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Mike and Jake host Andrew Hunter, the US Air Force’s chief weapons buyer.
As the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition,
Technology and Logistics (ATL), he oversees Air Force research, development and acquisition activities totaling an annual budget in excess of $60 billion for more than 550 acquisition programs.
He is the principal adviser to the Secretary of the Air Force and the Air Force Chief of Staff for research and
development, test, production and modernization efforts within the Air Force.
We talked about how he’s driving acquisition innovation and shaping the Air Force for great power competition. The discussion ranged from the good and bad on specific weapons programs—the B-21 bomber and Sentinel
ICBM—negotiating the E-7 Wedgetail deal, workforce development, industry incentive alignment on price vs value, and a ton more.
He even shared some new Collaborative Combat Aircraft
insights that have not been made public before.
This is an episode you don’t want to miss!
For those interested in #military #nationaldefense #warfare #nationalsecurity #defense #nationaldefense #tech #technology #defensetech #army #navy #airforce #innovation
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• Mike Benitez (LinkedIn)
• Jake Chapman X (@vc)
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Show Notes
00:34 intro
01:07 why a civilian weapons buyer?
02:07 how to keep track of 500+ programs
02:42 PEOs
03:48 the aquisitions perfect storm
06:02 cost plus vs fixed price contracts
08:01 E-7 Wedgetail negotiations
09:46 phone-a-friend negotiator
12:23 B-21 bomber
14:13 B-21 active management
15:47 B-21's unique hybrid contract
19:41 commercial vs defense markets
20:18 maintaining competition in industry
21:15 competition and investing signals
22:32 structuring the market for industry
25:00 government architectures to lower switching costs
27:13 workforce development
29:58 Sentinel ICBM cost over-run
30:07 Nunn-Mccurdy Breach
31:01 too big for 1 company?
33:44 New 'Quickstart' authority
35:58 watching the CCA engineering
36:16 non-traditionals forced to traditional prime?
37:46 Elon Musk for Pentagon processes?
39:10 CCA landing gear development
40:19 what keeps you up at night?
40:36 the pacing challenge
41:17 outro
The Merge