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!

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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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