In this Techquisition Edition of The Mission Matters Podcast, Maggie Gray and David Rothzeid break down Secretary Hegseth's new memo establishing a Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager (DRPM) for unmanned and autonomous systems.

David unpacks what a DRPM actually is, how it differs from traditional Portfolio Acquisition Executives and Joint Program Offices, and why this new "czar" reports directly to the Deputy Secretary of Defense with authority to redirect funding and set standards across the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Space Force. They trace the historical precedent back to JIEDDO and the MRAP program, walk through where Replicator, the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group (DAWG), JIATF 401, and Drone Dominance now fit under this new structure, and dig into the budget realities, including the proposed $54 billion request for the DAWG and what a likely continuing resolution means for FY27.

They close with practical guidance for founders and investors: how to navigate a rapidly shifting stakeholder landscape, why engaging with the Defense Innovation Unit matters more than ever, and what to expect as the fiscal year turns over.

Chapters:

00:00 – Intro

01:46 – What is a DRPM, and why create one for unmanned systems (UXS)?

03:26 – DRPM vs. PEO/PAE vs. Joint Program Office (F-35 JPO example)

05:53 – Who controls the budget and contract decisions in the short term

07:39 – Historical precedent: JIEDDO and the MRAP

09:06 – Recent DRPM examples: Golden Dome, submarines, B-21/F-47

10:23 – New DRPM authorities over budgeting and the DAWG's $54B request

11:52 – How the DRPM folds in Replicator, DAWG, Drone Dominance, and JIATF 401

14:11 – Why now: commercial tech has outpaced how the Pentagon employs drones

16:33 – DIU's expanded role as the industry front door

18:15 – Budget breakdown: Replicator, DAWG, JIATF 401 funding history

20:11 – Outlook on Congress passing a budget vs. another continuing resolution

20:46 – Advice for startup founders and investors

23:07 – Closing thoughts and next episode preview

The Magura family of USVs, built by UFORCE, sank 14 Russian warships. UFORCE air systems have flown over 220,000 combat missions and downed two Su-30 fighter jets — all in under three years of operation.

In this episode, CEO Oleg Rogynskyy joins David and Maggie to talk about building Ukraine's first defense tech unicorn from the front lines: how UFORCE manufactures under missile threat, why most Western defense tech fails the "coconut test," and what the US military should be buying right now.

Topics covered: autonomous systems, drone warfare, defense acquisition, Indo-Pacific strategy, Ukraine lessons for the West, and scaling a defense company from warzone to global market.

Timestamps:

(00:00) Introduction(02:14) UFORCE's Platforms and Combat Effects in Ukraine(06:32) Building a Defense Unicorn in Wartime(10:51) Applying Silicon Valley Lessons to Defense(13:33) Hardening Systems for Real Combat(15:12) Autonomy and the Bottom-Up Adoption Model(18:47) Ukraine's Outcomes-Based Acquisition Revolution(23:17) Lessons for Iran, Hormuz, and US Conflicts(26:30) Scaling to the US: Hiring Sean Planke(30:20) What Western Defense Tech Misunderstands(32:44) Manufacturing and Supply Chain Under Fire(36:52) Global Demand Across Four Theaters(40:29) The Future of UFORCE(42:44) If Oleg Were US Secretary of War

AI made writing code cheap. Verifying it is the new bottleneck.

Peter Morales, CEO and co-founder of Code Metal, joins Maggie Gray and Pat O'Reilly to talk about modernizing the legacy code running US national security — and why formal verification is the durable moat in an era of commodity AI code generation.

Founded in 2023, Code Metal has raised ~$200M and signed contracts with the US Air Force, L3Harris, RTX, and Toshiba. Projects that used to take engineering teams months now take minutes.

In this episode:

• Why US weapons systems still run on COBOL, Fortran, and Ada
• How Code Metal pairs LLMs with formal verification for safety-critical code
• Why the verification layer is more valuable than the model itself
• Peter's advice for founders building in defense tech

Timestamps:

(00:00) Introduction

(2:10) Why would you want translate code?

(4:11) How does Code Metal accelerate this process?

(5:27) Customer interest in Code Metal

(6:22) Outdated weapons systems programming language

(8:39) Code Metal's formula

(12:14) How does Code Metal choose a model to use

(14:11) Lessons learned from working in international markets

(15:20) Navigating commercial and government customers

(18:03) Getting approval to work with classified customers

(19:46) Customer success stories

(23:06) Building trust with mission-critical customers

(24:10) Why did you decide to start your own company?

(26:22) How do you approach recruitment for working in a startup?

(28:47) Biggest changes in defense space over Peter's career

(30:11) Advice for founders and investors to leverage a board

(32:16) Lessons from Ukraine and Middle East conflicts

(33:10) Subcontracting as a way to gain access to larger contracts

(34:39) What's next for Code Metal?

(35:38) Biggest surprised building Code Metal

(36:19) Advice for founders building in the national security domain

Decoding the President’s Budget Request, POM, and DoD J-Books for Defense Tech Startups.

In this Techquisition Edition episode of The Mission Matters Podcast, Maggie and David explain why the President’s Budget Request, the Pentagon POM process, and the DoD “J-books” are key public roadmaps of priorities and funding signals, while emphasizing the request is not law and Congress controls appropriations. Joined by Matt MacGregor of Creative Defense and the Defense Tech and Acquisition News newsletter, they break down today’s defense spending picture (base budget, reconciliation, and a possible Iran-related supplemental), explain “colors of money” (O&M vs RDT&E vs procurement) and shifts toward procurement, and describe how companies can mine J-books via keywords, major thrusts, and contract follow-through. They discuss notable FY27 signals including AI infrastructure/compute, CDAO changes, Maven, DIU funding dynamics, Golden Dome linkages, service-level priorities (counter-UAS, shipbuilding, EW, hypersonics), Air Force autonomy vs legacy platforms, and what happens next in Congressional markups.

Visit Creative Defense and check out Matt's substack to learn more:  Defense Tech and Acquisition NewsAs always, please let us know what you think. And please reach out if you or anyone you know is building at the intersection of technology and national security.

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

00:36 Why Budget Docs Matter

01:41 PBR vs Appropriations

02:28 Meet Matt McGregor

05:12 Three Budget Pieces

07:56 Colors of Money

13:15 How to Use J Books

18:40 AI Funding Highlights

23:44 DIU and Golden Dome

33:13 PAEs and Autonomy

35:13 Air Force Tradeoffs

40:08 What Happens Next

44:20 Wrap Up and Next Episode

In this episode, Shield Capital's Maggie and Akhil sit down with Dan Wright (Co-Founder & CEO) and Pradeep Nair (Founding CTO) of Armada — the company building distributed AI infrastructure for the world's most remote and mission-critical environments.

They cover why the cloud breaks at the edge, how Armada is deploying sovereign AI infrastructure across defense, energy, and mining, and why winning the AI race is just as much about infrastructure as it is models.

As always, please let us know what you think. And please reach out if you or anyone you know is building at the intersection of technology and national security.

Listen on:

Apple Podcasts

YouTube

Shield Capital

Visit Armada's website to learn more!

As always, please let us know what you think. And please reach out if you or anyone you know is building at the intersection of technology and national security.

Timestamps:

0:00 - Armada Introduction

3:30 - What does the DOW's current AI adoption look like?

5:25 - Technical challenges for AI adoption in mission critical organizations

10:50 - Working with start-ups

15:49 - Non-military AI applications

18:49 - DOE's New Genesis Mission

26:26 - Problems with current AI infrastructure

29:47 - Customer education and trust

40:52 - What is it going to take to build US AI Dominance?

47:39 - Advice for founders

After a 6 month lapse, the SBIR program is officially back following Congressional reauthorization.

In this episode of the Mission Matters podcast, we sit down with Chris Benson, the CTO of Istari Digital and an Air Force acquisition pioneer who was one of the architects behind the modernization of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program during his time at AFWERX.

We discuss:

• How SBIR evolved from a slow, lab-driven R&D program into a real commercialization pathway

• Why Open Topic and TACFI/STRATFI changed the game for venture-backed defense startups

• What the new Strategic Breakthrough Awards mean for scaling to production

• Why founders need to think about Phase III and production contracts from day one

• How proposal caps, foreign due diligence, and other new rules could reshape the program going forward

As always, please let us know what you think. And please reach out if you or anyone you know is building at the intersection of technology and national security.

Former Air Force Chief of Staff Gen David Goldfein (Ret.) and former CIA Middle East expert Norm Roule break down recent U.S.-Israeli military operations in Iran

Drones are re-defining modern warfare – and the U.S. is behind. On the latest Mission Matters episode, we sat down with Andy Yakulis, CEO & Co-Founder of Vector Defense, to discuss what it will actually take to achieve American Drone Dominance.

Vector isn’t just building drones. They describe their business model as “Modern Warfare as a Service.” Instead of waiting years to push hardware through traditional procurement pathways, they deliver integrated capability — technology, tactics, training, and battlefield feedback loops — under service contracts that tap into O&M funding.

We discuss:- Why the Pentagon’s $1B Drone Dominance initiative is the clearest USG demand signal for attritable systems yet
- How “Drone as a Service” business model unlocks O&M funding (the largest color of money)
- Lessons from Ukraine & Israel (and why it’s not copy-paste for the U.S.)
- Building a China-free supply chain and re-industrializing American drone manufacturing

Space is a contested domain. Russian and Chinese satellites are conducting proximity operations near American satellites. Critical U.S. and allied infrastructure depends on space-based assets that can be inspected, approached — or interfered with. On the latest Mission Matters episode, we sat down with Austin Link, CEO of Starfish Space, to discuss why rendezvous & proximity operations (RPO) are becoming mission-critical.

Starfish is building “space tugs” that can dock with and move other satellites — extending mission life, disposing of debris, and enabling other national security use cases. Their recent Remora mission autonomously maneuvered one satellite within 1,250 meters of another, validating a core thesis: software can radically lower the cost of operating in orbit.

We discuss:

• Why affordability and scale matter as much as exquisite capability in a contested domain

• The role RPO plays in U.S. military operations

• The current state of our adversaries’ orbital warfare capabilities

• How SBIR → STRATFI can be a springboard to building a scalable business

• Navigating classified work without slowing commercial velocity

• Where LEO, GEO, and cislunar actually fit in over the next five years

• The power of software to conduct complex RPO missions with relatively cheap, simple hardware

As always, please let us know what you think. And please reach out if you or anyone you know is building at the intersection of technology and national security.

After a brief government shutdown, Congress finally passed the $839B Defense Appropriations bill! What does this new budget mean for startups? In our newest Techquisition Edition of the Mission Matters podcast, David and I sit down with fmr. HAC-D staff director Johnnie Kaberle to discuss how startups can best take advantage of the opportunities presented new FY26 Approps bill.

We cover:

🔴 How the Appropriations Bill, NDAA, President's Budget Request, and the reconciliation (the “one big, beautiful bill”) fit together – and where the real funding signal lives

🔴 How startups should engage Congress to advocate for their technology without burning credibility

🔴 What next-generation technologies (AI, autonomy, space, maritime, digital infrastructure) are actually funded in the bill

🔴 The importance of the Joint Explanatory Statement (JES) to understand appropriators' intent behind the bill

🔴 How to tell whether a budget line is real, available, and competitive, or already spoken for

🔴 How appropriators think about risk, flexibility, and accountability with taxpayer dollars.

As always, please let us know what you think. And please reach out if you or anyone you know is building at the intersection of technology and national security.