The Merge

This is the untold origin story of the Fury CollaborativeCombat Aircraft (CCA), as told by those who lived it.

Scott Bledsoe and Joe Murray join Mike to talk about Fury’s very beginning—way back to 2016.

Now known as Anduril’s YFQ-44, Fury originated as an SBIR project from Blue Force Technologies and may go on to become a poster child of SBIR success stories. But it’s not all good news.

The experience—and the decision to sell to Anduril—motivated Scott and Joe to start a new type of investment fund called the DoD Accelerator.

DoD Accelerator bridges the gap between venture capital and private equity, addressing the ‘funding valley of death’ they faced and the factors that led to the decision to sell their company—and Fury—to Anduril.

This is packed with never-before-revealed details and serves as the backdrop for a broader conversation about the realities of having a company in the defense industry.
 
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• Scott Bledsoe
• Joe Murray
• WOTR High-Low Mix Part I
• WOTR High-Low Mix Part II
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00:00
00:26 intro
01:50 Scott and Joe
07:21 DoD Accelerator
09:51 Fury origin story
11:24 SBIR
16:28 the high-low mix
17:11 writing to understand
18:29 F-117
19:04 no part 3
19:41 red air use-case
24:29 Bandit and ADAIR-UX
25:10 funding and the valley of death
28:04 the capital void
31:11 programs consolidate
32:28 Anduril acquisition
33:37 the small business divide
34:14 DoD Accelerator fit
36:12 Baxter Aerospace example
41:19 the cheat code
44:26 crystal ball
45:17 the prime cartel?
46:32 magic wand - IR&D policy change
49:10 policy hurts start-ups
52:51 DoD Accelerator focus areas

There is a strange set of organizations that live betweenindustry and government called Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs) and University Affiliated Research Centers (UARCs).

They play an important—but largely misunderstood role—in national security.

What better way to understand it all than with a guest who’sone of the most famous pop-culture examples: Christine Fox.

She was the real person who was portrayed as ‘Charlie’,Maverick’s civilian love interest, in Top Gun! She spent 40+ years working as an analyst in UARCs and a civilian leader at the Pentagon, culminating in serving as the acting Deputy Secretary of Defense.

Today, she continues to serve as a Fellow at Johns HopkinsUniversity’s Applied Physics Lab (JHU APL), which is the nation’s largest UARC.

This interview has a ton of inside baseball that you won’t find anywhere else!
 
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00:00 intro
00:35 Top Gun
01:33 Christine Fox
02:53 origin of FFRFC & UARC
05:36 access to classified info
08:30 tech transfer
11:33 independence
14:42 threat analysis story
16:35 misunderstandings
20:29 software and competition
24:32 fix the gray
27:11 what if they disappear?
27:39 Navy Red Sea support
28:29 hypersonics
30:08 Golden Dome
31:01 whole of nation approach
38:20 2026 resolutions
39:42 closing remarks

Mike sits down with Matt Hawkins and Nick LaRovere,co-founders of Pryzm.

Pryzm is building an Operating System for defense innovation—software that uses AI to generate capture intel to make sense of Pentagon budgets, Congressional legislation, program offices, and much more.

It’s AI to understand the Pentagon.

They help connect the dots between missions, markets, andpeople to power the future of national security.
 
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• Pryzm homepage https://pryzm.io  
 
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00:00
01:43 intro
02:30 origin story
05:57 disclosure
07:07 2 PMs
08:47 Air Force tanker program
21:47 Golden Dome
28:12 sales vs business development
33:04 proactive vs reactive
34:59 intel to flip the script
37:56 a bubble?
41:18 flat toplines
43:05 requested vs executed
46:38 fundraise
48:27 DIU project
50:58 2026 outlook
55:29 outro

Chris "Snooze" Kurek, Rob “Trip” Raymond, and Erik“EZ” Brine chat with Mike “Pako” Benitez on all things fighter pilot culture—toast, roast, and lore.
Better known as Dos Gringos, Snooze, and Trip put out 4albums of fighter pilot songs that are famous (and infamous) in squadrons around the world. EZ joined the duo to form Operation Encore in 2012, a non-profit that helps veterans get their music into the world.
We dig into a century of fighter pilot history and traditions, from the origins of Dos Gringos, the squadron culture, roll call,Jermiah Weed, the ribbing and roasting, and all the camaraderie associated with military aviation.
They recently brought all of that into their latest venture, Winglore Spirits, and are doing it in a unique way that brings you into the fold.
 
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• ⁠Winglore Spirits⁠
• ⁠Winglore Spirits⁠ investing
• ⁠Dos Gringos⁠ YouTube channel
 
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00:00
01:47 Dos Gringos
17:22 Operation Encore
24:03 AI music
27:27 The culture and bar origins
34:27 Jermiah Weed
38:13 Winglore Spirits
42:03 Bogey Dope
43:16 Nickel on the Grass
45:29 Winglore squadron
50:42 the Nellis Club
52:02 Dos Gringos concert?
54:45 outro
55:04 Carlos jumps in
56:23 I wish I had a gun like the A-10

Nooks co-founder and CEO Sean Blackman spills all thesecrets about what it takes to do classified business with the Pentagon.

Nooks is a venture-backed startup founded in 2021 to solve amassive pain point: access to classified offices and networks to perform sensitive national security work.

Nooks is attacking the problem in an innovative way called Classified-Infrastructure-as-a-Service (CIaaS), which is a subscription access to a nationwide network of classifiedworkspaces and IT.

If you are in the defense industry—or even thinking about it—and there is even a sliver of a chance you will touch classified work, this episode is everything you need to know.
 
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• Nooks website
• Nooks LinkedIn
 
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00:00
00:46 intro
01:49 Nooks
02:52 origin story
09:49 name and logo
12:30 locations and spaces
13:30 location and the real value unlock
17:57 COVID
19:20 fractional labs
20:06 fundraising for a weird company
22:01 information disadvantage
23:33 myth of hiring security clearances
30:00 SCIF
34:09 mobile SCIF
39:23 touchpoints and impact
42:13 security in shared spaces
46:48 the real impact
47:36 magic wand - crystal ball
49:50 make the problem go away
secrets, top secret, military, technology, tech, defense, national security, air force, navy, army, marine corps, usmc