Building our Defense turns 100!
This is the 100th edition of the Building our Defense newsletter.
I want to express my sincere gratitude to the audience for your support, suggestions, challenges, disagreements, sharing, and everything else that has made Building our Defense better.
For those that may not know, Building our Defense started as a way for me to share some insights that I had gleaned about the industry during the Defense Ventures fellowship.
It has grown in to so much more and we’re showing no signs of stopping.
Watch for some changes in the coming weeks (for example, did you notice the new logo today? You no longer have to see my mug with each edition of the newsletter). We’ve got some great collaborations lined up in the form of guest posts. Watch for us to test some new topics, and maybe even a spin-off. But, the base format will remain the same:
Military Mondays
Venture Wednesdays
Weekly News Round Up Fridays
If you’re new to Building our Defense, I’d like to suggest a few posts that I think are really informative to understand Defense Technology and why it’s critical today. If you’ve been with me from the beginning, feel free to go back and dust off some of these as a refresher on how we got to where we are.
Start here to understand the macro forces that have shaped the world today and made it so radically different from five years ago:
Inflection Points
Next read this to understand why we shouldn’t bet against America despite those macro trends that may seem ominous
Understanding the roles of both government and private industry is important in this space. Read this next to see how things have shifted and who is doing what.
Private industry is eating the government
We’re seeing closer alignment between private industry and government than we have in years. Here’s why:
Silicon Valley wants to help defend America
Building for defense is notoriously difficult and time-consuming. In good news, it is accelerating, but we still need to understand the challenges of defense tech. Read this next to better understand those challenges.
On Fleas and Elephants
Building for Defense isn’t just a problem for industry; the government has its work cut out for them too, as we outlined in this edition.
Finally, not every company Building for Defense needs to be VC-backed. There are tons of great companies that are bootstrapped, and it might be the right solution for many more.
Don’t hesitate to reach out and let me know what content you’d like to see more / less. Your feedback is important in helping to provide interesting, timely, and useful information to help you build for our defense.
Keep building!
Andrew