flat structures, laying 2x4s together. Um, why is 3D printing an important technology here?

Well, first off, and and and you're seeing this is one of our our robots building um, you know, we can build bunker. That was a bunker, I think, what you're seeing there. the first part with some with some um some barracks.

Whether you want a box

Yeah.

or a Fibonacci spiral.

Yeah.

The cost is exactly the same.

So flexibility.

And then here's what happens when you curve. If if I took a piece of paper, you can't stand it up.

It'll fall down. Yeah.

But if you curve it, it's a little bit sturdy.

That's why that internal structure.

And so that's why you can start doing some unique things with with internal structure. And we have gotten the price down. So, so, uh, the the, uh, construction has been the same since the Middle Ages.

Yeah.

And we have gotten our price down to below the national average of putting up walls. Walls are the most expensive part of construction. That's what Jason Ballard, our CEO, and our founders, the unique insight was, if you're going to disrupt construction, what is the the thing that can do have the biggest impact? And they discovered it was the wall system. And so now the fact that like we can make wall systems below the national average. So why do you want just a box? Now here's the other thing. Guess what? Um guess what happens with concrete? Termites don't eat it.

Sure.

You can't burn it.

Sure.

It can it can uh stand up against a flood.

Yeah.

Right. And so these are these are some of the challenges you don't have in in in in traditional construction. Now the the US military has also um done some unique things with our walls to test their strength really um and and that there's an added benefit for that when you're trying to help um project force in in difficult places. So so that's the that's the that's the use case of why 3D printing now uh there construction uh technology construction technology companies have been around and many have failed. There was a company that was 3D printing. They put out they sent out about 110 robots, but they only built like a hundred structures.

Wow.

You know, at Icon, we have built over 250 individual structures and and so and and the reason we're unique is that we've done the entire vertical integration. That's the difference. It's the design. Designing structures takes time and there's different elements of design. Then you have the then you have the the construction piece. We also deal with the regulatory effort. So the fact that we've done all of this vertical integration is what has made us successful and we have this is not novel techn this isn't science projects this is real technology real robots real um AI enabled software real material science like our the most PhDs we have is in the material science um um um area and so so this is what makes us unique and and now we've started the technology business we're going to be selling robots to Um, so it's it's an exciting it's an exciting place to be. Oh, and and by the way,

if we're going to be an interplanetary

exploring civilization,

we're going to have to be able to build in other places. And we're pro we're going to be building uh the first structure on the moon using some of the tactics, techniques, and procedures we've learned down here on Earth in order to do that. So, it's it's exciting. Yeah,

this actually feels like you could probably mix cement from moon from dirt on the moon like fairly easily and use the actual materials on the moon.

Well, it's easier than wood.

Sure. Like easier than easier than getting wood up there.

Here are the three insights and how you're going to be able to be um a interplanetary explorating civilization.

You got to use the resources there in situ uh resource utilization, right? That's one.

You got to have some robots to do it. And then those robots have to be generalist, not not specific. And the the moon has some unique challenges. But but right now, but right now, look, we're we're excited.

Just a few. Just a few. But look, we're we're we're super excited cuz because again, when I was in Congress, like I knew about this this barracks problem. Sure. Um, I was on the appropriation subcommittee that dealt with this issue and the fact that now we're solving this many and and we are right now printing 10 barracks in six months in in in Fort Bliss. Um, this is they the the army came to us said, "Hey, can you do in a year?" When we were doing the negotiation, they came down, can you do it in six months? Um, to have the one of the largest military construction projects to be done in six months is absolutely unheard of. And these are places that um give our war fighter uh the the the dignity that they deserve. And because of this work um we got another project um in in Louisiana at Fort Pulk and this is our newest one. It was $21 million contract uh to to

There we go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There we go. I want to talk about the aesthetics of 3D printed housing and materials. We saw a Starbucks that was 3D printed and it had sort of the the the signature like ripples of the concrete. Uh people the Starbucks community was up in arms about it. They don't think it looks good. I think that for military applications, people will probably take whatever's safe and comfortable. Uh but

yeah, you just want something that's highly highly functional.

But do you think not issue? Do you think that people will that like the the taste will evolve and people will start to see uh 3D printed structures as a sign that it's more sustainable and and uh and it will actually just be normalized and people will be cool with that or will we be like plastering over this to create a flat wall? Look, I I think people will will and it's will, you know, evolve. And I live in a 3D printer now, right? We we live we in when I'm in Austin, we have a we call it house zero. This was the first um home uh that we built to show that this is great living and my wife and daughter love it. My daughter's 13 years old and she she loves the ripples and friends when they come over they love. Now the Starbucks, I don't know who built it. It wasn't us, right? So, just like with anything, quality is is different everywhere you go. And and so we've done a a hundred home neighborhood in North Austin um with LAR. The folks that are there love love living there. We have a a community in in south south of Austin called Wimberly. We're looking to build in Miami as well. So, so we we've done the whole range from helping the the the chronically homeless in Austin to high-end luxury in Miami to uh folks in the military in barracks in El Paso and then astronauts on the moon, right? Like we we've done the whole whole bit. And again, this is the the the thing about uh 3D printing is it the walls are probably the thing that creates the most

uh makes something a home and and and when you have the waves and the unique uh uh structures, it makes it it it it it you have a different experience and I've seen it in in my personal life and the folks that are living in the 240uh homes that we've already built um are are loving it as well too.

Yeah. Great part of the great part of the sales pitch. They're like, "How well, how is it to to live in?" You're like, "Come over for a barbecue."

100. Look, when y'all are come to Austin, y'all I got a place, you know? Y'all can y'all can y'all can uh y'all can attest to it.

Yeah. Um the company is sort of like a dualuse technology now, working with the government, but also building homes. How do you see that evolving? I have to imagine that the uh the commercial real estate market is massive compared to the United States military barracks market. Same with the residential market. Uh is is the army project or is the is the uh department of war project more about proving the technology, scaling the technology or do you see yourself as evolving into primarily a prime? Like where does the business go? This seems like a fork in the road.

Sure. So I the the business is really three parts, right? It's um you know the the my part the the being a government contractor. We we are we've done um already 360 million dollars of work. We have we have more coming. You know my goal is to build 900 barracks in the next 5 years. And so so the immediate we're doing it because there the customer needs work, right? in this project we're doing in Fort Bliss and the demonstration in Louisiana say this is real right like this is and we're moving at a scale people don't have we also are going to help you know uh deliver force projection in hard places how do you build in situ

in difficult places whether it's the first island chain um in in in the Indo-Pacific or somewhere else right so how do you ha how do you do that so so delivering um force projection and then we've we've talked about about space Now, we just started the technology business where we're going to be selling the robots um to to others. And yes, that um right now, if we had if we sold 2,500 robots, right? And to give us some context to that number, John Deere of their big tractor sells about 66,000 a year,

right? So, we're talking about 2500. That would make the Icon Builder Guild the largest home builder in America

because they could build so many.

They could build so many with with those robots. And when you look at the the market share, it rounds down to zero the global market share. That's how much opportunity there is in in in this space. And so yes, the technology business is going to grow in that opportunity, but we are going to have a core um a core government because that's our responsibility we believe. And then and our third part is we have what we call it um um design built. This is our general contractor inhouse. This is how we've proven all the steps you need to do. How do you have the ecosystem um and the tools necessary in order to build? We've proven that with all these structures. We're to continue to prove that with the government business and that's what's going to inform um when we have the the Icon Builder Guild start printing with with our robots.

That makes sense. What do you think the future of prefab is in this case?

Look, I I there's a there's a $2 million uh not $2 million, excuse me, two million home deficit.

Yeah.

In the United just in the United States every single year. So, you know, there's going to be tools for everything, right? I I think I think there's a place for it. Uh I I believe and we believe that 3D printing is is the way to go because not only of the quality um to withstand um rains and and fires and and and bugs um but it's it's the the the ability to deliver something that's beautiful as as well too.

Yeah. on on the national level, was there ever any proposal around home building or solving that home deficit that perked your interest but maybe didn't get across the finish line? It feels like uh the lot of the housing crisis is driven by uh specific markets going through bull cycles or permitting or timelines. And then of course there's the materials and all sorts of different uh technologies that can happen. But uh I haven't I I've heard the price of housing elevate to a national conversation, but I haven't heard of someone put down a plan that actually gets traction.

Look, so so affordability is probably the number one issue across the United States of America right now. And and so I I agree with you, but there's there's this is a this is a a problem that has this is a it's an issue that has multiple problems. Now, I can make an argument that because of poor design over many years, that is what's caused all this overregulation, because people weren't doing the things in order to take care of their communities, right? We just went through this process of getting into the UFC, not mixed martial arts, but but the the the uniform facilities code. This is what the the government uses in order to build. It was a process and we went through it and now we're in and we're going to be able to start doing more. And so, so, um, the difficulty of of doing this community by community is why some people want to see that, um, that change, but I think it starts with do innovative things. We use robots to change the walls. Yeah. Right. That's just the beginning of of this process. It's labor, it's time, right? Like all of these things has has what impacted um the the issue of housing. And for us, the key insight was how do you stop how do you do something different and change something that's been been going on since the Middle Ages and and do it faster and better and smarter and cheaper. And that's it is right. Okay. Look, you're right. If you had a house that was 100 years old,

Yeah.

it would probably be a little more stable than one that was built

five 10 years ago.

Right. And and this is this is one industry that hasn't that hasn't been changed. And that's what we're that's what we're trying to do.

Cool. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to get you.

We'll talk to you soon. Our next guest is in the waiting room already. Let me