Nick Sinai: How do we actually grab all of the data and then use that more effectively in how we go fast? It's not that every process has gotta be reinvented, and sometimes, you know, we get so excited by the SpaceXs of the world, and we say, "Well, every single thing has gotta be reinvented." And it's like, well, wait a second.

We've learned a lot about what safe operation looks like. We've learned about how to scale things safely, but how can we take that in, in this world where speed and, and cost increasingly matter? 

Speaker: You're listening to Augmented Ops, where manufacturing meets innovation. We highlight the transformative ideas and technologies shaping the front lines of operations, helping you stay ahead of the curve in the rapidly evolving world of industrial tech.

Erik Mirandette: Welcome back to Augmented Ops. I'm Erik Mirandette. I'm Tulip's chief business officer, and today I'm joined by our special guest, Nick Sinay, uh, managing director at Insight Partners, where he works with software companies entering and growing in the public sector. Before that, Nick spent nearly six years inside the Obama administration as the US deputy CTO, where he led the Open Data Initiative, helped stand up the Presidential Innovation Fellows Program, and played a key role at the FCC on the National Broadband Plan.

He's an executive fellow at Harvard Business School and the co-author of Hack Your Bureaucracy. Welcome, Nick. Hey, Eric. Great to be here. Yeah, we're happy to have you. So a lot's happening in the defense space right now, obviously driven by policy as well as, uh, a number of conflicts that are all over the, uh, the world right now, and that's having a fairly profound implication for the role of the private sector in the defense industry.

Uh, and I wanted to get your take a little bit on what's actually changing, and then how durable is this change? 'Cause I feel like over the last few years, every time you open the headlines, there's always something changing, but is it different this time? 

Nick Sinai: Yeah. You know, just maybe a little bit of context for, for the listeners here is, uh, we do have some pretty big geopolitical context here, right?

So you, you think about strategic competition with China. You think about the Ukraine-Russia war. You think about the Iranian conflict, right? So we, we, w- we are, for various geopolitical reasons, having the need for defense, um, and there's also the rise of, of what I would call getting our allies to invest more in their sovereign capabilities as well.

And so I think in that context, there is absolutely the need for reindustrializing, reinvigorating our defense industrial base. Folks who follow the defense industry will know that there was this Last Supper and really this consolidation to five big primes in the early '90s, and so there's been this wave really in the last 10 years of, of investment in, in venture-backed defense technology companies that, uh, some aspire to actually become primes like Anduril, and then many others are providing software, uh, weapon systems, other solutions into the defense industrial base.

And so I think that's, that's really exciting. And, you know, various administrations have been working to encourage, harness, catalyze this kind of capability. And the second Trump administration has been particularly forceful in trying to reform some of the procurement and acquisition processes, in trying to devote budget, uh, not only increase defense budgets, but actually devote budgets specifically to some of this next-generation capabilities.

And, you know, this is in the context of more attributable, more expendable, uh, lower cost, more drones, obviously, as we see from Ukraine and, and, and the Iranian conflict. And so you're right, absolutely, Eric, that there's a bit of a, a say-do gap as every administration comes in and says a bunch of things about all the things they wanna change and fix and, and go faster, et cetera.

And then there's the reality of the bureaucracy. There's the reality of the incumbent systems and, and, and people and everything else, and right? And so this administration, I would say, ha- has been particularly forceful, and at times that has, has, has not been great. Other times it's been really what, uh, we need as a, as a country.

Um, and so I'm excited about some of the things in the, uh, Defense Department, uh, uh, Department of War, as they like to call it, that they are, are pushing around how do we move to more commercial capabilities, commercial production, commercial software? How do we, uh, build on the set of existing capabilities that our defense industrial base has and inject more competition?

And so I, I think there's a lot of things that are good in all of that, and there's a particular focus on things that can be made, deployed, and used within the next two years. Mm-hmm. That's a positive development. But to your point, there will be things that don't get institutionalized, right? Um, you can write a bunch of policy.

We can talk about this later, but, like, it, it's... Policy is worth the paper that you put it on, right? And it's really about do those get, uh, systematized? Do people follow the policy, et cetera? And so we will see some of the good policy ideas that don't actually get, uh, institutionalized, and that's natural in any kind of big reform initiative.

Erik Mirandette: I think a lot of this, for many folks out there, feels fairly stratospheric and sort of disjointed from the reality of how these things happen. So if you say something like, you know, this administration is being more forceful with and, and more proactive about relying on the private sector for some of these capabilities, and then you said sometimes it's great and sometimes it's problematic, can you give me an example of what that actually looks like and feels like?

So w- if the administration is forceful, saying, "Hey, look, we need to take some of these capabilities from the private sector, and we need them to become a part of our core Capabilities from a Department of War perspective, you know, and I, and I mentioned, um, you know, when we were talking a bit before the show that I've got, you know, the first decade of my career I spent in the Air Force, so I'm very well acquainted with this dynamic in practice.

But what does that look like to be more forceful, practically speaking? Like, if you're in the industries, either as a supplier or a software company, what does that look like and what does that feel like for, for, for these folks? 

Nick Sinai: Yeah, I think one of the, the things that I've noticed is there is a very kind of linear, sequential process of, hey, we have to develop a requirement, we have to validate a requirement, then we have to start funding a requirement, then we gotta buy the thing, we gotta buy the thing in low volume, then we gotta test the thing, we've gotta develop a concept of operations, you know- This sounds 

Erik Mirandette: like more than two years, what you just described.

Yes. 

Nick Sinai: What I'm describing is, is, is typically a 15-year process- Yeah ... and to develop a, a new kind of major weapon system. And so these, uh, typically haven't worked very well, and many times they get scrapped after 10, 15 or even 20 years. Yeah. And so the more exquisite the weapon system, the more it takes 15 or 20 years to get into production, uh, even low-rate production.

Yeah. And then you say, "Well, wait a second, this thing is 

Erik Mirandette: kind of obsolete." I think I was in, like, sixth or seventh grade when I first heard about the F-22 Raptor, and I saw the designs. I said, "Wow, this plane is amazing," you know? 10 years later, I was at the Air Force Academy. Five years later, uh, many of my colleagues were just now ready to start flying, uh, this brand-new weapons platform.

But I mean, 15 years had gone by between the initial announcement and the design and actually an airframe that was viable and could be deployed in theater. Now, 15 years is an eternity. A lot changes in 15 years. I mean, nobody back then was thinking about drones and swarms of drones and, you know, a, uh, a-autonomous, uh, aerial platforms.

The need for this is clear, right? I mean, technology changes far faster than the policy can keep up. What you're describing sounds pretty, not only... I don't know. I, I, I'll leave, like, a moral judgment. I don't know good or bad, it's, but, but necessary certainly. Um, but it sounds like there's a, potentially a downside to this as well.

Uh, can you, can you share examples or are, are there areas where the existing infrastructure is in tension with this rate of adopting these capabilities? 

Nick Sinai: Well, um, I mean, for certain exquisite systems, I think we do need to kind of rely on, on the folks that have been manufacturing and designing them. And, and so, um, you know, I think it's an open question about whether a venture-backed company is gonna build the next bomber or the next stealth aircraft.

But, you know, in their defense, you know, Shield AI is a- an Anduril. I mean, the- they are developing the, the kinds of, of airframe that are, you know, the collaborative combat aircraft, the CCA, that's gonna be a robotic wingman to a F-35 or- Yeah ... you know, that, that type of thing. So we are seeing what we call these neo-primes are developing airframes and capabilities that are gonna compete for, for pretty high-end stuff.

The challenge is the primes have learned some good habits and some bad habits, right, over the years. And, and there's a lot of-- That's traditionally where we got a lot of our, our important technology. Mm-hmm. When you think about in the '50s and '60s and '70s, and now we just have so much innovation that is coming out of what I would call metaphysical Silicon Valley.

It's not just Silicon Valley. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Right? I mean, we're, we're, we're talking here in the Boston area, where I'm excited about a lot of the innovation that's, that's happening in not just aerospace and defense, but manufacturing and, and, and much more broadly. And so, uh, this has kind of led to the whole rise of the Defense Innovation Board, uh, Defense Innovation Unit, Defense Digital Service.

So Secretary Ash Carter in, in, I don't know, 2014 timeframe, probably recognized that the department was not getting enough technology from the outside private sector. Mm-hmm. Because the thing to, to remember, and, and your listeners will understand this, at least those in, in, in, in parts of aerospace and defense, is that a lot of this requirements-driven Uh, manufacturing is actually a cost plus kind of scenario- Yeah

right? And so that 10 to 15-year process of developing a new, a new platform, we're gonna put a bunch of requirements on the thing. And so it's almost we're gonna product manage from inside the government- Yeah ... inside one of these program offices, right? The, the F-22 or the F-35 or, or whatever the new combat vehicle.

So you're, you're relying on a program manager inside of the government to say, "Hey, this requirement and that requirement." And they're not pulled out of thin air. They're, they're pulled from, well, the Marines say this and, and this army says this, and so we're gonna, we're gonna workshop this. But at the end of the day, you're doing product management inside a program office of what are all the things that we need.

Mm. And what's different with venture-backed defense tech, which is now, you know, tens of billions of dollars of a year in investment going into, into these companies, right? With thousands or even tens of thousands of venture-backed defense companies, is they're fundamentally doing product management externally, and they're saying, "Hey, we're gonna build ahe- and we're gonna do R&D ahead of, uh, what the government says it needs, and we're not going to wait till the government says this is the re- set of requirements."

Because government- Mm ... will kind of Christmas tree the thing and put way too many requirements on and not un- not necessarily understand what is gonna be manufacturable at the fastest speed and the lowest cost, right? 

Erik Mirandette: Well, and what you're describing is, you know, fundamentally it's a different model, and it's a different way of thinking about, you know, how do you manufacture?

You know, you're, the companies are taking great risk at developing these capabilities. They're ex- expending their own R&D budget, and if they come up with something, well, cost plus to manufacture it doesn't cover the cost of R&D, and it doesn't account for the risk that- They very well could have failed if they were wrong or didn't develop the capability.

So there's some intrinsic tension here. I'll never forget the first time, um, that I was working with a, it was a t- tier one supplier, um, and I, you know, we were doing some work. They were building one of these systems that goes on one of these platforms, and I won't be more, more specific than that. Um, but I remember we cut the time to produce this by about 50%, and we increased the quality of the output of this pr- of this process by about 50%.

And we said, "Look, this is great. Fantastic. Job done." And at the end of the day, they said, "Eh, we don't care that much," right? Because of this cost plus model, you know? Now, who pays for that at the end of the day? The taxpayer pays for that, right? Our, you know, war fighters pay for that. But, you know, it's not a judgment on the individuals at the line.

It's a symptom of the structure within which these companies operate. And another one, you know, it's interesting to frame... Sometimes it's tempting to frame this in, you know, what's changed in the last two years, the last five years, and so much has changed. But it's also important for folks to keep in mind that a lot of the airframes that are in service, you know, the B-52, for example, it's a workhorse.

You know, the C-130, but the B-52 specifically, that thing is still around. It still does its, uh, does a good job, flies around, does its job. The thing is called the B-52 because it was designed in 1952, and it's still an airframe that is a part of our arsenal that does its job and we rely on, right? So it's, you have to not just think about what's changing, but also what's the existing infrastructure that we have today, and how do we maintain that, right?

And who are the companies that make that available? So it's, it's a more complicated, nuanced discussion than just, well, how are we gonna adopt just new technology? 

Nick Sinai: Yeah, most of the money goes to existing platforms Right? It goes to the existing munitions. It goes to the existing stuff. And then of course, a lot of money goes to the people as well- Yeah

and then the facilities that we have globally. But you read about the, uh, the Tomahawks or the Patriots, you know, the million-dollar missiles that are shooting down 100,000 or less- Yeah ... Shahed drone, right? Yeah. And, and so the good news is that our government understands this problem, and that if w- you know, God forbid we were to get into a, a strategic conflict, we need to have the, the manufacturing might, right?

And, and- Yeah ... we need to be figuring out how do we kind of get on the right side of, of the cost curve. Mm-hmm. And yes, we can make the best fanciest stuff that can do the most impressive things, but if you're really gonna do things at scale, you have to be on the other side of the cost curve. Mm-hmm. 

Erik Mirandette: Yeah.

Let's shift gears a little bit and talk about the software companies that you see gaining the most traction with the Department of War and the federal government. You're on the board of several of these companies. You're involved with several more. You know, what are the things that the software companies that are successful in bringing these new capabilities into the federal government, into the Department of War, you know, what are the things that they have in common, or what are the approaches that you've seen be successful?

Nick Sinai: Yeah. I, I think it, it really helps to, uh, have people who understand the end user, the operator. Um, so when you're selling into the federal government, oftentimes it's a complex enterprise sale, right? You have the actual end user or the operator. You know, you'll have, have the folks who are in charge of the program, who are trying to think about this more at an enterprise scale.

You'll have folks on the budget side, uh, the procurement side, and then you'll have folks who are influencing either from the Office of the Secretary of War, from Capitol Hill, or from the White House. So you, you know, you have multiple folks, but if you don't actually have product market fit and understand the end user, uh, the war fighter, then it's really challenging, and I think all companies really have to have some of that.

And whether that's in go-to-market motions, whether that's part of the founding team, whether that's on the board or set of advisors, if you don't really understand the lived experience of the end user and how they're gonna use the product and why that actually makes their world safer, more effective, more productive, more lethal, whatever- Mm

whatever it is, you gotta start there. Now, I think it's also important to understand all of those other pieces because that's so fundamental to, to effectively being able to sell and, and win business because you are influencing kind of how a program office thinks about it program offices is, is largely how the acquisition side of the armed services are, are organized, and that's-- There's basically the operational side where people are actually going out and exercising or, or, or defending, and then there's the acquisition side of an armed service.

And those are organized in, in these program offices, and those are fundamentally where the money is and where, and where the enterprise buying is. So you have to understand that piece of it. Really for me, it is you have to have the collection of people inside a company that, that understand these different pieces, that have enough empathy with the folks, and that understand kind of the, the timing and cadence to this all 'cause sometimes people can get excited by big budgets, by, "Oh, well, we met with this three-star general."

Sure. And what you wanna understand is what is actually gonna lead to business outcomes because we're gonna You know, bet part of our business on, on this. And so, you know, how real is this when someone gets excited about it? And maybe they really are excited, but they don't have the juice. Maybe they are talking about something that could materialize in a few years.

Being able to translate that and speak that language I think is super important. 

Erik Mirandette: Yeah. You've gotta meet the government where it is, and you've gotta understand the apparatus within which these systems operate. You know, I remember, you know, from my time in, in active duty, you know, you, you couldn't get anything done unless you knew how to get things done.

And if you did, you could, you could do just about anything. You know, maybe I'll even extrapolate it further to just illustrate the absurdity of the point. It's like, you know, what is America's favorite food, right? Uh, hot dogs? I don't know. Like, there is no America's favorite food. Like, what is the federal government's position on procurement?

There is no one position. It's a combination of existing institutions and bureaucracy and policy and intentions and incentives, and it is massively complex, but there's no way as a company looking to take part in this process and to s- help s- be a part of solving these problems without understanding that and then meeting them where they are.

And, and, and it's sort of, I think, tempting to reject that to a degree and say, "Well, it's so obvious that it should be A or B. You know, why are we doing X or Y?" Uh, well, there's good reasons why we're doing X or Y, and, and you need to understand those reasons before you can begin to affect outcome A or B.

Maybe we focus on procurement specifically for a moment. This is the bottleneck that I think most folks are pretty aware of, like, the, the government procurement process. And, you know, what I'm thinking from this is over a decade ago, but the procure... You, you said capabilities that are ready within two years.

The procurement process, you know, from a couple, you know, a decade ago was, if you're lucky, two years. Like, why is it so hard, and, and what's changing within government procurement now? 

Nick Sinai: Yeah. So I think we've typically written our procurement processes to buy things like we're buying battleships, and you buy software, and you try software, and you build software differently than you...

than buying a battleship or c- aircraft carrier or- Sure ... F-35 or whatever, right? And so thankfully, the Department of War has recognized that how you buy, build, and integrate software is different than kind of large weapon systems, and in, in fact, created a whole software acquisition pathway of, hey, we're gonna actually try and train folks and, and do things differently for software.

And what type of software are you... Is, is this embedded software on a system? Is this kind of more of a SaaS product? So really trying to help the government understand what are they buying and, and, and so forth. Uh, more recently, we've seen the rise of, of, uh, CSOs and OTAs, other transaction authorities, commercial solutions offering.

Yeah. The idea there is, hey, let's actually Rather than go through a traditional RFP, RFQ process and, and kind of do this whole requirements-driven thing, let's understand what the market is providing, and let's try and, and, and buy it as a commercial product- Mm-hmm ... rather than something that we are essentially trying to get someone to build for us at the highest of levels.

And so you've seen both in policy and, and, and in actual procurements and acquisitions that government is, is increasingly trying to buy things as commercial products. And what that means is there should be someone else who's a customer, and it should be designed, right, so that y- maybe it's another MOD, a Department of Defense kind of thing, a ministry of defense.

So it doesn't just have to be, you know, well, we're gonna sell it to General Mills or, or someone like that. But the idea of commercial is that you could actually sell it to multiple people at a kind of standardized thing, so to speak- Yeah ... rather than back to our, our conversation about the primes is, is I will build anything for you.

You know, you just tell me what you want, and give me enough time and money, and we will build whatever you want, right? Yeah. And, and the commercial mindset is no, there actually already exists a thing that is TRL 9 or 8, you know, the technology readiness level, and is ready to, to be purchased and integrated.

Yeah. Um, so software, thankfully, because software changes so quickly, uh, the government has recognized that it needs to buy software more as a commercial product. Mm-hmm. And we've seen the rise of a bunch of great software companies. I mean, most famously, Palantir is, ha- has made great strides, and, and I think they have pioneered a lot in terms of, you know, how do you build more composable products and solutions for the war fighter.

Uh, and they've also, you know, have a lot of scars on their back. I mean, they famously sued- 

Erik Mirandette: Yeah ... 

Nick Sinai: uh, uh, the Army for, uh, essentially not buying a commercial product. Yeah. Right? And there, there have been other companies that have done this too of, you know, occasionally the bureaucracy needs to be reminded the hard way that it needs to be buying commercial rather than custom building or, or government building everything.

Erik Mirandette: Well, it's interesting. It sounds like a premise for a great book that if I were to title it, maybe I would call it Hack Your Bureaucracy, right? Like, uh, it... But you've preemptively addressed the need for this book, which is a not-so-subtle plug to check out Hack Your Bureaucracy, which is worth checking out.

I want to ask, so Secretary of War Hegseth in November gave a speech, and he said, "Speed to delivery is now our organizing principle." In your perspective, is this largely rhetorical, or do you see actual institutional changes that are following and keeping with this, and do you think that the institutions can adapt fast enough?

It sounds like you've given us some examples. Can we expect a, a durable structural shift in the way that private companies are doing business with the federal government, not just for the next however long of this administration? Is this the new norm that we're seeing here, or should we expect a regression to the mean?

Nick Sinai: I think- There's always a regression. I don't know if it's a regression to the mean, but every time you have a, a new administration, there's always this question of like, "Okay, now can we get back to doing what we're doing," right? Yeah. You know, there's the old joke about, "Hey, we're the B team. We'd be here before you, boss, and we'll be here after," right?

Yeah. You've worked in a large bureaucracy- Yeah ... so you, you understand that. That said, I think that a lot of the things that they are trying to do, a new administration, Democratic or Republican, will try and continue. And so it, it's, it's less of a, a, a left and right type of thing, and I think it is, it is much more of a question of which reforms will actually be successful because they will have recruited the people, they will have actually made the process changes within the bureaucracy, right?

So it's... You can say, "Well, you must buy commercial, otherwise you have to document kind of your reasons why." But then- Well, what's the training for, for the acquisition officer? What's the career pathway? What are the incentives for the acquisition professional? How do they work with the, the warfighter who's actually coming up with the needs?

All of those kinds of things, uh, need to kind of flow, flow downstream of a, a policy document. And one of the things that I'm a big fan of is policy doesn't always have to be the leading indicator. That is, you can make changes inside an organization- Mm-hmm ... and then codify it with policy. And so, uh, one of the things we talk about in the book, Hack Your Bureaucracy, is the creation of the Presidential Innovation Fellows program.

So essentially bringing in mid-career entrepreneurs and technologists into federal agencies, including the Department of War, uh, the Department of Defense, and bringing those PIFs, as we called them. Uh, they were essentially catalysts and change agents, uh, paired with change agents who were, you know, deep inside the bureaucracy.

And that was a good example of something that we got started and then over time it got codified with policy. So President Obama wrote an executive order, and then there was bipartisan legislation, actually the last thing that President Obama signed, uh, just, just before, um, the ceremony, uh, change of power.

But that was, that was policy that was being codified after the fact, uh, a particular way of doing things. And so in this case, we have an administration that is pushing a lot of policy, like we're gonna rewrite the FAR, the Federal Acquisition Regulations, we're gonna buy commercial, we're gonna do all these things with a lot of support, bipartisan support, you know, with the SPEED Act and the FORGE Act and stuff from the Hill.

So there's bipartisan consensus, but the question is, you know, how are the systems changing? How are the recruitment processes changing? How are the incentives for the people? You know, are we really measuring the right outcomes? All that kind of hard stuff has to change, too, and some of it will change, and some of it, some of it just will not change in time, and that's totally normal when you're trying to make changes of this scale.

And then you think about external catalysts. You know, we're in the middle of Iran conflict, right? There's the Ukrainian conflict, et cetera. Those things will put external pressure on the system to go faster with certain things and maybe go slower with, with other things. 

Erik Mirandette: You brought up the Presidential Innovation Fellows Program, and I think it's a really good example of, uh, uh, first of all, a program that you led that was adopted under the Obama administration, but that is still running and I think quite successful today.

Uh, and it's a pretty good example of, you know, the kind of change that is enduring. Uh, and I, I'm curious, you know, you gave some examples. Is there anything else that you would say really contributed to the durability of that specific program, um, that we could take note from or learn from as we think about the changes that we're trying to effect now?

Nick Sinai: Yeah, I think for any change, you wanna make it so that the new leaders, regardless of whether they are civil servants or politicals, you want them to feel invested in it, right? And you want them to be able to claim credit. And, you know, there's always an element of administrations kind of rebrand things, and that's just natural when you have a, a new administration come in.

But things that are generating the kinds of outcomes that we want, right? And so what are the outcomes we want in defense? You know, we want deterrence. We do not want to actually get into hot wars because we, we, we want our potential adversaries to recognize that that would be a very bad day. And so that means having the, the kinds of, of capabilities, the right mix of capabilities, the right kind of robotics and autonomy that means that we're not putting soldiers' and other war fighters' lives at risk at the front line and kind of...

But adding to that deterrence. Yeah. So can we really get those outcomes? And so I think any new administration coming in would wanna look at kind of what are the, what are the reforms that have been Tried, and whether they can rebrand them, kind of, you know, claim them as their own. Yep. So they're all- tha- that's natural, and we've, we saw that from Obama to Trump One to Biden to Trump Two.

So there's, there, there were a bit of things of, you know, how do we take existing initiatives and, and, and put our own spin on them? And there, there's certain things that do get shut down, and they're... I don't wanna downplay that there aren't policy differences from administration to administration. Yeah.

But I think in, in, in national security, there is a bipartisan consensus that we need to change our mix from not just exquisite to both high and low systems, that we need to bring more, uh, attributable and expendable systems, that we need to have more robotics and autonomy. And, and so th- that's not controversial from- Yeah

an- any side of the aisle. Um, and you see that across the appropriators, across the policy folks, the authorizers, and you see that across the, the senior executives in the Biden administration, in this Trump administration- Yeah ... and, and in future administrations. 

Erik Mirandette: Yeah, it's one of those areas where maybe you can feel good about it.

Despite what you see on the news, there actually is a lot out there that administrations do agree on. You w- you wouldn't know it by turning on the news, but it is, in fact, uh, the case oftentimes. If we think about bringing this back to, um, you know, our, our listeners, these are folks who are largely coming from operations.

They're, you know, uh, maybe not directly in tech, but they're oftentimes tier one, tier two, tier three suppliers. Um, you know, they're watching the headlines. They're seeing some of these policy announcements. They listen to the speeches. What advice would you have for our listeners? What should they be paying attention to?

What should they stay on top of to make sure that they're ready to compete in this new space with some of these changes? 

Nick Sinai: Yeah, I think there's a desire to go faster, but in, in your world, in, in manufacturing, as we, we were talking about, you actually also have to meet the compliance needs, right? Even if you're building something that is autonomous and, and doesn't have a pilot who's flying it, right, there's still matters of life and death, and there's still matters of, of, of safety and safe operations, right?

And so that's one of the things that anyone's gotta be thinking about is, "How do I move faster? How do I deliver at, at a lower cost? Um, but I also have to do it with the set of require- the safety requirements, the compliance requirements- Yeah ... that exist in manufacturing, that especially exist in aerospace and defense."

How do you not junk that stuff? Because that stuff is critically important, but how do you modernize it? Yeah. And so you can think about, well, how do we actually grab All of the data and then use that more effectively in how we go fast. It's not that every process has gotta be reinvented, and sometimes, you know, we get so excited by the SpaceXs of the world and we say, "Well, every single thing has gotta be reinvented."

Yeah. And so wait a second. We've learned a lot about what safe operation looks like. Yeah. We've learned about how to scale things safely. But how can we take that in, in this world where speed and, and cost increasingly matter? 

Erik Mirandette: Yeah. You know, if you're watching the news, there's a lot of dysfunction, there's perceived slowness, there's the bureaucracy.

I don't know, what gives you confidence that, you know, the United States can get this right and that the future is, uh, is, is promising? Any, any bright notes that you would, you know, offer as, uh, as we conclude the, the session here today? 

Nick Sinai: Yeah. I, I've, I've had the privilege of spending a few times in, in the field with our service members.

So I spend about 10 days in Central Command, uh, flying around a military air, spending time in various bases. I did this also in Europe more recently with special operations and to the headquarters of, of Africa Command. And so spending time with our war fighters and service members, uh, you get really inspired, uh, and they figure out a way Right?

It's really impressive to see folks who come from all 50 states, uh, who are-- They've gotta make do with the stuff that they've got. 

Erik Mirandette: Yep. 

Nick Sinai: And we, we use all these fancy buzzwords in Washington and talk about all these things, but, you know, a little bit of integration and automation, uh, would go a long ways for a lot of their, their day-to-day.

So that gives me a ton of confidence. Like, I've seen them experimenting with drones, and how do you make it more modular, and how do you do that? So it's, it's fun to see how fast that, that they are learning. And then the other thing that gives me a ton of confidence is the next generation. Hmm. I taught for seven years at the Kennedy School.

I'm now an executive fellow at the Harvard Business School, and spending time with, with kind of the next generation just gives me a ton of confidence. Some of them have served and now- Yeah ... wanna go back and create the next company to solve a problem that they are super passionate about. And so seeing, seeing them taking their lived experience and learning more about policy, government, and business, uh, and entrepreneurship, and wanting to become the next generation of entrepreneurs to go solve this problem- Yeah

that gives me a ton of confidence. 

Erik Mirandette: Yeah. I mean, that was my story arc. I, I went from active duty to MIT Sloan and then right into this Tulip thing. But it's, um... Look, there are so many problems out there worth solving, and they're hard problems to solve. But the good news is we've got the folks, we've got the tools, we've got the ability, and, uh, you know, look, I, I believe that problems worth solving get solved, you know, at the end of the day.

You can't scrap everything and start from scratch. You know, you take what's there, you take what's working, uh, and then you find the gaps, and you close those gaps, you know? Um, Nick, what advice would you have for our listeners? Anything you wanna... Any, any wisdom you wanna leave them with or any final perspective that you wanna close on here?

Nick Sinai: Hmm. No one does it by themselves Hmm. Right? So I, I mean, spending some time at Tulip today, it's been really fun to meet the different team members, to kinda hear the different sets of, of, uh, expertise and, and so forth. And I think that's true trying to get something done in any organization, in any, uh, bureaucracy, right?

It is about building allies, uh, inside your organization, and that could be outside of your function, outside of your level, outside of your particular location. It could even be outside of your company or, or agency or organization. But, you know, fundamentally, the more that you can build those authentic relationships and band together to get stuff done, that's what gives me confidence.

And so it's, it, it is almost a, a, an entrepreneurship inside of an organization combined with, you know, a shared understanding of how to, how to get shit done, frankly. 

Erik Mirandette: Yeah. That's one of our core operating pr- That's our first core operating principle, get shit done. Oh. And then, and then when we went more and more into the regulated space, we added a well.

Get shit done, well. And the well is very important, to your point. I, I think it's very important. Nick, it's been a pleasure, uh, talking with you today. I appreciate you coming on the show here and sharing your perspective. Um, and, you know, love the work that you're leading here, and, uh, I, I like it. You know, it, it, it's the old proverb, if you wanna go fast, go alone.

If you wanna go far, you know, make sure you've got a team, and make sure you're, you're building the right connections along the way. So, so Nick, thank you so much. Eric, thanks for having me. This was a lot 

Speaker: of fun. Yeah, it was a pleasure. Thank you for listening to the Augmented Ops Podcast from Tulip Interfaces.

We hope you found this week's episode informative and inspiring. You can find the show on LinkedIn and YouTube or at Tulip.co/podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a rating or review on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Until next time.