In this episode of All Quiet on the Second Front, Tyler Sweatt is joined by Fred Thomas, UK Member of Parliament for Plymouth Moor View, Royal Marines Reservist, and member of the House of Commons Defence Committee.

Fred brings a perspective shaped by time in uniform and now inside Parliament, where he focuses on modernizing defense capability and accelerating the adoption of new technology. Together, they examine how allied defense ecosystems can move faster without sacrificing sovereignty, why procurement and information-sharing remain persistent friction points, and where NATO and partner nations have real opportunity to collaborate more effectively.

The conversation spans the UK, US, and broader NATO landscape at a moment when security, technology, and public trust are increasingly intertwined.

What's happening on the Second Front:

• Why defense innovation continues to lag behind the threat
• The tension between sovereignty and interoperability across allied nations
• NATO’s underutilized role in collaborative procurement
• Where emerging technologies could unlock advantage in the next 3–5 years
• The role of public service and cohesion in long-term security

Connect with Fred Thomas

Connect with Tyler Sweatt

This week, Tyler is joined by Adam Lackey, COO of Onebrief, for a conversation on building mission-ready software that operators champion. Adam breaks down how Onebrief’s culture of iteration, empathy, and urgency shapes everything—from watching users stress-test the product to delivering changes in hours, not days.

They dig into Onebrief’s evolution from a kanban board to a full mission-planning platform, why “don’t be the contractor no one wants in the room” is a guiding principle, and how true value comes from mastering workflows, eliminating friction, and meeting users at their exact point of need.

Adam also reflects on the broader purpose of defense tech: preparing so well that capabilities deter conflict rather than drive it.

A candid, practical look at building tools that are as reliable as a rifle—and evolving them at the pace the mission demands.

Connect with Adam Lackey: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-j-lackey/

Connect with Tyler Sweatt: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tylersweatt

The defense ecosystem works best when it works together. Mission Cultivate is helping make that happen.

Tyler Sweatt sits down with Robert Fehlen, Managing Principal at Dark Corner Solutions and Mission Cultivate, to talk about what comes after the startup buzz: how lessons from Mobilize Vision led to a platform built to connect the fragmented defense ecosystem.

They unpack what’s broken in today’s industrial base, what it really takes to bridge the Valley of Death, and how Mission Cultivate is helping the builders, operators, and advisors who keep showing up because they know what’s at stake.

Request to join Mission Cultivate: https://www.missioncultivate.com/

Connect with Robert

• LinkedIn: Robert Fehlen

Connect with Tyler:

• LinkedIn: Tyler Sweatt

Government bureaucracy isn’t exactly the sexiest problem in defense—but it’s one of the most painful. 

In this episode, host Tyler Sweatt sits down with Zachary Long, Founder of ConductorAI and former Palantir leader, to unpack how his team is taking on one of the biggest bottlenecks in government operations: paperwork.

From automating complex approval chains to bridging the gap between policy and real-world execution, Zach shares how ConductorAI is bringing modern software principles to the most frustrating parts of government workflows. He and Tyler get candid about startup lessons, from navigating base access and culture gaps to building tech that actually works for users in the field.

What's happening on the Second Front:

• Why “showing up on site” beats every virtual meeting
• How Palantir’s culture shaped ConductorAI’s approach
• The challenge of solving diffuse problems that everyone feels but no one owns
• Zach’s unconventional “king for a day” policy wish

If you’ve ever wrestled with a CAC renewal, an ATO, or just the endless maze of government forms, this one’s for you.

Connect with Zachary

• LinkedIn: Zachary Long

Connect with Tyler

• LinkedIn: Tyler Sweatt

Tyler sits down with Tyler Xuan Saltsman, co-founder and CEO of EdgeRunner AI, to talk about building air-gapped, domain-specific AI for the warfighter. From his time as a Penn State wrestler and Army logistics officer to leading supercompute projects at AWS and Stability AI, Saltsman’s journey has been about speed, precision, and making technology usable where it matters most: at the tactical edge.

What’s happening on the Second Front:

• How EdgeRunner AI builds personalized, disconnected models that know your MOS or AFSC
• Why smaller, localized models outperform one-size-fits-all AI in the field
• Real-world logistics workflows — op orders, manifests, and mission pivots — powered by edge AI
• The importance of sovereign, culturally aligned AI across partner nations
• How synthetic data can expose unit readiness and knowledge gaps
• Lessons in velocity: why 80 percent deployed beats 100 percent delayed

Connect with Tyler

• LinkedIn: Tyler Xuan Saltsman

Connect with Tyler

• LinkedIn: Tyler Sweatt

Tyler chats with Andrew Black, co-founder and CEO of Kovr.ai and former AWS Emerging Tech lead, about the unsexy work that makes mission software real: turning security and compliance into something fast, predictable, and built into the dev loop. Andrew explains how Kovr.ai reads system docs, maps to NIST 800-53, drafts control implementations, flags gaps, and recommends fixes, so engineers focus on high-judgment problems while AOs and risk owners get reliable packages that move.

What’s happening on the Second Front:

• The true Valley of Death, speed and scale in production
• AI that automates SSPs, findings, and control mapping
• How to make compliance native to CI and CD with JIRA, Jenkins, SIEM
• Why fixed-price software and clear architecture matter for customers
• Culture over strategy, setting weekly “big rocks,” hiring for grit

Connect with Andrew

• LinkedIn: Andrew Black

Connect with Tyler

• LinkedIn: Tyler Sweatt

On this episode of All Quiet on the Second Front, Tyler sits down with Geoff Wylde, VP and General Manager of ŌURA to talk about what happens when consumer tech collides with national security.

What started as a global health project in 2019 quickly became a breakthrough for the U.S. military: using the ŌURA Ring to predict illness, monitor fatigue, and give commanders and operators real-time insight into readiness. Since then, the technology has scaled across the Air Force and Navy, shaping how units think about human performance, privacy, and resilience in the field.

In this episode, they unpack:

• How wearables move from lifestyle data to mission-critical intelligence
• The balance of privacy, security, and usability in defense settings
• Lessons from embedding commercial tech directly with operators
• Why the next edge isn’t just faster hardware, but healthier, more resilient people

Connect with Geoff

• LinkedIn: Geoff Wylde

Connect with Tyler

• LinkedIn: Tyler Sweatt

On this special customer spotlight episode, Tyler sits down with Ivan Zhang, co-founder of Cohere, to unpack the evolution of secure, operationally effective AI—from research lab to real-world deployments. 

Whether you're an AI builder, a public-sector leader, or just someone curious about where next-gen models are heading, this episode dives into what it really takes to deploy language models in the wild: from running LLMs on ships and air-gapped systems, to building trust with hesitant users, to rethinking the interface entirely.

What's happening on the Second Front:

• Why secure-by-default AI is a prerequisite in defense, healthcare, and finance
• The real blockers to adoption (surprise: it’s not the tech)
• How to make AI useful for people who don’t sit behind screens
• What it looks like when your AI speaks with urgency—or doesn’t speak at all

Connect with Ivan:

• LinkedIn: Ivan Zhang

Connect with Tyler:

• LinkedIn: Tyler Sweatt

For our 100th episode—and our first ever live recording—former Acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller flips the script and interviews host Tyler Sweatt.

What follows is equal parts roast, reflection, and rallying cry. Tyler opens up about choosing West Point, serving after 9/11, life as a combat engineer in Afghanistan, and the winding path that led him to build and lead Second Front Systems. Chris pushes him on leadership, culture, organizational debt, and what it feels like to become “the guy you used to make fun of.”

Together they get candid about:

• The origins (and authenticity) of All Quiet
• Military lessons that don’t translate to business
• Why organizational debt is the hardest part of being CEO
• Why Tyler believes DoD innovation spending is broken—and what needs to change now

It’s unfiltered, funny, and bluntly honest—the perfect way to mark 100 episodes of mission-obsessed conversation.

Connect with Chris: 

• Twitter: Chris Miller

Connect with Tyler: 

• LinkedIn: Tyler Sweatt

What happens when a bunch of Palantir and Lockheed alums get fed up with how hard it is to do business with the government—and actually do something about it? You get Pryzm: the common operating system for capture.

In this episode, Tyler sits down with Nick LaRovere, co-founder and CEO of Pryzm, to talk about building for the part of the defense ecosystem everyone hates (but no one can ignore): procurement. From scraping sam.gov to stitching together Salesforce, JIRA, and inboxes, Nick shares how Pryzm is bringing order to chaos—and helping both industry and government move faster.

They also get into:

• What it really takes to build a mission-driven company—and why most give up
• The hidden cost of stovepiped teams and siloed data
• How policy, budget, and capture are finally starting to talk to each other
• Why talent and team dynamics are just as critical as the tech you’re building