Can the U.S. build defense capacity fast enough?

I need a bunch of missiles that go 500 miles or more that have this blast. Come to me with solutions, as little requirements as possible on that side. And on the contract piece, trying to get to as close to commercial contracts as possible. And this is where the startups are so good. They'll do fixed cost pricing. They'll do, you know, you don't pay me as much if I deliver late, you pay me more if I deliver early.

It's very disruptive to the existing system, yeah?

Super disruptive, but that's what I'm, I am like waking up every day trying to do.

But if it costs a billion dollars, then as a company, I make $150 million. So there's this perverse incentive to drive up costs. Now, that's not the only reason the industry is where it is today, but we're very encouraged by the push from the administration to adopt things at speed and scale, and to do that quickly, and to do that differently, and to move away from cost plus. You had it. We invest our own capital. Today, we're just about four years old. We've raised $2.5 billion in private capital. We're pouring that into R&D. I remember when we decided to build Marauder, again, 180-foot ship, Viv and I were talking, it's like, who's crazy enough to go and build a ship on IRAD? And it's like, well, well, we are, because that's what the country needs.

So they're not really investing a whole lot forward of the capability. Anduril, on the other hand, we're doing all of this as private R&D investment, and then we're selling the outcome, the output of that as a product. So this is fundamentally a different business model. But I do think that there's a tremendous amount of capital that's required to pull this off as a new entrant to the space. I don't think that the market is going to support a hundred new primes or something like that. I'm hopeful that it's not just Anduril. I think it would be healthy if there was more competition in the space. But, you know, being able to raise that amount of capital, hire the people that you need to actually pull it off, this is not, it's not like building a normal tech company.

But if it costs a billion dollars, then as a company, I make $150 million. So there's this perverse incentive to drive up costs. Now, that's not the only reason the industry is where it is today, but we're very encouraged by the push from the administration to adopt things at speed and scale, and to do that quickly, and to do that differently, and to move away from cost plus. You had it. We invest our own capital. Today, we're just about four years old. We've raised $2.5 billion in private capital. We're pouring that into R&D. I remember when we decided to build Marauder, again, 180-foot ship, Viv and I were talking, it's like, who's crazy enough to go and build a ship on IRAD? And it's like, well, well, we are, because that's what the country needs.

My view is they're actually taking a lot of actions. Not all of them have come to see the day of light here, but even something as simple as reimagining munitions and drones as consumables. They're not things that you build and then stock on a shelf. They're things that you, at the time of ordering them, you already have an exercise test plan where you plan to expend them, which means that you're going to have to replenish them, which means there's a demand signal to industry to keep going. And a buying cycle that means that you can buy the next generation rather than having the old generation. And I think this department sees that in a very clear-eyed way and is doing the yeoman's work of like stitching that through, through all the services, all the portfolio acquisition executives, to the point of not believing in process, they've moved from a world where you have a very rigid, hey, I said I was going to buy X of Y and I can't change my mind to a world where there's more autonomy and authority for the people who are buying things to say, I told you I was going to buy something that accomplished this goal.

I need a bunch of missiles that go 500 miles or more that have this blast. Come to me with solutions, as little requirements as possible on that side. And on the contract piece, trying to get to as close to commercial contracts as possible. And this is where the startups are so good. They'll do fixed cost pricing. They'll do, you know, you don't pay me as much if I deliver late, you pay me more if I deliver early.

It's very disruptive to the existing system, yeah?

Super disruptive, but that's what I'm, I am like waking up every day trying to do.