YouSaid · the spoken record

Kathleen Hicks

lines on the record: 29
first: 2024-04-10
most recent: 2024-04-10
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

“I am. I think it is a marker for what's happened, I think, in broader world events. I think there's more ability to see how you as an individual innovator or investor can contribute to the American experience to American dynamism, dare I say, and more concern about what the alternative might hold. We've seen that in Hong Kong. We've seen that elsewhere. And I think that more than anything has brought to mind what the risks are for falling behind.”
2024-04-10 · a16z Podcast · Inside the Department of Defense and its Vision for the Future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think we have to fundamentally reform defense acquisition, but we are down that path. We did have the alternative acquisition pathways middle tier acquisition pathways, for example. We have to prove those out. We have to show that those pathways software is one, for example. We've already put billions of dollars through that software exhibition pathway. Now we have to show our oversight committees that we can deliver through those alternate pathways because there is a different oversight model built into those and it's really about trust between Congress and the executive branch to prove out that we can do good things with these tools that they've given us. So that's why we've been so focused in this administration on taking all those authority changes, showing we can advance against them replicators and example of that. And then where we can build that trust, I think there's more opportunity to expand our authorities. So yes, we need acquisition reform. We're in acquisition reform now.”
2024-04-10 · a16z Podcast · Inside the Department of Defense and its Vision for the Future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You talked about American ingenuity is where we have an advantage over China, is still very much feels like our acquisition process is the 300-pound gorilla. Can we get to where we need to be without fundamentally reforming defense department acquisition?”
2024-04-10 · a16z Podcast · Inside the Department of Defense and its Vision for the Future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's an all hands on deck. It comes at all kinds of different levels. We've really emphasized with the warfighting concept, making sure that there's rapid concept to experimentation to fielding. Our radar initiative is one of those areas where we've really tried to highlight how do you quickly take a concept, make sure you have the right testing environment experimentation environment, the lab, if you will, the substitute for your crane, for us, the experiment and exercise realm for us out with our COCOMs. And you see a lot of that innovation going on today, SouthCom, CentCom, IndoPayom, others are doing a lot of that work. That's how we do it, really make sure we're testing it in the field with the warfighter closely linked to the technologists. So the operator and the technologists work together to do that rapid iteration. A lot of this too is, again, concept of employment. So it's not just technology. It's about how do we use that technology best. And that's where we really can excel.”
2024-04-10 · a16z Podcast · Inside the Department of Defense and its Vision for the Future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Rapid iteration. So, I think that's another lesson I would add. And then the last is Intel in general. The United States clearly has an advantage in intelligence that's paid off substantially. And to the extent that we can help our partners with that, in this case Ukraine, that's an area we know is a strength to build on.”
2024-04-10 · a16z Podcast · Inside the Department of Defense and its Vision for the Future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sure, I think what I would stress for the US really has been the proliferation of space, low Earth orbit satellites in particular and communications that the commercial sector really drove. That's been a clear, that ability to communicate and to have mass that's distributed has paid off. I think when you look at autonomy, it's a more mixed picture in terms of exactly how it has evolved, where it has provided benefit, and we take all of those lessons away. I think one piece that the United States has an advantage on is that when innovation happens down at the unit level, we know how to bring that up and scale it. We also need to make sure we do that exceptionally well and fast so that tactical innovations, TTP innovations that happen, software innovations that some very clever sergeant comes up with, for instance, which you see in Ukraine all the time, that sort of is lifted up and promulgated quickly across the force as we go through.”
2024-04-10 · a16z Podcast · Inside the Department of Defense and its Vision for the Future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There have been a lot of new technologies deployed in Ukraine. In some ways, I think some people have compared it to a TES lab for things like UAVs, for drones. What are some of the lessons learned out of that from your perspective of the technologies that have been deployed there?”
2024-04-10 · a16z Podcast · Inside the Department of Defense and its Vision for the Future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sure. So they are looking at hundreds of use cases to identify what's the right framework for the department. This spring is when that information comes forward to the CDAO and then to me and the secretary thereafter. So I anticipate getting some feedback on where there are use cases that are ready to go today if there are those and other areas where we need to do more work. But we work closely with all the major generative AI providers and would-be providers to make sure we're lashed up. We're very enthusiastic to work with them. We just have to do it in a way that actually delivers for the warfighter.”
2024-04-10 · a16z Podcast · Inside the Department of Defense and its Vision for the Future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that's a constant refrain for us, and we focus very much on as a department across administrations. I think there has been a strong focus on making sure that companies want to work with us. We know part of that is making sure we represent the values of the nation. That's always been important for the United States in terms of bringing the commercial sector into work with government. So we continue to do that today. I don't think we are in a crisis phase, to use your Vietnam analogy. And I do think that the PRC did a lot of that work by comparison. And both their military activities and the types of coercive strategies they use working with companies have done a lot to turn others to looking to how you can work with us. I will stress one area that we've been very clear about is our responsible AI approach and a responsible autonomy approach that's decades long, but we continue to evolve it as the technology evolves. We have Project Lima right now, which is looking at large”
2024-04-10 · a16z Podcast · Inside the Department of Defense and its Vision for the Future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You talked about this long history of cooperation that goes back decades between Silicon Valley and the Pentagon. There have also been periods where there's been a rift, most notably after the Vietnam War period, and then there was a big effort to heal that rift. We've clearly come a long way. Are there still issues there?”
2024-04-10 · a16z Podcast · Inside the Department of Defense and its Vision for the Future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't think there's a predefinition of number of crimes. I think it is important to have competition in the defense industrial base. There's no doubt about it. And we know small business is a huge driver. So we work very hard on trying to drive up the percent of our procurement investment that is going to those small businesses. I would try to guess here today how many primes there would be. I think the whole nature of what constitutes the defense industrial base, we need to shift that mental model. The American industrial base is the defense industrial base. We obviously have traditional providers we greatly value. We need them. We need them to stay at the cutting edge and we continue to work hard with them. But it's very clear to everyone, including them, that teaming with other parts of the economy, understanding the new areas of innovation, compute.”
2024-04-10 · a16z Podcast · Inside the Department of Defense and its Vision for the Future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, what in that view does the defense industrial base look like in, we could say, five years, ten years time, are there more than five primes? Are there a dozen primes? How does that actually look in terms of a successful change in strategy?”
2024-04-10 · a16z Podcast · Inside the Department of Defense and its Vision for the Future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Traditionals and service providers to be a part of that procurement story. So lots of dollars going to procurement. That's not the issue. The issue is, are we able to buy what we need and are we thinking far enough ahead to what the shape of warfare needs to be?”
2024-04-10 · a16z Podcast · Inside the Department of Defense and its Vision for the Future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so first of all, I think what I really would hit that our procurement budget request for 24 is the second highest in the peacetime era in 35 years. So it's not that we don't have money going into acquisition. The question is, what are we acquiring? And are we acquiring what the warfighter needs? And are we acquiring everything we think the warfighter needs? Well, we've always had to make hard choices. There's no surprise that we will continue to have to make trade-offs. I think what I would stress is as we innovate and move through the changing nature of warfare, again, shaping that changing nature of warfare, we know so much of what is in that shift is software defined and it also could be produced, manufactured much more rapidly through advanced manufacturing. There are a lot of areas biotech I could think of others that are driven right now by the commercial sector. There's more and more opportunity for non-traditional.”
2024-04-10 · a16z Podcast · Inside the Department of Defense and its Vision for the Future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Launch Sputnik, bringing tech competition to the forefront of America's Cold War consciousness, and he set it 12 years before he came to Washington to serve as Deputy Secretary of Defense. Like I said, our histories are bound together more than we sometimes admit. That binding enabled Silicon Valley to thrive, to drive successive eras of technological evolution and revolution, to change the world again and again. That's worth defending. America's defending. An American democracy is worth defending. And both are worth investing. Thank you.”
2024-04-10 · a16z Podcast · Inside the Department of Defense and its Vision for the Future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Institutions can be degraded. Belief in institutions can fade. Both endanger the health of our nation and your success. We want private sector innovation to succeed. We want American dynamism. We need you to feel the same about American democracy because neither can thrive unless the other succeeds. Many years ago, one of Silicon Valley's original garage founders, Dave Packard, spoke about his company's, quote, obligation to make some contributions to the defense effort in times of peace as well as in times of war. He said it was part of, quote, business institutions having a responsibility to the society in which they exist to do something more than simply make a profit. Why? Packard said that nine months before the Soviets”
2024-04-10 · a16z Podcast · Inside the Department of Defense and its Vision for the Future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Are inexorably intertwined. Enforcing contracts and protecting IP depends on upholding the rule of law. Hiring a talented workforce depends on having good schools, universities, and immigration. The flourishing of all Americans depends on ensuring equal rights and equal opportunity for all. And starting a business, investing in others, inventing a product, and taking it to market depends on safeguarding the institutions that provide the blanket of liberty under which you do so. If we want to keep changing the world, then we have to strengthen the democratic principles that make this nation so worth defending and make changing the world even possible. Our country is not immune from the authoritarian winds that sweep the globe. We have seen America routinely tested. While she has withstood, we cannot take that for granted.”
2024-04-10 · a16z Podcast · Inside the Department of Defense and its Vision for the Future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Cycle is not normal. It's disruptive. But we plan to make it normal because more speed is essential. This is not the Cold War nor the post-Cold War era. With the PRC, we are in a persistent generational competition for advantage and we have to double down with urgency and confidence. Thinking differently does not come easy to large organizations and the Pentagon is no exception. We still have many more pain points to address across DOD's innovation ecosystem. Institutional and cultural change takes time, constant tending and consistent leadership. We've got to keep listening, learning, and iterating to continually become better customers and collaborators with the tech sector. So make no mistake, more deliberate discomfort will be required, more collaborative disruption will be necessary. The future of our nation depends on it, and it depends on you, because American dynamism and American democracy”
2024-04-10 · a16z Podcast · Inside the Department of Defense and its Vision for the Future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's about showing ourselves and our adversaries that DoD can move fast to shape the battle space and equip our warfighters with what they need. What we did in five months normally take DoD two to three years. If you're not sure what is more mind-blowing, how fast we did it, or how long it normally takes, I don't blame you. Honestly, the length of our normal process should blow your mind. It's because our system for buying new capabilities was designed in that 1960s era of DOD innovation dominance and reinforced after the Cold War when our leading conventional military capabilities seemed unbeatable. So most things still start with that inevitable, inexorable, multi-year budget process and take five to ten years or more to field its scale. To go from start to fielding inside the two year”
2024-04-10 · a16z Podcast · Inside the Department of Defense and its Vision for the Future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Meanwhile throughout, we're ensuring our defense dollars deliver by providing effective oversight for the taxpayer. Three minutes are up, and I get it if your eyes glazed over, not all of this is headline grabbing, but remember there are no silver bullets. All of it is absolutely necessary to drag DOD into the modern era. Our efforts are fundamentally resetting behavior for defense innovators, program managers, resource leaders, and decision makers. And even though it's collaborative, that kind of disruption can still be uncomfortable. Take replicator, one of our most recent initiatives. Replicator's goal has always been simple and straightforward to field thousands of attributable autonomous systems in multiple domains within eighteen”
2024-04-10 · a16z Podcast · Inside the Department of Defense and its Vision for the Future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Integrated, disparate digital AI and data analytics teams under an empowered chief digital and artificial intelligence officer who previously ran machine learning at Lyft. He also reports directly to Secretary Austin. And we created the Office of Strategic Capital to partner with private capital markets and catalyze investment in technologies critical to national security. Across the board, we're making smart, serious investments in terms of real dollar value. Our 2024 budget request would make the second largest investment in defense R&D plus procurement since 1952. We'd send industry clear demand signals with things like multi-year procurement for key munitions, funding to expand industrial-based facilities, workforces, subtier suppliers, and more secure supply chains.”
2024-04-10 · a16z Podcast · Inside the Department of Defense and its Vision for the Future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Simultaneously, we focused on talent and personnel. From the ADA initiative that deploys data scientists to every combatant command to continuously upskilling our acquisition workforce. He also brought focused leadership to critical organizations and stood up new ones. We elevated the Defense Innovation Unit to report directly to the Secretary so it can help focus and accelerate how we leverage the best of commercially derived tech. DIU is now led by a former direct report to Apple's CEO.”
2024-04-10 · a16z Podcast · Inside the Department of Defense and its Vision for the Future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We knew all that was necessary because of our work to map and then methodically debug the whole DOD innovation ecosystem, a nose to grindstone effort that like software development never ends. As one of the world's largest organizations, we must always look for ways to get out of our own way. Beyond that, we issued data decrees that all DOD data must comply with because data interoperability, access, and trustworthiness are critical for AI, for doing command and control across all domains and for being a modern defense department. No excuses. We also affirmed ethical AI principles updated our decade old but still world-leading policy on responsible use of autonomous weapon systems and issued new strategies and implementation plans on data, analytics, AI adoption, and responsible AI.”
2024-04-10 · a16z Podcast · Inside the Department of Defense and its Vision for the Future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Rapid sealing and software development. Over $35 billion have gone through these pathways since 2021 across nearly 200 programs. They've shaved up to six years off transition and delivery timelines for warfighter priorities. To work better with commercial and non-traditional firms, we're embracing innovative contracting tools that can be easier for them to navigate. We also sped how we transition the most promising capabilities to scale by overcoming bureaucratic and cultural barriers that slow us down.”
2024-04-10 · a16z Podcast · Inside the Department of Defense and its Vision for the Future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Every piece should be constantly iterating, moving rapidly, responsibly and securely because if something doesn't work or isn't secure, it's not useful for the warfighter. It loses its value, and when something does prove valuable, we need to be able to produce and deploy it at scale and speed. Let me tell you some of what we've done in the last three years to get at this problem, and I'll do it in three minutes. We've been repeatedly iterating on novel operational concepts for joint warfighting. We have new processes to incentivize and accelerate promising joint capabilities and experiments to advance those operational concepts. Shrinking their time crossing the valleys of death by as much as two years to bridge the lab to prototype and prototype to scale valleys of death, we're using more flexible acquisition pathways for rapid prototyping.”
2024-04-10 · a16z Podcast · Inside the Department of Defense and its Vision for the Future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, our goal isn't for everything to cross the valleys of death. Instead, it is to get the right things across them, to the right people at the right time. That requires a fast-moving cycle from identifying key capability needs to effective solutions. A warfighter-defined investment funnel, if you will, comprising novel operational concepts, prototyping and experimentation, expeditious acquisition pathways, open doors for newcomers to enter, and a more level playing field.”
2024-04-10 · a16z Podcast · Inside the Department of Defense and its Vision for the Future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because not all of them work for the warfighter. And we need more creative prospects coming in than are likely to make it out so that we push the innovation edge and avoid groupthink. It's similar in Silicon Valley. There's a reason why fail fast and iterate is a mantra. Not every founder who pitches a VC gets funded. Not every company with a Series A round makes it to Series B and C, and so on, only some get bought or go public. We've all met plenty of good idea fairies, but I don't know anyone that's always right.”
2024-04-10 · a16z Podcast · Inside the Department of Defense and its Vision for the Future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Our starting position is stronger as a free and open society of blue sky inventors, doers, and problem solvers. We don't see to control innovation or make it toe the party line. Instead, we aim to seed, spark, and stoke the flames of innovation. And with so much happening outside of DoD, that requires better adopting innovations wherever they add the most military value. An important way we do that is by bridging the much-discussed valleys of death. Valleys, because there are several, labbed prototype, prototype to product, product to scale, there are still others, and the valleys can be especially treacherous to cross if you're new to working with DoD. These valleys are necessary for any healthy innovation ecosystem. Not every idea or prototype should scale.”
2024-04-10 · a16z Podcast · Inside the Department of Defense and its Vision for the Future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Why the urgency? Because the PRC has spent decades building a modern military design primarily to do one thing overmatch us. But the one advantage they can never outmatch, steal, or copy because it's embedded in our people is American ingenuity. Our ability to think freely, innovate, change the game, and in the military sphere to imagine, create, and master the future character of warfare.”
2024-04-10 · a16z Podcast · Inside the Department of Defense and its Vision for the Future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source