Time really IS a flat circle. Once upon a time, the collaboration between the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and the tech industry was ironclad. In truth, the tech industry WAS the defense industry. What we know as Silicon Valley and Route 128 were spawned from the needs of DOD to iterate outside of the procurement process, and to source groundbreaking new designs for hard technical problems.
This all changed in the early 1990s with the "peace dividend" resulting from the end of the Cold War. Almost immediately thereafter, the Internet (developed with DOD money), was co-opted by the advertising industry, and the rest is history.
Recently, this has all started to change.
A combination of several factors is contributing to a newfound interest by venture firms and early-stage startups in working with DOD:
- The rise of Great Power competitors
- Government funding for key enabling technologies (CHIPS Act)
- New Platforms (AI)
Over the next several posts, I'll explore these themes and why, this time it IS different.