Over coffee in a hotel restaurant, the director laid out their challenge, which was increasing pressure to become more responsive to the agencies that used them. But their workforce largely came out of the defense weapons program, which means they had program managers who were accustomed to doing 17-year pro- grams, not seven-month programs. And they were really struggling to understand how they would apply innovation to their business model and how that would work. Tey asked me to describe what I was doing at REF, and I got halfway through that description, was literally coloring on a napkin in a restaurant. Te guy stopped me and said, “We need you to do that for us.”
I begged off long enough to finish moving, but I told them that I’d come back and re- engage. We ended up spending two years working with the NSMC team before transitioning to a wider role support- ing the DOE Advanced Manufacturing Office—something we still do today.
Te second strike came two days later. I was cruising through the plains of Kan- sas when Jackie called me and basically said, “I’m not doing anything at REF.” She asked if I had room for her on the new team we were building in the Val- ley—knowing full well this was a startup and we had no idea what the hell we’re doing, and that we had no idea if it would make money and or be a flop. God love her, she was willing to take the plunge with us.
Tose two events were fortuitous, because the DOE work provided us a platform to actually test out a lot of our concepts while pushing us in directions we had not considered before. It was challenging work that also helped us get the company started.
We eventually settled on a couple things. One was that we were valuable as what I would call a disinterested third-party ombudsman to everybody, which means we sat in the middle and translated DOD verbiage and behaviors for Silicon Valley, and at the same time we educated DOD folks on how Silicon Valley functioned. With that common framework, we found we were able to get them to negotiate their way to a common pathway toward deeper involvement together.
Army AL&T: What was the first year or so of BMNT Partners like?
Space: Tat first year was pretty cha- otic. Early on, I felt like when we showed up in the Valley, we got sideways looks from everybody. I don’t think anybody really understood what we were doing there from the startup community side, because we weren’t raising money around the next one-hour delivery app. Even on the government side, people questioned why we were there.
Army AL&T: Did any of you have a tech background?
Space: I’m an engineer, but my tech
background is in aerospace. Pete, I think, probably was the most well-versed out of
all of us, because while at REF he touched so many different technologies and their applications. I think he had the best grasp of what was on the leading edge.
Army AL&T: But it’s safe to say you were not a typical Silicon Valley startup.
Space: No, we were not at all and still aren’t. All this preceded the launch of DIUx, so there wasn’t anybody out there that was well-known, except for Palan- tir [Technologies], SRI International or PARC.
Tat first year was also challenging because our energy was spent trying to establish who we were and what we were doing while also learning about what made Silicon Valley really tick, and then how to get them to work on national secu- rity problems. We did lots of small jobs for about a year and a half, I think, before we really transitioned to this Hacking for Defense model. We found that it helped us to be that third-party agnostic voice in the room. So we transitioned to working more on the government side and sourc- ing problems into the tech community.
When I talked to companies, they some- times would ask, “What do we get out of this if we show up for an hour in a Hacking
The minute a startup takes money from an investor, they are on a three- to five-year timeline to sell that company. And their focus is to get a product into the market as fast as they can. There is no wiggle room for them to divert assets to exploring side deals with the government.
ASC.ARMY.MIL 123
CRITICAL THINKING
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