The Startup Defense Rapid Innovation, Manufacturing Transparency, and Authentise with Andre Wegner
Jul 30, 2025
34:52
Andre Wegner believes the biggest choke-point in defense manufacturing isn’t hardware—it’s the months (or years) lost inside data-starved black boxes. He and host Callye Keen unpack how capturing every shred of context across design, engineering, and shop-floor workflows—then feeding it to AI—can turn a decade-long program into a months-long sprint. If you care about rebuilding U.S. industrial agility, hit play.
Topics We Cover
- Why “idea → part” speed is now a national-security metric
- The cost of invisible data: 16k+ parts “too expensive to reverse engineer”
- Creating a new category
Key Takeaways
- Transparency beats paperwork. Drawings alone can’t scale or automate production; live context must flow from concept through machining.
- AI makes the unsexy sexy. Large language models can surface risks and bottlenecks instantly—if the data exhaust is captured.
- Own the ability to build. You don’t truly own IP when the know-how to make it sits outside your walls.
Chapters
- 00:00 | Welcome & guest intro
- 02:58 | The Authentise journey—from secure print streaming to DoD prime
- 05:12 | Obsessing over months-not-years product cycles
- 10:18 | The “blind-men & elephant” parable of fragmented manufacturing data
- 17:21 | Why the golden-thread metaphor fails in a multidimensional world
- 23:40 | Naming a new category: Continuous Engineering Operations
- 26:17 | $700 pocket sculptures & reframing value
- 31:58 | Cheap drones, culture change, and AI-enabled transparency
- 34:48 | Closing thoughts & future collaboration
Resources & Links
- Authentise — https://authentise.com
- Kform — https://kform.com
Connect
“You don’t really own your IP if you can’t make it.” — Callye Keen
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