What America Is Missing Between Sanctions and Nuclear War (Bryon Hargis, Co-Founder & CEO of Castelion)

[00:00] Warfare is always just adapting to whatever the other side is doing. And the person that actually wins is whoever adapts faster. We can't let our adversaries be faster than us. This is our company's first time building a missile. In, give me like 20 years, and we've designed more weapons than the traditional industry has in like the 100-year history. [00:18] As technology has increased, the ability to project force at a distance has continually grown further and further and further out. And you're now at the point where more traditional solutions [00:30] take a very long time because they fly at subsonic.

They fly roughly the same speed as like a passenger airliner. And so to close like the distances we're talking about now, which could be 1,000, 1,500 miles, you're talking hours. You don't just want like economic sanctions. And if that doesn't work, then we're going to like create a global catastrophe. You need something in the middle. What really matters if you want to deter is that you have to be able to do a counter response, [01:00] of global nuclear war, which nobody wants. And so, kind of like the specific capabilities that we're building within Kasselian are meant to provide a very credible middle option.

[01:16] What sits between an economic sanction and a nuclear weapon? For a growing number of conflicts, the honest answer is not enough. [01:23] America's credible middle options, the non-nuclear ways to deter an adversary, [01:29] have been quietly eroding. [01:30] Castellian CEO Brian Hargis believes hypersonic missiles are a key part of the solution. [01:37] Hargis spent 12 years at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab and five at SpaceX. [01:42] before co-founding Castellion. [01:44] Its first missile, Blackbeard, is built to be cheap [01:47] survivable [01:48] and produced at scale. [01:50] and it's roughly a year from flying on the Navy's F-18.

[01:53] In this episode, [01:54] Brian and I discuss the game theory behind warfare, [01:57] What's SpaceX? [01:58] taught him about building hard things fast, and why manufacturing missiles [02:02] is paradoxically... [02:03] Essential. [02:04] and maintaining peace. [02:06] I'm Mario. [02:06] and this is The Generalist. [02:08] This episode is brought to you tech domains. I spend a lot of time speaking with founders and builders who are building the next generation of technology companies. For all of them, finding a compelling and distinctive company identity. [02:22] is essential. [02:23] to breaking through the noise.

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[03:03] This episode is brought to you by Ahrefs Brand Radar. If you've tried searching for your brand in ChatGPT or Google's AI results, you've probably noticed something. It's not always clear why certain brands get mentioned, [03:15] or why yours doesn't. [03:17] That's the problem Ahrefs Brand Radar solves. It helps you see how your brand shows up across AI-powered answers. [03:24] not just in search engines, but also on platforms like Reddit and YouTube. Instead of guessing, you get real data based on millions of actual user prompts. You can quickly check your share of voice, [03:35] Find out which websites or sources are influencing those answers, and see where competitors are getting ahead of you.

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[04:21] I feel like this is going to be 90 minutes on the question all in itself, but it's, uh, [04:26] I mean, it all comes down to deterrence. [04:28] So, [04:29] The ultimate goal, right, is... [04:31] You don't fight any wars because other folks don't want to lose a war. And so you just want to have overmatched strength. And like the real, the real reason that hypersonics are important [04:42] It's just. [04:43] as technology has increased. [04:45] the ability to kind of, you know, [04:48] Project force at a distance has continually grown.

That range has grown further and further and further out. [04:54] And you're now at the point where more traditional solutions like a cruise missile take [04:59] a very long time because they fly subsonic. They fly roughly the same speed as a passenger airliner. [05:06] And so to close the distances we're talking about now, which could be [05:10] 500,000, 1500 miles. [05:13] you're talking hours. And so if you've noticed like what most of [05:18] the United States' adversaries have... [05:20] have. [05:21] you know, [05:22] invested in. It's been [05:24] putting things on mobile platforms, and they've done that specifically [05:28] to avoid the problem that a tomahawk is a very good weapon, but it takes a very long time to get there.

And so, [05:33] They just can do things and then they can move. [05:35] And so hypersonics is really solving three fundamental problems all at the same time. [05:40] is solving [05:41] Range. [05:42] They go very far because they fly... [05:44] extremely high in the atmosphere. [05:46] And so there's very low drag. And so you get you get very good range for the size of the weapon. [05:50] You can't. [05:51] speed, because it's in the name, it's hypersonic, it's faster than Mach 5. [05:56] And so you're closing that vast distance very quickly before whatever you're shooting at has had time to move on.

[06:02] And they're highly survivable. And in this context, survivability really means [06:07] that the weapon is very hard to shoot down, so it makes it to the target. And they know that. And so [06:12] it gives people pause of like, hey, [06:15] I can't act with impunity. [06:17] And that hopefully causes them to rethink their decision of like, do I act today? Do I do this today? Or do I do this? [06:23] Do I just wait a year and see if I can improve my technology? And so we're at this point in this inflection point where [06:30] Our traditional solutions are going to have a reduced deterrent effect.

[06:35] and you need a higher capability weapon [06:37] to gain back that, [06:39] non-nuclear deterrence. And that brings us kind of to the other main point. It's not just having this, this concept of a hypersonic weapon, because the S. has had that for [06:48] for decades, you have to build enough of them. [06:51] that they care, that it matters to them. The cost of those systems has to be affordable enough [06:58] that you can buy a reasonable quantity that they care. And so all of these have been issues in hypersonics for a very long time.

[07:05] with cost, the quantity, [07:06] more so than the capability. [07:08] And that is what Castilian is setting out to solve. And we're doing that to deter future conflict. There's so many interesting threats there. And, you know, I've been going sort of obscenely deep, at least as much as is possible over the past sort of week and last few days in particular, and trying to understand these different [07:25] trade-offs that are being made across different weapons and deterrence and the sort of game theory behind a lot of this. In reviewing...

[07:33] Some of the history of hypersonics, [07:36] It seems like 2021 was kind of a critical moment described as something of a Sputnik moment. [07:44] where there was the sort of detection of China's hypersonic capabilities and just sort of [07:52] How far advanced? [07:53] they were relative to the expectations. I wondered how that moment struck you and how it perhaps [08:00] either galvanized your plans to start this business or has changed how you've thought about what it is that needs to be built? I would say very sadly, I'm not. [08:09] I was not surprised.

[08:11] I've been in aerospace and defense for 20 years. [08:14] 25 years, I don't even know. A long time. At this point, we can usually get the thing done, but it is incredibly expensive. It's incredibly slow. [08:23] Yes. It usually works the first time, which is the whole point of like kind of the traditional aerospace systems engineering process. But you get the known byproducts of that process, which are, it's going to cost a fortune. [08:35] And it's going to take forever. [08:36] if you're up against someone else who is doing a different process that's much more agile [08:42] and much faster and more iterative, you're going to be passed.

They're learning faster than you are. And so I think that that moment that you're referencing, when that came out, I forgot if it was in the Wall Street Journal or who reported on it, [08:54] Yeah, I think Financial Times maybe. Financial Times. [08:57] Yeah. I wasn't surprised at all. [08:59] Um, [09:00] Because the problem is not just a hypersonics problem. It's almost... [09:05] like the game ad libs, you could you could replace, you could replace the noun that you're talking about and just insert something else shipbuilding. [09:12] satellites, what have you, the problems are all the same because they're following the same systems engineering and development process.

[09:18] And the results of that are the same. [09:20] You get a probably works outcome at very slow, very high cost and [09:25] In a world where the S. is so far ahead, then sure, and when you can afford it, then it's fine. But we're now moving into a world where... [09:32] We have peers that are, you know, even if they're not ahead of us currently in a technology area, they are moving faster. And all you have to do logically is you give that enough time to play out. [09:43] They're going to move in front.

[09:44] And I'd say in hypersonics, in some regards, [09:48] they have moved out in front. But what's more frightening is like a led, [09:51] first question we talked about where [09:53] The thing that truly matters to have deterrence is [09:56] cost and scale, that's where they're severely [09:59] kicking our butt and and and i think that that is even [10:03] It's less talked about, but it is a bigger problem even than the specific capabilities that they demonstrated to the world. Yes. And just to sort of put a finer point on that and make sure I'm following you, when you say sort of...

[10:15] cost and scale. [10:17] you know, a peer power like China, their sort of industrial manufacturing base is just [10:22] so much more cost effective, so much more efficient that [10:27] you know, it's not just that they're able to demo this hypersonic missile in 2021 that, you know, is sort of, [10:34] concerning, it's that they can produce so, so many more at such a cost advantage. And as you said, that's sort of something that's being [10:41] scene from shipbuilding to satellites to whatever it might be. Is that right? [10:46] That's exactly what I'm saying.

Yeah. You know, it's not a paper tiger. They literally like they had their victory day parade and then they just roll missile after missile after missile after other whatever, you know, name your other system like break right through Beijing and. [10:59] let everybody see their manufacturing prowess. That is like the true problem. [11:04] that I think that [11:06] the United States, the West in general, needs to get much better at addressing [11:12] And then hypersonics is just like the specific product where you're going into like, we're going to work on this.

And that's what Castellion is doing. But I think overall, like that is the problem that has to be addressed right now. [11:21] before we find ourselves... [11:24] not just behind in a couple areas, but behind in many areas or most areas. And it really just comes down to, [11:31] you have to have that manufacturing capacity. You have to be able to build things that is actually important in warfare. And then, [11:40] When you look at how wars are most normally won, [11:44] Sure, there's like, if you have a greatly, you know, you have a greater capability than the other side, it looks easy.

But then at the end of the day, if you're like evenly mashed, it almost always comes down to economics. And so the cost of work, [11:55] really matters. And you have to do that better than the other side. And that has to be solved as well. And that is something that certainly... [12:02] I'd say traditional aerospace in the United States is not doing a good job with. I'd love to follow up on the manufacturing base piece in a moment, but [12:10] On this concept of deterrence, I've heard you [12:13] say before that, you know, right now, America sort of has [12:17] Very little middle ground, few middle rungs between sanctions and sanctions.

[12:22] nuclear warheads, maybe to sort of [12:26] give folks a better sense of that. Why are those middle rungs so important? And I guess, uh, something that I've been trying to think through is like, why are. [12:35] traditional [12:37] missiles, intercontinental ballistic missiles. [12:40] Why are those not sort of [12:42] suitable middle rung [12:44] deterrences. When you get into the game theory of this, it's honestly quite fascinating. And I think there's lots of ways we could take this. But [12:54] It's specifically to what you asked. When you're looking at... [12:58] kind of like the [13:00] What is the optimal response to...

[13:03] conflict and if you look at like the game theory of like prisoner's dilemma yes [13:08] The optimal game theory for that [13:11] has it been [13:12] proven and simulated is tit for tat. [13:15] And so... [13:16] If someone does something, you need to basically do it back. [13:20] Effectively. It can't be... [13:22] You know, it can't be ineffective. [13:24] And then you need to forgive. [13:25] Because otherwise, if they just take that same approach and just keep going back and forth, [13:30] it'll go forever. And that's not ideal either.

But when you play that out, you actually realize, like, hey, that that applied that you can literally just witness what happens in the world, you know, between countries and their conflicts. They're literally just playing out prisoners dilemma [13:44] in a horrible fashion. [13:46] Yes. So what really matters if you want to deter... [13:49] is that you have to be able to do a counter response and so [13:53] The United States has built up tremendous capabilities to have that kind of middle of the road option between economic sanctions. [14:00] And... [14:01] the threat of global nuclear war, which nobody wants.

[14:05] We still have that for certain... [14:07] for certain, I'd say, threats in certain countries. [14:11] Unfortunately, with like a peer country, [14:13] we are starting to lose that middle ground. They have done such a good job of building up their capabilities. [14:18] that that middle rung [14:20] is no longer extremely effective as a response. [14:24] And at the point that it's ineffective, they can kind of act with impunity and [14:29] They're not dumb. They know that. [14:31] And so then you lead to the situation where you've got like on the two hands, as I said, you've got.

[14:36] economic sanctions, which [14:39] Can work. [14:40] it's like the softest approach and you can see those being employed you know constantly but then with no middle ground you have no you have no room to kind of slowly escalate which is always as like a policymaker that was that's you want options you want options you don't just want like [14:56] economic sanctions and if that doesn't work then we're going to like [14:59] create a global global catastrophe. [15:02] You need something in the middle. [15:04] And so it's critically important that [15:07] They have those options, not so that they're used, [15:10] But so that the other side knows that you have them and that they're effective and hopefully they think about what they're doing before they go and act.

And so it doesn't happen in the first place. [15:18] And so hypersonics in kind of like the specific capabilities that we're building within Kasellian [15:24] are meant to provide [15:25] a very credible [15:27] middle option in terms of like technical capability, but also when you get back to that [15:32] cost and scale. [15:33] so that, [15:35] it impacts their decision making. And the reason that you can't just put like a [15:40] traditional warhead on a ballistic missile and then start [15:43] Lobbying those. [15:45] And to be clear from like a technical perspective, [15:48] A ballistic missile solves all of the things.

It goes far, it's survivable, and it gets there quick. [15:54] But it also looks like the same delivery vehicle you would commonly use to employ nuclear weapons in... [16:00] That's extremely, extremely risky. [16:03] to utilize against [16:05] a nuclear-armed... [16:07] uh, peer. [16:08] because they don't know. You can't really tell what's on board. You can say publicly, hey, [16:15] I'm going to use this system against you and it's not nuclear arm, but they're just trusting you that that's what you said because they don't know until the first one hits. That's a lot of risk.

[16:24] Yeah. And I don't, [16:27] You know, thankfully, [16:28] For most countries, [16:30] not all, but most countries, [16:32] That's not risk that they take likely. And I think that's good for everybody. And so, [16:38] in I know it kind of sounds like a [16:40] Very weird for like a munitions manufacturer. [16:44] I truly believe like, [16:46] What we're trying to do and what we're building is going to keep [16:48] not just like the United States safe. It's going to keep, [16:51] most of the world safe. And I truly believe that.

And I know not everybody would agree with that, [16:57] But, [16:57] That's why I feel so passionate about what we're working on. And that's why most of our workforce works here. We don't come into work thinking like, [17:04] I can't wait to launch a missile against a ship or what have you. [17:09] I come into work thinking like it would be great if we could help avoid a conflict and that never happens. And it's really hard to prove a negative, right? Like, will I know that it didn't happen at some point?

I probably won't. But I do believe that if you are left with only those... [17:23] two options of economic sanctions and then something just [17:26] completely unreasonable. [17:28] you're more likely to get into a conflict [17:30] I fully agree. I think you need to have these deterrents for peace and there is something sort of [17:38] uh paradoxical about that but uh essential i mean i want to live in the world where everybody just gets along trust me i really like i [17:45] I truly do. I just unfortunately don't believe that that's actually the world we live in.

And I think we have to be [17:51] to be mindful of that because like frankly the strength of the s's military especially since [17:59] a lot of prosperity for a lot of people. And I think that that has been a net good. You mentioned this concept of, you know, with a ballistic missile, I think I've heard it phrased as warhead ambiguity, where you can't tell if it's a nuclear warhead or not. And so that sort of [18:18] can create [18:19] uh, [18:20] a possibility where your adversary [18:22] overreacts and, you know, sort of escalates far beyond the intensity of the attack.

[18:30] As I understand it, that's also possible with hypersonics. Is that not true, that you can have hypersonics that are sort of nuclear capable and there's still sort of this level of confusion that can... [18:41] can happen where you don't necessarily know what's coming at you, so to speak? [18:46] I mean, for sure, there's there's [18:49] There's no way to verify. But what the S. has been very clear about is messaging, like, we're not putting nuclear warheads on these maneuvering hypersonic vehicles. [18:59] you will see those kinds of policy statements stated like time and time again.

[19:04] not every country has the same types of policy statements like you can absolutely do it if you want to have a weapon that you can use without any kind of overreaction you're going to be very clear [19:14] about throughout development, what's on it, what's in it. And I think like it's, it may be even surprising to folks, [19:21] To your point about not overreacting, [19:23] In a lot of cases, right before you attack someone, you actually can give them a call and tell them, [19:28] what's happening so that they don't overreact even though you're literally going to have a conflict yes um [19:37] But it's like in nobody's best interest to have that overreaction.

One of the other sort of like criticisms or skepticisms I've seen around hypersonics that I'd be curious to understand is, [19:47] how you think this through from the deterrence perspective is that, you know, I hope I do a passable job of explaining this, but hypersonics can be [19:55] harder to detect because they fly... [19:57] so much lower, as I understand it, at parts of the [20:01] the process compared to an, uh, [20:04] ballistic missile and they're much less predictable and more maneuverable, such that it often gives the adversary much less time [20:12] to respond, which is obviously beneficial from the aggressor's perspective, but as a result also maybe results in sort of [20:20] I don't know, faster Twitch responses, overreactions.

How do you think about sort of weighing [20:25] those things. Let's go. I mean, maybe we should go through like the differences real quick and then let's talk through. [20:32] I guess how people can perceive that, but [20:35] So, [20:36] The funny thing is like when when [20:38] when we say hypersonics and when like the, you know, the U S department of war says hypersonics are typically meaning like, [20:45] a [20:45] hypersonic maneuvering vehicle whether it's an air breather or it's a boost glide system which we can get into those distinctions but [20:52] What it means is that [20:54] we are, [20:55] for the most part, staying within the atmosphere for most of the flight, even though we are moving at [21:00] five times or faster than the speed of sound.

[21:03] And the reason that that's helpful, like from a range perspective, is that you're very low drag, but you do get some lift. So you can have like a vehicle that looks like a very stubby wing plane and it gets some lift from the air. [21:17] But it also, the air provides something to react against, meaning you can [21:21] you can steer because you are in the atmosphere. And so you can literally steer so you can maneuver as you're going. Yes. [21:28] The reason that it's harder to see is that [21:30] Because you're still in the atmosphere, so you're in like the 100,000 to 200,000 foot range.

[21:37] you're, [21:39] typically going to be under the horizon from the point of view of something far away. [21:44] just because the earth is, you know, the earth is spherical for the most part. And so the main defense systems that almost every country has is a radar. [21:53] Radars do not do well looking through the surface of the Earth. And so you're effectively just out of the line of sight. [22:00] Whereas a ballistic missile, you're literally lobbing an object in a parabolic arc. So it's going extremely high. And so the radar can see that very early on because it's so high up.

[22:10] that it has a vantage point to look at it. When that ballistic weapon comes back down, they are actually usually hypersonic, depending on the range and the size, and they're actually coming in hypersonic, but they're in the atmosphere for such little time [22:24] That's not typically what people are talking about when they're talking about a hypersonic weapon. [22:29] And so that can be confused. Like I've seen it confused in like major media, like [22:33] you know, with Iranians launching ballistic missiles, like their ballistic missiles come in hypersonic, but that's not the same type of technology we're talking about where most of the flight is spent within the atmosphere and it can maneuver.

[22:46] And so, [22:47] you do get this element of surprise. [22:49] Because by the time the radar does... [22:52] is able to see it because it has line of sight. [22:55] the weapon is actually much closer. And so you have [22:59] very little time to respond. [23:01] And certainly that could lead to, as you mentioned, overreaction, which you wouldn't want. [23:08] But it does prevent [23:11] A... [23:12] long projected time to like respond. [23:15] And everybody knows that. And so the advantage of this is that if they know that you have these types of systems and they have very little they can do to defend against it, [23:25] it makes them think harder before they go do something that would have you respond that way.

And again, you're getting back to that deterrence effect. [23:33] And, you know, [23:34] Ballistic missiles at this point, especially with the United States, I think, [23:40] And Israel, I mean, there's several countries that can now shoot down ballistic missiles and make it look relatively easy. It is definitely not easy by any means, but can make it look easy. [23:51] Um, [23:52] It does remove kind of that, you know, you're doing to the other side what what we're trying not to have done to us. You're taking away that option like, hey, you can lob ballistic missiles at us.

[24:01] It doesn't matter. We'll shoot them all down. [24:03] I would posit, though, that that doesn't really achieve deterrence because they're just like, well, I'll just lob these at you and it's your fault if you don't shoot them down. [24:11] And so you lead, you know, you kind of like if you put all of your efforts into because somebody may ask, it's a reasonable question to ask, like, why don't you just put all your money in defensive systems? [24:19] And we'll just shoot down everything that comes through. [24:22] I would posit that [24:23] that doesn't deter people [24:26] from.

[24:27] taking the first shot at you. And unfortunately, these systems are not 100% effective. Like it is just it's an impossibly hard problem to get absolutely everything. What you really want is folks not to be taking those shots at you in the first place, because they know that you have the [24:44] You need like a balance of all of these things. So there's like, there's no one magical system that solves all these problems. [24:50] you need a balance. And that's obviously been [24:53] everybody's strategy, whether it's the United States, Europe, China, what have you, they have a number of these systems because they're all kind of solving like some specific use case of when you would use it.

And that's why. [25:05] I also imagine that if you if you take the stance, oh, you should just put all of this money into defensive systems, that's just economically inadvisable and infeasible because it's so much more expensive to. [25:20] defend the amount of territory or possible targets that a single missile might attack, right? Like you're sort of, [25:28] territory that you have to be able to protect against is much broader than, you know, this single weapon. [25:33] Might. [25:34] might possibly hit. Is that a fair characterization? Most people... [25:39] don't think through kind of all of like the the aspects of it but [25:43] Just think of it as...

[25:45] If you have a family member... [25:47] going to like some vacation and you're both going to meet up together and they live [25:52] 400 miles closer, but you get on the road at the same time and you're driving at the same speed, you are never going to catch them. [25:58] You'll see them at the end. [26:00] you have to have [26:01] a higher... [26:03] velocity, you have to have higher capabilities in an interceptor. [26:07] to give you some type of envelope of time where you could actually reach the thing you're trying to intercept.

[26:12] And it is certainly harder. You need more quantity to be able to provide that, as you mentioned, like that coverage area. Because... [26:18] You can't get that geometry favorable. You can't say I can intercept this from all possible locations. It's only certain... [26:26] places that you're going to be able to [26:28] kinematically reach [26:29] the target, [26:30] And so you'll need a lot. [26:32] And you're kind of seeing that right now with like the... [26:35] Congressional Budget Office, uh, [26:38] assessment of how many, you know, how many weapons can Golden Dome shoot down and what the cost would be because of how many you need.

I have a feeling that they weren't fully informed of what [26:48] the actual inputs and what the plan was, because they're probably just trying to use publicly available information to estimate that and not the correct information. But [26:56] It's definitely non-zero. And then certainly the difficulty of just building a defensive system that has to go [27:04] maneuver and get close to this thing that is very hard to catch up with. [27:08] It's just a harder problem. And it is, [27:10] is unreasonable to think that it could be as cheap as that offensive system because it has to have like a lot more capability.

[27:18] And so you're losing, when we get back to it, you're losing on the economic front. [27:22] And again, one of the ways to lose a war is just to have someone bleed you dry of money. [27:27] And so it is not a [27:29] perfect solution to only focus on defense. [27:33] you need to focus on [27:35] How do I get them to stop shooting at me? [27:38] and quick. And so you have to have a mix of these systems. And that's not to say that the defense is not important because you do want to go try to stop those things from getting through.

And you're willing to pay a large chunk of money to do that. But I think that overall... [27:53] We need to be more cost effective in both the defensive and offensive systems. And that's something that we have to. [28:02] We have to work on, and it's something that Castellan is working on. We're obviously working on the offensive side. We have plans in the hopper for what we're going to do on the defensive side to get the cost down. [28:11] And I think that [28:13] you get back to the end of the day it all comes back to cost and scale it's you have to have these systems [28:19] proliferate it and they have to be effective.

[28:22] I'd love to come back to that cost and scale piece as we sort of maybe, uh, [28:27] head towards learning more about [28:29] exactly what you're building and why. You mentioned your experience in this space. You had, you know, 15 years at John Hopkins APL and five at SpaceX. What were the things that [28:42] you noticed in your first week at SpaceX were different from the 15 years that came before it. [28:48] Besides everything? [28:54] Okay. [28:55] There's even free fro-yo. I mean, we didn't have that. Wow, there you go.

When you... [29:01] graduate, [29:02] from, [29:02] an engineering program. [29:04] in school. [29:06] And you go into traditional aerospace. [29:09] The first thing you learn is that you don't know anything. You don't know the aerospace engineering process of the systems engineering process. It was very foreign concept to me. I was not taught that. [29:20] Um, [29:21] And so you... [29:22] have this gut reaction of like, this doesn't feel like the most efficient way to get to the answer. [29:30] But I'm 22. What do I know? [29:33] And I have someone with 20 years experience telling me that that's not how it's done.

[29:37] And so... [29:38] you find yourself in that environment for 10 years. [29:41] And then you notice that I'm now beating on the fresh out of school graduate. [29:46] that that's not how it's done, and you just become... [29:49] a part of that machine. Yes. [29:52] and it propagates forward. [29:53] And then... [29:54] Anybody that comes in that has any inkling of kind of like being, you know, more forward leaning on how they do systems engineering, you're beating it out of them because that's not how it's done. [30:02] I think the biggest thing that I saw...

[30:05] joining SpaceX, everything that you ever felt [30:09] when you first started that job in aerospace, fresh out of school, that you're like, this just doesn't seem efficient. [30:17] Turns out it's not efficient. And if you don't do it, you can make tremendous progress in aerospace. And I would say that my first... [30:25] 12 years at APL, they were highly informative. I loved my time there. I got to work across [30:30] all of government doing [30:31] really cool problems. It kind of felt like the golden age of aerospace was dead and gone.

[30:37] And I was just born into the wrong generation and I was never going to get to experience it. [30:42] And, [30:43] you read the books about [30:46] the Apollo era, you read the books about skunk works and you're just like, my God, what a time to be alive. How cool would it have been to be part of one of those programs? [30:56] Going to SpaceX was... [30:58] 100% getting to be a part of history that I think that [31:03] in, [31:04] 30 years, someone's going to think the same thing.

It was just a truly cool experience. And I think that [31:09] one of Elon's superpowers, [31:12] That's not always a superpower. Sometimes he's wrong, but... [31:16] He doesn't care if everybody thinks what he's doing is wrong. [31:19] He thinks it's right and he's willing to give it a go. And he's very open to being... [31:25] data driven and proven that, hey, I was wrong, and then [31:29] without ego dropping that path and then doing something different. And I think that that is like, [31:35] Very different than I'd say a normal company behavior who, when you make that large bet, if I'm going to go do something this way.

[31:43] you then get into this sunk cost fallacy where I'll look like a giant idiot or we've spent too much we have to just keep going and make it successful. [31:51] And then it ends up in a disaster. [31:53] And I think that, [31:55] SpaceX showed that [31:57] There are a lot of ways to get back to [32:00] that Apollo era progress in aerospace and they they've proven it. And it kind of the funniest thing that I would see happening before I joined SpaceX. Of course, you know, I'm in the aerospace field.

[32:10] I know... [32:11] people at all kinds of companies. [32:14] like they're working on reusable rockets, something that, [32:17] Everybody's like, that'll never work. That can't be done. That's not possible. [32:20] everybody's literally just making fun of them. They're like, it'll never happen. What a bunch of idiots. [32:25] And I'm thinking, I'm like, [32:27] But at least they're trying. Yeah. [32:29] and then they get it to work. Even after it works, you would still hear people kind of talk about it as though [32:39] They're a pyramid scheme. They'll fall apart shortly.

[32:43] No way that that works. And it's like, it's literally working. You just saw it land. Like, what are you talking about? [32:49] And there's literally people, because I think what it honestly, like when you get back to like the kind of the root cause human nature of it. [32:56] they would have to accept that they have been doing something [33:00] in a horribly stupid way, [33:02] For decades. They'd have to admit that. [33:04] Or, [33:05] you can just continue to think that spacex is just around the corner from [33:10] from failing.

[33:11] And so... [33:13] In the US aerospace industry, [33:16] You watch SpaceX become completely dominant. I mean, they took over all like all launch for the most part, especially from like a mass to orbit perspective. They killed all Russian launch vehicles. [33:27] They decimated European launch market [33:31] And all the while, like the primary competitor of the United States was like, [33:34] it'll never work. And they just watched it happen and... [33:38] Unfortunately, I see that same attitude... [33:41] in almost every other area of kind of traditional aerospace and defense manufacturing.

Because again, I think to admit that, [33:49] "Hey, what we're doing is not working, you have to first admit that there's a problem." [33:53] And that's hard. I'd say we take a lot of heat for... [33:57] for being different, you know, irrespective of whatever results that we put out. Um, [34:02] we still get looked at like, [34:04] you can't do it like that. It'll never work like that. I fundamentally like what SpaceX taught me was that's not true. What was it in you that allowed you after 12 years to [34:14] in this old paradigm to say, actually, maybe the way I've spent it, [34:19] my time here.

[34:21] has been totally wrong. And I'm, I'm open to this [34:24] very different style of, of building things. [34:27] I would say. [34:29] I never drank the traditional aerospace Kool-Aid. I always was like, this doesn't seem right. But I didn't have the confidence like at 22 to be like, this is wrong. I'm not going to do this. Yeah. [34:40] You know, I was like, I'm probably the idiot here. This is how it's done. And this is not to say that everything in which traditional aerospace is wrong. A lot of it is right.

[34:50] And... [34:52] caring about the complex, like the way you approach complex issues, a lot of thing that's, that's right. [34:57] So I got tremendous experience, but [34:59] I was always just a little bit skeptical of like, this can't be the best way to do this. Because frankly, like I started my career as an, as an engineer, I was a mechanical engineer. [35:09] I went back and I got a master's in physics, specialized in photonics and optics. [35:15] I worked on space program after space program, [35:19] that never got to space.

[35:20] For an engineer, there's nothing more demoralizing than I've just worked like two, three years on something and... [35:26] it gets canceled because it's too expensive. [35:29] It's too slow. [35:31] It didn't solve the actual need. [35:33] And that became very frustrating. And that actually prompted my move away from engineering because I wanted to have my hand in guiding [35:40] the type of work we were doing. [35:42] because I wanted to try to get something over the line. And so [35:47] My time at APL, I'd say I already felt like [35:50] I was missing the boat to a degree.

And then when like this explosion of commercial space happened, like I remember... [35:56] watching from the sidelines like Planet Labs, Skybox. [36:01] And sure, were they the most capable systems? No. Did they get something in space? Were they taking imagery and doing something? Absolutely. And frankly, I just felt like I was... [36:12] I was missing out and... [36:14] So, you know, I quit voluntarily because I... [36:17] I wanted to go [36:18] be part of a company that was [36:22] focused on moving faster. And that's not to say, I'm not trying to, you know, say anything negative about APL.

It was a great place to work. [36:29] but their behaviors mimicked [36:32] the behaviors of traditional aerospace. And I wanted to go work, you know, with a company that wasn't doing that. [36:38] This episode is brought to you by Persona, the B2B identity platform helping businesses verify users, fight fraud, and build trust. Fraudsters are already using AI to spoof faces, voices, and documents, so your defenses need to adapt just as fast. [36:53] Persona helps secure some of the Internet's largest and most trusted platforms with identity verification. If you're building a product where trust matters, identity should be a priority.

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[37:41] Given your experience, [37:43] Why, after your sort of five years at SpaceX and obviously the era before that, wasn't it the logical move to create sort of a space defense company of some kind or something more explicitly in that? [37:58] in that realm. Obviously, there are places where that intersects with what you're doing. But yeah, was that sort of an area that you explored? Or yeah, what drew you to this in particular? I'm very focused on [38:09] the outcome and the outcome for me personally. [38:13] I want to leave a safe world.

[38:16] to my kids. [38:17] Point blank. [38:18] I'm doing it. [38:19] by doing it because I think this is the way [38:22] This isn't the only way to leave a safe world, to be very clear. [38:25] Unfortunately, this is what I'm good at and what I know. So this is how I can help. [38:30] it. [38:31] this is what I got. Um, and you know, could I be a Beethoven? No. Would I like to do that? Sure. That'd be awesome. But like, that's, I don't have that skill in me, but, um, [38:39] There's a lot of ways to contribute, but this is what I can contribute.

And so, [38:44] Yes, we could have built a space company. [38:46] And there were a lot of things, there's a lot of things to still be done there. [38:50] I had given almost my... [38:52] I think my greatest ideas and best work to SpaceX and they executed them. [38:58] flawlessly in a way that [39:01] You know, frankly, [39:03] I had been working in the [39:06] space and defense side of, of, you know, [39:09] of the sector for my entire time. [39:12] And these ideas were talked about for, for, [39:17] Decades.

[39:18] and had never been pulled off. And I go to SpaceX, and over like whatever I was there for, like almost six years, execute it, [39:26] And, [39:27] built like this tremendous capability that had been talked about by the rest of the space industry for forever. [39:32] and had not happened. And so when I left, did I have more ideas? Sure. [39:37] Do I want to go and try to directly compete with SpaceX? [39:42] No, I am. I'm not suicidal from a business perspective. That is very difficult. Yeah. Especially because they control almost all of global space launch.

Yes. It's just, it's just, there's so many things stacked against you and you have to give them credit for what they've done and what they've been good at and, and like how well that they have executed on, on that vision. [40:12] to continue because like I was achieving kind of my personal goal at SpaceX leaving a safer future [40:18] What I saw was a need for [40:22] We need to go work. [40:23] on other parts of this kill chain because it's called a chain because it's only as good as its weakest link.

[40:30] It was very apparent, like the, like, you know, the concept for what Castellion was working on it, you know, if you were in the industry. [40:36] This is not like some genius idea that we came up with that no one else had. It was very apparent. And I wanted to go focus on that. And I actually brought, I brought the idea to SpaceX. I was like, I would, I, [40:49] I would really love for us to go solve this. [40:52] And there was a, under no illusions of what SpaceX was.

They were, you know, they're making humanity multi-planetary. [41:01] Under no illusions, they're going to Mars. I was told that from the beginning. And then... [41:05] it was too big of an opportunity cost to kind of divert [41:09] into what I felt would be necessary to [41:12] truly deliver on that outcome of leaving a safer future. And so that was totally fine. [41:17] um love love the time there we went off and started this business to go focus on that other you know the offensive pointy inside of the kill chain because i think that it needed a lot of work and so [41:29] that's how we got to here and i don't feel like it took if you were in the industry [41:34] This was a very apparent problem to anybody.

I always think that [41:39] It was kind of funny, like when you go to try to raise money very, you know, early on and [41:44] people always want you to have like a technical gimmick or some kind of like, what's your, what's your like, uh, you know, breakthrough that no one else is going to be able to copy. [41:53] And, [41:54] We really didn't have... [41:56] a technical like, you know, something like patentable or something that was just us. [42:02] it's like you're bringing the same kind of culture of how do we get back to the apollo era roots but apply that just to a different area aerospace [42:10] That's what we're doing.

[42:12] I have faith that that process works. [42:14] And that really doesn't sell well, quite frankly. [42:18] SpaceX proved that like [42:20] Apollo era is not dead. [42:22] Yes. [42:24] One of the coolest things that I think they did is the podcasting that they have always done with almost all the launches and all the important things. I think... [42:32] is empowered like a totally new generation of Americans that are going to want to go into STEM [42:37] science, technology, [42:38] fields and [42:40] that wouldn't have otherwise existed because it wasn't cool.

As you said about sort of, um, [42:46] building this business. [42:48] I'm curious to understand... [42:50] how important the moment of time was that you entered into because it was, [42:55] Clearly, I think you've called it anti-hot when you set out to, you know, raise money for this. But it was. [43:03] anti-hot for not as long as, you know, it might have been, right? Like, you know, if you'd started this business five years earlier, maybe it still would have worked. And, you know, there was enough sort of of the right tailwinds beginning to very, very slowly pick up steam.

But that seems like it would have been [43:20] massively harder. How do you think about like what the key factors were for you that arrived in, in just the right moments? [43:26] I completely agree with your assessment that five years earlier, like [43:30] I don't know that our company would have made it. There's a reason that a lot of these types of like... [43:36] hardware, [43:37] focused. [43:38] startups require [43:40] a billionaire to start them. Yes. [43:42] It was very apparent as we were trying to raise our first funding, and they're like, where's your prototype?

[43:51] I don't think you understand. I cannot lock the engineers in a room with a pizza over the weekend and we'll have a working hypersonic missile prototype. I can't do that. [44:02] I didn't think about that probably as much as I should have. [44:06] before leaving because there was definitely a point, I think, when we started the business and I was like, oh, [44:13] I've just self-elected out of a great job and I'm going to be unemployed. [44:17] that was a uh i feel like a real reasonable outcome of likelihood uh for the first four months [44:24] Enroll, I think, changed the game to a large degree with [44:29] making [44:31] investors see [44:32] that, [44:33] You can make money in defense.

[44:36] If you don't do it the same way, [44:38] that all of the traditional [44:40] you know, defense primes run their business on these cost plus models where the margins are quite appropriately [44:46] Capped pretty hard. [44:48] And so Andrel's success, in my opinion, and to a degree SpaceX's success, because at this point in time, in late 22, like if you're just like we're doing something in space, like you're going to get funded and the idea could be absolutely ridiculous. But you would get initial funding to go find out. Yes.

And so... [45:08] I think [45:08] You know, SpaceX obviously is like the first one moving through showing tremendous success for a very capital intensive hardware focused business. [45:17] But then you have Andrell doing it in defense. And truly, I think they paved the way. [45:22] In making this an investable category, now, [45:25] Even so, in 2022, it was absolutely brutal. I don't remember what firm it was. [45:32] But I remember pitching them and like five minutes in, they just like, they're like pause. They tell me to stop. And then like, they're literally like drawing on their whiteboard behind them.

And they, [45:41] They draw like a quad, like an X and Y axis. And they're like, you've got like pure commercial and you've got defense and then you've got software and hardware. And they're like, you're over in this quadrant. In fact, you're probably like off the chart over here. [45:54] This whole quadrant's uninvestable. And I... [45:56] It's like, [45:58] I was like, okay. [46:00] I guess let's just call this Snoop Media. [46:03] reading over, but... [46:05] You know, I think with anything... [46:10] Business requires luck. [46:12] And I... [46:13] Whenever I like hear somebody talk about, you know, like their business success is like, [46:19] They made it.

[46:20] They made it happen through their perfect skill. [46:22] I'm like, I'm immediately tuned out. That is complete crap. Now you can make your own luck. And by that, I mean... [46:29] If there's a certain chance that something happens, [46:32] Let's say it's 25% [46:35] If you just persevere and just try and try and try again, [46:40] you will get one of them to go through. And so you can create your own luck, [46:44] But to think that you don't have some degree of luck to have success in breaking through, [46:49] is [46:51] completely...

[46:52] disingenuous and especially disingenuous to like anybody new that's going to try to start a business [46:58] who could become extremely discouraged because things don't go perfectly, like nothing goes perfectly. And I think, [47:04] One of the strongest traits as a successful founder that you have to have [47:09] is you just have to be persistent. [47:11] I am... [47:12] doggedly persistent [47:15] when I set my mind to something. [47:17] I think I had lots of people think that I was absolutely crazy for leaving. [47:21] but it mattered to me. [47:22] Yes.

[47:23] even after that meeting of being shown that, you know, we're in the top white quadrant of failure, you know, you just go have 98 more meetings. [47:32] And luckily... [47:33] Luckily we had success, uh, with like one of the hundred and, um, [47:38] got going from there. And I'd actually state like, you know, we raised less and we took more dilution in those early rounds because it was just not hot. And they were taking a gamble, which is completely fair. But we've been very lucky that the market since then, like since like [47:53] you know, going into 24 has [47:56] you know obviously ai is on top but like defense is probably second that's a tremendous tailwind um [48:03] uh for us so from like a luck perspective of when we started the business to your to your question i mean we're lucky [48:10] I mean, I knew it's a good idea.

It's been a good idea the whole time. [48:13] But we're lucky on timing. And I think that that [48:16] you know, something that we can't forget. [48:18] Um, [48:19] And I'm very thankful that that [48:22] We're lucky. [48:23] Yes, lucky and good. Lucky and good. It's a good combo. Yeah, that's the perfect combo. I'd love to dive a little bit deeper into... [48:31] the sort of specific product bets that that you're making and what you're building. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about that. So our first product, [48:41] kind of funny um it's it's uh was named blackbeard internally [48:46] The Blackbeard name was, I don't want to say leaked, but it was put into a government budget document as Blackbeard.

I was like, oh, I guess we're releasing that now. And now that is a name of our product publicly. That wasn't necessarily my original intention, but like you could see. I think it's a great name. We've leaned in. [49:04] Yeah, first thought was like, oh, God, I hope there's nobody has like a Blackbeard trademark that is going to come after us for a missile. But you know, it's directionally correct. You've got to solve these three factors. [49:16] and gets there quickly. [49:18] Great. That's a huge wide open trade space. So like, where are you going to start after that?

I actually went and because I had been working in the, you know, in defense and aerospace for [49:29] 20 plus years, the government actually maintains like these extremely large physics-based simulations [49:36] of [49:37] United States assets, allies assets. [49:40] foreign adversary assets. [49:42] And they play them against each other in these like giant Monte Carlo, um, simulations that are all physics driven. [49:50] And so I went and, uh, [49:52] talk to an individual who [49:55] owned one of these said models. [49:58] And... [49:59] just ask like hey [50:01] You obviously play all these war games, like within this model, like what, [50:05] what would really be a standout?

Like what would like [50:08] Beyond the obvious of going far, going fast, and being survivable, what would be the type of weapon that would really make a difference? [50:17] And that helped give us the initial steer for like, what are like the second set of requirements for, for Blackbeard. [50:24] And we took that. [50:26] Then started iterating that against customers because I think, [50:30] One of the things that [50:32] people seem to forget when they're doing business with the government is that