defense-technology
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Stevan Slijepcevic and the business of making things work
A phone call in a German restaurant marked one turn in his career. Now Cubic’s chairman, president and CEO works where engineering meets the harder questions of customers, capital and time.
Scott Ritchie and the long way home
He spent 22 years in the Air Force, then co-founded a business built around getting intelligence where it needs to go. Scott Ritchie’s next chapter keeps bringing him back to Middle Georgia.
Bryon Hargis and the price of peace
After years in aerospace and a stint building SpaceX’s national security business, Bryon Hargis founded Castelion around a stubborn question: what good is an advanced weapon if a country cannot afford enough of them?
Walter J. Zable and the scholarship that kept paying forward
A football scholarship took Walter J. Zable to William & Mary. After six decades building Cubic, he left money for the students, laboratories and playing fields that might give someone else a start.
Sean Lane and the trouble with connecting everything
He built military networks, helped Baltimore founders find a room, and led Olive to a $4 billion valuation before it closed. Now Sean Lane is back in Columbus, asking how people and AI agents should work together.
Rob Slaughter and the surprisingly serious business of waffles
Before he co-founded Defense Unicorns, Rob Slaughter cooked waffles for an Air Force software team. His career has kept returning to the same question: how do you help people get useful software where it needs to go?
John Baylouny and the education of an impatient engineer
He learned to defend a design in front of the people who founded DRS. Four decades later, John Baylouny is running the company - and asking how much faster it can move.
David Broadbent’s search for a second way through
From engineering and contract law to the helm of SES Space & Defense, David Broadbent has built a career around getting complicated systems to work together. Now the test is keeping communications available when the easy route disappears.
Wahid Nawabi and the distance between two kinds of flight
As a teenager, Wahid Nawabi escaped Afghanistan with his three younger sisters. Decades later, the electrical engineer leads AV, where flying machines carry the weight of a very personal argument about freedom.
Ilya Levtov and the Company His Customers Discovered
A cellist turned founder built a directory of companies. His customers found something else inside it: a way to see the businesses their own survival depended on.
Carey Smith’s view from the middle seat
Before she led Parsons, Carey Smith sat between a pilot and copilot, teaching them to use the digital displays she helped design. The job changed. The need to make complicated systems work together stayed.
John Mengucci and the art of changing the score
He played drums at Carnegie Hall, then chose a career in computing. At CACI, John Mengucci has spent years making another deliberate change: moving a government contractor toward technology it can call its own.
Horacio Rozanski and the forty-five-day clock
He arrived in Wisconsin looking for an education and joined Booz Allen as a summer intern. Three decades later, Horacio Rozanski is trying to make a century-old institution move at the speed of the technology it builds.
Paul Lwin and the Problem of a Thousand Boats
A refugee childhood, a Navy cockpit, and a detour through golf software brought Paul Lwin to an unusual question: how much machinery can one person usefully command? At HavocAI, he is putting the answer on the water.
Grant Verstandig and the Uses of a Hidden Map
He collects the tools of yesterday’s intelligence operatives. At Red Cell Partners, Grant Verstandig is building companies for today’s security problems - and testing a different way to get Washington to buy their work.
Oleg Rogynskyy and the week nobody could sell
A week spent cleaning sales records gave the People.ai founder a problem he could not leave alone. From Dnipro to Silicon Valley and now UFORCE, his career keeps returning to the distance between what people do and what their systems can see.
Jim Rebesco and the problem with tomorrow
He learned to keep algorithms working on Wall Street. At Striveworks, Jim Rebesco is applying that lesson to a world where the weather, the data, and the adversary refuse to stand still.
Alex Karp and the education of an argument
A social theorist from Frankfurt became the public voice of Palantir. His career asks an awkward question: what happens when a philosopher gets the means to put his convictions to work?
Dave DeWalt and the compound interest of showing up
Before the cybersecurity deals came 500 cold calls a week. The NightDragon founder has spent his career turning repetition, relationships, and an operator’s instincts into a larger field of play.
Matt Norton and the business of making technology work
After more than two decades at Madison Dearborn Partners, Matt Norton is building Watch Point Capital. His path runs through government software, space cybersecurity and the practical work of helping technical companies grow.
Alex Davis and the business of getting in
From online real estate auctions to the machinery behind AI, Alex Davis has built a career connecting companies with capital. Now the Dallas investor faces a new question: how much can his way of working grow?
Joe Benavides and the work before the growth
Before OceanSound could help other businesses grow, Joe Benavides had to build his own. His approach to ownership starts with the unglamorous things that make ambitious plans possible.
Lauren Knausenberger and the Fine Art of Making Government Software Move
A teenage cryptography internship led to a bar-napkin pitch, a $17 billion technology portfolio and a career-long campaign against software that arrives after the moment has passed.
Jake Loosararian Built a Robot to See What Industry Couldn’t
A deadly inspection, a broke founder and a wall-crawling machine became an argument for giving old infrastructure a memory. Now Loosararian wants Pittsburgh to help build the physical age of AI.
Billy Thalheimer Is Teaching a Boat to Leave the Water
The REGENT co-founder has spent six years turning a three-verb pitch - float, foil, fly - into a full-size machine. Now comes the harder trick: making a new category of coastal travel feel ordinary.
David Sharpin Builds Drones for the Moment the Map Goes Dark
The electrical engineer turned defense executive has spent more than 35 years making aircraft systems useful under pressure. At Quantum Systems, the test is brutally simple: can the mission continue when GPS and communications do not?
Rosemary Johnston Built a Career Around What Others Couldn’t See
A whim took her into an Air Force recruiting office. Twenty-three years later, Rosemary Johnston had learned the enduring lesson of logistics: what you cannot see, you cannot command.
Qasar Younis Took the Long Road Back to the Car
A farm childhood, a Detroit engineering education and a tour through Google and Y Combinator led Qasar Younis back to moving machines - this time with software meant to teach them how to think.
Troy Demmer Is Teaching Machines to Read the Rust
A finance graduate went looking for better diagnoses and found them inside boilers, warships, and factories. At Gecko Robotics, Troy Demmer has made a career of turning hard-to-reach metal into data people can act on.
Andrew Kreitz Is Turning the Spreadsheet Into a Factory
Castelion’s co-founder began by bolting hardware together in the desert. Now he is financing a wager that missiles can be built with the cadence, cost discipline, and iterative habits of modern manufacturing.