Building the Base

In this episode of Building the Base, Hondo Geurts and Lauren Bedula sit down with Ken Bedingfield, Chief Financial Officer and President of Missile Solutions at L3Harris. This episode was recorded on December 6, 2025 at the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, CA. Ken discusses his journey across the defense industrial base, from leadership at a traditional prime to serving as the 20th employee and CEO at venture-backed counter-UAS startup Epirus, to his current dual role at L3Harris. The conversation explores the fundamental shift from requirements-driven to capacity-driven defense strategy, and examines how L3Harris operates as the "tweener" between traditional primes and startups by making decisions in days rather than weeks.

Five key takeaways from today's episode:

1. Defense has shifted from requirements to capacity: The industry is moving away from chasing the last bit of capability or technology toward building production capacity at scale. Capacity itself has become a deterrent, driven by recognition of current conflicts and the real-world depletion of munitions stockpiles.
2. Commercial contracting models benefit traditional primes too: L3Harris already derives 20% of sales through commercial models and strongly supports acquisition reform including eliminating cost accounting standards, reducing requirements, and expanding commerciality definitions; reforms often assumed to benefit only new entrants.
3. Solid rocket motor production faces unique scaling challenges: Aerojet Rocketdyne's Camden, Arkansas facility spans 2,500 acres with 200 buildings and highly specialized regulations around explosive loads, storage, and safety. Scaling production requires understanding these complexities, suggesting new entrants should consider partnerships rather than building parallel capacity.
4. Successful partnerships require mission alignment over technology hype: L3Harris positions itself as "connective tissue" between technology and mission capability. For example, partnering with Palantir to integrate AI into world-class electro-optic sensors rather than trying to build computer vision capabilities in-house. The key question for partnerships is "are we moving fast enough?"
5. Public companies can innovate with the right focus: L3Harris has self-funded R&D in communications for 20 years without charging the government, and is transitioning other product lines to similar commercial models. While managing quarterly earnings and public market expectations isn't easy, publicly traded companies can find creative ways to invest and move at speed.

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In this episode of Building the Base, Hondo Geurts and Lauren Bedula sit down with Paul Kwan, Managing Director at General Catalyst, where he leads the global resilience investment team, recorded live at the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley. Paul traces his path from reading The Hunt for Red October in sixth grade to becoming one of the original defense tech VCs, and walks through what venture capital actually is and how it differs from private equity. He discusses General Catalyst's 25 years in the space, including backing Anduril early on, and explains how private capital funds R&D for the next generation of defense companies. The conversation covers the economics of VC, common misconceptions about venture capital and technology development, and Paul's reaction to Secretary Hegseth's acquisition reform speech.

Five key takeaways from today's episode:

1. Venture capital funds operate on 10-year timeframes compared to private equity's typical 5-7 year windows—a structural difference that allows VCs to take a longer-term approach while defense companies work through the challenges of manufacturing hardware at scale.
2. Private investors fund R&D upfront in the venture model, betting that a small percentage of portfolio companies will become large enough to go public or get acquired, a different approach than traditional models where government funded product development from the start.
3. Re-industrialization requires investment across the entire industrial stack. Beyond defense platforms, success depends on building out manufacturing software, testing infrastructure, electronic supply chains, and energy systems to enable production at the speed and cost needed.
4. Large fundraises reflect market confidence in future contract awards. When VCs invest significant capital, they're anticipating that government contracts will follow. If those contracts don't materialize, it creates challenges for the innovation ecosystem that funded product development.
5. First-of-its-kind defense tech business models represent new market categories. These companies may be valued differently than traditional defense contractors, similar to how technology disruptors in other industries trade at different multiples than legacy incumbents in their sectors.

In this episode of Building the Base, Hondo Geurts and Lauren Bedula sit down with Matthew Steckman, President and Chief Business Officer of Anduril Industries, recorded live at the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley. Matt discusses his path from being among the first dozen employees at Palantir's DC office to co-founding Anduril, which has grown from operating out of his backyard shed in 2017 to a 7,000-person international company with over 20 product lines. The conversation covers the founding team's decision to enter defense technology when venture capital investment in the sector was effectively prohibited, and examines the operational challenges of scaling both product development and manufacturing.

Five key takeaways from today's episode:

1. The defense investment landscape has shifted dramatically since 2017: When Anduril launched, venture capital firms had bylaws explicitly prohibiting defense investments, reflecting a broader belief that major conflicts were unlikely. Those restrictions have since been removed as the strategic environment changed.
2. Successful defense tech requires focus on difficult capability gaps: Matt advises founders to identify problems the government needs solved but cannot source from traditional contractors, maintain discipline around product roadmap, and avoid diluting defense focus by chasing commercial opportunities that compromise technical requirements.
3. Scale in defense requires product portfolio breadth: Unlike enterprise software companies that achieve scale through a few products in large markets, Anduril has expanded to over 20 product lines, reflecting the need to address multiple segments of the defense market to build a substantial business.
4. Manufacturing strategy must account for demand unpredictability: Anduril addresses high-mix, low-rate production challenges by designing products with commercial components, centralizing manufacturing operations at their Ohio facility, and building flexibility across production lines to handle variable government forecasting.
5. Acquisition reform progress is incremental but cumulative: Having observed four cycles of acquisition reform over two decades, Matt notes that while individual reforms don't eliminate all obstacles, each iteration reduces friction and enables program managers to leverage new authorities more effectively.

In this episode recorded live from the December 2025 Reagan National Defense Forum, hosts Lauren Bedula and Hondo Geurts sit down with David Appel, Vice President of Global Government for Amazon Web Services. With 28 years at Raytheon before joining AWS, David brings a unique perspective on the evolution of the defense industrial base and the critical role cloud infrastructure plays in national security.

David discusses why the traditional defense mindset of "deliver to the requirement" is giving way to a focus on mission outcomes, how AI dominance requires government to fully embrace cloud infrastructure, and why this moment represents an unprecedented opportunity for acquisition reform and innovation. From the convergence of financial institutions and defense to the global talent challenge, David shares insights on what it takes to transform how government operates in the digital age.

Five Key Takeaways:

1. Mission outcomes over requirements: The defense industrial base is shifting from a decades-old model of delivering to specifications toward understanding actual mission needs and innovating around outcomes, enabled by cloud and AI technologies.
2. Not all clouds are created equal: Being a "smart buyer" of cloud services means understanding critical differences in security fabrics, infrastructure construction, and operational experience. True cloud adoption at scale is essential for AI leadership, not on-premise data centers rebranded as "cloud."
3. Infrastructure liberation: Cloud frees organizations from spending resources on undifferentiated infrastructure work, allowing them to focus on mission-specific challenges. For startups and smaller companies especially, this levels the playing field to compete on mission expertise rather than capital resources.
4. Talent through education: The talent challenge for cloud and AI isn't just about hiring, it's about trust and understanding. Investing in education for customers, operators, and the broader public is critical because people won't embrace technologies they don't understand.
5. National security and economic prosperity are converging: The presence of financial institutions like JPMorgan at defense forums signals a fundamental shift; economic stability and market strength are now recognized as inseparable from national security, driving new investment and innovation across sectors.

In this episode recorded live from the 2025 Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, hosts Lauren Bedula and Hondo Geurts welcome back Ranking Member Adam Smith of the House Armed Services Committee for the second year in a row. Following his morning keynote address, Rep. Smith discusses the current state of defense innovation and acquisition reform, which he characterizes as a "good news, bad news situation" with significant progress on technology and industrial base transformation occurring alongside political challenges at the Pentagon. The conversation addresses the growth of the defense startup ecosystem, changes in congressional approach to defense programs, concerns about tariff impacts on supply chains, and differing views on foreign policy realism emerging from the forum's discussions.

Five Key Takeaways:

1. The defense startup ecosystem has grown substantially: Companies including Shield AI, Palantir, C3 AI, and various drone manufacturers are now developing capabilities like collaborative combat aircraft with private investment. Rep. Smith notes that approximately two-thirds of the companies sponsoring the Reagan Forum didn't exist when the forum began.
2. Traditional defense contractors are adapting to increased competition: Rep. Smith observes that major defense primes historically preferred long-term, stable contracts with established subcontracting relationships but have demonstrated capacity to innovate when faced with competitive pressure from new entrants in the market.
3. Congressional priorities on defense programs have evolved: Under bipartisan leadership, the House Armed Services Committee has moved away from a focus on district-specific funding toward emphasizing innovation and new technology development.
4. Current tariff policy may complicate supply chain diversification efforts: Rep. Smith expresses concern that tariffs on countries like Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, and Mexico could hinder efforts to reduce dependence on Chinese manufacturing. He indicates that some companies reconsidering moves out of China have paused plans due to tariff considerations affecting alternative locations.
5. Debate continues over the definition of foreign policy realism: Rep. Smith distinguishes between what he considers "genuine realism," maintaining commitments to democratic values while making practical compromises, and approaches he views as reverting to great power competition without values-based considerations. He argues the latter approach carries risks based on historical precedents from earlier eras of international relations.

In this episode recorded live from the 2025 Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, hosts Lauren Bedula and Hondo Geurts sit down with the Honorable Brent Ingraham, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology. Secretary Ingraham shares his remarkable journey from designing engines at General Motors to answering an unexpected call from the Marine Corps in 2009 to fix the automotive failures of MRAP vehicles, launching a 16-year career passion for getting the right capabilities to warfighters. The conversation explores his revolutionary approach to managing Army programs through live digital dashboards instead of PowerPoint presentations, how entrepreneurs can engage with the Army's acquisition system, and his mission to "unleash" the acquisition workforce by eliminating bureaucratic roadblocks that prevent rapid capability delivery.

Five Key Takeaways:

1. Strategic recruiting can transform both careers and national security: Secretary Ingraham's unexpected recruitment from the automotive industry demonstrates how targeted expertise from outside traditional defense channels can solve critical problems, highlighting the importance of creative talent acquisition pathways that bring diverse industrial experience into defense acquisition leadership.
2. The Army is unleashing its workforce to deliver: Secretary Ingraham's core message to his acquisition team is freeing them from excessive staffing requirements and bureaucratic processes, telling them "we want to take the bureaucracy of all of the staffing, of paperwork and processes out" so they can focus on what they were hired to do: designing, developing, delivering, and sustaining capabilities for warfighters.
3. The Army manages programs with live data: In keeping with his position that "I do not want to manage programs by PowerPoint," Secretary Ingraham has begun revolutionizing Army acquisition by implementing real-time digital dashboards that provide instant visibility into cost, schedule, performance, budgets, contracts, and industrial base impacts across all programs, enabling faster decision-making and proactive risk management.
4. Bring your products, not your presentations: Secretary Ingraham emphasizes that companies should bring prototypes directly to soldiers for feedback, stating "I don't care what shape it's in, whether it's a rough prototype or something that's really fine. Let's get it in the hands of users" because soldiers are best positioned to give feedback on products.
5. You don't need a factory to work with the Army: Startups without production capacity should partner with the organic industrial base: Army depots, arsenals, and other manufacturers like Hadrian or Castilian, rather than building brick-and-mortar facilities, reducing time to production while strengthening the broader defense industrial ecosystem.

In this episode recorded live from the 2025 Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, hosts Lauren Bedula and Hondo Geurts sit down with Congressman Rob Wittman, Vice Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and Co-Chair of the Defense Modernization Caucus. Congressman Wittman shares his journey from reforming a Boy Scout troop in his small Virginia hometown to leading defense modernization efforts in Congress, driven by a passion for connecting good public policy to decision makers who can execute it. The conversation explores his call for Congress to thank people for taking risks and learning from failures, the critical workforce challenges facing shipbuilding, and why the overwhelming presence of non-traditional defense companies at the Reagan Forum signals a transformative shift in the defense industrial base. Wittman emphasizes that modernization must happen "at the speed of relevance," not incrementally, but with the urgency the strategic environment demands.

Five Key Takeaways:

1. Congress must thank people for taking risks, not punish failures: Wittman calls for Congress to "thank them for taking the risk" when acquisition officials present failures, then ask what they learned. Using SpaceX's Starship as an example, he argues that controlled failures accelerate progress, and Congress must stop punishing experimentation with a "process-centric mindset."
2. The Navy's Constellation decision was a watershed moment: The Navy's willingness to reassess the Constellation-class frigate, where mission creep turned an 85% complete design into 15%, demonstrates self-assessment and course correction, the kind that should be celebrated even when acknowledging past errors.
3. Shipbuilding faces unprecedented workforce challenges: With companies like Huntington Ingalls hiring 5,000 workers annually, shipyards must invest in quality of life improvements and expand skill sets beyond traditional trades to include software programming, robotics monitoring, and additive manufacturing.
4. Non-traditionals are transforming the defense industrial base: The overwhelming presence of non-traditional companies, private equity firms, and venture capital at the Reagan Forum represents a fundamental shift. These players bring innovative approaches focused not just on platforms but on enabling the manufacturing process itself through software and data analytics.
5. Modernization must happen at the speed of relevance: "We have to do these things, not just say, well, we'll think about it. We'll do a little bit. This has to be done at the speed of relevance." The strategic environment demands urgent transformation, not incremental approaches, across workforce development, manufacturing, and acquisition reform.

In this episode recorded live from the 2025 Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, hosts Lauren Bedula and Hondo Geurts sit down with Baiju Bhatt, co-founder of Robinhood and founder and CEO of Aetherflux. Baiju shares his remarkable journey from the son of Indian immigrants, his mother arriving pregnant with two suitcases of pots and pans, to democratizing access to America's financial system with Robinhood, and now building an American power grid in space. The conversation explores why patriotism is back in vogue in Silicon Valley, how constraints breed creativity, and why he couldn't sit out the space race happening in his lifetime without regretting it "as a geezer." Baiju makes the case that America's fundamental advantage is entrepreneurship and capitalism, and that energy is emerging as one of the most critical problems the economy must solve, both on Earth and in low Earth orbit.

Five Key Takeaways:

1. America wins through capitalism: The United States' distinct advantage over competitors like China is entrepreneurship and capitalism, not bureaucratic central planning. As Baiju puts it, "we're not going to out centrally plan the Chinese...the times that the United States wins is when we bring to bear capitalism," which drives both rapid execution and diverse approaches to solving hard problems.
2. Fear regret, not failure, and fail fast: Rather than being paralyzed by potential failure, Baiju advocates getting "failures out of the way quickly" and not waiting too long to pressure test ideas. The real risk isn't trying and failing, it's the regret of never trying at all, especially when historic opportunities like the commercialization of space are happening in your lifetime.
3. Energy is the next critical infrastructure for space commerce: Aetherflux is building a power grid in low Earth orbit because energy access hasn't been this critical since World War II or the 1970s oil crisis. The vision is to take energy-hungry applications "above the grid," removing super high-power applications from Earth's strained energy infrastructure by powering them from space.
4. Constraints breed creativity and humility breeds success: Despite his success with Robinhood, Baiju deliberately maintains the constraints and humility that got him there, recognizing that "what we're trying to do is extraordinarily difficult." Coming in with bravado isn't the recipe for success, being diligent, systematic, and constantly testing your assumption is.
5. Silicon Valley's "group hug" with defense is transformative for America: The convergence of entrepreneurship, technology, and national security represents a fundamental shift where economic prosperity and national defense are no longer separate tracks. This alignment, driven by competition and recognition that key technologies from AI to space require both sectors working in concert is "hugely important for America."

In this episode recorded live from the 2025 Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, hosts Lauren Bedula and Hondo Geurts sit down with the Honorable Michael "Mike" Dodd, Assistant Secretary of War for Critical Technologies and Acting Deputy Director of the Defense Innovation Unit. Secretary Dodd shares his remarkable journey from enlisted Marine amtracker to Mustang infantry officer, through over 25 years advising defense and finance companies, and back to the Pentagon to serve America's warfighters. The conversation explores the newly announced six critical technology areas, how entrepreneurs and innovators can engage with the Department of War, and Secretary Dodd's mission to deliver "an unfair fight" for U.S. service members through technological superiority and asymmetric advantages.

Five Key Takeaways:

1. The DoW has narrowed its focus from 14 to six critical technology areas: recognizing that "if everything's critical, nothing is," the department is concentrating resources on areas where the U.S. needs to achieve parity with near-peer competitors or maintain technological supremacy to deter major conflict through asymmetric advantages.
2. The Pentagon is actively creating a "front door" for innovators: Secretary Dodd suggests we engage technologists where they are, encouraging entrepreneurs to present capabilities directly and get to a "no" quickly.
3. Do your homework before engaging DoW: Successful companies come prepared knowing their potential transition partners, understanding the competitive landscape, and having thought through financial capacity and teaming opportunities to scale if they win contracts.
4. You don't need to wear a uniform to serve your country: Secretary Dodd emphasizes that founders and funders bringing technology aligned with national security needs are serving their country in critical ways, whether as entrepreneurs or investors.
5. The Department is prioritizing transition and operational alignment:  Success isn't just about fast acquisition; it requires alignment with the combatant commands and service chiefs to ensure warfighters can actually absorb and employ new capabilities at scale for maximum impact downrange.

In this episode of Building the Base, Hondo Geurts and Lauren Bedula sit down with August Cole, strategist, author, and futurist who has spent his career exploring fiction's role in national security strategy. Drawing from his journey from Wall Street Journal journalist covering defense and technology to co-authoring the groundbreaking novel Ghost Fleet with Peter Singer, Cole discusses how fiction can help leaders avoid strategic surprise and failure of imagination. As Ghost Fleet celebrates its 10-year anniversary, Cole reflects on the book's impact on defense thinking, the power of scenario planning through storytelling, and why "useful fiction" has become an essential tool for wargaming future conflicts in an era of exponential technological change.

Five key takeaways from today's episode:

1. Fiction serves as a strategic tool to avoid failure of imagination, with Cole noting that "we really can fall victim to failure of imagination with catastrophic consequences, and even more so today when so many technologies are exponential in their impact on warfare."
2. Ghost Fleet combines rigorous research with narrative storytelling, grounded in "30 or so pages of endnotes" from open-source research including doctrine, patents, and scholarship to make the speculative scenario credible and actionable for defense leaders.
3. Strategic fiction gives leaders permission to think differently, as Cole explains that fiction provides "a safe space to explore ideas that might otherwise be dismissed" and helps overcome organizational resistance to uncomfortable futures.
4. The power of story transcends traditional analysis, with Cole emphasizing that narrative allows people to "see problems from someone else's perspective" and makes complex strategic concepts accessible across organizational hierarchies.
5. Invest in skills that make you a better collaborator, as Cole advises the next generation to focus on "the human dimension" including empathy, foreign languages, and technical literacy while resisting pressure to follow conventional career paths.