Crossing the Valley

About Merlin Labs Founded to develop autonomous flight technology for existing aircraft, Merlin Labs is taking a fundamentally different approach to the challenge than many competitors. While most autonomous systems try to augment human pilots, creating a potentially dangerous shared control situation, Merlin's system operates as the primary pilot with human supervision. The "Merlin Pilot" is resp...

About Jesse Jesse Kallman is the founder and CEO of Danti, bringing deep industry experience from his extensive career in the defense and space sectors. With a strong background in unmanned systems and Earth observation, Jesse has worked at major defense primes including Booz Allen Hamilton, Northrop Grumman, and Airbus, giving him a comprehensive understanding of both the technical and operationa...

About Phillip Phillip Buckendorf is the co-founder and CEO of Air Space Intelligence, bringing a unique perspective shaped by his education in political science and international relations in Germany. Frustrated by what he describes as Europe’s "degrowth mindset,” Phillip moved to the United States in his early 20s, seeking out the hotbed of innovation and technological progress. About Air Space I...

As Apex Space commemorates one year on orbit for its Aries satellite, CEO and co-founder Ian Cinnamon joins us to talk about all things space. A serial entrepreneur, Ian's journey began right after college when he worked as a technology advisor to Mark Pincus at Zynga, later starting a gaming company that was acquired by Zynga. He went on to found Synapse Technology (acquired by Palantir), invest...

About Peter Peter is the Chief Product Officer of Maxar Intelligence, bringing his passion for maps and 12 years at Palantir Technologies to this renaissance story. At Palantir, Peter developed the famed “ontology” and mapping technologies, helping transition the company's defense business from intelligence operations to real-time operational support. His background in theoretical chemistry gives...

About Josh Josh Lospinoso isn’t your average hacker. Most hackers aren’t Rhodes Scholars. As a kid growing up in New Jersey during 9/11, Josh was drawn to service - but he had no idea he’d soon be hacking military weapon systems. As an Army Cyber Officer, he discovered critical vulnerabilities in mission essential platforms that revealed a sobering reality: these sophisticated weapons systems (fly...

About Our Guests When Thomas "T-Rob" Robinson joined Domino Data Lab eight and a half years ago, the company was focused on helping pharmaceutical companies and financial institutions build better AI models. With a background in math, computer science, and enterprise finance technology, he understood that the hardest problems in AI weren't about algorithms - they were about enabling domain experts...

Today’s guest is Shannon Clark, a long-tenured early team member of Palantir, the world’s most valuable defense company, and last year’s best performing stock in the S&P 500 (up 340%!). Often discussed but rarely understood, Palantir has emerged as a defining company in defense technology. With just 4,000 employees, they've built a business that surpasses traditional defense primes in market value...

About Varda Founded in November 2020, Varda Space is revolutionizing manufacturing by taking it off-planet. Their thesis is remarkably straightforward: microgravity enables the creation of materials impossible to make on Earth, and pharmaceuticals—the most expensive chemicals per kilogram—are the perfect starting point. In less than three years, they've designed, built, and landed the world's firs...

About Overwatch Imaging Founded in Hood River, Oregon, Overwatch Imaging is changing how the industry processes aerial sensor data through automation. Rather than building another drone company, they're creating technology that makes every aerial platform smarter. Their automated sensor operator software tackles a critical challenge: helping small teams process massive amounts of aerial data effic...

About Forterra Formerly known as RRAI, Forterra is revolutionizing ground autonomy for both defense and commercial applications. Their mission is simple but ambitious: get humans out of harm's way. While many startups chase flashy features, Forterra focuses on building autonomous systems that work "nearly every time" in the most demanding environments. Their approach is working: they've secured ma...

Kyle Olson's path to defense tech started in a firefight. As a Marine Raider Team Commander in Iraq in 2020, he found himself coordinating airstrikes with a broken military radio. The solution? A forbidden Iraqi cell phone and Signal messaging app. That moment crystallized something he'd long suspected: commercial technology had outpaced military equipment in many areas. Instead of heading to busi...

About Datashapes AI Founded with technology developed at Stanford, Datashapes brings a unique approach to electronic warfare and signals intelligence. Their platform processes spectrum data at the tactical edge, enabling operators to make real-time decisions. With 21 patents and deployments spanning special operations to commercial venues, they're proving that signal processing innovation can serv...

About Strike Solutions Founded two years ago in Nevada, Strike Solutions is seeking to make sense of the IoT data explosion. Their flagship product, Thunderdome, is a multi-modular sensor fusion platform that processes spectrum data at the tactical edge. By correlating signals with video feeds for facial and license plate recognition, Thunderdome provides crucial situational awareness for operator...

About the Garrett and Dave In 2019, Marine reconnaissance veteran Garrett Smith looked at tactical operators' challenges and saw something most others missed. While the industry chased large, networked systems, Smith recognized a fundamental gap: warfighters at the tactical edge lacked the software tools to make sense of their growing data streams. As a former Reconnaissance, Intelligence, and Inf...

About Bazze Founded in 2019, Bazze is an intelligence platform designed to transform how the defense and intelligence community accesses and utilizes commercial data. The company's platform enables users to know everything about a person, place, or thing using exclusively commercial data sources. Users of Bazze technology can quickly identify potential security risks and gather comprehensive intel...

This summer, Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) at Georgetown published the paper Building the Tech Coalition: How Project Maven and the U.S. 18th Airborne Corps Operationalized Software and Artificial Intelligence for the Department of Defense (check it out here ). Today’s episode dives deep into the case, highlighting a crucial illustration of successful defense inno...

About Chris Christopher Kirchhoff has been a key figure in many major developments in defense and national security over the past decade. He served as Obama's director for strategic planning at the National Security Council, was a senior civilian aide to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and authored influential reports on America's war in Iraq, the space shuttle Columbia disaster, and th...

Darkhive, founded in the fall of 2021, aims to address the critical gap in the defense community by building affordable, high-performance tactical drones that are designed with the end-user in mind. The company places a strong emphasis on open, discoverable systems that can be easily integrated with existing infrastructure, ensuring that their products remain useful and adaptable over time. Darkhi...

In this episode of "Crossing the Valley," we are joined by Ian Kalin, CEO and founder of Turbine One, to discuss the challenges and opportunities in bringing innovative technology to the defense sector. Key topics covered: - Ian's diverse background from Navy counterterrorism officer to tech entrepreneur - The mission of Turbine One and its focus on edge AI for warfighter safety - Navigating the c...

David Brown, CEO of CounterCraft, joins Noah to discuss the company's journey in the digital security industry. David covers the company's foray into the American market, its partnership strategies, and plans for future growth. Timestamps: 00:00-00:45: The Evolution of Deception in Warfare and IT 03:04-03:26: Spanish Cybersecurity Startup's Unique Approach 04:37-06:10: Countercraft's Deception Pla...

About Our Guests: Ben Kohlmann is a retired F-18 pilot, former consultant, founder, and current investor at Cubit Capital . Ben has touched it all, and has a well-rounded, thoughtful, and purpose-driven perspective on defense investing. Dan Magy is a repeat defense founder and the co-founder and CEO of Firestorm Labs . Dan's experience includes starting a counter-UAS company and working closely wi...

In this week’s Crossing the Valley, Noah sits down with Hank Holland, CEO of Amaero International, a modern manufacturing company that’s increasingly involved in modernizing America’s industrial base. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.valleycrossers.com

In this episode of Crossing the Valley Noah sits down with Greer Carper, the Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Strategy at Fortem Technologies. Timestamps: 00:00-03:59: A Journey through Defense Technology Development 03:59-07:04: Moving from Investing to Operating in a Growing Company 07:55-08:47: Navigating Strategy Roles in Startups 10:00-12:38: From Commercial Markets to the D...

In this episode of Crossing the Valley, I had the pleasure of speaking with Misha Govshteyn, the CEO of Macrofab, a Texas-based cloud manufacturing company that is working to revitalize American manufacturing. With a network of over 100 factories across the United States and Mexico, Macrofab supplies defense contractors and helps them produce goods quickly, cost-effectively, and at a higher qualit...