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Y Combinator backs its first defense startup, Ares Industries
- bofadeez 2y agoTalk about a growth industry
- onepointsixC 2y agoNot at all. Defense spending as a percentage of GDP is at historic lows.
- bofadeez 2y agoBetter spend more then. I'm in favor of 99.99% of GDP personally.
- jppope 2y agoWe actually desperately need more startup activity in defense... the more consolidated the industry is the worse it is for taxpayers and citizens.
- atlasunshrugged 2y agoTotally agree, not to mention the need for democracies to have all the best tools at their disposal to deter (and if necessary defeat) totalitarian nations. I think the war in Ukraine has shown us that the days of dictatorships and invasions are not yet over and that weaponry is still needed to defend democracy.
- theFco 2y agoAnd don’t forget the occasional uncomfortable democracy that needs to be crushed (think Allende’s Chile)
- Dibby053 2y agoOr (more relevantly to current geopolitics) Mosaddeq's Iran.
- damien-rembert 2y agoAs a non American, I'm not sure I get what you meant there, could you explain?
- Moto7451 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change_in_Latin_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r... Not every case will fit the parent’s criteria but it’s important to understand how the US’ realpolitik has affected the world. We (the US) are not always the white knight.
- cassianoleal 2y agoAlso please add the context of Operation Condor [0] and the School of the Americas [1]. Also more recently the US participated actively in the coups in Ecuador, Bolívia, Brazil, Paraguay, ... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_condor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_condor [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_the_americas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_the_americas
- totetsu 2y agoI think they are commenting on atlassianshrugged's tacit assumption that american foreign policy and military power is always used in support of democracy against totalitarianism, with a sarcastic reference to a socialist democracy that the CIA helped overthrow and replace with a military Junta.
- brohoolio 2y agoThe U.S. makes mistakes in terms of doing the wrong thing. But because it’s a democracy, it is capable of recognizing those mistakes and attempting to make amends. For example the internment of people of Japanese descent during world war 2, it was terrible for the folks rounded up and put into camps. It took 40 years, but we acknowledged it was wrong. “In 1988, Congress passed, and President Reagan signed, Public Law 100-383 – the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 – that acknowledged the injustice of "internment," apologized for it, and provided a $20,000 cash payment to each person who was incarcerated.” If you are in a dictatorship, that acknowledgement of a past wrong is absolutely impossible. That’s why democracy is so important. George Takei makes this point much more eloquently that I ever could, and it’s why he believes so strongly in democracy.
- ignoramous 2y ago> weaponry is still needed to defend democracy When it isn't doing that, militant criminals should be held accountable; but are they? https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/projects/drone-war/ https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/projects/drone-war/
- atlasunshrugged 2y agoThey absolutely should and it's a real failure when criminals anywhere aren't head to account.
- ignoramous 2y ago> failure when criminals anywhere aren't head to account Not just anywhere, but specifically here in America; but you wouldn't know from all the downvotes if folks are okay with holding American war criminals to account. The propaganda of "saving democracies" is too strong.
- jakelazaroff 2y agoThere is literally a U.S. law nicknamed the “Hague Invasion Act” that allows the president to authorize military action if an international body attempts to prosecute American citizens for war crimes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members'_Protection_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members'_Prot...
- stackskipton 2y agoThere is a fair amount of startup activity in defense around software/tooling. There isn't a ton in hardware for same reason you don't see as many consumer startups doing hardware, it's very expensive and risky business.
- giraffe_lady 2y agoThe people we drop bombs on are citizens of somewhere too.
- tourmalinetaco 2y agoBut listen, we have to defend democracy! (Despite being a federal republic.) We have to fund international interests! (Despite having various national problems.)
- FredPret 2y agoIf everyone in America thought that, most of us humans would be dead and the remnants of our species would speak German, Japanese, or Russian only
- tourmalinetaco 2y agoI strongly urge you to attend a history class, because only part of that is comparable to funding international wars for no gain or defensive reason. If the America of 1943 had the choice between its people or Ukraine, it would choose its people. Because that’s literally what we did while England and Poland was being bombed by the Nazis. It wasn’t until the Japanese made us get involved that we did anything. The closer example to now is indeed the cold war, but a lot of the “war on communism” was not only incredibly disruptive to smaller countries, and its efficacy over the long term was questionable, especially considering the USSR died out naturally.
- Ancapistani 2y ago> It wasn’t until the Japanese made us get involved that we did anything. Lend-Lease began in 1941 - so we were exporting war materiel and technology years before we got directly involved in WW2.
- throwpoaster 2y ago> especially considering the USSR died out naturally. What does this mean? You seem to say the war on communism did nothing because we won it anyway? How can you tell?
- chrsig 2y ago[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- rafram 2y agoI appreciated one quote in particular from the recent Times profile of Alex Karp: > Silicon Valley is telling the average American ‘I will not support your defense needs’ while selling products that are adversarial to America. That is a loser position. I think that’s fair. And selling to the very deep-pocketed defense sector is obviously a winner position.
- throwpoaster 2y agoTo the people who complain about the ethics of defence tech: I hear you, but we live in an increasingly hostile world. Si vis pacem, para bellum. If you want peace you must prepare for war.
- stemlord 2y agoAs if silicon valley has been a bastion of ethical business prior
- throwpoaster 2y agoWhen we’re talking about weapons I think we’re in a different ethical category.
- krapp 2y agoSilicon Valley was building chips and systems for the Department of Defense long before the internet and startups were a gleam in anyone's eye. The US is an oligarchy and the success permitted any business in the US is a function of its subservience and utility to the military industrial complex. Look up the early history of Google and Facebook, you'll find tons of links to three letter agencies. Every FAANG (or whatever the acronym du jour is now) or equivalent startup is run by spooks and sociopaths with blood on their hands. That's just how America works.
- ratlrrr 2y ago> spooks and sociopaths with blood on their hands. That's just how America works. Even in certain unnamed European countries, they proliferate more freely than you'd think, staying unnoticed as long as they’re deniably placating their wrongdoings within the civilian sector. Certain ones are known to become increasingly bold as they encroach on organized crime and PMC breeding grounds, both in close proximity, as of recently. It happens in seemingly ordinary situations, and you'd be surprised at how insidious certain individuals can become.
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- salawat 2y agoMmmhmmmm. https://shadowrun.fandom.com/wiki/Ares_Macrotechnology https://shadowrun.fandom.com/wiki/Ares_Macrotechnology I'll just leave this here. If art continues to be predictive of future development, I'm putting money on 4 generations or so to either total dystopia or societal collapse.
- siliconc0w 2y agoSo we have nuclear weapons but we can't use them because then our enemies will use theirs and everyone loses. But if cruise missiles (or drones, or anything else that put explosives on a target) become cheap enough to basically allow you to loiter thousands of weapons over any conflict area, overwhelm any defense, and annihilate all the enemy's material it becomes a similar game of mutual destruction.
- cj 2y agoAn analogy could be a light dimmer switch compared to an on/off light switch (nuclear is on/off, while the dimmer can be strategically adjusted without complete mutual destruction)
- siliconc0w 2y agoIn this world of super cheap standoff weapons, I don't think incrementalism makes sense. It may not even make sense today. In the first few days of conflict with China, we'll basically blow each other up and we'll be back to MAD. Even if we're slightly better and survive with a few ships, I don't think China will be like, "Oh - you used conventional weapons to annihilate our fleet - that's fair, we won't retaliate with nuclear."
- throwpoaster 2y agoChinese fleet isn’t blue ocean capable. If they break their promise not to use nukes first, that’s on them.
- ChumpGPT 2y agoRussian EW is so far ahead of the US that even Excalibur shells are useless. Most of the missiles the US provides Ukraine have had to be updated constantly. Not saying it doesn't have it's place but it will need to fly without GPS or have some serious anti EW capabilities. They should send it to Ukraine and see how it works out for them. That will be the acid test....
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- Foreignborn 2y agoNone of these comments here are reassuring. As if people’s concerns about developing weapon technology are economic concerns lol. - Partner countries like Israel (however you feel about that) will eventually use whatever we make. America will not be sole user. - America’s police is not afraid to use technology on its own citizens. Obviously they don’t have access to missile defense, but there are plenty examples of them getting military hardware. I am not actually 100% never-make-weapons, but I have strong doubts anyone profit-motivated is strongly thinking about the second order effects.
- giraffe_lady 2y agoThe american tech industry in general and YC specifically used to be softly, subtly technofascist. The last 18 months it has been shifting more towards overtly so. This is another notch on that ratchet, rather than a totally new thing.
- onepointsixC 2y agoSilicon valley’s foundation is building tools of war to defeat fascists. Today we face a new revisionist expansionist ethno state, and their tech companies are lock step with their government in matters of military and espionage. We can choose to either defend our democracy and the world’s most diverse nation or not.
- giraffe_lady 2y ago[flagged]
- onepointsixC 2y agoI’m talking about the US and China, which is the great power competition of our time.
- giraffe_lady 2y ago
- geetee 2y agoI guess Onebrief doesn't count as defense? https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/onebrief https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/onebrief
- buggy6257 2y agoOnebrief makes military planning software so it’s a matter of where people mentally draw the line. Ares is literally making weapons, so I could imagine that being the line for some people, though not for all surely.
- PlunderBunny 2y ago'Defence Industry' (emphasis on defence) is a bit new-speak. It's hard to see a cruise missile as 'defensive' (yeah, I know the rationalisations that leads to offence being a kind of defence).
- victor22 2y agoYes, totally 1984. They are in bed with the villains
- ks2048 2y agoPar for the course since at least 1947 when they ditched the name "Department of War" for "Department of Defense".
- Nasrudith 2y agoTurtling isn't a viable strategy unfortunately. You would need something sci-fi like force fields for "pure defense" to be remotely viable.
- tim333 2y agoIt's how you use weapons that makes them defensive or offensive, not the tech really.
- 76j67j67j67j67j 2y ago[dead]
- philip1209 2y ago> Y Combinator backs its first defense startup, Ares Industries That's not true - a quick search reveals a bunch of direct defense companies, like Apollo Shield, and a ton of companies building in the defense space: https://usefind.ai/searches/defense-startups-funded-by-yc https://usefind.ai/searches/defense-startups-funded-by-yc Do they mean to say "weapons company"?
- missedthecue 2y agoI agree that production volume during high intensity wartime is important but most of the time isn't high intensity wartime. The US is procuring a couple hundred cruise missiles per year right now, and unit cost isn't the reason they aren't buying more. If 100% of volume went to Ares (it won't) at 1/10th the cost, would that even be a sustainable business model? US manufacturing with US based input suppliers isn't cheap and neither are security cleared workforces.
- zaptrem 2y agoOnce they're selling enough cruise missiles they will likely make other related items.
- gpm 2y agoAt "10x smaller and 10x cheaper" I'm wondering if they are making traditional "cruise missiles" or something closer to what is being referred to as "fpv drones" in Ukraine... They might be betting on a change in doctrine emphasizing this sort of platform, and/or the ability to sell directly to Ukraine (and to countries in similar conflicts going forwards), rather than looking at existing cruise missile contracts and trying to compete with those. Drones are one of the items I frequently see in the news as "Ukraine is purchasing these" instead of "these have been donated to Ukraine". (This is pure speculation, everything I know about this company is from the article being discussed)
- throwpoaster 2y agoThere is a change in doctrine towards “factory vessels” — imagine a Ford-class carrier with a drone|missile factory onboard.
- smashah 2y agoGormless contrarians in VC conveniently found the US DOD teat to latch on to to make up for a lack of returns. Ethics? lol.
- victor22 2y agoYC showing their true face by working for warlords. Same as always, just now they stopped hiding it.
- atlasunshrugged 2y agoSilicon Valley was basically built thanks to the defense industry. https://steveblank.com/secret-history/ https://steveblank.com/secret-history/
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- onepointsixC 2y agoAre the warlords in the room with us?
- vegetablepotpie 2y agoI work in the defense industry as an engineer, for one of the larger defense companies, a few thoughts on this: - The defense industry is ripe for disruption, defense contractors are very top-heavy, siloed, and bureaucratic, and incredibly inefficient. However, there are structural issues to getting new companies started, and I don’t see anything in Ares that inspires confidence that they will succeed. - Cash flow is a big problem for small government contractors. Although there are funding initiatives, such as SBIR, to encourage small entrepreneurship in government contracting, it’s generally difficult to transition out of that because the government can take an inordinate amount of time to provide the funds that they promise to a contractor. You can, of-course, get a loan from a third party to fill your funding gap, but that will eat into your profit margin. Size is a form of protection here because other contracts and programs can buffer against cash flow problems in one program. - funding mechanisms, and laws surrounding them, the FAR in particular, incentivizes against non-traditional corporate organizing and being effective in execution. If you’ve made the transition to being a more established company, you’re getting bigger contracts, you will be following Earned Value (EV). This is required for contracts of a certain, agency defined, size. EV more-or-less requires you to follow waterfall development. It means you effectively cannot do agile development, although you can find examples of contractors using SAFe and other forms of Dark Agile, these are merely waterfall down poorly with extra steps. EV is a large bureaucratic undertaking, requiring certified earned value management systems and dedicated professionals, such as CAMs, planners, quality engineering, and contracts managers. This in service of being accountable, and making sure tax payer dollars are spent wisely, but it takes money to do this. You can’t capitalize on the benefits of being flexible and innovating with government funds because you need to report metrics as if you’ve laid out your entire plan at the start of the project. - Defense startups effectively have one customer, the US Federal Government. Although it is true that foreign military sales (FMS) happen for a variety of defense articles, all of these sales need to be approved by the US State Department, meaning you are entirely dependent on the executive branch to give you business. How many investors would like to invest in a product that is limited by one party in determining how much you will grow?
- zoklet-enjoyer 2y ago[flagged]
- Log_out_ 2y agoa multipolar world of totalitarians is a breeding ground for worldwars
- mamonster 2y agoTbh I'm surprised this didn't happen sooner. If there is anything unique about the military in the US, it's that the budget is extremely sticky and it only goes up. Its basically as "recession-proof" as it gets. Why wouldn't you fund a startup that targets: 1) A niche with a well defined TAM and stable growth prospects 2) No real recession prospects 3) Entrenched players that by all accounts are inefficient 4) An industry where its hard to imagine FTC really flexing its muscles to prevent anti-competitive mergers, in an era where FTC is trying to shut off the acquisition exit for startups. It's also a part of a much bigger trend, Gov spending as a % of GDP is trending only one way over the last 70 years in the West(up) and so at a certain point why not explicitly start targeting the government as your end user?
- throwpoaster 2y agoLargely agree, but the risks are long government procurement cycles and large order sizes of physical inventory.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- einpoklum 2y agoWhy Combinator?