- As Silicon Valley and Washington grow more interconnected Tech leaders provided guidance on how the government can enhance innovation more efficiently and swiftly. Entrepreneurs and financiers from defense technology start-ups suggested that the Pentagon needs to reduce development timelines and increase its appetite for risks to create advanced weaponry.
Following many years of struggling to penetrate the highly complex U.S. government’s defense industry, Silicon Valley is now being presented with an opportunity.
A crop of new defense startups from the Valley are making their way to Washington at a time when the Pentagon is eager for new tech. Many leading figures from tech backed President Donald Trump's run for another term, solidifying his position as new bond among an industry that had formerly backed Democrats.
A recent conference in the nation's capital highlighted the new close ties between tech and government. The Hill and Valley Forum on Wednesday featured CEOs of top defense tech firms like Palantir’s Alex Karp and Anduril Brian Schimpf from ‘s interacts socially with governmental figures including national security adviser Mike Waltz, along with senators serving on the Senate Armed Services Committee like Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), and Jack Reed (D-R.I.).
Against the backdrop of the U.S.’s deepening geopolitical rivalry with China, the tech leaders’ entreaties for the government to take a page from its playbook found a welcome audience.
The White House is “absolutely dedicated to reforming the way we acquire technology” in order to modernize the U.S. military, Waltz said, a day before he left his role as national security adviser.
Trump signed several executive orders that would streamline how the Department of Defense acquires new defense systems. Defense tech startups had long maintained that current methods left them unable to compete with existing military contractors they viewed as having inferior products but deeper relationships at the Pentagon.
The executive orders are aimed at addressing issues that typically appear to be overly expensive, yield minimal results, and require extensive time, according to Waltz who spoke to the audience during a discussion panel named The Redesigned Arsenal: Crafting the Department of Defense for the 21st Century Battlefield We could easily fill this auditorium with ideas from defense and acquisition reform think tanks, yet having a president and a leadership team who act without restraint can be challenging; occasionally, we assist them in navigating.
The main focus of the discussions was the Pentagon’s tendency towards lengthy bidding procedures and extensive research initiatives, along with a cautious mindset within the Department of Defense that made it challenging to embrace experimental technology.
“There's a fundamental reality that innovation is messy and chaotic,” said Palantir chief technology officer Shyam Sankar.
On Friday, the White House sent over 2026 federal budget that included $1.01 trillion for financing the Department of Defense. Defense tech startups find themselves in an odd position of both being frustrated with the DoD’s operations, which they view as stodgy and anti-meritocratic, and, at the same time courting its business. Now, given Silicon Valley’s close relationship with the Trump administration, it appears to have found the political allies for the reforms it seeks.
'You're still shooting uphill'
But even as the DoD opens up its procurement process to tech companies and startups, they will still face a difficult marketplace, according to Palantir's Karp.
“You're still shooting uphill, but shooting uphill and shooting like to Mount Everest while they're dropping grenades on you is a different story,” said Karp, whose company successfully sued the U.S. Army in 2016 for blocking it from bidding for a government contract. That move is widely considered to have opened the Pentagon’s doors to Silicon Valley.
Schimpf from Anduril proposed that the Pentagon should significantly increase purchases from defense startup companies. "When you invest in these technologies," he stated, "it attracts more capital towards the defense sector." He emphasized purchasing substantial quantities of impactful innovations capable of making significant progress and opening avenues for integration.
Without the assurance of substantial contracts, Anduril has essentially "written off" the development of new iterations of items such as air-to-air missiles, which they doubt will ever attract buyers, Schimpf further explained. He mentioned, "In my view, even after two decades, nobody would purchase any air-to-air missiles we produce since others have already locked their purchases with another supplier."
Emil Michael, who was nominated by Trump for the role of undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, thinks the Pentagon might depend less on custom-built military systems and instead consider utilizing readily available commercial items when seeking out new technology to acquire. "There’s no necessity for everything to be one-of-a-kind," he stated.
Michael, whose appointment to the Pentagon has not been finalized yet, mentioned that the Department of Defense (DoD) might gain advantages by exploring ways to be more efficient with time, aside from saving costs. He stated, "The aspect of saving time isn’t typically integrated into how the DoD operates; their focus tends to be on minimizing risks even if it means progressing slowly."
Fail fast, fail often
During conversations focused on crafting novel technologies, the dialogue frequently revolved around a common saying from Silicon Valley: "fail quickly, fail frequently." This concept, deeply ingrained in tech culture, suggests that numerous unsuccessful versions of a product are inconsequential as long as the end result functions properly.
"Success isn’t defined by avoiding failure; rather, it’s measured by the scale of achievement," stated venture capitalist Vinod Khosla in response to inquiries on making governments more amenable to taking risks.
Sankar from Palantir proposed fostering greater competition among Defense Department personnel to generate new ideas, suggesting they should feel motivated to outperform their colleagues just across the hall. He views the DoD as a monopsony—a single buyer market—that has hindered innovation due to its monopoly over purchasing defense systems.
Rather than relying on a single program manager, Sankar suggested assigning several managers to oversee the same project, with the contract awarded to whoever achieved superior results. "Each morning they'd start off as fiercely competitive Americans looking for blood," he explained. "'Let’s race ahead,' they’d say. 'We’ve got to outdo each other.'"
The speakers at the conference indicated that the continuous geopolitical conflicts and the artificial intelligence competition with China have intensified the sense of urgency surrounding this matter.
“And when you're in an AI race when every innovation could lead to tens of billions, if not hundreds of billions, worth of value creation—and you think of value creation as a better defense, shield, more deterrence—every minute you're losing is costly,” said Michael.
The tale was initially showcased on digitalwealthpath2025
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