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In the Arena is a podcast about building products that matter for America’s future. Hosted by Vannevar CEO Brett Granberg and Hayley Menser, the series goes inside the fight to modernize U.S. defense and outcompete authoritarian adversaries.
From product bets and mission wins to the people and principles behind them, In the Arena is a blueprint for builders on the frontlines of strategic competition.
In tech, I think the default is to work on commercial products. But at some point, a lot of people start to wonder whether they could find more meaning, or just contribute to something greater than themselves by working in national security or public service. So I wanna talk about what that path actually looks like, how someone can know whether they're a good fit. So I guess I'll start by asking you what made you originally wanna start working in defense and public service, and what keeps you here.
Brett:Yeah. So in terms of what originally made me wanna work in defense, I started my career out at McKinsey in consulting. Not for any reason other than I wanted to do a math PhD. My advisor said, hey, you're probably not smart to get into, you know, one of the top three math programs, so you should consider something else. And, some of the smartest people I knew in that math program were actually going to McKinsey.
Brett:So I ended up at McKinsey. I always had an interest in national security. I'm not totally sure why. I have, like, family members and, grandparents that that served. But when I got to McKinsey, the first couple projects I was working on were, like, optimizing check paper check processing efficiency.
Brett:That was like, you know, the big projects that, you know, I got to work on. And then the second project was like baby lotion pricing in Brazil. And while, you know, both of these are, you know, important for somebody to think about, I I didn't particularly enjoy spending, like, you know, forty to eighty hours a week working on those topics. And so I I really, pretty immediately when I got to McKinsey, I started pushing really hard to move to the DC office because I heard there was some interesting national security work going on and that led me to work on some defense prime projects. Like there's a couple of defense companies that I worked with but also different parts of the intelligence community.
Brett:And once I worked with the intelligence community, I got really hooked because what I saw was people that were my age that were really really smart that just decided to go on a different path than me. And I really felt like those people needed to be supported. And so that was like kind of the initial foray for me into defense that led me to go to In Q Tel, and then I got, like, more and more hooked. And then, you know, Vanavar kind of came out of my experience in In Q Tel a little bit. So that was a little bit, like, the initial journey for me.
Hayley:How would you describe the national security mission set as a whole to someone who is skeptical of it?
Brett:Yeah. So I think for people that are skeptical, don't even worry about national security. Like, take, like, one step back and think about public service. So, in this country, we are a representative democracy, which to me basically means, like, you you get out what you put in. And so I think of every decision that our government makes as, something that we are responsible for.
Brett:The government is just made up of us. Like, it's just there's no, like, we elect people into the government, then whoever chooses to go work in the government, that, you know, that is is what the government is. And so I think when I talk to people that are skeptical, it's usually some distrust in the government. And my my push on that is like, hey, yeah, that's totally fair. You you can distrust but it's also incumbent it's literally your responsibility in a representative democracy to make the government better, or kinda put put your own effort into it.
Brett:Doesn't mean you need to put your whole career into it that can like look differently for different people, but it's not enough to just say that you don't wanna, you know, like, oh, I don't like it and, you know, you just you you should put put in the effort. At least that's kind of what I feel. And I think, like, when you look at I'm just gonna pick on, like, Stanford, which, you know, I like, obviously. I'm a fan of Stanford. But, like, if you look at Stanford in, like, when I was there in the 2018, 2019 time horizon, taking just, the Stanford engineering class that graduated that year, like, I would wager zero of them.
Brett:I don't know. It was, like, several 100 people in the CS program. Like, probably zero of them went to go work for the government, like, in any agency, like, maybe maybe one or two in, a national security kind of way, but pretty much, like, rounds to zero. Same thing for, like, the MBA folks. Like, nobody who hadn't previously worked in government had any interest in going back into government, and the people that were interested wanted to go into sort of political pointing positions, not like the roles where you actually kinda like do, you know, those are important, but not the roles where you're kinda like doing the groundwork of like making the government better.
Brett:And I think that's like that's in contrast to a country like Singapore, for example, which sends like tons of really smart people into their into their public service. To people that are skeptical, I think that skepticism is totally fair. It's like very normal to, you know, like, you question what you're what that's literally the whole point of the of, like, the democracy in The US is to be able to question kind of what is your government doing. My push would just be, hey, it's also our responsibility. Like, it's incumbent upon us to, like, make that government better.
Brett:So I would start there and then I would kinda foray into national security specifically. But, yeah, that's just if we can get, like, one or two more Stanford undergrads per year, you know, to to go into government anywhere, I think that would be incredible. That'd be, like, a huge win.
Hayley:I don't know if you know the answer to this. What is it about Singapore, like culturally or structurally, that makes those young people want to go into public service?
Brett:Yeah. This is a great question. There there's like people are gonna be way smarter on this than me, but that there's, I think, different one very key component is they pay public servants more money, and it's viewed as, like, a very prestigious job. Whereas, like, for me coming out of undergrad, like, going back to, like, I I didn't have, like, a clear path coming out of undergrad. I was just kinda following where the smart people went, and that, to me, led me to consulting.
Brett:For them, following where the smart people go leads you to go work for the government. It's just like kind of a different talent pool. Some of that is like compensation related, some of that is like how the government is oriented, trying to set up so that, people that are just joining can have more of an impact than joining us like a GS seven or something, like super low level in an agency. Yeah. I mean, Singapore also is like, you know, historically not quite like the same type of democracy as we are.
Brett:So there's just sort of like a lot of structural differences, and I'm not saying we copy Singapore's model, but just that that concept of like, oh, wouldn't it be great if, you know, people weren't going to go work for McKinsey, but we're actually going to go work for different government agencies. I feel like that's a you know, that's a positive thing. We should try to make that happen.
Hayley:What is it about this moment now that makes you say, like, now is the time to come work in defense? Like, why now?
Brett:The time to work in defense has been the last, like, decade for sure. But I think now is, like, the the most easy like, of all the times, successful because there's the most opportunity. Before like, the reason I started Vanavar with Nini was when I was looking at what to do post Inkeytel, I knew I wanted to work in defense and I knew I wanted to be about kind of building new technology because there's huge gap between what the incumbents are able to provide versus what's actually needed for national security. The problem was that there were no options. Like, the the options were like, go be employee number like 2,000 or something at like a company that's already been around for twenty years.
Brett:Palantir, first, is the company I'm talking about. There's not a bad option. Palantir is a good company. But that that was, like, it was, like, Palantir, like, maybe SpaceX, but SpaceX is not was not primarily a defense company, is primarily commercial. And then may you know, Andro was really early at the time.
Brett:There were not a lot of options, five, six years ago, but there are a lot of options now. This has been a top problem for a decade, but it, like, it's still nobody people haven't solved it. The prod the fundamental problem of, like, we don't have the right engineering teams or product teams working on defense has been the case for a long time, and it's still the case. And so I think it's it's remains like an extremely urgent urgent thing. It hasn't changed.
Brett:But now, it's just there's a lot more opportunity for people to go do this, yeah, with us or with other companies too.
Hayley:And in your opinion, like, I I guess the second part of that is why now? Why are there more opportunities? Like, what is making defense tech spike in this environment?
Brett:I think it's because in '20 I think it was 2017, Anwarol got started. In 2019, we got started. And I think we were the first couple of, like, defense only companies that actually achieved real revenue growth Prior to and it's like rare in start ups for for early tech companies to get past 20 even getting past 20,000,000 is super hard, but getting to, you know, like for us around 80,000,000 and Rails like around a billion in revenue now. That's like very much unheard of for just tech companies overall. And so I think that was a breaking point for investors to be able to see like, okay, there are data points of defense only companies being able to generate revenue, and therefore it's like actually an investable asset class.
Brett:Whereas before, it was not it was not. Like, when we raised the seed round, nobody, you know, and the series a, nobody cared about defense, and it was like an uphill battle the whole way. So I think you're seeing more capital come in because it turns out that, yes, when you have this these market dynamics of $400,000,000,000 being spent on defense procurement, only going to maybe, you know, roughly 10 or so companies and all those companies are underperforming. Like, literally you ask like customers, the government, like on particular programs, you know, these companies are underperforming on many of these programs. Those market dynamics are very good for new entrants.
Brett:If you can come in and do something better, you can start eating up. You know, that's a lot of market share to eat with very little product competition. So I think that that's been the biggest change is people are starting to see, oh, this can actually work and that therefore more money is coming in, which means more teams are are able to operate, more companies are getting created and and that kind of thing.
Hayley:Obviously, the macro environment, the geopolitical environment has warmed up in the past decade. Not necessarily asking you to predict the future here, but where do you see the mission set of, like, defense tech companies broadly going over the next decade?
Brett:The top priority is gonna be China, competition with China. That's a huge problem. China has, you know, like, more shipbuilding capacity than us by, you know, possibly orders of magnitude. You know, possibly at parity platforms and some key domains, but produced at, like, a big again, like, maybe five or 10 x lower price point. Yeah, just China's gonna be the most important national security priority.
Brett:I think for the next four years, what we're seeing with the the new administration in the White House is you're you're seeing China up there. You're also seeing counter cartel and counter narcotics being a top priority. I think that's going to be a problem certainly for the next four years and I think it's a problem that's worth working on and worth solving. Outside of that, think geo like, yeah, things change significantly, but I think for us, it's just, hey, can we just stay laser focused on competition with China? And, yeah, and then sort of invest our additional R and D in other areas as we see fit.
Brett:But, yeah, hard hard for me to say except for China, I know, is gonna be on that list for for the next
Hayley:ten years. So let's say that all really resonates with someone who hears it, with an engineer who is curious about getting into defense tech, but maybe feels like an outsider to the National Security Mission just given background experience or lack thereof Yeah. In the space.
Brett:Yeah.
Hayley:Yeah. What would you say to that person?
Brett:Yeah. I guess what I would say is, like, so we just had a one of our teammates who did not does not have a defense background, actually just came to us straight out of undergrad, but has been at Vannevar for three plus years now. She just went on an aircraft carrier deployment for like sixteen days. Not supposed to be that long, but she she she was embedded she was the, you know, the only civilian for like the majority of that deployment, embedded with the operations and intelligence team on that aircraft deployment. If that's exciting to you, then you should work in defense because that's like what working in defense is all about.
Brett:It's being able to go forward with the mission users that have the problem and help them make their jobs easier or do some damage on a particular mission problem. So I think it's more about like, hey, what are you excited about than anything else? I think people what's really interesting and I think is actually a misconception about the military too is especially like enlisted folks, there is no background. Like, it's just people of all backgrounds end up in the military. I think there's like a perception that it is one type of person, and that has not been my experience.
Brett:It's actually like an extremely diverse set of people. And I think so there's no, like, are you gonna fit in with this group or not? And then the other part of it is like, hey, when you're like, you know, forward deployed with people, everybody's on the same team. Doesn't matter kinda like, yeah, if you're stuck on an aircraft carrier with people, like, you're gonna you you will sort of like make friends with the people on that aircraft carrier. I don't know.
Brett:If that kind of thing is interesting for folks, think that is how you know that you wanna work in defense. And for me, it's like contrasting that life with the life of like sitting on my laptop like, you know, in Excel, you know, working baby lotion prices, you know, for like supermarkets or whatever. Those are like very different experiences in terms of like where you feel fulfillment. So it's just more like, hey, what what what is interesting? Like, how do you want to spend your time?
Hayley:What do think people misunderstand about working in defense tech or the mission as a whole?
Brett:I think it kind of goes back to what I was saying around public service. Think people this actually hasn't been the case. It it sort of, I think, goes in waves how people feel about this based on kind of what's happening more in politics in America. But defense is not like a partisan issue, it's like a non partisan issue. And like for Vannevar, we have people that are republican, democrat, independent at the company.
Brett:It's like not our we're not here to support specific political parties. We're here to just do what's right by the public servants that are that we're asking to, like, you know, do these important missions. That's probably the one thing that I think we see ebb and flow a little bit is kinda, you know, like the partisan is defense political or not. It's like national security for us is not political. Our job is just like support that, like, the national security mission for The United States regardless of kind of what the more broad macro situation is.
Brett:And then it kinda goes back to my earlier point of like, hey, if you don't agree or don't believe in something that the government is doing, my personal belief is it's incumbent upon you to, like, participate and and make it better versus choose to, you know, like not participate, which also is like a valid, you know, choice sometimes. But that's just more my my macro message to people that are skeptical. It's just like, yes, your skepticism is extremely useful. You should apply your talent to change the thing that that you are skeptical about.
Hayley:Yeah. I I love that view.
Brett:Yeah.
Hayley:If someone is choosing or deciding between working at another big successful tech company, maybe on, like, potentially national security adjacent products Yeah. Like like ARVR at Apple, for example Yeah. Or, you know, AI at Meta or, you know, any other company that that's doing that. What are the trade offs between working at a company like that on a project like that versus working at a company like Vanabar?
Brett:Yeah. I think it really is just like ownership of like what how much of an impact are you gonna have and like what are you gonna own. I think for us, for example, we built, you know, like our first hardware product is like an RF sensor that we built to try to detect specific signals coming off of, ships in certain locations around the world. And that team started with like two people, maybe maybe three people if you round up. And that like one three person team built a v zero, deployed it overseas on, like, a literal island to, like, detect, you know, ships, in, like, four months or something.
Brett:And if you kind of take that and apply it, like, the Facebook version of that is, alright, we're gonna take, like, a 100 engineers and, like, there's probably not gonna be, like, clear ownership. Like, maybe, like, your piece of the pie is, like, some very small segment of the thing you're working on, and it's gonna take, like, a year or two years or something. I think this is, like, that's kinda it's more just nothing wrong with working at big tech companies. I think you actually learn a lot from that experience. But it's more just, if you wanna build things quickly with with small teams where you're actually touch like, engaged with the users on a mission problem, don't do that at a bit.
Brett:You can't do that. Literally, you structurally kinda can't really do that at bigger companies. So, yeah, I think startups are the only answer for people that really like zero to one stuff, it's kinda startups are the move.
Hayley:Would you have the same answer for a big tech company like we're talking about versus a defense prime? Because at least in a defense prime, you're working directly on that problem.
Brett:Yeah. So I think the problem with defense primes and there's there's actually some really smart people that work at the primes. Some of I've worked with some of them before. The challenge with defense primes is more structural than anything else. You have these organizations that have often been around for, eighty years.
Brett:Like, not exaggerating, like, maybe about eighty years old and they their decision making process and how they operate has been completely shaped by the government's procurement process. And so the people that are usually like the smartest people at Defense Primes, like they're a players, they put on like, sales and program requirements and program shaping and capture, which is like a very, like, you know, useful function, but it's not like building the thing. It's not like building the the product or doing the engineering. And there's the reasons why they do that are kind of like business incentive reasons. It's because like they they make their money off of winning these very large oftentimes cost plus pro programs that take three years to to shape and win with program managers.
Brett:And so that's how their entire organization is aligned. It's not aligned to build new things. And so if you try to go into a defense prime and build something new, even though the leadership might be very smart and completely well intentioned, that thing is probably gonna get like, you're gonna be fighting an uphill battle for no reason, basically the entire time until the project suffocates. So I think there's like some probably counter examples that you could use but not very many. And that's why companies like us and Andrew and others are able to come in and eat like large parts of the market that we should we should not be able to go in and and eat.
Brett:But the only reason we're able to do it is because of just complacency and, like, the the structural, like, setups that prevent these big companies from actually making product bets and like a on tech areas that are new for them. So a lot of things that are good about the primes, think, you can learn a ton, like especially on the BD side. There are some things that you can kind of learn at a defense prime that may be useful at a smaller company. Sales cycle is still very different, but that would be a hard one. Like between like a Google and a like a Boeing or something, think would be very manager dependent on how to make that choice.
Brett:Like if you knew the manager at the defense prime and knew they were really good, then you should then maybe that's a better path, but it would be that would be a hard call.
Hayley:But if you like going from zero to one, work at a start up.
Brett:Yeah. Probably yeah. I don't mean to, like, knock the defense primes, but there's a reason there's a reason we exist and there's a reason we've been able to be successful and that's, like, largely due to the defense primes in my in my mind, like, not keeping up with keeping at pace with what they've needed to to keep pace with.
Hayley:Yeah. Yeah. We talked a little bit about the mission of Vannevar to deter conflict with China. I wanna ask you about deterrence and why that distinction is important to you.
Brett:Yeah. At least for the China fight, there there are a lot of people that focus on kinetic deterrence, and actually the majority of the government thinks about it in this way, which is how do we build like more capable fighter jets or, you know, more, you know, aircraft carriers, these sorts of things that are really expensive and oftentimes geared towards fighting the last war, and oftentimes are meant to be kinetic, like, a kinetic end effect in nature. Meaning, we're gonna go, you know, destroy all of the, you know, PLA Navy ships, which is, like, very important. We need to be able to do that. That's, like, an important mission.
Brett:I think the better focus is, like, not needing to use those assets. I think it's better to not have to go to war in that way. And certainly kinda, you know, being able to demonstrate capability over match of, know, hey, our fighters are just so much more sophisticated than yours that you can't win a fight is part of that. But there's a lot of competition that happens that, you know, not in the kinetic realm, not really related to, like, is our fighter more capable or not, that definitely shapes like the odds of us going to war. And so when we focus on China, we focus a lot on the competition domain, which for us is things like perception management.
Brett:Okay. How do we control what the CCP or PLA thinks about us doing a certain activity or thinks about a certain capability. Can we control how they think about it regardless of, like, what the capabilities are on the ground? And things like economic warfare, access and basing, like, where where do we have assets in in like airfields and fuel supply depots, where does the CCP have access to those, and how do we kind of shape the terrain so that, you know, it's advantageous to us and and not to them is really important.
Hayley:What's that saying? It's like an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure?
Brett:I like that. I do not like that. That's yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Hayley:Alright. Yeah. Okay. Last question kind of in this in this line of line of thought. Let's say an engineer or someone is coming to Vannevar or some other defense tech startup from their big tech job or just from, you know, general commercial tech industry.
Hayley:What do you think would be, like, the biggest surprise that they would encounter?
Brett:Probably a lot of surprise. I guess a lot of surprises. I think the main one is just, like, being able to go on a military base and, like, talk to people and, like, watch people doing some important intelligence function or some important operations function is like kind of crazy for a lot of people that haven't experienced that before. The other shock is gonna be size. So again, like in support.
Brett:So Facebook is really big, which means it's slower to get things done, but it's also has like a lot of really useful support functions. Know, like if you're an engineer, maybe you don't have to worry about like infrastructure, DevOps, like nearly as much as you would at a start up. So I think being comfortable with, hey, like, when we say there's like a three person engineering team that's building an RF sensor, like, we literally mean that. There's like there's like, that means like the engineers are also like assembling the RF kit in our New York office. It's like, you know, right now, we've gotta build a bunch of kits.
Brett:So there's like parts of kits like scattered across the office because the team was coming in to assemble these things before going overseas, like that's also part of the job. It's like so you you have a more ownership, more freedom and flexibility to do what you want, you also have way less support. And so it's like, yeah, that can be good or bad just depending on kinda the type of person.