YouSaid · the spoken record

Katherine Boyle

lines on the record: 214
first: 2025-08-30
most recent: 2025-08-30
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Yeah. It's really interesting. It's like a whole new wave of innovations coming in. And I mean, like I said, I don't know much, but you don't hear a lot of innovation coming out of the big primes like Raytheon, Blockhead, Boeing”
2025-08-30 · a16z Podcast · Katherine Boyle on Shawn Ryan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then look at where we are now, where SpaceX is responsible for 85% of launch across the country or across the world, actually. So they are a true, they are our path to space. And that only took, you know, SpaceX was starting in 2002. It's 2025. They really gained market share very quickly. And so you kind of see it happening with Andrew now where people are picking their heads up. Anderil is an eight-year-old company. And they're kind of like, huh, they're downselected for some major programs now. Like they're not just building, you know, in the beginning. I'm sure you spent some time with Palmer. He talked about how they were building Sentry Towers and really.”
2025-08-30 · a16z Podcast · Katherine Boyle on Shawn Ryan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It used to be when I would go to, so I was a very early investor in Androil. And in Silicon Valley, a billion dollar company is like a big deal, you know. It's not a big deal. A billion dollars in Washington is not a big deal, which tells you how screwed up our incentive systems are. But when I would go to talk to people inside the DoD or talk to across administrations from 2017, 2018, 2019, companies like Androil, they'd be like, oh, that's cute. That's really cute what Palmer and those guys are doing over there, right? It was almost like laughing at them. And Elon had this same experience with ULA and Boeing. They used to make fun of the fact that their sort of place in Cape Canaveral, you know, was there was a tent, right? It wasn't like this fancy launch pad. It was kind of, you know, I would say homegrown kind of home spun. And they make fun of them like these guys, like these guys that have everything under a tent are going to be able to launch a rocket. Yeah, right.”
2025-08-30 · a16z Podcast · Katherine Boyle on Shawn Ryan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They're good at building some things, right? Like they're good at building very exquisite systems, right? We were talking about like the B2 and how we only have 19. The companies like the startups that we are investing in now, they want to build thousands of something. And that's how they're building their product design is to build a tritable systems versus these sort of legacy exquisite systems. So I think you'll see primes that are focused on the things that they know how to build that take a little bit longer. I think they'll lose the stranglehold on sort of getting these new programs of records. I think that would be the best thing that could possibly happen. And then startups can focus on the things that have to be made fast. And particularly the software-defined systems that operate in the battlefield that have to be upgraded, that have to be changed based on the technology that's changing the battlefield. I don't think the primes are capable of doing that.”
2025-08-30 · a16z Podcast · Katherine Boyle on Shawn Ryan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I don't think so. I think they're waking up. My view is probably the best thing that could happen for the DoD. And this is, you know, this is me speaking as someone who would like to see the DOD encourage competition is to go back to that pre-Last Supper 1990s model where we had 50,000 companies working in defense, a lot more primes, right? Like, you know, now I think something like 40% of the major programs go to five primes. It was not like that in the 90s. Post the Last Supper when the DoD came to all these companies and said there's going to be massive budget cuts post-Soviet Union. You're going to have to merge, that led to a merging of these companies where there was just no competition. And I think the DOD thought by merging them that you'd save the companies, that they become more efficient, the opposite happened. It just meant that they didn't have to innovate and they didn't have to work hard because there was no competition. So I think the best thing that can happen is we'll probably see those primes lose a stranglehold on programs.”
2025-08-30 · a16z Podcast · Katherine Boyle on Shawn Ryan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not their incentives, but it's also the type of talent that they have on the team that wants to operate in that 20 hour day environment of knowing they're going to go to zero. So it's a very different incentive structure. But the last 25 years in America, this is how companies have been built. Venture capital is the dynamism engine of all innovation in America. It's the envy of the world. And so we have to make sure that this system is not just operating for the Facebooks of the world and the TikToks of the world, the consumer technology that we use. We have to make sure that we bring this urgency and this capital and the speed to the things that matter most, which is, of course, building our defense industrial base.”
2025-08-30 · a16z Podcast · Katherine Boyle on Shawn Ryan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To speed up the RD, to speed up the number of products they can build at one time. And the company is always going to zero. What I always say about venture capital is it's so different than any other type of business where you take out a bank loan and you say, I'm going to build a business and then you want to make more money than you spend. Silicon Valley is the opposite. You want to spend more money at knowing that you're going to go to zero in 18 months if you don't raise another round of capital. What that allows you to do is to bring on the best engineers to produce the product as fast as possible. And when you compare that methodology of we're going to build hypersonic weapons or we're going to build satellite buses to the companies that have been around for 100 years, they don't know how to operate like that.”
2025-08-30 · a16z Podcast · Katherine Boyle on Shawn Ryan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If I actually judge the project and say it's going to cost however many dollars it does to paint this room, like I'm going to want to make sure that I, you know, budget it right, that I, you know, get the cheapest paint, right? Like, so it's the way that capitalism works outside of every other system except the DOD is that you have fixed firm, fixed price contracts where you know what something's going to cost you. And if it goes over budget, the risk is on the company, not on the government. But the primes have been engineered so that they can always say, well, we went over budget. So you're going to have to give us more money. We're going to get our 7% margin no matter what. And if it takes two, three, four extra years because you have a different request or you say, actually, we want to build this way. We're happy to accommodate you. But that is going to mean that you're not getting the products in time. And Silicon Valley operates in the opposite way, and particularly venture capital. You give a company more capital in many cases than it even needs to speed up the process of production.”
2025-08-30 · a16z Podcast · Katherine Boyle on Shawn Ryan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For so many reasons. I mean, one is they are based on a set of requirements they have been building for a set of requirements for many, many years. Oftentimes they're getting paid per hour. They charge per hour, right? Like they're not on fixed price contracts. They're on cost plus contracts where it's the amount of engineering hours that you do on a product plus a fixed margin, which is a terrible incentive for any company. Like if I'm saying, okay, I'm going to paint your house or mow your lawn and you're going to pay me per hour. I'm going to take all day.”
2025-08-30 · a16z Podcast · Katherine Boyle on Shawn Ryan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, it is the startup community has to fix this problem because it's not going to come from the traditional primes. It's not going to come from family-owned machine shops. The new technology needed, particularly on the industrial-based side, is so important. You need hardware, you need software, but most importantly, you need people who understand how to build.”
2025-08-30 · a16z Podcast · Katherine Boyle on Shawn Ryan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's good to see. I haven't seen that in Americans in a long time. I'm not just talking about the past four years. I'm talking a long time. I've not seen. I've just not seen that. And even, I mean, we were chatting at breakfast a little bit about, was it, I don't know how many years ago, it didn't seem long ago that Silicon Valley almost seemed It seemed anti American and zero patriotism in the past, man, I would say in the past, what, year and a half maybe? And that's just from, you know, I haven't been looking into this very long, but maybe in the past year and a half, it seems like it's doing a 180.”
2025-08-30 · a16z Podcast · Katherine Boyle on Shawn Ryan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In 9 11, it changed our lives. These kids weren't even born. They have no recollection of some of the things that we understand. And I think because of that, they have this youthful optimism of loving their country and wanting to build for the next generation of defense. So they kind of keeps me going too. I think you were, it's tempting to blackpill.”
2025-08-30 · a16z Podcast · Katherine Boyle on Shawn Ryan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's an honor to be here. And I always say I come bearing good news. Usually, after people talk to me, they are very optimistic. And I always have to warn people, I am in the business of optimism, right? Like I'm an early stage investor. I'm always thinking of it a company. I only invest if I think a company is going to become some extraordinary movement. But I agree with you. I mean, the last few years, what we have seen as investors in American dynamism ecosystem, the companies that are building for defense tech, it did not exist five years ago. It just did not like there was not the enthusiasm or the excitement. DOD wasn't excited about buying from startups. It's a complete 180. And so I always like when people say they meet these founders and they have hope for America. It's like, yeah, every day I get to meet them. And I think that's why I'm such an optimist too is because I get to see on the ground floor these young engineers who are just incredibly patriotic. They're patriotism. I always say, you know, I was patriotic because, you know, we're of the generation that remembers 9-11. Like we were coming of age.”
2025-08-30 · a16z Podcast · Katherine Boyle on Shawn Ryan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Venture capital is the dynamism engine of all innovation in America. It's the envy of the world. And so we have to make sure that this system is not just operating for the Facebooks of the world and the TikToks of the world, the consumer technology that we use. We have to make sure that we bring this urgency and this capital and the speed to the things that matter most, which is, of course, building our defense industrial base. I care a lot about my country. That's why I'm doing it. And I think there's a business opportunity here. It's not just I'm a patriotic capitalist and I'm throwing money away. Like I think this is the biggest business opportunity of our time and it's sitting right in front of my face and no one's looking at it. And so I'm going to invest in it.”
2025-08-30 · a16z Podcast · Katherine Boyle on Shawn Ryan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source