CTRL + ALT + DEFENSE

CTRL + ALT + DEFENSE

Episodes

Mentioned books

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Mar 30, 2026 • 43min

Mike Madsen: Institutionalizing defense innovation — from inside and out

Back in 2015, then-Secretary of Defense Ash Carter launched the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental, or DIUx, as small team of innovators and bureaucracy hackers to bridge the Valley of Death between Silicon Valley and the Beltway. Since then, the unit has expanded its team and portfolio, undergoing several evolutions and shedding its "experimental" designator along the way. Mike Madsen served as deputy and acting director of DIU during five of its more formative years. Madsen, now vice president of Obviant, joins CTRL + ALT + DEFENSE to recount the journey of DIU over the past decade and how it has transformed the business of innovation for the U.S. military.
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Mar 24, 2026 • 45min

Katrina Manson: Project Maven and the Advent of Algorithmic Warfare

Katrina Manson, award-winning Bloomberg reporter and author investigating Project Maven. She traces the program’s rise from a secret Pentagon project to AI tools used across the military. Short, vivid stories cover the Google protests, technical hurdles in computer vision, Palantir’s role, rapid retraining during the Ukraine war, and the bureaucratic fights over building AI for war.
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Mar 16, 2026 • 53min

Preston Stewart: War in the Age of Drones and YouTube

Defense analyst and YouTube creator Preston Stewart joins the podcast to discuss how independent creators are reshaping how the public understands modern warfare. Drawing on years of coverage—and a recent trip to Ukraine—Stewart shares lessons on drones, AI, and battlefield innovation, what defense tech companies still misunderstand about combat, and why millions now turn to YouTube to make sense of global conflict.
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Mar 9, 2026 • 58min

Jack Shanahan: An Inside Look at Track 2 AI Meetings Between the US and China

Jack Shanahan has become synonymous with the adoption of artificial intelligence in the U.S. Department of Defense. As the founding director of the Joint AI Center, which was subsumed by the Chief Digital and AI Office, Shanahan oversaw the Pentagon's early efforts to institutionalize and deploy AI, including through the infamous Project Maven. Now retired from the U.S. military, he serves as a consultant and fellow for organizations like the Center for a New American Security. Shanahan joined CTRL + ALT + DEFENSE to explore how AI adoption has evolved since his time leading the JAIC, the track 2 conversations between the U.S. and China on the technology, and the challenges the Pentagon faces balancing speed and safety in building its AI arsenal.
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Mar 2, 2026 • 49min

Rob Slaughter: From Airman to the Next Defense Tech Unicorn

In early 2026, Rob Slaughter led Defense Unicorns — the company he founded to transform software delivery for the U.S. military — to become the newest defense tech unicorn on the block, receiving a $1 billion valuation after its Series B round of fundraising and touting a 300% increase in adoption year-over-year in military systems. Slaughter joined CTRL + ALT + DEFENSE to share the news, discuss how Defense Unicorns is tackling software modernization for the Defense Department, recount his path from DOD's software factories to startup founder and make the case for why software is the department's newest weapon system.
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Dec 8, 2025 • 50min

Brandon Tseng: The Autonomous Future of Defense

In recent years, autonomy how completely transformed how future wars will be fought and won. And with that, a new crop of defense startups have emerged with a focus on bringing autonomy and artificial intelligence to the battlefield at scale. On this episode of CTRL + ALT +DEFENSE, Brandon Tseng, co-founder and president of Shield AI, shares how autonomy has moved the needle in foreign conflicts, how upstart tech companies are injecting innovation into the Department of Defense, and what's ahead.
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Nov 17, 2025 • 50min

Margaret Mullins: Debunking the myths of the Pentagon's "Last Supper"

If you’ve paid attention to the defense acquisition space long enough, you’ve surely heard of the “Last Supper” — the secret 1993 dinner meeting in which Secretary of Defense Les Aspin invited the CEOs of America's largest defense contractors to share the news that the Pentagon was going to scale back spending leading to a consolidation of the defense industrial base. While that meeting and the decisions tied to it came to define the past three decades of defense contracting, it has also been riddles with myths, according to Margaret Mullins, Director of Public Options and Governance at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator. Mullins joins this episode of CTRL + ALT + DEFENSE to share the reality of defense acquisition consolidation and how that history can best inform how the Pentagon should approach the current pivotal moment of transformation it’s encountering where it must scale industrial innovation to compete with adversaries like China and Russia.
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Nov 3, 2025 • 48min

Steve Blank: The Playbook for Defense Innovation, from the Classroom to the War Room

While Steve Blank might be best known for his ultra-popular Lean Startup methodology that has inspired a generation of American entrepreneurs, he's spent much of the past decade working to infuse that thought leadership in the defense innovation ecosystem, largely at the academic level. Through his work as a founding faculty of Stanford University's Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation and the school's Hacking for Defense program, Blank is helping shape a new class of startups dedicated to defense-aligned missions. And most recently, he launched a PEO Directory that he refers to as "a phonebook for the Pentagon" that's meant to make it easier for those founders to do business with the Department of Defense. The legendary Blank joins CTRL + ALT + DEFENSE for a wide-ranging discussion about the state of defense innovation, why budding entrepreneurs are turning to defense problem sets at greater rates, and how startups can navigate the bureaucracy of the Pentagon amid a variety of Trump administration reforms.
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Oct 27, 2025 • 52min

Matt Cronin: Why Andreessen Horowitz has bet big on defense

Venture capital has become an integral part of of the defense innovation ecosystem. And there’s perhaps no Silicon Valley VC firm leaning in to support national security- and defense-focused startup more than Andreessen Horowitz through its American Dynamism initiative. Matt Cronin, senior national security advisor at Andreessen Horowitz, joins this episode of CTRL + ALT + DEFENSE to explore that evolving intersection of venture-funded innovation and defense, and how the nation can make more room for early-stage startups to bolster national security.
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Oct 20, 2025 • 51min

Chris Brose: How Anduril is paving its path as the next defense unicorn

In this conversation, Chris Brose, President and Chief Strategy Officer at Anduril Industries, dives into the urgent need for U.S. military modernization amid global competition, especially with China. He discusses the importance of software and autonomy in defense, how talent is gravitating toward startups, and Anduril's unique approach to rapid production and innovation. Chris also shares insights from the battlefield, emphasizing the value of real-world feedback and maintaining company culture while scaling.

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