00:00Swarmer is going public. It makes software that enables drones to operate together as a coordinated force.
00:06It has supported over 100,000 real-world missions, and joining us now to talk about it is Eric Prince,
00:11the non-executive chairman of Swarmer. He is, of course, the founder of Blackwater, and we'll get to that, Eric.
00:18But I want to first ask about this technology, because it's not the actual drones that you make,
00:23but it's a technology that enables them all to act as one force together, right?
00:27That's right. Swarmer makes a brain which allows drones to act cooperatively together,
00:32effectively an AI pilot, because Ukraine, out of desperation, needs to fly hundreds of thousands of drones.
00:39They did not have hundreds of thousands of pilots. Swarmer acts as that automated pilot,
00:44doing up to 25 drones under control in combat at the same time, a mesh network that allows the drones
00:52to cooperate.
00:52Of course, humans set the parameters and the targeting, and the drones figure it out.
00:57It is the way of the future. Clearly, as you see, 70% of the casualties in the Ukraine war
01:05are caused by drones.
01:07Warfare has changed, and the cost of delivering energy, if you think about two things a military commander does,
01:13coordinates information, and releases energy. The cost of releasing energy, of putting warheads on foreheads for the West,
01:20is grotesquely too high. I'm extremely excited to be part of Swarmer, because it is proven technology.
01:26Like you said, they've done 100,000 missions in combat. This is a company that's been at war for two
01:31years,
01:32not doing testing in America, not doing test labs. It's actually tested in combat every day.
01:39And so we're going public to build out our technology even further, to apply not just in bomber drones and
01:47FPVs,
01:48but maritime interceptors, of course, and to also provide a platform for a lot of other very capable,
01:55proven combat technology from Ukraine, because the West is behind.
01:59When you have a $30,000 drone targeting U.S. infrastructure in the Middle East, and we have to shoot
02:06a $2 million interceptor,
02:08or two $2 million interceptors at that to knock it down, we have a problem in the West.
02:13And so lowering the cost of delivering precision weaponry is essential, and Swarmer's going to be a big part of
02:19that.
02:20Eric, that's been a huge topic of conversation in Iran, exactly what you're saying.
02:23The fact that they are using cheap drones and our technology to bring them down is much more expensive.
02:29You and the team at Swarmer clearly is working hard and fast to deliver this type of technology.
02:34But how do we ensure that a war in Iran doesn't continue along this path,
02:38that we don't keep spending exorbitant amounts of money and trying to fight a technology
02:43that it seems Iran just has so much of and has so much of cheaply?
02:48I'm not here to litigate the decision-making that got us into this.
02:51All I will say is now that we're in it, I'm all vested for the United States military to win,
02:57but they have an exceedingly difficult task.
03:00All right, so exceedingly difficult task that you're trying to make easier with Swarmer.
03:06Let's talk about the proceeds from the IPO and what you're going to invest them in.
03:10Where does this capital go?
03:11Sure. Of course, more engineers to go from bomber drones and FPVs to, of course, maritime interceptor capability
03:19because Swarmer is a brain.
03:20It's a capability that allows drones to cooperate and behave and to attack targets autonomously.
03:26You can imagine the demand signal blinking red across the world to be able to intercept all these cheap drones
03:33and to meet threat with a cost-effective threat.
03:38Not the ridiculous $2 million solution that the U.S. defense cartel comes up with,
03:43but rather very cost-effective solutions so that we, A, can be effective, and B, not bankrupt as a country.
03:49So, Eric, it is clear that the center of gravity in warfare is changing.
03:53As you continue along this path and you act as the non-executive chairman of Swarmer,
03:58how do you see the battlefield looking in 5, 10 years?
04:01Just how big of seismic shifts are we about to witness?
04:04It's like going from crossbows or longbows to machine guns, not just even rifles.
04:14That's how much of a change.
04:15Warfare will even change society because of the democratization of precision strike.
04:21When, you know, just imagine the difference, an old Javelin missile, which cost $150,000 a shot with a $200
04:29,000 launcher,
04:31now you can do the same job with a $750 drone out to 15 kilometers.
04:36It's an extraordinary change.
04:38And the Department of War, the U.S. defense budget has gotten way too bloated and way too dependent on
04:46a cartel
04:47that is not very competitive, the true innovation, the battle lab, has been Ukraine for the last three, four years.
04:54And we ignore that at our peril.
04:56What lessons should we take from Ukraine or Iran, for that matter, Eric, in order to save money on defense?
05:04I mean, it's not something you want to scrimp on, obviously,
05:07but I think the administration right now has floated another half trillion dollar raise for the total budget to $1
05:14.5 trillion.
05:16The Department of War is at least doing some programs like the drone dominance program
05:19where they've cast wide a net for new competitors to come into the space and offer to say,
05:24hey, can you fly a drone?
05:26Can you hit a target?
05:27Can you do that?
05:28That's at a very, that's at the FPV level.
05:30That's kind of an infantry level weapon system.
05:32They need to do that across the spectrum to bust up the ridiculous cartel that is the Northrop, Lockheed, Raytheon,
05:39guys that are literally going to bankrupt the country.
05:42Just to that point, Eric, what competitive advantage does Swarmer have versus one of those defensive primes?
05:48What's to stop a Lockheed Martin or Northrop government, for example, from trying to build something similar?
05:53Well, they can try to do that.
05:55But the difference in Ukraine, you have, you can go from idea to concept to prototype to combat proven in
06:01a matter of weeks.
06:02Or a month or two.
06:04You can't do that in the United States.
06:06The leading edge of battle in Ukraine, because the Russians are very adaptive,
06:11very capable in electronic warfare and jamming and counter drone systems.
06:15So your idea, your prototype is going to work very quickly or it's going to get smoked.
06:21And you know that very quickly.
06:22The U.S. has a very lethargic design-build testing program with a highly bureaucratic system that really prevents the
06:31kind of speed of iteration that you get with Ukraine,
06:34with people who are operating out of their garages.
06:35Eric, I want to get your take on the either benefits or drawbacks of autonomous weaponry.
06:42This debate was highlighted, obviously, by the anthropic negotiations with the Department of Defense.
06:50But how do you see autonomous weaponry?
06:53Is it something that we need in our military or is it something that we should fear?
06:57Adapt or die.
06:58That genie is out of the bottle.
07:01Look at what the Iranians are doing with very low-cost weapons, destroying most of the key radar systems,
07:08having pushed U.S. aircraft back another thousand miles from the edge of battle because they're at risk.
07:15Those are with cheap, basically self-driving, right?
07:19The shot-head missile is basically navigating itself based on ground interaction, on terrain contour matching.
07:26You can call that even a version of AI.
07:29They're doing that, and they're doing that for $30,000 apiece versus multibillion-dollar radar systems and weapon systems.
07:37It is a true asymmetry that we truly will ignore at our peril.
07:41Erica, I think just for everyday people, when they hear about this technology, the fear is always, what if it
07:46gets used at home?
07:48Not necessarily drones, but AI surveillance-type technology.
07:51Again, as Matt mentioned, that was part of the anthropic disputes.
07:54You could always say, I trust this current administration, but what happens if there are other administrations that I don't
07:59trust?
07:59How do we balance out a genie that's out of the bottle, advanced tech that's become necessary for the battlefields,
08:06versus concerns at homes and issues of privacy and otherwise for an American public?
08:11I think people do not realize the extent of surveillance capitalism, and if they hold their iPhone or their Google
08:17mobile services device,
08:18and it's calling a server 100,000 times an hour reporting back where you go, who you call, what you
08:25buy, and what you browse,
08:26your data is leaving you at the rate of a machine gun every minute, every second, every hour.
08:34So that ship has sailed as well.
08:36There are other options for that, but that's for another day to talk about.
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