I question what specifically you're referring to.

Yes, Hack for Defense is a decade old now. But the DoD famously had not done much business with area startups for many decades outside of very specific success stories like the CIA's In-Q-Tel.

Turns out that start-ups can't wait several years for a contract award. They tend to die in that time if they have no funding.

Additionally - talk of electrical engineering work done for world war II / cold war radar technology has been a oft-repeated tagline by members of military leadership as well as Palantir representatives when talking amongst themselves about Silicon Valley or in their appeals to SV itself.

"We have so much in common! Here, why don't you open your history book and I'll show you!" - that's what the appeal comes off like.

I maintain that primarily relying on those examples is a poor choice in trying to establish cultural similarities.

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borski 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> Turns out that start-ups can't wait several years for a contract award.

This isn’t true. They literally do this all the time. They just need funding. This is also true for biotech.

> They tend to die in that time if they have no funding.

Right. So they raise funding.

Your argument boils down to “the DoD won’t work with startups that don’t have funding,” which is both true and, frankly, as it should be, in my opinion.

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rockskon 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> This isn’t true. They literally do this all the time. They just need funding. This is also true for biotech.

Thus the sentence I immediately followed the one this was made in response to where I said "They tend to die in that time if they have no funding."

> Right. So they raise funding.

In many, many cases when it comes to the DoD, their wants aren't seen as dual-purpose and start-ups struggle to find funding that isn't from some DoD-aligned and defense-focused investment firm - which haven't historically invested in large numbers of startups. At least not when I last checked several years ago.

And just to get ahead of this - a DoD want not being seen as dual purpose and the tech later being used for a dual purpose are two very different things.

> Your argument boils down to “the DoD won’t work with startups that don’t have funding,” which is both true and, frankly, as it should be, in my opinion.

My argument is that DoD contract law is poorly suited for funding meaningful sums of money to start-ups that do not have significant non-DoD sources of funding. I'm to understand relatively small sums of money can be awarded on a short time scale, but those sums of money are tiny compared to what's needed to execute on most contracts.

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borski an hour ago | parent [-]

I would agree that it used to be more of a challenge than it is today. For what it’s worth, I worked at a defense contractor and have advised / invested in defense startups.

The government is much more open to it today than ever before. Is it still hard? Yes. Does it require funding? Yes.

But unlike before, it’s much easier today.

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rockskon an hour ago | parent [-]

I'm aware of a relative lessening of cultural aversion in the bay area of having anything to do with the DoD, but what of substance has changed on the gov side, really?

I'm aware of DIU and of greater outreach efforts to the bay area. I'm aware of a greater rhetorical focus within DoD leadership on taking advantage of Silicon Valley's tech expertise.

But I'm not aware of any substantive change to DoD acquisition law to address the fundamental incompatibility in funding models between DoD's traditional contractor base and bay area startups. The significant lag time to award contracts. The risk-aversion for the DoD where civil servants face political and, in some cases, legal liability for granting funding for projects that don't pan out.

Has the DoD's risk tolerance for investments changed recently? As in - accepting the possibility that some investments may not pan out if it means there's a good chance that other investments bear fruit.

Last I checked a few years ago, outreach to the bay area startups has been primarily using the DoD's equivalent of change found in the couch. A rounding error of DoD's overall available funding.

	▲	borski 21 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		It’s the other side that’s changed. Venture investors have both a much greater appetite for large amounts of funding for defense and IC startups, and a lot more experience navigating the defense/IC procurement process, at least in part due to success with Palantir, Anduril, SpaceX, and others. I agree the overtures to attract the Bay Area are small potatoes, even if DIUx does help.