Defense Unicorns CEO Rob Slaughter on AI lowering barriers for tiny defense startups

Speaker 2: We couldn't be there in person, but we have a correspondent on the ground. How are you doing? Welcome back. I'm doing great. How are you guys? Good to see you. Take us through it. Quick reintroduction on yourself, the company, but then tell us about how Reindustrialize is going. We were just talking about Michigan, actually.

Speaker 9: Yeah. So I'm Rob Slaughter, cofounder and CEO of Defense Unicorns. Mhmm. Defense Unicorns, what's a big idea? It's all about getting software to war fighters.

Speaker 6: Mhmm.

Speaker 9: People don't realize how hard it is to get modern software capabilities on a lot of the military assets. And what we've done as a company is build an entire tech tech stack from the ground up and just made it easy.

Speaker 2: Yeah. What's the mood on the on the ground like? How take take us through reindustrialize. How long have you been out there? What's been the highlight? What are the key themes?

Speaker 9: Yeah. So we're we're out here today. Actually, the the noise in the background, just to give you guys a a sneak

Speaker 1: peek Woah. Place.

Speaker 9: So we are actually at the Navy's WarHacker event. We we recently announced our product launch, UDS Fleet. And so we happen to be, you know, here in San Diego. Super excited about the Andrel two fifty that's coming up here. Yeah. But today, actually, and all the folks around me, there's 350 builders, you know, across the Department of War all working and hacking on cool problems. And so we're excited to to work side by side with the, you know, military and and government and building solutions here.

Speaker 2: Is this a new trend, just a new new era for software defense technology? Because it feels like, you know, a lot of the defense tech energy was around new systems. You're building boats. You're building drones. You're building counter drones, counterboats or something. A lot of hard tech getting unlocked, a lot on the back of the Andriel story and a bunch of other successful companies. But this feels a little bit new to me. Are we in a software boom these days?

Speaker 9: Yeah. So so a couple things. Nature of warfare is changing.

Speaker 4: Sure.

Speaker 9: And so I think people realize that a little bit. But to give you guys some perspective, when I was active duty air force, when I was deployed, there's 4,000 airmen managing 70 aircraft. You can imagine in the not so distant future, there's gonna be 70 airmen managing 4,000 or 40,000 autonomous systems. Yeah. And so the sheer nature of warfare is changing just based on the sheer number of systems. Also, the demand to get updates out faster has never been more important because of a capabilities perspective. Mhmm. And so that's the advantage side. On the national security side, the scary side is you have new foundational models. You know, I know Anthropic, you know, had their model pooled due to national security concerns. I mean, concerns are are very real. Like, we need to obviously secure our systems. The ability to patch and update your software has never been more, you know, more important. And so, honestly, shout out to, you know, what's changed. The threat is real. Modern warfare is here. You know, shout out to the the Trump administration and, honestly, the entire Department of War to just take new approaches to doing business. And so, you know, this hackathon that we're at today, you know, which is, you know, Department of War, you know, effort, it's one of many things that the Department of War is doing to just take kind of new approaches. And really, just like the big idea here and what we're trying to get after is like, have a team full of industry people. It's hard in the industry to actually sit side by side a war fighter. You might develop a product and be guessing as to what their issues are. You can actually sit side by side with them. You can get real feedback and vice versa. As a former military member, you really have no idea what industry is capable of. And something that you might think is a hard challenge, somebody can actually solve overnight. And so, you know, I think this is one of many things that the administration has been doing. You know, I I can't you know, as a as a citizen and somebody who spent the last two decades in the Department of War, I really love to see the bureaucracy just, like, totally get get out of the way. I think this is a new vibe. You know, I know you got a lot of tech companies like ourselves, you know, really entering the ecosystem. And I think the reason why it continues to grow is because companies are finding success. And why are they finding success? It's because the military members on the other side are open to new approaches. They see the demand. They know that they need to be operating a different way. And I think there's a a whole industry of startups that are eager to work with those customers.

Speaker 1: Do you think there's more pre seed stage companies that re industrialize this year than two years ago or less?

Speaker 9: Well, I would say that it's, you know, for me, this is my first first one, so I don't know

Speaker 1: between Oh, okay.

Speaker 9: This year and last year. But I'll tell you what, we got we got a start up over here. It's like four people. It was it was three people a week ago. And I can't go in exactly what they're doing, but I I've been blown away. You know, like I said, being a former Air Force member, they're working on some awesome things. There are small companies here. Right actually behind me, we got a small group of you know, small company, about 10 people building a drone live, integrating with some new software capabilities. And so I think the the the appetite for smaller and smaller teams because as you guys know very well, AI has lowered the barrier to entry. And so as AI lowers the barrier to entry, there's an appetite for the Department of War and the government to work with these smaller and smaller teams.

Speaker 2: Awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much for taking the time to hop on the show. Yeah.

Speaker 1: Thanks for calling in from the hackathon.

Speaker 2: We'll talk to you soon.

Speaker 1: I'm sure the energy is awesome.

Speaker 2: Have a good rest of your day.

Speaker 1: Great great to see you.

Speaker 2: Awesome. We'll talk to you soon.

Speaker 1: Goodbye. Slaughter.

Speaker 2: Let me tell you about Codex. Codex is a powerful workspace for getting work done with AI agents. Whether you're writing code, analyzing data, creating content, or automating business workflows, Codex helps you move projects forward from start to finish. Our next guest is almost here. I'm not sure.

Speaker 1: I guess not yet. Fully in the waiting room. We have Rob Reid, the

Speaker 2: author of After On and Year After One

Speaker 1: DC Braggs hit the timeline What happened? And said, I wanna sincerely apologize for poking fun at the most marginalized and victimized group in our society, venture capitalists.

Speaker 2: Yes. The Streisand effect was fully out on the timeline over the past few days going back and forth with venture capitalists over something that wasn't quite a brag, but it was it was more just a reflection on the on the on the time in San Francisco, how much money is flowing around, how many people are raising different funds. But VC brags, of course, takes a screenshot, posts it, and that was not well received. And so but that that in you know, if you're getting if you're getting dunked on, you gotta lean in. I think Jason Kallikanis learned this and has done a fantastic job, like, negotiating with VC Braggs to the point where the whole like first investor in Uber, third investor in Uber thing No. If you become part of sticky brand If

Speaker 1: VC Brags takes a shot at you and you're an investor, you've got to lean in. Yeah. You can't

Speaker 2: You've made it. You're worth taking a shot at. Yeah. Like your people are talking about you. You're not a nobody anymore.