E57 – The War on Bad Software (Defense Unicorns)

All modern hardware depends on good software, but in theU.S. military, most software sucks.

Rob Slaughter, co-founder and CEO of Defense Unicorns, joins the show to unpack why this is happening and what they are doing to fix it.

We dive into the rise of “software as a weapon system,” therole of open-source software in national security, and how Defense Unicorns is building an air-gapped, platform-agnostic software delivery model designed for real-world military environments.

This episode is a must for anyone in defense. You’ll learn a ton about software—we guarantee!

Links
• Sign up for the newsletter⁠ (themerge.co)!
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• Rob LinkedIn (linkedin.com/in/robertcslaughter)
• Defense Unicorns website (defenseunicorns.com)
• Defense Unicorns LinkedIn (linkedin.com/company/defense-unicorns)
• Defense Unicorns X (x.com/DefenseUnicorns)
• Defense Unicorns YouTube (youtube.com/@defense-unicorns)
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00:00
00:43 intro
01:09 Defense Unicorns name
04:28 origin story
06:38 the 3 I's
08:46 software sustainment burden
09:13 wrong incentive structure
12:31 software as a weapon system
14:39 rising tech debt
16:18 open source
18:46 open is more secure?
20:43 SBOM
22:24 solutions
23:05 fighter jet software updates
24:43 submarine software
25:52 UDS
27:05 disconnected software
28:34 Chinese software underneath US systems
30:48 competition
33:43 crystal ball
35:15 $136M fundraise
37:56 magic wand - fixed price contracts
40:14 McDonald's ice cream

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