Techquisition: The Pentagon’s New Drone Czar?

Techquisition: The Pentagon’s New Drone Czar?

In this Techquisition Edition of The Mission Matters Podcast, Maggie Gray and David Rothzeid break down Secretary Hegseth's new memo establishing a Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager (DRPM) for unmanned and autonomous systems. David unpacks what a DRPM actually is, how it differs from traditional Portfolio Acquisition Executives and Joint Program Offices, and why this new "czar" reports directly to the Deputy Secretary of Defense with authority to redirect funding and set standards across the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Space Force. They trace the historical precedent back to JIEDDO and the MRAP program, walk through where Replicator, the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group (DAWG), JIATF 401, and Drone Dominance now fit under this new structure, and dig into the budget realities, including the proposed $54 billion request for the DAWG and what a likely continuing resolution means for FY27. They close with practical guidance for founders and investors: how to navigate a rapidly shifting stakeholder landscape, why engaging with the Defense Innovation Unit matters more than ever, and what to expect as the fiscal year turns over. Chapters: 00:00 – Intro 01:46 – What is a DRPM, and why create one for unmanned systems (UXS)? 03:26 – DRPM vs. PEO/PAE vs. Joint Program Office (F-35 JPO example) 05:53 – Who controls the budget and contract decisions in the short term 07:39 – Historical precedent: JIEDDO and the MRAP 09:06 – Recent DRPM examples: Golden Dome, submarines, B-21/F-47 10:23 – New DRPM authorities over budgeting and the DAWG's $54B request 11:52 – How the DRPM folds in Replicator, DAWG, Drone Dominance, and JIATF 401 14:11 – Why now: commercial tech has outpaced how the Pentagon employs drones 16:33 – DIU's expanded role as the industry front door 18:15 – Budget breakdown: Replicator, DAWG, JIATF 401 funding history 20:11 – Outlook on Congress passing a budget vs. another continuing resolution 20:46 – Advice for startup founders and investors 23:07 – Closing thoughts and next episode preview

UFORCE: Ukraine's First Defense Tech Unicorn

The Magura family of USVs, built by UFORCE, sank 14 Russian warships. UFORCE air systems have flown over 220,000 combat missions and downed two Su-30 fighter jets — all in under three years of operation. In this episode, CEO Oleg Rogynskyy joins David and Maggie to talk about building Ukraine's first defense tech unicorn from the front lines: how UFORCE manufactures under missile threat, why most Western defense tech fails the "coconut test," and what the US military should be buying right now. Topics covered: autonomous systems, drone warfare, defense acquisition, Indo-Pacific strategy, Ukraine lessons for the West, and scaling a defense company from warzone to global market. Timestamps: (00:00) Introduction(02:14) UFORCE's Platforms and Combat Effects in Ukraine(06:32) Building a Defense Unicorn in Wartime(10:51) Applying Silicon Valley Lessons to Defense(13:33) Hardening Systems for Real Combat(15:12) Autonomy and the Bottom-Up Adoption Model(18:47) Ukraine's Outcomes-Based Acquisition Revolution(23:17) Lessons for Iran, Hormuz, and US Conflicts(26:30) Scaling to the US: Hiring Sean Planke(30:20) What Western Defense Tech Misunderstands(32:44) Manufacturing and Supply Chain Under Fire(36:52) Global Demand Across Four Theaters(40:29) The Future of UFORCE(42:44) If Oleg Were US Secretary of War

Code Metal: Rewriting the Code Behind National Security

AI made writing code cheap. Verifying it is the new bottleneck. Peter Morales, CEO and co-founder of Code Metal, joins Maggie Gray and Pat O'Reilly to talk about modernizing the legacy code running US national security — and why formal verification is the durable moat in an era of commodity AI code generation. Founded in 2023, Code Metal has raised ~$200M and signed contracts with the US Air Force, L3Harris, RTX, and Toshiba. Projects that used to take engineering teams months now take minutes. In this episode: * Why US weapons systems still run on COBOL, Fortran, and Ada * How Code Metal pairs LLMs with formal verification for safety-critical code * Why the verification layer is more valuable than the model itself * Peter's advice for founders building in defense tech Timestamps: (00:00) Introduction (2:10) Why would you want translate code? (4:11) How does Code Metal accelerate this process? (5:27) Customer interest in Code Metal (6:22) Outdated weapons systems programming language (8:39) Code Metal's formula (12:14) How does Code Metal choose a model to use (14:11) Lessons learned from working in international markets (15:20) Navigating commercial and government customers (18:03) Getting approval to work with classified customers (19:46) Customer success stories (23:06) Building trust with mission-critical customers (24:10) Why did you decide to start your own company? (26:22) How do you approach recruitment for working in a startup? (28:47) Biggest changes in defense space over Peter's career (30:11) Advice for founders and investors to leverage a board (32:16) Lessons from Ukraine and Middle East conflicts (33:10) Subcontracting as a way to gain access to larger contracts (34:39) What's next for Code Metal? (35:38) Biggest surprised building Code Metal (36:19) Advice for founders building in the national security domain

Techquisition: $1.5 Trillion Defense Budget Request Explained

Decoding the President’s Budget Request, POM, and DoD J-Books for Defense Tech Startups. In this Techquisition Edition episode of The Mission Matters Podcast, Maggie and David explain why the President’s Budget Request, the Pentagon POM process, and the DoD “J-books” are key public roadmaps of priorities and funding signals, while emphasizing the request is not law and Congress controls appropriations. Joined by Matt MacGregor of Creative Defense and the Defense Tech and Acquisition News newsletter, they break down today’s defense spending picture (base budget, reconciliation, and a possible Iran-related supplemental), explain “colors of money” (O&M vs RDT&E vs procurement) and shifts toward procurement, and describe how companies can mine J-books via keywords, major thrusts, and contract follow-through. They discuss notable FY27 signals including AI infrastructure/compute, CDAO changes, Maven, DIU funding dynamics, Golden Dome linkages, service-level priorities (counter-UAS, shipbuilding, EW, hypersonics), Air Force autonomy vs legacy platforms, and what happens next in Congressional markups. Visit Creative Defense [https://www.creativedef.net/] and check out Matt's substack to learn more:  Defense Tech and Acquisition News [https://defenseacquisition.substack.com/]As always, please let us know what you think. And please reach out if you or anyone you know is building at the intersection of technology and national security. Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 00:36 Why Budget Docs Matter 01:41 PBR vs Appropriations 02:28 Meet Matt McGregor 05:12 Three Budget Pieces 07:56 Colors of Money 13:15 How to Use J Books 18:40 AI Funding Highlights 23:44 DIU and Golden Dome 33:13 PAEs and Autonomy 35:13 Air Force Tradeoffs 40:08 What Happens Next 44:20 Wrap Up and Next Episode

Armada: Building American Edge AI Dominance

In this episode, Shield Capital's Maggie and Akhil sit down with Dan Wright (Co-Founder & CEO) and Pradeep Nair (Founding CTO) of Armada — the company building distributed AI infrastructure for the world's most remote and mission-critical environments. They cover why the cloud breaks at the edge, how Armada is deploying sovereign AI infrastructure across defense, energy, and mining, and why winning the AI race is just as much about infrastructure as it is models. As always, please let us know what you think. And please reach out if you or anyone you know is building at the intersection of technology and national security. Listen on: Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/armada-building-american-edge-ai-dominance/id1807120572?i=1000762419857] YouTube [https://youtu.be/vhdlEEARI5g] Shield Capital [shieldcap.com/episodes/armada] Visit Armada's [https://www.armada.ai/]website to learn more! As always, please let us know what you think. And please reach out if you or anyone you know is building at the intersection of technology and national security. Timestamps: 0:00 - Armada Introduction 3:30 - What does the DOW's current AI adoption look like? 5:25 - Technical challenges for AI adoption in mission critical organizations 10:50 - Working with start-ups 15:49 - Non-military AI applications 18:49 - DOE's New Genesis Mission 26:26 - Problems with current AI infrastructure 29:47 - Customer education and trust 40:52 - What is it going to take to build US AI Dominance? 47:39 - Advice for founders