The Defense Tech Underground

Rylan Hamilton and Austin Gray are co-founders of Blue Water Autonomy, a venture-backed defense tech startup designing and building the next generation of autonomous ships for the U.S. Navy and beyond. Hamilton began his career as a Surface Warfare Officer in the Navy before moving into robotics. He joined Kiva Systems (later Amazon Robotics), where he scaled warehouse automation from thousands to tens of thousands of robots, and went on to co-found a robotics company acquired by Shopify for hundreds of millions. Gray started as a Navy intelligence officer, later helped launch defense tech initiatives at MIT, and spent time in a Ukrainian drone factory before turning to maritime autonomy. Together, they founded Blue Water Autonomy to tackle one of America’s most pressing challenges: revitalizing shipbuilding and expanding the Navy’s fleet with cost-effective, autonomous vessels. In this episode of Defense Tech Underground, we sit down with Rylan and Austin to explore how autonomy at sea is reshaping the future of maritime power. We cover: Engineering autonomy – solving the hard problems of redundancy, endurance, and reliability in ocean-going ships without crews. The hybrid fleet vision – how unmanned vessels will complement destroyers, frigates, and carriers, carrying payloads without putting sailors at risk. Crawl, walk, run – why a phased approach to shipbuilding beats the Navy’s traditional “build once for 40 years” model. Dual-use opportunity – where autonomy at sea can extend to commercial sectors like tugs, ferries, and logistics, once regulatory barriers fall. Founder lessons – obsession, grit, and timing: why conviction matters, and what advice they’d give to future defense tech entrepreneurs. This conversation highlights how two veterans turned robotics entrepreneurs are bringing private capital, Silicon Valley speed, and deep Navy experience to one of the hardest problems in defense: building ships faster, smarter, and more resilient. This episode is hosted by Josh Pickering and Jeff Phaneuf.   Full Bios: Rylan Hamilton Rylan Hamilton is co-founder and CEO of Blue Water Autonomy. He served as a Surface Warfare Officer in the U.S. Navy before beginning a career in robotics at Kiva Systems, which was later acquired by Amazon to become Amazon Robotics. He co-founded 6 River Systems, a warehouse robotics company that scaled globally before being acquired by Shopify. Hamilton brings two decades of experience at the intersection of defense, robotics, and entrepreneurship to leading Blue Water Autonomy. Austin Gray Austin Gray is co-founder and President of Blue Water Autonomy. He began his career as a Navy intelligence officer, serving on aircraft carriers in the Middle East and South China Sea before earning his MBA at Harvard Business School. He co-founded and helped run the MIT–Harvard Defense Tech Initiative and worked in Ukraine’s drone sector before turning his focus to maritime autonomy.

John Clark is Senior Vice President of Technology and Strategic Innovation at Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, the legendary advanced development program behind the U-2, SR-71, F-117, and F-35. Over his 27-year career, including 25 inside Skunk Works, he has led some of the most important innovations in aerospace and defense. Chris Moran is Vice President and General Manager of Lockheed Martin Ventures, the corporate venture arm investing in breakthrough startups across AI, autonomy, advanced manufacturing, power, and propulsion to bring critical technologies into Lockheed’s programs. In this episode of Defense Tech Underground, we sit down with John and Chris to explore how a century-old prime contractor sustains a culture of innovation while working alongside a new generation of defense tech startups. We cover: Skunk Works culture and the 14 rules – why they still matter today, and how Clark applied them in leading programs from the F-22 to modern autonomy efforts. Innovation with purpose – Lockheed’s philosophy of tying new technology directly to warfighter needs, from AI-tuned radar to layered defense systems. Lockheed Ventures – Moran’s view on “gaps and hedges,” the fund’s 90+ portfolio companies, and how primes and startups can create one-plus-one-equals-three outcomes. AI and open architectures – where generative AI, advanced autonomy, and spectrum convergence are reshaping design, manufacturing, and operations. The prime paradox – responding to critics who call primes slow and risk-averse, and why, in Clark’s words, “don’t believe the hype—innovation happens every day inside Lockheed.” This conversation highlights how the largest defense contractor in the world is leaning into venture capital, software-hardware convergence, and cultural lessons from Skunk Works to keep pace with evolving threats while partnering with startups. This episode is hosted by Josh Pickering and Andrew Couillard. Full Bios: John Clark John Clark is Senior Vice President, Technology and Strategic Innovation at Lockheed Martin, where he leads enterprise technology strategy and investment, including companywide digital and AI initiatives. He moved into the role after serving as Vice President and General Manager of Skunk Works from 2022 to early 2025. Earlier, Clark was Vice President of Engineering and Technology for Aeronautics and previously Vice President for ISR and Unmanned Systems at Skunk Works, roles that spanned portfolio leadership, systems integration, and multi-domain operations. Chris Moran Chris Moran is Executive Director and General Manager of Lockheed Martin Ventures, the company’s venture capital arm. He joined in 2016 after three decades in Silicon Valley, including senior executive roles at Applied Materials and eight years running Applied Ventures. He holds BS and MS degrees in mechanical engineering from MIT. Moran’s team invests across priority areas aligned with Lockheed Martin’s strategy. The fund size was doubled to $400M in 2022, and LM Ventures partners closely with internal engineering groups on adoption. He also engages with Stanford’s Hacking for Defense program.

Jonny Dyer is the Co-Founder and CEO of Muon Space, an end-to-end space systems provider that designs, builds, and operates LEO satellite constellations that deliver mission-critical data. Prior to Muon, Jonny held technical leadership roles at Google Maps and Lyft, and was the Chief Engineer at Skybox Imaging.  On this episode of the Defense Tech Underground, Jonny discusses his background at Skybox Imaging and his experience building Muon Space. He describes Muon’s approach to building satellite constellations end to end, and highlights the role of the FireSat constellation to provide operational guidance on the mitigation of wildfires. Jonny shares lessons learned from leading Muon, and explains how he has thought through pivotal moments in Muon’s journey, such as their recent acquisition of Starlight Engines.  This episode is hosted by Helen Phillips and Bryan Harvey.    Full Bio:  Jonny Dyer is Co-Founder & CEO of Muon Space, with a remarkable career spanning aerospace, geospatial technology, and complex systems engineering across industry-shaping companies. As Chief Engineer at Skybox Imaging, he led development of the largest high-resolution satellite constellation ever deployed before the company's $500M acquisition by Google in 2014. At Google, he headed Maps' data collection team developing Street View cars and aircraft platforms, then served as Senior Director at Lyft's Level 5 Autonomous Vehicle group leading vehicle platform design and deployment. Currently an Operating Partner at Space Capital and advisor to Ubiquity.vc, Jonny also serves as a founding member of EDF's MethaneSat Technical Advisory Group and has served on multiple National Academies studies and committees. He holds MS and BS degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University and has authored widely-cited research spanning thermodynamics, radiation effects, and imaging systems.  

Ray Powell is the Founder and Director of SeaLight, a maritime transparency project of the Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation at Stanford University. He is also the co-host of the “Why Should We Care About the Indo-Pacific?” podcast. Ray served 35 years in the U.S. Air Force, including posts in the Philippines, Japan, Germany and Qatar, as well as combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. On this episode of the Defense Tech Underground, Ray describes his 35 year career in the United States Air Force, his path to Stanford, and his journey to founding SeaLight. He explains China’s gray zone tactics in the South China Sea and SeaLight’s efforts to shed light on those activities. Ray offers insight into needed countermeasures to build up readiness and deterrence as well as the broader geopolitical landscape in the Indo-Pacific.  This episode is hosted by Helen Phillips and Bryan Harvey.    Full Bio: Ray Powell is the Founder and Director of SeaLight, a maritime transparency project of the Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation at Stanford University, California. He is also the co-host of the “Why Should We Care About the Indo-Pacific?” podcast. Ray served 35 years in the U.S. Air Force, including posts in the Philippines, Japan, Germany and Qatar, as well as combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He served as the U.S. Defense Attaché to Australia and the U.S. Air Attaché to Vietnam. 

Dr. Craig Martell served as the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer for the DOD from June 2022 through April 2024. While at the Pentagon, he helped the Department of Defense modernize their approach to employing software. He now works as the Chief AI Officer for Cohesity, a cybersecurity startup that helps companies secure, analyze, and manage their data. In this episode of the Defense Tech Underground, we discuss Dr. Martell’s path from teaching computer science to leading a major Pentagon office, his early career in big tech at the dawn of AI, his concerns about the use of generative AI in warfare, and how tech startups can be effective by innovating alongside warfighters. This episode is hosted by Jeff Phaneuf and Andrew Paulmeno.   Full Bio:  Dr. Craig Martell is the former Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer for the United States Department of Defense.  As Chief AI Officer of Cohesity, Craig shapes Cohesity’s technical vision—and defines and executes a strategic roadmap for the company’s future. Craig brings extensive industry and public sector experience and expertise in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to his role. Most recently, as the first Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer (CDAO) for the U.S. Department of Defense, Craig accelerated the adoption of data, analytics, digital solutions, and AI functions. Prior to the DoD, he held senior roles at several leading technology companies. He served as Head of Machine Learning at Lyft, Head of Machine Intelligence at Dropbox, and was a leader of numerous AI teams and initiatives at LinkedIn. Craig was also a tenured computer science professor at the Naval Postgraduate School specializing in natural language processing. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania.  

Dan Berkenstock is an entrepreneur, aerospace engineer, and Stanford PhD who co-founded Skybox Imaging, a satellite imaging company acquired by Google in 2014. He is a Distinguished Research Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, focusing on space and defense policy research and recommendations. Dan sits on several boards of venture-backed aerospace start-ups and teaches aerospace entrepreneurship in the Stanford School of Engineering. On this episode of the Defense Tech Underground, Dan describes the journey of building Skybox Imaging, launching SkySat-1, and joining Google post-acquisition. He discusses his recent Hoover publication, the Defense Tech Playbook, designed to help new founders in defense build a strategic, financial path to quickly transition capabilities to the warfighter. Dan shares detailed recommendations for expanding the impact of the STRATFI program and how the DoD can better articulate demand signals to the startup ecosystem.  This episode is hosted by Helen Phillips and Jon Hoey.    Full Bio: Dan Berkenstock is a distinguished research fellow at the Hoover Institution. His work aims to ensure sustained American aerospace leadership well into the twenty-first century and provides space-related scholarship and policy recommendations through Hoover's Technology Policy Accelerator. From 2008 to 2017, Berkenstock was the founding chief executive officer, later chief product officer, of Skybox Imaging. In his policy research, Dan focuses on the critical advancements needed to reduce the risk of conflict in space during a forthcoming period of rapid expansion. His technical research focuses on expanding convex and polynomial optimization techniques to identify globally optimal vehicle designs in aerodynamic shape optimization problems, with a focus on low-observability hypersonic vehicles. At Skybox, he oversaw the fundraising of more than $100 million in venture capital, helped reset the benchmark for performance in the optical, small satellite arena, and led the company through a $500 million acquisition by Google. The twenty-one Skybox satellites continue to operate as the world’s largest high-resolution commercial imaging constellation, providing timely imagery of major conflicts that is often featured in major media outlets and imagery used daily by defense and intelligence customers. For his work at Skybox, Dan was recognized as Via Satellite magazine’s Satellite Executive of the Year in 2014 and was named to MIT Technology Review’s “Innovators under 35” in 2011. He continues to engage with the space start-up community by serving as an independent director on several boards of venture-backed aerospace start-ups and teaching aerospace entrepreneurship in the Stanford School of Engineering. Dan completed his PhD in aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University, where he also received a master of science. He graduated from the University of Michigan with a bachelor of science in aerospace engineering. During this time, he completed four tours as a cooperative education student at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

Dr. Jeff Decker is managing director of the Technology Transition for Defense Program and co-instructor of Hacking for Defense at Stanford University. Before academia, Jeff served in the U.S. Army as a 2nd Ranger Battalion light infantry squad leader in Iraq and Afghanistan. After, he received his PhD in International Relations and went on to teach at Stanford. On this episode of the Defense Tech Underground, Dr. Decker discusses his experiences as a squad leader in the Army's elite Ranger Regiment in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he conducted more then 200 direct action raids. He tells of how he bet everything and moved across the country in the hopes of landing a teaching job with Hacking for Defense at Stanford. Finally, Jeff discusses the Hacking for Defense methodology - featured in his new book - for getting out of the building, knowing your users, and creating something your users will pull out of your hands. Please check out his new book, The Hacking for Defense Manual: Solving National Security Problems with the Lean Methodology.  This episode is hosted by Jeff Phaneuf and Josh Pickering.  

Representative Rob Wittman is a Republican representing Virginia’s 1st Congressional district in the US House of Representatives. Representative Pat Ryan is a Democrat representing New York’s 18th Congressional district, and is a former Army intelligence officer who deployed to Iraq.  Together, they formed the House Modernization Caucus, driving key policies in national security innovation. On this episode of the Defense Tech Underground, Representative Wittman and Representative Ryan discuss the launch of the bipartisan Defense Modernization Caucus and early wins from the caucus in the 2025 NDAA. They explain the challenges for the Pentagon to move from a hardware centric organization to a software centric one, and discuss opportunities for the caucus to drive impact in defense innovation.  This episode is hosted by Jeff Phaneuf and Helen Phillips.    Congressman Wittman:  Congressman Rob Wittman was first elected to the United States Congress to serve Virginia’s First Congressional District in 2007. While in office, he has focused on strengthening our military and supporting our nation’s veterans, promoting a flourishing economy through fiscal responsibility and pro-growth policies, fixing our crumbling infrastructure, increasing access to high-speed internet, and promoting workforce development through Career and Technical Education (CTE) and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) programs. In the U.S. Congress, Congressman Wittman serves as vice chairman of both the House Armed Services Committee and the House Natural Resources Committee, where he is well-positioned to represent the needs of Virginia's First District. He has earned a strong reputation for being an advocate for our men and women in uniform and for being a champion of the Chesapeake Bay. Congressman Wittman was re-elected for his ninth full term in the U.S. House of Representatives in November 2024 and prior to that, he served in several levels of government. Congressman Wittman won his first campaign for public office in 1986 when he was elected to the Montross Town Council, where he served for 10 years, four of them as mayor. In 1995, he was elected to the Westmoreland County Board of Supervisors and was elected its chairman in 2003. In 2005, voters in the 99th Legislative District elected Rob to the Virginia House of Delegates, where he served until his election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2007. Prior to his election to Congress, Rob spent 26 years working in state government, most recently as field director for the Virginia Health Department's Division of Shellfish Sanitation. Earlier in his career, he worked as an environmental health specialist for local health departments in Virginia's Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula regions. He holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy and Administration from Virginia Commonwealth University, a Master of Public Health degree in Health Policy and Administration from the University of North Carolina, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Virginia Tech.   Congressman Ryan:  Congressman Pat Ryan is a fifth-generation Hudson Valley native, proud Kingston High School alum, and the first West Point graduate to represent the Academy in the U.S. House of Representatives. Ryan served two combat tours in Iraq, earning two Bronze Stars. Prior to his 2022 election to Congress, Ryan served the community that raised him as Ulster County Executive. There, Ryan led the County through the COVID-19 pandemic and spearheaded policies that delivered relief to working families while never raising taxes. He led the charge to revitalize the former IBM site, now known as iPark 87, helped put money back in small business owners and residents’ pockets, took on corporate special interests, and delivered new investments in mental health services. In Congress, Ryan is focused on defending fundamental freedoms and delivering relief for Hudson Valley families. Serving on the House Armed Services Committee, Ryan is working on issues of military preparedness, countering the threat of a rising China, and investing in the United States Military Academy and the next generation of military leaders. As a member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Ryan is committed to improving the daily lives of all residents in NY-18. Whether you commute to work on Metro North, travel Route 17 through Orange County, or need broadband access in Dutchess County, he will fight every day to improve our region’s infrastructure. Ryan has also championed efforts to expand access to affordable health care, support local law enforcement, preserve Social Security and Medicare, prevent gun violence, and protect a woman's right to choose. Ryan lives in Gardiner, NY with his wife, Rebecca, and their two young sons, Theo and Cameron.

On this episode of the Defense Tech Underground, RADM (ret.) Wyman Howard - the former commander of the elite Navy Special Warfare Group and later the entire SEAL community - shares leadership lessons learned from his 32 years as a naval officer. He dives into the changing nature of warfare, crafting the SEAL brand with lessons from Louis Vuitton, and the importance of technical innovation in near-peer competition.  Wyman Howard is a retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral with a distinguished 32-year career in special operations, having commanded critical units including Naval Special Warfare Command and being among the first to deploy to Afghanistan after 9/11. A fourth-generation Naval Officer and graduate of the United States Naval Academy, Howard has extensive experience in leadership roles across joint, intelligence, and interagency operations, earning multiple prestigious unit citations and personal awards. In the private sector, he serves as a senior advisor, public board director, and consultant, with expertise in sustainability, disruptive technologies, and strategic risk assessment. He holds advanced degrees, including an MBA from the TRIUM consortium and a Master of Science in National Security and Resource Strategy, and has completed professional certificates in artificial intelligence from MIT.  Howard currently serves as a Senior Advisor with McKinsey & Company, sits on the boards of Bridger Aerospace and Invitation Homes, and provides strategic guidance across advanced industries, energy, bioscience, and communications. He is a Council on Foreign Relations member, a Navy Distinguished Service medal and Silver Star medal recipient, and brings deep expertise in geopolitical risks, multi-domain autonomous systems, electronic warfare, and cyber threat mitigation. This episode is hosted by Jeff Phaneuf and Patrick Nanson.

John Goodson, co-founder and CEO of Darkhive, is a US Navy veteran with extensive combat experience. He discusses how his military background shaped his approach to drone technology, addressing the gaps he encountered during operations. John emphasizes the importance of military-user feedback in developing effective defense solutions. He also raises concerns about China's market dominance in drones and calls for increased entrepreneurship in the defense sector. Insights on navigating investment and the significance of innovation in national security round out this engaging conversation.