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The space war is not Luke Skywalker, right?
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It's not lightsabers and stuff like that.
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It's basically network warfare on orbit.
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General Whitings, the four-star commander of US Space Command, famously has said that cyber security is the soft underbelly of the space force.
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It is the thing that keeps them up at night.
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I mean, we're talking about multiple complex adaptive systems interacting with each other.
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So, you have to have a human in the loop, but at what level?
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Obviously, you can't have just an AI bot just saying, "Okay, we're going to shoot that satellite out."
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But but at the same time, is it a lieutenant? Is it a colonel?
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Does it have to go to the president?
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There is a lot of technology that's classified.
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Whether or not that would become exploitable for commercial purposes, you really don't know until you've done it.
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The US government did not develop GPS so that we could all get an an easy Uber ride, right?
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It was developed to have a navigation system that can survive a nuclear war. Well, hello everyone.
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It's Jim Oanosy with yet another Infinite Loops.
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I spent like the last 20 minutes just kind of gushing over my next guest because we're about to have a great conversation with a very formidable and impressive individual.
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My guest is Chuck Beams, the chairman of York Space Systems, a leader in commercial small satellite design, manufacturing, and operations.
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He's also executive chair of Trust Point, Spider Oak, and Small Sat Alliance.
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My god, your CV is like incredibly formidable.
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You were the president of Vulcan Aerospace, managing Paul Allen's $1 billion aerospace and tech portfolio.
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23 years as an active duty air force officer in the space and intelligence uh division retiring as a colonel.
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Thank you very much for your service.
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Air Force Academy uh bachelor's in science and mechanical engineering but then degree upon degree from John's Hopkins, the National War College, Georgetown. Like I'm intimidated. Don't be. Well, welcome.
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Um, this is a a new world probably to many of our listeners and viewers.
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So, if you wouldn't mind, let walk me through the entire kind of ecosystem of the kind what many are referring to as our second space race and uh the uh kind of a per a primer on the commercial aspects and the explosive growth that is happening there. Sure.
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That's that's a um well what's happened is I different people kind of frame it different ways but here's the way I frame it.
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We had the first space race we all you know Jim you and I kind of grew up in that era and in fact my dad was an engineer on on the in the space program.
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I lived at the Cape as a little kid. Oh cool.
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So watch the Apollo you know watch those Saturn 5 booster go as a kid and all that kind of stuff.
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and and the race really was just about who could get to the moon first and and and bring uh an astronaut uh home safely u because that was symbolic of who would win the cold war.
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It was almost like a proxy, right?
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It was a safe way to sort of compete and and and to try to convince the non-aligned nations which which system was going to win in the end.
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Sort of a it's a funny it's a funny little thing, you know, looking back on it all, but that was space race. Big deal. lots of money spent. Um, and it worked. We won.
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We put our We put our, you know, put our lined up our our best uh our best scientists and engineers and even even recruited some from from uh Germany there.
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And um anyway, we won, right?
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And so that was the thing.
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And then it got awfully expensive and and then uh I was a kid when this happened too.
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Um the the country's interest sort of moved away from it a little bit.
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the president said, you know, look, this is interesting stuff, but we've got other priorities.
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And so, for the most part, the the big space program was shut down, right?
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We stopped production of of the Saturn 5 boosters. We had a few left over.
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We did the Soyos, we did the um MIR stuff, you know, the remember that in the 70s we did some of the some of that joint uh Soviet US stuff and and and then we had this the space shuttle program, but that was all low Earth orbit and it was all um you know, it was just kind of to keep keep everything on a simmer.
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Well, what's kind of happened is there was this thing called Moors law that that's been marching along, you know, in the background that that that was the the spark plug really for the whole tech race.
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And um and then but meanwhile technology was advancing in space as well.
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And then those two intersected.
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And so now what you have is the commercial tech um that is that was largely developed for terrestrial computers and all that kind of stuff.
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Now is easily transferable and used in low Earth orbit.
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It turns out that the radiation environment in low Earth orbit is not nearly as bad as as we worried about.
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I mean it it's it's not perfect, but it's not nearly as bad.
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So you can use commercial processors, commercial memory, a lot of the networking technology, stuff like that and you can do amazing things and and those amazing things translate into adding value to life here on Earth and uh you know in in the in the way of autonomy and all kinds of stuff.
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So so the race now goes from the first space race was about national pride and all that kind of stuff to now it's an economic one, right?
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It's about who who is going to first of all win economically and also at least as important is who's going to define the rules of the road in this in this new thing.
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Is it going to be more of a western style free market, you know, private capital, all that kind of thing, or is it going to be what I call the Stalinist model, right?
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Which is which is candidly that's kind of how this the the even the US broker US program operated.
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It was largely government-driven.
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Yes, we had private companies doing some things, but for the most part, they were just doing what they were told. It's a new era now.
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they were told. It's a new era now. and and so and it requires frankly it requires different government policies which is why I created the u the small set alliance as an example it needs different government policy it needs policies that promote free markets commerce uh incentivize private capital
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to be to come into the arena and all that so that's really how I frame this second space race and so it and it requires the whole of country kind of approach because if you have old government policies that tend to encourage the old way of thinking where everything has to come from the government. We're not going to win,
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We're not going to win, frankly, because we're not playing to America's greatest strengths, right?
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Those are the best strengths of China, but we will beat China if we play by our own game.
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That's the way I look at it. Yeah.
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And that's what intrigued me uh when I first came across you and and your ideas.
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I uh you've argued what you just said, the the cold war containment mindset in cyber security is fatal. Yeah.
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And and we've got to we've got to literally change that.
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So if I were going to like wave a wand and make you the US cyber security zar for a day, what would be the first statutory change that you would make to make it more compatible with American strength, i. e.
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private enterprise, all of the multiple ways that we can take advantage of that, but are currently kind of procluded from because of antiquated uh federal agency regulations.
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Well, this now cyber security is an interesting one because it's cyber security is almost you can look at it a little bit like airline traffic things or something like that.
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you want to you want to incentivize the free market, but it does require some government action, not to control it, but to to define it in a way that allows the promotes the greatest growth and the greatest private sector.
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And and I can tell you there there's an initiative that has uh it has been brewing for a while.
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Uh the last administration actually made uh some some really solid policy progress on this and it's called it's what's called zero trust.
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it's what's called zero trust. this idea that we need to get to um where we have to assume that all of our networks any of them are actually have been compromised that there's there's Chinese bots on them and all that stuff not to
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make us paranoid but if we if we do that we assume that and then the government then buys systems and procure systems that ensure that the data isn't is is secure irrespective of who might who else might be sitting on that network
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your data is secure then then I think we what we do is we will unlock unleash a whole new era of kind of like what we saw the tech boom of the last 10 or 15 years we'd see a whole another one because what's hobbling a lot of commerce e-com it's all of it e-commerce
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all that stuff the autonomous thing is is the is that we haven't we haven't done that and and so and and it happens to everybody we everybody gets hacked and fished and all that kind of stuff It's because it's so easy, right? Because because all kinds of new and
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Because because all kinds of new and interesting apps are written, software is written to do all amazing things, right?
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But there's always these there's u there's always these little problems with the software and and and and the adversary immediately figures out how to exploit those quickly and then and then they get in and and in fact um and so that's that's the challenge.
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But if if the if the policy is it's sort of like I'm not a big as you probably would surmise.
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I'm not a big believer in heavy-handed government, but there are certain things the government needs to do to protect all of us from everything in a way like like like it's almost like helmet laws or or things like that, right?
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Or making sure everybody who flies an airplane has to have a beacon, right?
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It's to to broadcast to everybody else this is where I am and this is who I am and all that kind of thing.
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And it's it's sort of like the zero trust thing is a little bit like that. That's the way I see it.
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the way I see it. So, so um but if we do that and uh and we we we just sort of mandate that then I think and the government would have to lead when it when it buys its things it says hey we're doing this zero trust thing no kidding right we're going to we're going to press you do the penetration testing we're going to do all that kind of stuff
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then um because there are commercial companies that have that software so this isn't something that the government would have to have to develop the software for or whatever it there's a natural marketplace for it and and Um anyway, that's that's the way I sort of see that that is probably the the the biggest the biggest thing. Yeah. And uh Yeah.
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And uh I I went down a fascinating rabbit hole on zero trust systems and everything and I had kind of the generative uh adversarial AIs battling it out and they came up with some like really interesting edge cases.
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But before we get to that, because I'm sure you know all about them, but they were new to me. Yeah.
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Um please for our listeners explain what the zero trust protocol actually is.
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Well, it it's really um it's really an idea and the idea is this quite simply.
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In order for a system to have be um designed, you know, purpose designed, right?
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In other words, from the ground up as a zero trust system, you you assume at all levels that at all levels things have been compromised.
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For example, like I give you an example like we think of a V we we create a VPN and we can communicate now and that is a secure network right around which but once somebody is inside of that network a bad actor then it's compromised.
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So that's not really it's zero trust at the network level but it's not zero trust at the data level and where what we need to get to is zero trust at the data level because ultimately it's data is the thing that everybody wants.
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That's what they want to exploit.
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They want your bank accounts, they want your cryptocurrency, they want whatever. That's it.
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If that's the data record, data record.
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And so um and so that's really what um and so there's a there's a term that's now becoming the thing and I like it.
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It's called secure by design which means that basically software engineers, software uh you know coders, whatever you want to call them, they are they are trained to think about this.
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think about this. So you use um you know there are certain languages programming languages like Rust for example that are that are much more me what's called memory safe because a lot of what these uh the evil sort of people um do is they exploit um little challenges in um in software in other other software
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things where where it's not what happens and I don't want to get too technical but basically you're writing and rewriting over memory and and you can you can there's ways by which um nefarious people can exploit that writing and rewriting against a memory register uh to then get to sort of hack in and and that's just one example. So
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So using like a language like Rust is one that is is from the ground up was purposely designed as a memory safe programming language.
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And so I'm not a big believer in saying okay everybody has to program in Rust.
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everybody has to program in Rust. But I think that what they what we need to do is have these these gradually over time but quickly uh these these um these these recommendations and then and then what happens is you get into a once that's done you get into a marketplace
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where um you have you know there's there's insurance you can insure against attacks you can have underwriters that can that can help underwrite those policies um because it's going to be essential for a lot of people don't understand this I know you do because
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you're a businessman but a lot of people don't understand how important insurance is for example success of of business enterprises right that's the way they can mitigate risk well this is this cyber security thing cyber attacks is a huge risk to a company it doesn't matter whether if it's a dental office down the
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street or or Microsoft it's a it's a major sort of thing and so the risk associated with that we haven't even gone into how do you mitigate that and there are ways to do it doesn't have to be the government doesn't have to be uncle Sam's army defending all cyber interests in the country. That'll be too
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That'll be too expensive and all.
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There's there's smarter, more um smarter, clever ways to do all that stuff.
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But anyway, I don't want to go on and on about but I think you kind of you might get the idea there. I do.
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Um, and I think it's actually leaning into your comment about we if we play the game the way uh to our strengths in America, we can have all sorts of startups, all sorts of think tanks, all sorts of people working on these particular problems, right?
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because this seems to me as I was learning more about your world, it's fascinating number one, but the coordination problems, the logistical problems that you then have to pile security problems on top of and you know some things are classified, some things are not classified.
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What for example what's currently as as as best as you can tell me what what is be what is currently behind the wall uh i. e.
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classified that if we declassified it would lead to like a burst of creativity and all of those separate entities that I just mentioned thinking whoa let's okay let's kind of technology could be classified well um it I mean there is a lot of technology that's classified whether whether or not that would become uh exploitable for for commercial purposes, you really don't know until you've done it.
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But even somebody like me who's, you know, understands all this stuff, it's hard to really speculate.
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I'll give you an example.
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Uh GPS, I'm I'm an old GPS guy from from the early days, right?
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And you know, a lot of people don't know this or maybe they don't even care or whatever, but GPS was not the US government did not develop GPS so that we we could all get an an easy Uber ride, right?
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It was it was it was developed for a very specific military purpose which was to surv have a navigation system that can survive a nuclear war, right?
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Because it was part of the mutual assured destruction sort of framework for defense of the country.
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In other words, if there's a nuclear detonation and there's a nuclear cloud and you can't there's no other way to navigate, right?
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You'll have the GPS beacon and you'll be able to do your bombers your bombers will still make it to Moscow.
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your ICMs will still make it to Moscow.
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So, they better think twice about attacking us because no matter what, even if they smoke us, they're they're dead, too.
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That was really the whole thing.
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But back then, again, I was talking about Moors law. Come back to to today.
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Back then, the the receive, you know, the user segment, we used to call it, user equipment.
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That thing was like the size of like a small desk, right?
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Now, it's like it's a third of a chip in your iPhone. Right. Right.
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your iPhone. Right. Right. And so so um so the so what's required uh so Moors law keeps shrinking and then what happens is some really smart tech people again from you know Silicon Valley that kind of stuff they start thinking my gosh look at all the things you can do
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with this signal including now the whole banking system uses uh the timing signal network all the networks they all now we're so dependent on it in a different way we're more dependent on it from a civil whole infrastructure and from a
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standpoint of um just like our economy and everything else that it it's almost we we've we've gone through the the door where it's it's important in a fundamentally different way and there are different um there are different teams and folks working on that and looking at that like
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for example with GPS the military still needs its thing it still needs uh its you know for dropping bombs and all that kind of stuff and soldiers navigation and all But at the same time, my god, if GPS goes down, right? We the NASDAQ stops, New
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We the NASDAQ stops, New York Stock Exchange stops, most of our networking uh in the in the country goes away.
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We we we we go back to the 8th century, you know, in in in a matter of a week, which is really scary.
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And so um there's there's now I happen to be a proponent of this idea of splitting the two and sort of the military takes care of the military needs because they are different.
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They're similar but they're different.
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The civil what they call the civil folks you and me as just regular ordinary citizens.
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We have needs too and they are getting more and more exquisite as well just in a different way.
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And I think that that's a great a great area for example where um the the the the the commercial world this free market where private can can step in work closely with the military and develop what what we call a hybrid space architecture.
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this idea that the the the commercial stuff can work well with the military thing and it just address and and you know and and the military can buy buy the pound the the commercial thing as they need it for their for their purposes.
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But you always have to make sure that the the the soldier in the field right the marine whoever the the pilot in the air that they have their assured navigation and their assured communication all that kind of stuff.
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And that's that's where, you know, we're counting on our leadership to make those decisions and those adjudications to make sure that they they don't forget that, frankly, cuz some sometimes folks get enamored with, oh, everything is commercial. Let's just do that.
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Well, that's great, but we have to make sure at the end of the day, you know, the soldiers the soldiers rifle works, right? No kidding.
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And uh I was reading about all of the advantages of unbundling uh GPS.
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And then I kind of thought about you know in the disagregation of GPS Space Force for example is exploring lighter cheaper GPS craft alongside the legacy ones. Yeah.
20:39
What kind of problems technical or otherwise does that introduce into complex system?
20:47
That's a great it's a great question and I will I hesitate to um to offer too much of an of an opinion on this but I but I will um the I think that the Air Force or Space Force was well-intentioned with this idea of of augmenting their GPS with like sort of like a GPS light kind of a thing, right?
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But the the the challenge with that frankly is that that's a government-f funed program and and and so the government just isn't good at managing things that are supposed to be kind of commercial in in nature.
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And really what what the smart, you know, if I were the king for a day kind of a thing, what I would suggest doing is staying in rate production on what's called GPS 3, right?
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Get that get that working.
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that those are the satellites that that Loheed Martin, for example, is currently building. Stick with those.
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Maybe put some incentives on there to bring bring the price down or something like that.
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We, you know, government has experience with that kind of thing.
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You do lot buys and you do all kinds of things like that.
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You can build in incentives for them to to realize um some, you know, some gains and stuff like that.
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And then um um and then and then put put money against sort of uh initial and they and the Space Force is doing this um about sort of testing out these pure commercial companies um and and letting them paying them to do demonstrations like that because it takes a while.
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You know, you got to get lots of satellites up there.
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It takes it's it'll take it'll take like five five to 10 years to kind of get to this these other architectures.
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But but if the government just stays involved in a very kind of hands-off way, but in incentivize them to work closely with the Space Force, then what happens is they work well together.
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They have the right interfaces, but but the Space Force doesn't have to worry about managing that baseline.
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They don't have to fund it.
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They don't have to worry about Congress appropriating it.
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They can just buy that as a service.
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Meanwhile, meanwhile, the the the soldier in the field, the pilot in the air, you know, the the the uh the sailor at sea still has their assured um what's called PNT, right?
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Precision navigation and timing signal.
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Now, could be is it possible 20 or 30 years from now we no longer need any uh of a government thing?
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That's possible, but we're nowhere close to that.
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And I don't think the answer is to is to buy a handful of these of a yet a new sort of baseline for that the space force has to manage.
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I think it's I think it'll end up if they really ran the numbers they'd find that's more expensive than just buying more.
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And I don't have any relationship with Loheed Martin or anything like that.
23:29
I just think I just give it to you straight.
23:30
This is the way I see it.
23:32
I think I think they ought to just buy more commit to buying more of those GPS3s and um and then and frankly there's a lot that needs to be fixed on I'm focused on the satellites I'm a space guy but there's the whole ground segment that needs to be it still needs work frankly um there's the what's called OCX and then there's the the user equipment.
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Now again, the user equipment, as I said, it's it's for for people like you and me, you know, just regular Joe civilians, it's a little chip in inside your your iPhone, right?
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But but for a soldier who needs this thing called uh M code, right, which is a military code.
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It's much tougher for to jam and all that kind of stuff, that's where the military stuff really um that's that hasn't really been um I mean it doesn't really work yet.
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and and frankly um they've been they have satellites that were launched satellites that were m what's called mcode capable.
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They're getting ready to have to de-orbit those things and they still don't work end to end because they didn't work on the user equipment.
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didn't work on the user equipment. So I think frankly the space force would be smart to like and work with the other services and get that end to end thing nailed down because it's not just it's not just the soldier but when you think
24:41
about bombs for example right if you want to have GPS guided bombs in the future in a in a GP what's called the GPS denied environment then that Mode sort of thing has to work all the way from the satellite to the ground station and the satellite directly into the aircraft. And then the aircraft has to hand that M
25:00
And then the aircraft has to hand that M code signal off to to the bomb and and and that's hard.
25:06
That's that integration problem you're talking about. Very complex.
25:10
And just dealing with that alone will keep keep the Space Force busy for a while. Yeah.
25:14
And and that was the thing as I was uh uh getting ready to talk to you that really fascinated me.
25:22
the complexities that I mean we're talking about multiple complex adaptive systems interacting with each other and holy man like I was just like a single complex adaptive system is hard enough to try to deal with and I did like your idea though of letting the like the startups and all of that let let them run wild with this stuff making sure that the milit pick the winners.
25:51
The government just picks the winners, you know. Yeah. Yeah.
25:54
And in fact, you've gone so far as to advocate for the uh Pentagon to offer a simple yes with a contract or no thank you.
26:02
Um and and I think that like what would be one of the federal acquisition regulation clauses that you if you could change that would make that a reality?
26:18
What what what what is the big bottleneck getting in the way of uh yes with your contract or no thank you? You know, it's funny.
26:26
It's it's actually not they could do it today.
26:28
There's no FAR that uh stipulation that requires that kind of thing. It's really cultural.
26:34
It's really it's about the folks that that um that manage all this stuff.
26:38
They they grew up a lot of them are they're younger than I am, but they're not much younger, right?
26:45
They're they're maybe 50 or you know and especially the ones that are in senior positions now.
26:49
They grew up under the old system where the government was very involved in designing everything.
26:55
So their ego and their their that their sense of responsibility was carried into the the the system that they were working on developing.
27:04
And and what what what really needs to happen is a mindset needs to shift where it's just like, well, no, we don't want that and just be, you know, be polite, but basically be firm with it.
27:15
What I've noticed culturally is there's this sense of because they have that sense of mission and they care.
27:20
They want to help they want to help these companies to to to to do better, to be better.
27:25
And and and first of all, number one, they're illquipped to even do that because these people are not businessmen anyway.
27:32
And secondly, they have too many other things to focus on with what and so in fact not only do I suggest what you said but I also have gotten to so there's the be firm that's the best signal to the market. Yes, this is great.
27:46
No, this is not we don't see a use for this.
27:48
The other the other sort of flip side of that same coin is kind of we used to say when I was growing up cash on the barrelhead pay when it's delivered, right?
27:59
Don't don't fund it don't fund it like incrementally like cost plus and all this kind of nonsense.
28:04
It either is or it isn't.
28:06
Now there's some things like jet fighters and stuff like that you have to you have to pay them because those things are complex and and there's no commercial marketplace for you know we by design we don't want a commercial marketplace for our best fighters and our best bombers and all that kind of stuff.
28:21
But for space systems are unique in that they you know Jim for the most part uh and some some of my space um brothers and sisters get a little mad when I say this because it's an oversimplification but it's not nearly as much of an oversimplification as you might believe which is this that really all a satellite is is a solar powered computer on orbit.
28:42
It has it has input and output and it has and then it performs a function on orbit if it's taking a picture.
28:52
It's got a camera on it, but really it's just a computer.
28:56
That mean and so and that's why with everything going now because like when I was a lieutenant and coming up through the ranks, everything was in geo.
29:01
All the air was air force then all that most of everything was in fact still is for the most part except for the new stuff the the SBA stuff.
29:10
It was all in geostationary orbit.
29:13
And these these were huge satellites about the size of a you know the old yellow school buses, right?
29:19
And and that's that's just the way it that's just the way it was.
29:20
And and and and so the radiation environment out there is is much more severe.
29:24
It takes it's more expensive to get a satellite way out there.
29:28
Um and so we built them big and launch was very expensive until SpaceX came along. Launch was expensive.
29:35
So we so we it was just a different way of looking at everything.
29:41
and a 15 year design life.
29:43
Now, uh these satellites that go up on orbit, um I I keep my my iPhone.
29:45
In fact, I was just talking to Alexander about this.
29:49
I my iPhone is is 6 years old and it works it works fine.
29:52
But she said, you know, I I said, "Can I get a new battery for it?"
29:57
And she said, "No, they don't let you do that."
29:59
So, I have to get a new one just because the battery it's sort of it's the equivalent of a satellite.
30:04
You know, the satellites that York, for example, is delivering have a 5year design life.
30:08
Now, they'll they'll last longer than that. You can leave them up.
30:12
You can leave them up because they'll keep going, but you know, at a certain point, like the solar arrays degrade a bit, uh, you know, all that kind of stuff.
30:20
That's the It's a different It's more of an iPhone mentality than than um, for example, computer I learned originally learned to code on, to write software on was was IBM uh, 360, you know, you remember those, right?
30:35
I was just a kid, but I, you know, I was I was good at math and they thought, "Oh, if you're good at math, you should stare at a computer."
30:42
So that's so I ended up like learning how to uh program a little bit as a kid.
30:46
But but anyway, so that's that's kind of a big difference in the era.
30:48
So So but getting the Space Force and everybody to really understand that is um it's tough. They're doing it there.
30:57
I mean, we have great leaders in there.
30:58
They're doing they're doing good work, but I, as you probably know, it sounds like you've read some of my stuff I write.
31:03
Um, I, you know, I'm the person that kind of pushes a little bit, right?
31:07
That's why I created the alliance and all that kind of stuff.
31:10
I, I really want because these guys know my heart's in the right place.
31:13
I'm a patriot through and through.
31:13
They know, they can disagree with me, but they know where I'm coming from.
31:16
It's it's purely what I think is best for the nation. Yeah.
31:20
Well, that's clear from your writing.
31:23
Uh, but you, this also brings us into the the new interaction between business types like me and you, right?
31:30
I don't have your background because you're you're both but like you know you did a deal uh in uh 2023 with uh a big PE player.
31:40
Uh, in fact, it was dubbed the largest private equity deal of the modern space era.
31:45
And and what specific metrics convinced you that the sector was ready for kind of that scale of capital and and what blind spots do traditional PE investors face when they cross the Karman line, right?
32:03
I mean, they're not they're not thinking about that probably.
32:07
They haven't been spent like you, they haven't spent their career thinking about that.
32:11
And I gota I got to guess because I know a lot of these guys that they're going to have some blind spots. They do.
32:18
Um it's it it's a great question actually because even somebody like like as you mentioned in the intro, I I worked uh for about three and a half almost four years for Paul Allen, right?
32:30
And because he was a big space space, he was a tech guy, but he was uh and he was an investor.
32:35
he really more of an investor than he was a tech guy.
32:40
Um, you know, cuz he and all that, you know, the history there.
32:42
So, he was fascinated with space and that's what I did.
32:46
I oversaw all that all those investments and stuff like that for him.
32:50
And um and and I'd say even with Paul, but but just generally one of the things that's that that a lot of folks, private equity types, investment bankers, though they're getting better, what they don't quite understand is there's a culture associated with with the space community that uh is is important to understand because, you know, at the end of the day, I'm sure you know this, business is personal, too.
33:16
It's not it's not a mechanical thing.
33:18
And um and so there's an emotional component to stuff.
33:21
There's all these other things and they affect the bottom line.
33:24
Um and so uh so anyway um I think that's one thing.
33:29
Um I I think more significantly though, you didn't ask about this, but I'll I'll go ahead and say it.
33:35
ahead and say it. The venture capital firms are actually a little bit candidly a little more worrisome because because they their their culture is first of all it's completely geared toward um the software the tech
33:50
community right that's really where its origin and even though pardon me space systems are tech dominant today they still um are capital intensive to put up constellations and all that kind of stuff and So it's and VCs often want to kind of get in and get out, right? They kind of want to do
34:09
They kind of want to do their thing.
34:10
They're really just about a multiple, you know, from A to B or A to C or whatever.
34:14
And and that's that really ends up not being well.
34:18
So they they the venture firms I've worked with and I've worked with pretty much all of them.
34:24
They they kind of tend to look at um look at it they like metrics and all that kind of stuff and that's that's fine but um really it's it's it's it's the fundamentals of how businesses actually transacted in the space community which is different. it is different.
34:40
Um, uh, they they they would they would do themselves and and their LPs a service by sort of spending more time actually understanding that.
34:49
Um, and then and then frankly um, we we I've I've worked hard on this, but I' i've to get a lot of the military leadership to not be so enamored with BCs like that just because they they have that that doesn't mean they have any kind of wisdom.
35:08
I'm like, "You guys have the wisdom.
35:09
Trust me, I've been on both sides of this.
35:11
You guys have the wisdom.
35:13
You may not have the business savviness, but guess what?
35:15
Neither do most of those VCs.
35:16
Most of us, those guys that are putting together, they're doing diligence work or whatever, they don't know.
35:21
You know, they're kind of making up as they go.
35:23
So, that's why I kind of get back to this recommendation I always get to, which is we don't have the Space Force, for example, doesn't have to worry about that anymore.
35:32
They can just, you know, cash on the barrel. Buy it when it works.
35:36
buy it when it's delivered to the launch site or and then maybe maybe you have two hops.
35:40
You maybe uh when they're awarded the contract, they get some amount of money to, you know, get going.
35:46
You then they get paid when they're delivered to the launch facility and then that's another payment.
35:53
And then the other one is, you know, what we used to call first light.
35:56
When the the satellite's working, they get their final payment. That's it.
35:57
All this other stuff needs to go away.
36:00
And you could you would eliminate an immense amount of bureaucracy and and uh the Pentagon is filled to the brim with people that are checking on the checkers and all that kind of.
36:10
Can you imagine if you and I went into the um I'm a big Toyota guy. I love Toyotas.
36:14
But if we went into the Toyota dealership and and we said, "Yeah, um I I really want to I want to talk to you about how you design your 4Erunner and I really think you ought to go to a quad, you know, a quad exhaust system because they're like, "No, this is what's for sale.
36:31
You take one of these models we've got or you" And you know, Toyotas, you can't even order one.
36:36
It's like, "This is what we have.
36:38
We can check other dealers if they might have, you know, uh I'm not a fancy guy when it comes to lifestyle stuff."
36:44
So, um, and I love Toyotas. They work great and all.
36:47
So, um, anyways, but that I think that the the the acquisition community, what they call it, in the in the Space Force needs to sort of shift more into that mode.
36:56
But it's hard because they they're engineers.
37:00
Engineers like to design things themselves.
37:02
They like to armchair, you know, it's like armchair quarterbacking, right?
37:05
They like to pretend like they're actually designing things, but more often than not, they get themselves and the and and and then ultimately the war fighter in trouble because you get into these delays and stuff like that.
37:14
So anyway, that's a little oversimplified, but I think that's kind of where uh that's what I advocate for.
37:22
And um and I think we're getting there, you know, I think we're getting there.
37:26
we're getting there. And that is uh close to one of the other things that as I was looking at this that I thought about like you know Silicon Valley has been this gravity well for talent right and and you are definitely dealing with different uh different ethos right so Silicon Valley dangles stock options
37:47
with with uh the military they dangle mission the the way that you're talking about the the way the space community does things like what would be something that you could advocate so that the next graduating AI whiz kid decides to pick working in this environment as opposed to you know an L7 comp package at a fang company. That's a good question and
38:11
That's a good question and that's one that is one that the uh the military and specifically the spaceports because it's like the first digital service or whatever.
38:19
It's it struggles with probably more than any other.
38:21
Um, but I I think what let me flip that around a little bit.
38:29
I think the the space force to you just to kind of drill in on that.
38:33
I think they need to worry less about um having hiring AI experts and to be guardians or whatever, right?
38:41
What they need are technical like maybe they studied it.
38:45
studied it. They they they they understand they're they're more conversion than a normal consumer would be because but what they need to be smart about what they need there after they graduate and they're they're their second lieutenants or whatever is to understand how to apply those tools how
39:01
to think about understanding what the different types like autonomous type AI or or generative AI or the new agentic they call it right the agent these autonomous agents that reside on networks understand what they are and what they can do and start thinking about with a military mindset. How do we
39:18
How do we how do we defend our turf?
39:21
How do we how do we engage offensively and defensively in a in a war in a space war?
39:26
Because that's what the space war is.
39:28
The space war is not Luke Skywalker, right?
39:30
It's not lightsabers and and you know, stuff like that. It's it is network.
39:34
It's basically network warfare on orbit.
39:39
That's that's not all of it, but that's like the bulk of it by far and away.
39:41
You know, General Whiting, Steve Whiting, he's the uh the four-star commander of US Space Command, and he famously has said um that cyber security is the soft underbelly of the space force.
39:53
In other words, it's it's it is the thing that keeps them up at night.
39:58
It's the thing that um is makes makes the entire the whole space force vulnerable.
40:02
And it's it's not just the satellites, but even I'm guilty of this.
40:06
You think of space, you think of the satellite, but it's really the satellite, the ground, the user equipment.
40:11
It's, you know, the links, it's it's all of that is really what Space Force is about. Yeah.
40:15
And uh I was thinking about that and uh immediately kind of thought about the whole AI situation. Yeah.
40:24
And kind of rules of engagement, right?
40:27
What what happens when an AI enabled satellite can detect and neutralize a threat before a human even sees the telemetity telemetry?
40:39
um you know where where do we put the trip wires?
40:42
That's and that's that those those are the kind that's an excellent question.
40:46
Those are the kind of questions that some really smart people are asking inside the Pentagon right now.
40:51
And they don't have answers yet because we're not really there yet. But we will be there.
40:56
We will be there in a matter of years.
40:58
And so we need to have smart people thinking about that kind of stuff.
41:00
Worrying less about how how good of a software engineer you are for writing the next algorithm.
41:05
Just understanding what those things are and then thinking about how you wage war, defend war, what are the right policy, what are the trip wires like you said where because some of these things become our reaction to them could be an act of war, right?
41:18
Or it could be even worse than that.
41:22
If if let's say it's let's say for example, we have early warning satellites on orbit, right?
41:28
They're a they're a key part of our whole early warning system for nuclear attack to so that we know if we're under attack, we we can respond.
41:34
So it has been the policy I don't know if it still is, but it was the policy all when I was active duty that an attack on one of those satellites was essentially like an attack on America. Yep. Right.
41:44
And so that and we we signaled that to the Soviet Union.
41:49
That was a that was very clear to anybody that that may if you're attacking our they they were called they're today they're called civers space infrared system right the the early warning systems and there's also communication systems associated with that it's a whole network that that all has 99.
42:09
999% reliability and you know because it's the the fate of the nation is at at play there.
42:14
play there. Um but and and so if you you can't so you have to have a human in the loop but at what level right for example you obviously you can't have just an AI bot just saying okay we're going to shoot that satellite out but but at the same time is it a lieutenant is it a colonel does it have to go to the president right that that kind of stuff
42:34
has not been worked out yet um and it's and they're working on it they're do they do these things called war games right shrive war games they do all this stuff they do it every year it's really important work where They they roleplay these things because when you role play, you learn like the little gotchas, the little glitches in in your logic sequence. And
42:51
And then and then these things get teed up and then and then what are called O plans, operational plans get written and rewritten to accommodate either new technologies or new tactics, techniques and procedures to make sure that that everything is in is congruent.
43:06
everything is in is congruent. So does it need to just go to the the cocom command of Steve Whiting or does it need or does it have to go all the way up to the secretary of defense or in some cases like a an actual nuclear attack it does go to the president if the
43:20
president incapacity then it's delegated back down to the seep and you know it's all very prescribed but this stuff about space things and especially you get into an autonomous world we need to think about that cuz it's coming and we can talk about rules of engagement we can talk about all this stuff in you know in ivory towers. But the reality is that
43:37
But the reality is that the AI thing is coming. I mean, it is.
43:43
We know the Chinese are deploying this stuff now. They're testing it out.
43:46
They're they're seeing how we react to these things.
43:48
And and so we know it's coming.
43:51
And, you know, there's the the the the most uh worrisome people think that, you know, these things could be deployed for real in in 2027, right?
43:57
Um and uh and so if that's the case, boy, we really need to ship this thing into overdrive because um you know this the zero trust stuff we were talking about earlier because that that um that's that becomes essential otherwise we you know we again we go back to the 8th century. Yeah.
44:17
And as I was learning about all this uh which was incredibly fascinating for me at least uh like the the whole idea Russia running these rendevous and proximity operation satellites the Chinese doing SJ17 like I didn't know anything about that uh prior to doing the research.
44:36
Do you think like a better educated investor class, a better educated um you know the from the business side uh would they make better choices?
44:49
Like as I as I was like reading this, one of the things we have here at OSV is we we run ideas that we have through generative adversarial AIs and we have them fight it out and there's always a human in the loop saying, "Oh, wow.
45:04
We didn't I didn't think of that." Right.
45:09
And I just wonder if those kinds of things where where people like you especially could be very helpful to the investor class who it you know might not even be thinking about all of this or am I or am I wrong about that? That's interesting.
45:28
You know, the whole AI thing to me unpacking that box is just a fascinating thing when you think about even just generative AI like how it can be used or how it will be used by our adversary and uh u like for example in the wargaming right um that would be you because what you're kind of describing that you your team does is like a form of wargaming internal part of your diligence process. Exactly.
45:51
Which is interesting and fascinating.
45:53
I think it's I think it's a brilliant idea.
45:54
In fact, I would even I would suggest that it might be useful and you maybe already have some, but you have you have a couple of uh advisor type people, maybe former, you know, recently retired or whatever.
46:08
They wouldn't have to be senior.
46:09
In fact, if anything, the more junior they are, the probably the more helpful they'll be cuz a retired fourstar, they're great.
46:14
They've accomplished great things, but they really don't know much anymore about the tactical fight. You know what I mean?
46:20
Like they've kind of that their war was like 20 years ago or whatever.
46:22
So, um, but but I think, um, I think it's a it's a it's a it's a brilliant idea and having having that's a really I hadn't even thought about that, but what what you described that for your firm.
46:32
Um, it's an interesting idea.
46:35
Ultimately though, uh, when it comes to that offensive and defensive, what they call counter space stuff, our Space Force guardians need to sort of um because they're going to be the buyers of it.
46:50
they're going to be the they're they so they have to make that decision whether it's useful or not.
46:53
Um I think it might be going a little it might be going a little far uh as an investor.
47:01
I mean it's used anything any data is useful when you're an investor.
47:05
I'm an investor too as you know.
47:07
So I any data like that is useful.
47:10
Um but it's probably uh I think I think the investor class is is actually well lined up to do what they want to do.
47:19
they want to do. What what has to happen is the government side needs more reform where where because that'll just if if if the investor class sort of or if the government can reform itself a bit doesn't have to completely change but just a bit it'll it'll heighten the confidence of the investors to like put
47:38
more money against these things right because they've seen now we've been doing this for about 10 years in this new space race and we've seen for example uh one night when I given like a keynote or something I use And I I I I use it because it's I I don't mean it in a pjorative way, but Virgin Orbit was an amazing capability. This is the air launched
47:56
This is the air launched rocket thing, right?
47:59
They they they spent about a billion, raised about a billion dollars in capital, developed a working really impressive capability, but there was no market for it, right? And so it went bankrupt.
48:12
So a billion dollars invested and it went to auction for $35 million. 25 was for the 747. You know what I mean?
48:20
I mean, and I know and I mean could could somebody like me talk about like use cases for it? Yes. But guess what?
48:28
The Space Force was like interesting, but maybe once a year, you know, and and you can't, you know, these the rockets were, you know, whatever they were 20 million, a lot less than the earlier generation of air launch type things, but still it wasn't economically viable.
48:44
The business case didn't close.
48:45
And so we've learned and there's a million then there's the whole the whole spack thing right where the the hype and and again I kind of blame more of the V I call it the VC culture the hype culture of kind of did a disservice to the community generally.
49:00
So we just need to kind of get serious.
49:02
I think I in fact I have a um I had the first one this year and I'd love for you I will make sure you get an invitation because it's mostly for investors but it uh it's called the Miami Space Summit and I had it I live I live you could
49:16
probably see I live here on the beach in Miami so I have this and we had the first one it was about 150 um all like senior investors very senior White House Pentagon policy people uh and then and then company all the companies that are part of this new generation. And it was
49:30
And it was not a BD conference at all.
49:31
It was about it was about the sort of the gathering of sort of eagles kind of a thing to to talk about like what what do we each need to do to really leverage private capital along the lines of what we we're talking about here in your in your podcast and and and it was I just thought I just saw it as necessary and who doesn't want to come to Miami in in February, right? So exactly it was great.
49:54
Invited people to bring their their their significant others or plus ones and everything and um and it went really well.
50:00
Well, in fact, the feedback I teamed with the US Chamber of Commerce.
50:03
Um, so that was so we had, you know, we had good sponsorship, stuff like that.
50:07
And, um, and the feedback we got was tremendous.
50:10
And so, we're going to do it again um, you know, next this coming Feb.
50:14
In fact, we're already my team is already cracking the whip on me to to start, you know, put pulling together the plans for all that.
50:19
But anyway, I Jim, it'd be great uh if you could come because a guy like you would be would be we had we had big the big investment bank the investment bankers that are are putting together the big deals right now.
50:32
And then and then the top um private equity firms that are in that are in this space right now.
50:37
So it it went really well.
50:40
Um, we one of the feedback things we got was like, look, this is so good.
50:44
Just don't turn it into one of these big BD mega thousands of people running around with their lanyards and, you know, getting too drunk all that.
50:52
So, so we're going to we're going to kind of keep it to no more than like 180, I think, 180 people.
50:58
So, and there's a lot of people want to come now.
50:59
So, you know, somebody smarter than than I am is going to have to figure out how to how to adjudicate who gets to come and who doesn't.
51:05
Anyway, I will make sure Jim that you I can tell you're definitely of the mindset that we need to have as part of that conversation.
51:11
Well, I very much appreciate that and I will come if invited.
51:14
Um, you know, in the connection of like having these adversarial models go back and forth.
51:20
Let me just give you two questions.
51:21
It it proposed that I ask somebody if I was going to be investing and and like uh the first was, have you contemplated adversarial AI in space?
51:32
We've been talking about that.
51:32
What if an attacker uploads a cleverly crafted D uh data packet that poisons the satellites in situ?
51:39
In other words, up there, is there any inorbit adversarial training on the road map for your company?
51:48
And then the second one was, hey, what about laser spoofing with an optical cross-link uh proving or promising huge bandwidth, but an adversary could insert a nearly invisible laser pulse train to desynchronize the uh satellite comms?
52:07
Like what's the defensive handshake or anomaly signal that would flag the man in the vacuum exploit? Right.
52:12
Well, that's that's a Wow, those are some good ones.
52:17
You got some smart I don't know if your team put those together, but like clearly somebody that's got some uh some military thinking going on there.
52:23
Um well, as as I think you might know, my chief of staff is a graduate of the the boats academy, the right canoe.
52:34
We used to call it canoe. You'll love that.
52:41
Uh and we used to call West Point Hudson Hudson High West.
52:46
You know, there's a, you know, there's a big rivalry among the three. I know I know very well. Yeah.
52:50
Well, the laser one here's that's absolutely true.
52:53
Much more difficult, by the way, than than jamming up RF.
52:59
So, it's it's more survival than than the old RF systems, but nonetheless, that is that would be uh a a technique.
53:06
Uh, one of the things though that that um this they call these things mesh networks what they're building in in low earth orbit.
53:15
This is the mil this is different for the military compared to what these commercial ones are doing.
53:20
But the each each satellite is is kind of like does its own onboard processing.
53:25
And so and and and each satellite is going to have like like between six to eight laser heads on it.
53:33
And so if one of them kind of goes out, it it it sort of has this dynamically healing that's not that's not today, but it'll have the ability to do that kind of thing. So you reroute traffic.
53:46
So, the key is to actually know if you're being jammed up or if you're being spoofed or whatever with your lasers because if you know that, but again, that you're only going to know that if you're if you if you have your own AI autonomous uh software running in the background that that's monitoring all your systems.
54:06
So, if you see something that's a glitch, like you see, well, that shouldn't have happened or whatever.
54:08
So that's again that's where I I highly encourage and I um I really push hard for for um the Space Force.
54:14
This is an area by the way where they're going to have to invest because because the the there isn't a the specific things that the Space Force is going to need in these AI agents, if you will, um are are there there's not going to be a commercial equivalent. You know what I mean?
54:34
So So they're going to be very specific.
54:35
It's sort of like you need a fighter aircraft that's going to pull 9gs and do all the and be invisible and all that stuff.
54:41
Well, there's no equivalent for that like for you and I flying from, you know, Miami to Reagan airport, right?
54:46
It doesn't need to be visible.
54:47
If anything, you want to be very visible, right?
54:49
And so, um, and so, so those kinds of things that is what the government is still going to have to do very, very detailed investment and all that kind of stuff.
55:00
But that's just the AI, not the hardware that it runs on, not the not all the other stuff, all the infra the the the old what we used to call rocket science stuff.
55:08
That stuff now is all off the shelf, right?
55:10
It's just getting cheaper every year, right?
55:13
I mean, York, we manufacture, as you know, satellites for for different customers and stuff like that.
55:19
And and every we're we are on the Morris law train.
55:21
Every year our our new generation of satellites are more capable and and cheaper than the previous ones, right?
55:27
That's the way it that's the the cost curve will run now.
55:31
It was not that way for the all while I was in the Air Force.
55:33
I can tell you that much.
55:34
We were spending billions per satellite and uh but that's changed now.
55:39
And uh and and and so getting the Space Force to think about that and plan for that.
55:44
And it's not just the Space Force, it's the what's called OSD, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the the folks that that give the Space Force their money, right?
55:51
and then up to uh what's called OM, Office of Management, Budget, and then Capitol Hill.
55:56
Getting all those people above the Space Force people to understand it's a different way of thinking about the business. It's it it takes time. It's happening though.
56:08
Candidly, it is happening.
56:08
It's just um it's just it's just, you know, it's a lot of inertia, a lot of a lot of old scar tissue and stuff like that that needs to be cleared out, you know, but it's happening. It's happening. Yeah.
56:23
And what what fascinates me again uh is we're we're dealing with so many moving parts. Yeah.
56:29
And like who's going to start thinking about these security things like for another example like ghost firmware and brricked constellations, right?
56:40
Like in a zero trust world, how do you guard against a dormant exploit that only activates after a satellite's final firmware update window has closed, essentially bricking the entire system years later?
56:56
Like whose job is it to think about that? Is it the companies? Is it Space Force?
57:00
That's a really important um that's you know that that gets into supply chain kinds of discussions which are their own that's its own whole world. Not an easy one.
57:08
Um, of course your cracked staff put together like a really tough a really tough case.
57:12
But I will say this, if you get to the the like the zero trust kind of thing I'm talking about now, the firmware if you have a satellite and the firmware is corrupted, right?
57:24
They could where they could sort of they might be able to uh render the satellite useless or they could kind of take it over something, right?
57:34
Well, that's true, but the data that's going through the satellite, if the satellite, it won't it won't get it won't get exploited because because if it's zero trust, then the data packets themselves, each each data record is actually encrypted.
57:51
So, so the so they're not going to be able to because the encryption keys are are maintained at the end points.
57:59
You know, you talked about the edge and all that kind of stuff.
58:03
So that's who they and then the ability to re key and all that kind of stuff needs needs to happen in software.
58:06
Uh it doesn't nothing is is completely foolproof.
58:11
Um but you can even you can even require this gets into this um secure by design thing.
58:18
So that the satellite itself like in other words the internal command and control of the satellite itself if every little every data message that's that's communicated to do the different functions like move the solar arrays or you know move the camera slew the camera or whatever.
58:33
If every one of those things is actually done in that same secure by design zero trust way then you it's just becomes that much more secure.
58:43
you never it's almost it's it's like any other form of warfare, right?
58:48
You you're constantly going like this up the up the up the thing or this maybe down would be the but but but right now we're not doing any of it frankly.
58:57
any of it frankly. So, so I kind of say it's interesting to have people come up and it's valuable to posit these kinds of things, especially when they're doing wargaming and stuff like that, but from a policy perspective today, we're not even dealing with like the the you know,
59:13
first base here on this because when what's happened is in the old days when when when satellites were in geostationary orbit, it was what everything was was called pointtooint because a geostationary is that that's over the same point on the earth the whole time by definition. So you just had a point-to-point link.
59:29
So you just had a point-to-point link.
59:30
You encrypted it at one end and decrypted at the other and that was easy.
59:33
And and we have we have the world's best encryption technology, especially the military, NSA, all those guys.
59:39
So it's it's bulletproof, right?
59:42
Well, that's no longer the case with with mesh networking where things are you're doing onboard processing and you have satellite to satellite to satellite handing off and all that.
59:49
You have and you have to do it that way now.
59:51
There's no there's no going back.
59:53
And so, um, so anyway, that's that's where, uh, the old way sort of breaks down.
1:00:00
The pointto-point thing just breaks down.
1:00:03
And you mentioned, uh, the supply chain, and obviously that is incredibly critical. Yeah.
1:00:09
How do we establish supply chain sovereignty?
1:00:12
How vulnerable are we in the supply chain?
1:00:14
I'll tell you, we're we're we're very vulnerable.
1:00:19
Um especially when it comes to things like uh you know core component stuff like memory and all that kind of stuff.
1:00:26
Um uh I'm a I'm a big believer in um in figure out ways to onshore like US kind of stuff, right?
1:00:33
We need we need again for the minimum.
1:00:35
I'm not I'm not an anti- international guy, but I think that we when it comes to the, you know, making sure our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, all those people have what they need to when when they're called to go fight that they they've got what they need and secure.
1:00:50
We have to make sure we have solid indigenous supply chains for that stuff that can get inspected.
1:00:57
You know, um York, we we do have some foreign suppliers.
1:01:00
Um there, you know, we but not many, but we do have some because sometimes there is just no other choice, right?
1:01:07
Um and um but we have inspection regimes.
1:01:10
We have all kinds of things to to and then and frankly the government comes in and they they they validate our methodologies for testing and all that, but nothing's nothing's perfect.
1:01:20
Nothing's ever fail safe.
1:01:22
But um I feel I feel I feel good about for the stuff right now for example that that um the space development agency is developing and the space force is doing.
1:01:32
I feel good about those supply chain like we're not vulnerable on that now.
1:01:35
Um but that is that is a concern.
1:01:39
Um that and they they know it's they know it's an issue and they're they're working that one.
1:01:46
Um but uh but the the cyber security basically the idea of just hacking into systems that that is that's a today problem and frankly we're not we're not doing we're not batting a thousand on that one.
1:01:59
I'll just leave it at that. Yeah.
1:02:01
And you know it again coming up with all these sort of scenarios I thought was absolutely fascinating for me at least.
1:02:09
Um like IP theft via Gerber files, right?
1:02:14
You have a two-day build at York. Yep.
1:02:18
Obviously to have a two-day build, you have to have replicatable designs.
1:02:22
What's the plan if a rogue fabricator abroad?
1:02:25
You mentioned you don't have too many uh non US uh suppliers but like what if what if they surreptitiously alter a Gerber file to insert back channel circuitry?
1:02:36
How how do you find that is you know I I candidly now you're getting to a level of technical complexity I can't even I don't know but I but I again I'll just say that you hire the best people that you can possibly hire.
1:02:53
you you uh empower them to to to feel like if they see something that concerns them, they they they're comfortable bringing up to their boss because the one thing you don't want to have is this and and it's it's all too common is this autocratic culture where people are afraid to bring problems and concerns to their boss, right?
1:03:11
And so if you have if you have a culture like that, that's a that's a a big risk mitigator to those kinds of things because the the smartest people on the things like you just described are actually the the young people. Yep.
1:03:22
The ones that are the most educated, the most current.
1:03:26
They go to all the the the conferences that are the real geek conference, not the BD ones, but the hardcore ones where they're really talking about these kinds of things.
1:03:33
And they're going to have the instinct, even though they may not have the wisdom to to run a major weapon system program, they're going to have the instincts to know about concerns like that, to see those kinds of things, to see I'll just give an example.
1:03:48
Another one of my companies is called um Spider Oak, right?
1:03:51
And it's it specializes in cyber security, stuff like that.
1:03:53
Um it it uses blockchain, you know, distributed ledger type technologies to to to do its thing.
1:04:01
Well, that none of that existed when I was learning how to write software and all that kind of stuff.
1:04:04
In fact, and and not only that, but even you know, we have rewritten just just in the last year, we rewrote all the software that had had been written only four years, four or five years ago.
1:04:14
We wrote the entire thing because we could make it more efficient um because we want we're moving toward like what's called um the edge economy and all that, right?
1:04:21
So, so now and and but also we rewrote it in a language so that it's it's one of these memory safe languages, right?
1:04:29
So, I I I think that's just going to be a part of the of the culture is is is making sure you have young people interested in getting into this world.
1:04:39
They're they're incentivized.
1:04:41
They're they find it exciting and interesting and then they come to work for companies like Spider Oak or whatever and and they want to apply their their talents to the national security thing.
1:04:51
I think that's what happened in my generation.
1:04:52
It was it wasn't it wasn't techbased, but it was the same idea.
1:04:56
The big major, it's funny now, but the big major was aerospace engineering, right?
1:04:59
Everyone wanted to be an aerospace.
1:05:03
I don't think anybody m majors in that anymore, but that was that was the big thing. Now it's soft.
1:05:06
What we need, what the market needs are software people of all different types.
1:05:11
And and and I definitely agree with your assessment that it's the young people today who get that.
1:05:17
But I was thinking about like one of the major problems like during the Vietnam War was McNamera wasn't getting true intel. Right. Right.
1:05:25
They they were literally feeding him intel that they knew he wanted so that he could go to the White House and say we are winning the war. War. No.
1:05:42
And and that was a chain of command problem.
1:05:44
as as it went up the chain, there were fewer and fewer people who were willing to call on the data that he was getting. And you know what? That still exists today.
1:05:54
And it it's the nature of of of bureaucracies and anything that has any any semblance of autocracy to it.
1:06:02
Big companies, you know, um all that kind of stuff.
1:06:05
And so that's why scandals fester forever, all that kind of stuff. people.
1:06:10
And so I can tell you as the chairman of the board of a bunch of these companies, I one of the things and I I tell my CEOs this I I will when I when I because I basically look at them as my business partner because I'm an investor and I I I I make the decision because I work very closely with that CEO on a daily basis often.
1:06:29
Um, but one of the things that I said my commitment to you and I need your commitment to to down is I'm going to do everything I can to make you feel comfortable bringing issues to me, concerns to me that you know I'm not going to shoot the messenger.
1:06:44
I am here to help you think through and solve these problems because that's the that's the only cure I've ever seen, Jim, in it for that kind of thing.
1:06:53
It happens in every when I was in the military, every unit I was in charge of it.
1:06:57
The people are afraid because they want to get promoted.
1:07:00
They don't want to get in trouble.
1:07:01
It happens when you're little kids, right?
1:07:03
You're a little kid, you don't want your parents to know something bad that happened to you, even though your parents actually need to know, right?
1:07:09
But you you know, it's it's it's it's something in our nature.
1:07:11
And so so the really the burden is on the boss to to to create a climate where the people are comfortable doing that.
1:07:22
you're still the boss, but they need to feel comfortable bringing these concerns, whatever they are. It's it's a tough thing.
1:07:27
It's a tough leadership challenge.
1:07:29
They probably don't teach it at business school, but I can tell you I can learn from my 22 years active duty that is there's nothing more important to a successful command tour. Yeah, and I agree.
1:07:39
Uh it's not taught in business schools.
1:07:42
Like when I was still running an asset management company, um one of the things that uh had great effect for me was telling everyone like we would trade billions of dollars of securities every day and people make mistakes. Yeah.
1:08:00
And so like at the all hands I would basically say you will never get fired for making a mistake that you tell us about.
1:08:08
you will always be fired for trying to cover up a mistake, right?
1:08:14
Like we we just made it as binary as we could.
1:08:18
And so what happened is we grew a culture of immediate notification.
1:08:22
Hey, I think I up and I I really need to talk to you, which is much better than than it takes but it takes a boss that that that is is that wants that.
1:08:37
And that's that's that's why the I I I mean hats off to you because there aren't many people they they might say that but they they don't actually want it.
1:08:45
They they um because they're suckers for flattery, you know, they're suckers for the the person that, you know, the the student that brings the apple to the teacher, not the student that brings the, you know, the the right the good test scores or whatever.
1:08:57
So, it's it's kind of it again the burden because it it's a reward system is how what do you what behaviors do you do you reward?
1:09:04
I a good example of the whole re reward culture or whatever.
1:09:09
One of the reasons why I'm so against um cost plus contracting is I mean sometimes it's necessary and I I I accept that but but for the most part it's not especially in the space business.
1:09:22
And um and the reason why I'm I'm so opposed to is because it rewards exactly the opposite behavior of what you want.
1:09:28
It it rewards more costs.
1:09:31
it reward you are incentivized because you get fee on top of that, right?
1:09:36
So you get more fee, you get more profit if you spend more of the government's money.
1:09:39
That's like the exact opposite of what you want.
1:09:40
What you want are incentive structures that they incentivize contractors to to deliver the same capability for a lower price, a competitive environment.
1:09:49
It's like to me it's like one of the most foundational fundamental things that I and that's why I I work it into almost every oped, every column I write, Forbes or whatever.
1:09:59
Well, I completely agree with you and it's like when good old Charlie Munger would say incentives determine every outcome, right?
1:10:07
Like if you're and you're not even aware that you're inenting exactly the thing that you don't want.
1:10:14
You know, everyone knows the stories about the Brits when they ruled the world were trying to get rid of snakes or whatever and so they offered a bounty on any kind of snake head or rat tail.
1:10:25
It's different story, different times.
1:10:27
But of course, what did it do?
1:10:29
Everyone started breeding more snakes so that they could chop off that and bring it in a lot more rats.
1:10:33
And so you had a bunch of tailless rats running around and you compounded the problem rather than solve it. Right.
1:10:40
And so some of these things can like appear.
1:10:43
You don't really know when you when you first make your decision.
1:10:47
You don't That's why that's why you have to be a learning organization. Exactly.
1:10:50
And the boss can't be arrogant.
1:10:52
That a boss has to always be listening to it to their people and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, totally agree.
1:11:01
Um, for a completely different kind of perspective, you're you're uh a woodworking uh afficionado. Yeah.
1:11:06
And I and I kind of wondered um you know, you've built hundreds of cabinets and my gosh, you've got you've done some diligence on me. That's true.
1:11:18
Woodworking though, you know, you have to think about tolerances, modularity, craftsmanship.
1:11:24
Like how does what you learned over there help you make decisions over here?
1:11:32
Because like you still have to be really sensitive to all these things with satellites, right?
1:11:36
And you know, in my opinion at least, your typical MBA is going to be just totally clueless about that. Yeah.
1:11:44
No, that's a that's a good question.
1:11:45
Where's the intersection between the two?
1:11:47
I don't know if there is one except uh I am a believer in no matter how hard you work and in your um this is this is just us sitting having a scotch together.
1:12:00
I I think it's important that people have a hobby or a diversion that takes them takes their brain out of the details of what they're doing and does something different because when they come back then it's almost like a little mini holiday for their brain and they can come back to those problems and they can all of a sudden see them in a slightly different light.
1:12:22
And so whatever it is, I just happen to like cabinet making and and a lot of that is because, you know, growing up, um, that was a thing.
1:12:31
Um, you know, shop class was a big deal when I was growing up as a kid.
1:12:36
And, uh, and then I was particularly good at it.
1:12:38
So, I I I really took a the the one of the other dirty little secrets.
1:12:42
I really took a vocational track in in high school.
1:12:43
And the fact that I ended up getting into the space, but, you know, the the Air Force and space and intelligence, all that kind of stuff is is a bit of an accident.
1:12:52
And it was only because I happened to be um I was discovered to be particularly gifted in mathematics.
1:12:58
Um and so they whisked me off to um to Carne Melon University. I was only 16, right?
1:13:06
I I wasn't even I hadn't even graduated from high school.
1:13:09
Uh but I was really good with a really good work woodworker.
1:13:11
And so I so I just kind of developed this this uh this love of that.
1:13:16
And then I kind of got back into it when I was I was stationed at Wright Patterson Air Force Base out in Ohio, right?
1:13:23
And um I kind of a neighbor, an elderly guy was a friend of mine and we we kind of he had a wood shop and I thought, man, I I I love this. Get back into it.
1:13:32
And I was working long days, long long days then.
1:13:37
And um and so and I loved it.
1:13:37
And it just became this little mental thing for me, the everything about and I love the design, the creativity. I would design.
1:13:46
And I didn't build to print, right?
1:13:46
I I would design a something and it was always something that was a little bit more of a challenge from the last thing I I made.
1:13:53
Maybe it the next thing had dovetail joinery or it had a Morris and tenon joint or whatever. All different things.
1:14:00
And then also the finishing of it.
1:14:02
It does one thing I I will say I think young people today would they ought to have something like that because one of the things it does do is it helps young people uh develop self-discipline. Mhm.
1:14:13
Um, you know what I mean?
1:14:15
To like to to stay focused on something and not get distracted, whatever it is, whether it's because, you know, you're using a table saw, you get distracted, you can lose a finger, right?
1:14:24
So that there's a there's an imminent danger there as well.
1:14:26
But but those kinds of trades doesn't matter if you go on to become president of the United States, right?
1:14:32
Those trades are useful learning uh there's something in the human animal of using using your hands.
1:14:38
And I I I um you know, to my chagrin, someday when I retire again, I will I'm gonna I'll kid out a whole my my fantasy workshop.
1:14:48
I don't I I sold my wood shop a few years ago. Sold everything.
1:14:51
Sold it to a bunch of young guys.
1:14:54
And so right now I don't have a wood shop.
1:14:56
So I go a little bit crazy because I can't, you know, I can't run a make some sawdust and stuff. But I cook. I love to cook.
1:15:01
Uh because I I have something about I like working with my hands and all that kind of stuff.
1:15:06
So anyway, that's my that's my outlet.
1:15:09
But um other than that, I would just say it's just important to have a diversion.
1:15:13
Um I think it's important at all ages, frankly, even little kids.
1:15:14
Sports are sort of one, but this I'm talking about something slightly different than sports or slightly different than uh you know, health and all that kind of stuff.
1:15:22
But I think it's just good.
1:15:24
Um I have I have friends of mine, this this guy I uh I served with, West Point guy, this rough and tough sort of West Point, you know, guy, but he knitted.
1:15:34
He actually Yeah, he did.
1:15:37
Which you think of like the grandmother sitting there knitting, but that was his thing and it and it um it it worked for him.
1:15:42
He'd make stuff for his, you know, nieces and nephews or whatever. Yeah.
1:15:46
You'd never guess like here's this, you know, army rough and tough army guy. That's fasc.
1:15:48
It could be anything, but I do I do think it's an important thing.
1:15:52
It it did uh it when I was uh looking at uh your uh passion for woodworking, it did it did generate a question.
1:16:01
Uh that is that is actually um a question about the satellite business.
1:16:07
There is a wooden satellite up there by the way. Really? No, I didn't know that.
1:16:11
Yeah, Japan launched one. Yeah.
1:16:11
So I didn't take it off there.
1:16:13
No, no, that's that's very cool. I didn't know that.
1:16:17
But so, okay, so tomorrow you discover a would not uh like flaw in your entire satellite bus design.
1:16:24
What are you gonna What are you going to do?
1:16:26
You're gonna triage, patch, recall, or redesign knowing the enemy is watching your every move? Oh, what a question.
1:16:33
Well, um I guess I would say if it's on orbit, you you you know, you go to you go to war with what you have, right?
1:16:41
So, if it's up there and it's working and you discover this flaw, you just figure out how you can squeeze as much operational utility out of it as possible.
1:16:48
Um, if it's if it's on the ground, uh, if you know, cuz we're in rate production all the time, so this these things actually do happen.
1:16:58
Usually though, it's not a design flaw.
1:17:00
Usually, it's it's some kind of material defect or or something like that.
1:17:03
And then we we we go back and assess um, you know, the root cause or whatever. Was it a supplier issue?
1:17:10
Did we miss it in screening?
1:17:13
Was it our own thing as because we actually we make probably about 70 to 80% of the satellite of the satellite bus and all that, but there are some so we have a it's a combination.
1:17:23
Um, and then I I think ultimately we're a very customer-driven company.
1:17:30
So we and we have a very close it's important to us to have a very close relationship with our customer that they understand exactly what we're doing for them and they're involved in every step of the process.
1:17:41
They're invited if they want they can in fact we've had them sometimes they'll just they'll have a temporary office just to watch watch their satellites being built and all that.
1:17:49
We don't we don't mind that as long as they don't slow us down but but um and so you know we would we would present and we have done this.
1:17:56
We would present um what we know our our options our recommended and then our recommendation and it would dep let them ultimately make an informed decision.
1:18:06
Do they want to take the risk of this particular knot hole or because it may not matter, right?
1:18:14
So, we have to quantify it and all that, but it may not matter or um because the urgency.
1:18:19
Let's let's say it's it's it's a military satellite and they're like, "Yeah, we understand it's a risk, but damn it, like the the Chinese are up there right now.
1:18:28
We got to get this thing on a rocket like in a week and get it up there.
1:18:31
we'll accept that that risk of that knot hole as long as you're saying it's got a you know an 80% chance of not being an issue then we'll go with it or whatever.
1:18:41
So very important to involve the customer in that those decisions.
1:18:45
We we we're very transparent.
1:18:47
We don't believe in hiding anything unless it's classified but our customer is the one that flows down anything we do it's classified.
1:18:54
It's because our customer has classified it.
1:18:55
So we can we can always have that that um that conversation and and we work very hard.
1:19:03
But I encourage the team from the CEO all the way down to have very good rapport with their counterparts. Yeah.
1:19:10
That uh obviously it comes back to some kind of really old ideas, doesn't it? Right.
1:19:15
The the more you communicate the better.
1:19:17
And if they trust you, right?
1:19:19
And and that was you took the words right out of my mouth.
1:19:21
If you have a trusting relationship, that's going to make all the difference because like if you don't if there is no trust, you get a macamera situation, right?
1:19:32
and and you're getting fed back data all the way up and it and problems compound negatively as well as positively and absolutely the downward compounding negative compounding that can happen if there's no trust or if there's a bad communication that could be catastrophic.
1:19:50
Well, I was just going to say the interesting thing about about uh the going up versus going down.
1:19:55
When things are positive, they're going up.
1:19:59
You you have um you know, you have compound interest is the thing, right? Everything's great. Everything's going up.
1:20:05
What's interesting with the negative cycle though is that it's often hidden.
1:20:10
Like it's compounding negatively, but no one knows it until it's a cat, as you said, a catastrophic, and then it's like like that.
1:20:15
And then when when something when the catastrophe happens, it happens overnight. Yep.
1:20:19
So it's like the So there's a strange thing that happens where where you're climbing up up up everything you know you're compounding compounding if there's a negative thing that's maybe you just don't see that negative curve it's it's hidden whenever that thing triggers the whole thing goes down.
1:20:36
It's like an avalanche right when um and so that's why communication at all levels is just so important.
1:20:41
And again, the burden bosses can complain that their people aren't communicating up, but that the burden is on the boss to to to set the right reward structures and incent structures that they, you know, the messenger doesn't get shot.
1:20:56
They're not only that, but they're actually rewarded for bringing not not telling on your not telling on people, but they're rewarded for integrity, honesty, cander up, you know, up to their boss and all the way up at all levels, too, including what we used to call the middleocracy, like the the the the mid-level managers, right?
1:21:13
That just want to preserve their job, you know, that kind of thing.
1:21:17
that kind of thing. that that and those are not easy things to do to come up with the right reward structure but but I do have ideas on that that um that I I share with my CEO on on little things and I think candidly because the way I operate a lot of people you haven't
1:21:32
asked this but I'll just tell you the way I people have asked me what do I do as a chairman and really it's it's um yes of course I chair the board and you know all the directors and the usual thing but I'm often uh uh what what they call an executive chairman because I'm very hands-on on with the CEO and it's not dictatorial. It's it's more like a
1:21:49
It's it's more like a partnership and you can think of it a little bit like a little bit like an executive coach, right?
1:21:56
Because a lot of times these these um entrepreneurs, they're brilliant.
1:22:00
They have business experience, but they don't have really executive level experience.
1:22:04
They they're certainly capable of learning it, but they just need somebody, but you know, the old expression is lonely at the top. They're the CEO.
1:22:10
There's nobody else they can really turn to.
1:22:11
And so I work closely with them to help them help them think through think like an executive, think strategically about the decisions they need to make and all that kind of stuff.
1:22:21
So that's and that candidly I I feel incredibly blessed because I love what I get to do.
1:22:25
It's it's like the dream.
1:22:29
It's the dream thing for me.
1:22:31
I money is interesting, but it it's actually what I get to do every day is is is just an amazing thing.
1:22:37
And and what's brilliant about that is that remember the old joke from Saving Private Ryan, gripes only go up.
1:22:45
Uh where where they're asking uh Tom Hanks character, why why don't you ever gripe?
1:22:50
And he's like, gripes only go up.
1:22:53
I can't gripe to you guys, right? Exactly.
1:22:56
So your CEO has somebody to gripe up to. Yeah. Yeah.
1:22:59
Which really works out pretty well if you need candidly.
1:23:06
They need that also from a a mental health standpoint, right? Totally.
1:23:09
They need that venting and they need they need a little bit of the um I don't know like a coach, you know, like Yeah, you get it. Yeah. Yeah, I totally get it.
1:23:20
And you're right that that is kind of a pressure valve release that if you don't have that, you're going to things are going to go sideways.
1:23:29
You get some weird talk about weird behaviors.
1:23:31
You get some really weird They feel like there's nowhere to turn.
1:23:34
They can they I've seen it because I remember and I was very uh probably I'm the youngest of big Irish Catholic family. So I'm the youngest.
1:23:40
So I watched more than anything else, right? You know, we share that.
1:23:45
I am the youngest of a large Catholic Irish Catholic family, too.
1:23:49
So you know what I'm talking about.
1:23:51
So I observe things and so when I was when I was uh running a lot stuff for Paul Allen, I had lots of responsibility for all kinds of different deals and stuff like that.
1:23:59
And I and I watched um what worked and what didn't work.
1:24:03
what worked and what didn't work. So, so I was when I decided to go out on my own and do my own thing, um I had uh even though it was an accelerated sort of timeline from you know that because I was it was less than four years um uh I
1:24:18
I really learned a lot in those four years about exec you know not so much executive management because I'd done that but but um the understanding what what it takes to be an effective CEO and and they how important all these things
1:24:35
you and I have been just talking about the honesty the cander the communication the lack of fear the need for a CEO to have that that person because very often in in these situations early stage companies if there is a chairman that's not the CEO it's just the lead investor
1:24:52
who often has almost no experience they can't really with any kind of credibility they can't coach they can't mentor they can't not really you know what I mean that's that's that's the niche that I I enjoy um doing and being involved with. Well, this has been an
1:25:06
Well, this has been an absolutely fascinating conversation.
1:25:09
I'm uh incredibly impressed by what you're doing.
1:25:13
I I I loved my kind of deep dive on this entire field because I I frankly I didn't know nearly as much as I should have.
1:25:21
And so like I I was thinking to myself, I I really have no business unless I do a kind of a real deep dive here.
1:25:28
But it but thank you because it was absolutely fascinating for me because all of these edge case questions and like just thinking about the elaborate uh you know triage that has to go on. Oh yeah. It's huge. It's huge.
1:25:42
In fact, I'll tell you, uh, I hope we stay connected because I have some I'll just I'll just tell you I have some other ideas that are that'll that'll be they're stealth right now that are that are uh that'll be coming out in the next year, year and a half. Oh, terrific.
1:25:59
We'd love to see them that actually touch on some of those things that you're you're touching on.
1:26:03
you're you're touching on. So you're obviously you're you're one of those guys that plays the ash shucks thing like we were talking about in the beginning, but I can tell you're obviously a deep thinking guy because
1:26:13
what you're what you're putting your finger on is that is one of the big big challenges into the future is the the the military the Pentagon calls it JAD C2 joint all domain command and control but it's it's the orchestration of all of it is in it's it's incredibly complex. Um, and so yeah, I'll be taking
1:26:30
Um, and so yeah, I'll be taking on some of that in in a new in a new company that you'll you'll hear about.
1:26:37
You'll probably hear about it in about six months or so. It'll come out. Terrific. Can't wait.
1:26:40
As a final question, Chuck, uh, we have a little game we play here at Infinite Loops, and that is we're going to make you the emperor of the world. Now, there are rules.
1:26:50
You can't kill anybody, and you can't put anyone in a re-education camp.
1:26:56
But what you can do is we're going to hand you a magical microphone and you can say two things into it.
1:27:00
And the two things that you say are going to incept the entire population of the world.
1:27:05
The next morning, whenever their next morning is, everybody's going to wake up and say, "You know what?
1:27:12
I just had two of the greatest ideas."
1:27:14
And unlike all the other times, I'm going to actually act on both of these ideas today. Oh my god.
1:27:22
What two things are you going to incept into the world's population as as as as think as thought pieces?
1:27:27
You mean that kind of a thing? Like it can be anything.
1:27:35
Um the first one that comes to mind that I think everybody needs to know and understand is that it's going to be okay.
1:27:45
M you know I think uh too often in the world that we're in today with everything's hyped up and everything is it's about clickbait and I think there's a there's a level of fear that's rolling through um this whole thing and I the world and I I think we we all need to just take the message that it's going to be okay and then I The other thing I would want to say is um it it kind of relates to that.
1:28:28
Think about what you want for yourself and for your life and do not be afraid to go do it. Mhm. Do just don't be afraid. Trust.
1:28:45
Reach for whatever it is that you need to touch that gives you the um the courage to uh to go do the thing cuz we all know it's we have an all of us we have an inner voice.
1:28:57
have an inner voice. we know what we're supposed to do, what we want to do and and um and and find it whether it's through uh your spiritual beliefs or whatever it is your self-confidence I don't know your friends I don't know whatever whatever people however people get get to that uh find the courage to to go do it because I'm you know I'll be 60 soon and um and there's no there's no point in
1:29:28
waiting and if you don't if you don't all you will have is regret that you didn't and and so just you get one life so just go do it and that I I I I think if I think if if people keep those two things close to themselves at all times I think the world would be a much better place candidly amen to both of those I'm turning 65 in a few actually in a week so I I I I absolutely are sharing your thought patterns on on both of those. And like
1:30:00
And like the first one people need to remember, you know, Pandora's box is often uh uh given as a real negative.
1:30:09
Oh my god, you've opened Pandora's box.
1:30:11
What people forget is the last thing at the bottom of Pandora's box that emerges is hope.
1:30:20
And the the second one, man, I could not underline that message more.
1:30:24
I completely agree because it it may seem daunty.
1:30:31
It might be frightening when you're younger, but boy, you're going to regret it if you don't do it.
1:30:36
And and life happens fast.
1:30:38
And as you said, we only got one.
1:30:41
So, make it absolutely really matter. Yes, sir.
1:30:44
Chuck, thank you so much.
1:30:48
This has been such a delightful conversation. Thank you, Jim. I've enjoyed it as well. I really I really have.
1:30:52
I didn't when this was pitched to me I thought I don't know why not.
1:30:55
I was I was assured I was assured you're a funny and interesting guy and they were more right than they even realized. So like meeting you.
1:31:01
Well, thank you very much.
1:31:04
And I was assured the same of you.
1:31:05
So we we have uh mutually uh good intel on people working for us.
1:31:12
Thanks so much for joining me. Thank you. Take care. Byebye.