The Drone Ultimatum

NEW POD: We sat down with Omar Javaid, CEO of Rampart Communications, to discuss one of the least visible and most critical parts of modern warfare: communications. From his experience at Qualcomm to building a defense startup, Omar shares how wireless technology, electronic warfare, and lessons from Ukraine are reshaping the future battlefield. Now available on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

With movement above ground increasingly dangerous, trench warfare has returned in Ukraine. What’s next? The underground. Yadin Soffer of Traysar Industries on why subterranean mobility is set to become a new domain of warfare.

What does it actually take to build military-grade Group 3 drones? Stephen Ziegenfuss, Co-Founder of Vertical Autonomy, discusses the realities of developing tactical unmanned aircraft. Rather than chasing the newest technology for its own sake, Stephen argues that proven engineering, operator feedback, and the ability to manufacture at scale are what ultimately matter. We discuss: • Why Vertical Autonomy acquired and modernized an existing Group 3 UAS platform • How the war in Ukraine is changing drone design • Why “good enough, fielded now” often beats “perfect, years later” • What founders underestimate about building defense hardware • Why experience remains one of the industry’s biggest competitive advantages Now available on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

“The next era is the scaled manufacturing era.” 645 Ventures Partner Vardan Gattani and Steven Simoni discuss why every manufacturing technology has its place, but the real advantage comes from understanding the entire production ecosystem: supply chains, dependencies, redundancy, and scaling. As demand grows for drones, robotics, and other physical technologies, manufacturing may become one of the defining competitive advantages.

“Once you’ve validated your demand curve, your problem becomes a manufacturing problem.” 645 Ventures Partner Vardan Gattani explains why the best hard tech founders think about manufacturing from day one rather than a downstream problem to be solved later.

NEW POD with Brett Velicovich, Founder of Powerus and a former intelligence professional whose experience supporting special operations and working alongside Ukrainian forces shaped how he approaches defense innovation. Brett explains why he started Powerus, what operators wish more defense companies understood, and how lessons from Ukraine are changing the way new technologies are built and fielded. Watch or listen now on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

Reshoring manufacturing efforts always prompts the same question: “Can we replace workers with humanoid robots?” Dennis DeMeyere of Autonomous Production says that's the wrong idea. The vision is to redesign factories around machines and automation, not by replacing humans with robots in the same places. “Factories become data centers, and the robots are built around whatever product you’re making.”

NEW POD: The future of warfare may be shifting beneath the surface of the Earth. Yadin Soffer, CEO and co-founder of Traysar Industries, joined the show to discuss his leap into defense in order to tackle one of the military’s toughest operational problems: autonomous systems for subterranean environments. Now available on YouTube / Spotify / Apple Podcasts.

Defense VC has changed dramatically over the last five years. Steven Simoni sat down with Vardan Gattani, Partner at 645 Ventures, to talk about what investors are actually looking for, why manufacturing matters again, lessons from investing in Shield AI, and where defense tech is headed next. Now available on YouTube / Spotify / Apple Podcasts.

“The DoD is the world’s greatest customer… if you can survive long enough for them to become your customer.” Dennis DeMeyere of Autonomous Production sums up the challenge of building a startup in defense tech after Steven Simoni points out that the overwhelming majority of R&D dollars in defense flow to the legacy primes. Creating a new and useful product is one challenge of defense, but surviving long enough to reach the main customer might be the most difficult part.