Larsen Jenson is a 2x Olympic medalist, former U.S. Navy Seal and founder of Harpoon Ventures and Vector Defense.

Their convo covers:
- Founders must thrive in discomfort.
- Startup failure in the U.S. vs other countries.
- Why Harpoon invested in Firestorm.

00:00 – Intro.
01:41 – The Origin Story: From almond farming to Olympic Silver and Bronze medals.
04:10 – Joining the Navy SEALs: Seeing the technology gap on the battlefield.
06:15 – The Psychology of Success: Being comfortable in uncomfortable situations.
09:40 – Just Start: Overcoming the fear of the unknown.
11:34 – The American Edge: Why the US startup culture is unique in the world.
15:28 – Failure vs. Scarlet Letters: The difference between US and UK business cultures.
19:17 – The Citadel Story: From stadium cameras to saving lives in combat.
22:00 – Real Impact: Meeting the soldier whose life was saved by the tech.
25:06 – Investment Thesis: Why Harpoon invested in Firestorm.
27:16 – The Future of Drone Warfare: The need for mass manufacturing.

#Olympian #NavySEALs #EntrepreneurMindset #Leadership #Firestorm #Citadel #MassManufacturing #Startups #Resilience #InvestmentThesis

About Drone Wars

Firestorm Studios brings you The Drone Wars Podcast, a show that explores all facets of autonomous systems - ground, air, and sea - and their transformative impact on various aspects of human life, from agriculture to warfare. We feature interviews with CEOs, founders, and C-suite executives from the world's leading autonomy and robotics companies.

Larsen Jenson is a 2x Olympic medalist, former U.S. Navy Seal and founder of Harpoon Ventures and Vector Defense.

They dive into:
- Founding one of the first defense tech VCs before anyone in Silicon Valley cared.
- Geopolitical urgency and rapid tech progress.
- VC trends: why physical products are making a comeback.

Timestamps:

00:00 – Intro: The "Tequila Story" and the shift in defense investing.
01:23 – Guest Introduction: Larsen Jensen and the Harpoon Ventures mission.
03:04 – Defining Dual-Use: How enterprise software powers the government.
05:13 – The Catalyst: Moving from counter-terror to Great Power Competition.
07:46 – The Hard Truth: Why the best product doesn't always win in the DOD.
11:03 – "The Future is Here": Autonomous systems, Ukraine, and structural reform.
13:20 – Defense Tech 2.0: Why top talent is finally opting into national security.
15:23 – Hardware is Hard (But Sticky): The resurgence of physical tech investing.
18:18 – The LLM Movement: Why AI is disrupting white-collar jobs first.
20:19 – Efficiency: How AI is rewriting government contracts and saving time.

#DefenseTech #VentureCapital #DualUse #NationalSecurity #HarpoonVentures #AI #DeepTech #GovTech #SiliconValley #AcquisitionReform

About Drone Wars

Firestorm Studios brings you The Drone Wars Podcast, a show that explores all facets of autonomous systems - ground, air, and sea - and their transformative impact on various aspects of human life, from agriculture to warfare. We feature interviews with CEOs, founders, and C-suite executives from the world's leading autonomy and robotics companies.

Founder of Anduril, Palmer Luckey recently appeared on the #1 podcast in the world, the Joe Rogan Experience.

Founder and CEO of Firestorm Labs, Dan Magy reacts to key moments of the show.

Topics include:
- Dan Driscoll’s AUSA talk.
- National security and private companies.
- China’s commercial vessels building to military standards.
- Should the U.S. become the world’s gun store?

About Drone Wars

Firestorm Studios brings you The Drone Wars Podcast, a show that explores all facets of autonomous systems - ground, air, and sea - and their transformative impact on various aspects of human life, from agriculture to warfare. We feature interviews with CEOs, founders, and C-suite executives from the world's leading autonomy and robotics companies.

Brandon Florian has over 20 years of experience in aerospace and defense at Northrop Grumman and Starburst. He’s the Co-Founder and Chief Commercial Officer of Grid Aero, building rugged, long-range autonomous aircrafts to revolutionize cargo logistics at scale. 

They cover: 

• Grid Aero is building a “pickup truck of the skies”.  
• Which top defense primes work the best with startups? 
• What separates successful companies?  

About Drone Wars

Firestorm Studios brings you The Drone Wars Podcast, a show that explores all facets of autonomous systems - ground, air, and sea - and their transformative impact on various aspects of human life, from agriculture to warfare. We feature interviews with CEOs, founders, and C-suite executives from the world's leading autonomy and robotics companies.

“Defense is an away game; we’re not going to be able to fight our way in” 

Stephen Rodriguez is the Founder of One Defense and an Operating Partner at DCVC. He invests in and serves on the boards of leading defense-tech companies, including Applied Intuition, Firestorm, Ursa Major, Mach Industries, and ZeroMark. He chairs Booz Allen’s Defense Technology Board, leads Blue Forge Alliance as Chairman and serves as a Commission Director at the Atlantic Council. 

This episode covers:  

• American war fighting patterns.  
• Defense is an away game.  
• Replicator Initiative.  

About Drone Wars

Firestorm Studios brings you The Drone Wars Podcast, a show that explores all facets of autonomous systems - ground, air, and sea - and their transformative impact on various aspects of human life, from agriculture to warfare. We feature interviews with CEOs, founders, and C-suite executives from the world's leading autonomy and robotics companies.

Stephen Rodriguez is the Founder of One Defense and an Operating Partner at DCVC. He invests in and serves on the boards of leading defense-tech companies, including Applied Intuition, Firestorm, Ursa Major, Mach Industries, and ZeroMark. He chairs Booz Allen’s Defense Technology Board, leads Blue Forge Alliance as Chairman and serves as a Commission Director at the Atlantic Council. 

This episode covers: 

• What should our defense policy be? 
• Drone manufacturing reforms.  
• How to keep up with China.  

About Drone Wars

Firestorm Studios brings you The Drone Wars Podcast, a show that explores all facets of autonomous systems - ground, air, and sea - and their transformative impact on various aspects of human life, from agriculture to warfare. We feature interviews with CEOs, founders, and C-suite executives from the world's leading autonomy and robotics companies.

Ex-SpaceX Dragon Capsule software lead, Karthik Gollapudi, built two-fault-tolerant systems that flew astronauts to the ISS. He left to found Sift, an AI platform that automates testing, manufacturing and observability for rockets, rovers and autonomous fleets. 

This episode covers: 

• How Sift reduces cognitive load and speeds up manufacturing.  
• Simplifying complex cloud IT infrastructure. 
• Hire for the vibes, not just IQ.  

About Drone Wars

Firestorm Studios brings you The Drone Wars Podcast, a show that explores all facets of autonomous systems - ground, air, and sea - and their transformative impact on various aspects of human life, from agriculture to warfare. We feature interviews with CEOs, founders, and C-suite executives from the world's leading autonomy and robotics companies.

Ex-SpaceX Dragon Capsule software lead, Karthik Gollapudi, built two-fault-tolerant systems that flew astronauts to the ISS. He left to found Sift, an AI platform that automates testing, manufacturing and observability for rockets, rovers and autonomous fleets. 

This episode covers: 

- SpaceX’s young staff & the push for automating everything. 
- Same job in 12 months = failure.  
- Bootstrapping a tech startup team and funding.  

Check out Sift: www.siftstack.com.

About Drone Wars

Firestorm Studios brings you The Drone Wars Podcast, a show that explores all facets of autonomous systems - ground, air, and sea - and their transformative impact on various aspects of human life, from agriculture to warfare. We feature interviews with CEOs, founders, and C-suite executives from the world's leading autonomy and robotics companies.

A VC pro covers AI ethics, a boom of domestic jobs in tech, and why the gov needs to get out of the way.  

Hamlet Yousef is a Managing Partner and Co-Founder at Irongate Capital Advisors, where he leads investments in early-stage technologies that strengthen national defense. He has worked with organizations ranging from startups to Fortune 100 companies across disruptive and emerging technology sectors.   

About Drone Wars

Firestorm Studios brings you The Drone Wars Podcast, a show that explores all facets of autonomous systems - ground, air, and sea - and their transformative impact on various aspects of human life, from agriculture to warfare. We feature interviews with CEOs, founders, and C-suite executives from the world's leading autonomy and robotics companies.

A VC managing partner discusses lessons from Ukraine, UAS disrupting warfare economics and “venture tourists”.  

Hamlet Yousef is a Managing Partner and Co-Founder at Irongate Capital Advisors, where he leads investments in early-stage technologies that strengthen national defense. He has worked with organizations ranging from startups to Fortune 100 companies across disruptive and emerging technology sectors.

About Drone Wars

Firestorm Studios brings you The Drone Wars Podcast, a show that explores all facets of autonomous systems - ground, air, and sea - and their transformative impact on various aspects of human life, from agriculture to warfare. We feature interviews with CEOs, founders, and C-suite executives from the world's leading autonomy and robotics companies.