5 ms·

Good, would be nice to see spacex style startups start to win contracts for the military. Reduce cost, break up the boeing / lockheed / northrop / etc. lock on

Good, would be nice to see spacex style startups start to win contracts for the military. Reduce cost, break up the boeing / lockheed / northrop / etc. lock on hardware contracts and optimally produce new dynamic ideas.

colechristensen 5y ago
They have always been lots of startups and small companies in defense, but very often focusing on one very specific thing leveraged by a main contractor that interacts with the government. For example a company of a dozen people that make just a laser sensor which is then integrated into defense products. What would be nice is more like defense contract interaction as a service. How to navigate the defense contract acquisition and compliance environment is hard and boring and part of why defense systems actually work and why they’re so expensive.
- FredPret 5y ago
  Military contracting will always be frightfully hard. Generals have to make judgement calls about what will work in the next conflict - talk about incomplete information - while the future enemy’s preparations and even identity is unknown. Then this has to be translated into something that can slot into existing military systems. To say nothing of political and career considerations, moving budgets, revolutionary new ideas that will come along, training and culture. And if they get it wrong, the bad guy wins the next war.
- ren_engineer 5y ago
  >What would be nice is more like defense contract interaction as a service it's called bribing politicians and generals
- dmoy 5y ago
  Yes exactly. There's entire classes of contracts reserved exclusively for small companies and startups even. Many exist only because of the constant pipeline of SBIR/STTR money.
systemvoltage 5y ago
One of my best buddies is a mid-level exec at Boeing/Lockheed/Northrop. I just met him a week ago and we had a discussion about the utter waste of Tax Payer dollars in these companies. He was getting compensation beyond his contributions (par for the course in large corporations), but his job was to make sure billable hours continue to exceed the budget - like a boiling frog, projects continue to get delayed bit-by-bit and after 10 years you realize that your program is 3x over budget (F-35 Program?). I want SV/Texas enterpreneurship to completely dismantle the MIC and start afresh. Even if you disagree with defense applications and its ramifications, simply from ROI perspective (tax payer dollars), instead of increasing military budget, we should be asking how can we do more with current budget. Or even cut down the budget and expect 2x more productivity from these fat military contractors with moats like no other.
- Torifyme12 5y ago
  Yeah, that's just what we need, Tech company's approach to defense. "Hey the missile doesn't work in v1, but we still shipped it" "Sorry, we just didn't see enough users of this product, so we remotely bricked it." "We didn't QA this properly and now people are dead." Move fast and break things is supposed to apply to the missile, not the process to write the guidance system.
  - xyzzyz 5y ago
    > Yeah, that's just what we need, Tech company's approach to defense. > "Hey the missile doesn't work in v1, but we still shipped it" Yes, that’s how we won WWII: we shipped prototypes based on the new ideas, and improved them based on the lessons from the field. In war, stakes are higher, and you can’t always afford to delay for a long time to ship perfect product: by the time it arrives, the war might already be lost.
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      We also shipped torpedoes that didn't detonate reliably (Mark 14/15) for the first part of the war (1941-43). Although that was more of a Bureau of Ordnance / Congressional fault, for insufficient interwar funding and testing.

colechristensen 5y ago

They have always been lots of startups and small companies in defense, but very often focusing on one very specific thing leveraged by a main contractor that interacts with the government. For example a company of a dozen people that make just a laser sensor which is then integrated into defense products. What would be nice is more like defense contract interaction as a service. How to navigate the defense contract acquisition and compliance environment is hard and boring and part of why defense systems actually work and why they’re so expensive.

FredPret 5y ago
Military contracting will always be frightfully hard. Generals have to make judgement calls about what will work in the next conflict - talk about incomplete information - while the future enemy’s preparations and even identity is unknown. Then this has to be translated into something that can slot into existing military systems. To say nothing of political and career considerations, moving budgets, revolutionary new ideas that will come along, training and culture. And if they get it wrong, the bad guy wins the next war.
ren_engineer 5y ago
>What would be nice is more like defense contract interaction as a service it's called bribing politicians and generals
dmoy 5y ago
Yes exactly. There's entire classes of contracts reserved exclusively for small companies and startups even. Many exist only because of the constant pipeline of SBIR/STTR money.

systemvoltage 5y ago

One of my best buddies is a mid-level exec at Boeing/Lockheed/Northrop. I just met him a week ago and we had a discussion about the utter waste of Tax Payer dollars in these companies. He was getting compensation beyond his contributions (par for the course in large corporations), but his job was to make sure billable hours continue to exceed the budget - like a boiling frog, projects continue to get delayed bit-by-bit and after 10 years you realize that your program is 3x over budget (F-35 Program?). I want SV/Texas enterpreneurship to completely dismantle the MIC and start afresh. Even if you disagree with defense applications and its ramifications, simply from ROI perspective (tax payer dollars), instead of increasing military budget, we should be asking how can we do more with current budget. Or even cut down the budget and expect 2x more productivity from these fat military contractors with moats like no other.

Torifyme12 5y ago
Yeah, that's just what we need, Tech company's approach to defense. "Hey the missile doesn't work in v1, but we still shipped it" "Sorry, we just didn't see enough users of this product, so we remotely bricked it." "We didn't QA this properly and now people are dead." Move fast and break things is supposed to apply to the missile, not the process to write the guidance system.
- xyzzyz 5y ago
  > Yeah, that's just what we need, Tech company's approach to defense. > "Hey the missile doesn't work in v1, but we still shipped it" Yes, that’s how we won WWII: we shipped prototypes based on the new ideas, and improved them based on the lessons from the field. In war, stakes are higher, and you can’t always afford to delay for a long time to ship perfect product: by the time it arrives, the war might already be lost.
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    We also shipped torpedoes that didn't detonate reliably (Mark 14/15) for the first part of the war (1941-43). Although that was more of a Bureau of Ordnance / Congressional fault, for insufficient interwar funding and testing.