The Defense Startup That’s Quietly Disrupting China and Russia

Описание: In this episode, we sit down with Brett Granberg, co-founder and CEO of Vannevar Labs, a defense technology company developing advanced software and hardware systems for the U.S. national security community. With a background at In-Q-Tel and McKinsey, Brett shares his path from the corporate world to building one of the most successful emerging defense startups in recent years.

We dive into how Vannevar is bridging the gap between Silicon Valley engineering and national security missions, starting with data collection from adversary nations and scaling to $80M+ in revenue. Brett shares lessons from their earliest failed product attempts, why speed is the key advantage for startups over defense primes, and how they think about non-kinetic warfare, generative AI, and building a multi-product roadmap for the future of U.S. defense.

If you’ve ever wondered what building a defense tech company from scratch really takes, how DOD’s acquisition ecosystem actually works, or what distinguishes Vannevar from Palantir and Anduril, this episode is for you.

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In this episode, we cover:

Introduction (00:00:42)

Vannevar Labs’ founding thesis and approach to building defense technology (00:04:41)

The intelligence collection gap and how Vannevar closes it (00:06:46)

Non-kinetic warfare and its rising strategic importance (00:08:45)

Why the U.S. government needs vendors to move faster than primes (00:13:11)

Brett’s path from McKinsey to In-Q-Tel and founding Vannevar at Stanford (00:16:42)

Early product failures and the pivot that led to Decrypt (00:22:09)

Crossing the classified divide with forward-deployed engineers (00:35:01)

Scaling from a $15K pilot to over $80M in revenue (00:39:28)

Securing DIU contracts and funding through unfunded requirements (00:43:13)

Integrating LLM agents to enhance search and product usability (01:02:25)

Where to find Brett and Vannevar Labs (01:08:13)

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