Acquisition Talk

Latest Episodes:

China's surveillance balloon over the United States Feb 05, 2023

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Balloon bloodlust, the epic military history of balloons, the fate of US-China relations, and how balloon expertise can help you on Hinge What on Earth is a Chinese spy balloon doing over the US? To discuss, we have William “Balloon Guy” Kim of The Marathon Initiative, Eric Lofgren of Acquisition Talk, and Gerard DiPippo of CSIS. We dive into: The epic military history of balloons; - Why it’s surprisingly difficult to shoot down a balloon, and the US-China “balloon gap” - Whether Secretary of State Blinken should have canceled his trip to China; - How expertise in balloons could improve your dating prospects. This podcast was produced by Eric Lofgren. You can follow me on Twitter @AcqTalk and find more information at AcquisitionTalk.com

Programmed To Fail - Introduction Jan 31, 2023

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Welcome to a special series on the acquisition talk podcast that gives you an audiobook tour of my research project titled, Programmed to Fail: The Rise of Central Planning in Defense Acquisition 1945 to 1975. I’m Eric Lofgren of the Baroni Center for Government Contracting at George Mason University. You can find this book for free and over 1,300 blog posts on my website, https://AcquisitionTalk.com. This series traces the rise of the modern system for acquiring weapons between 1945 and 1975. It documents how pluralistic methods of market-like competition were replaced by industrial era concepts of top-down control. Technology developments became treated like reproducible goods moving down an assembly line. More decisions were consumed by an overly centralized bureaucracy obsessed with perfection on paper rather than experimentation and rapid scaling of what works. This series argues that failure is built into modern defense acquisition. Attempts to detail financial plans by program output has corrupted the decision-making process. Hundreds of requirements are levied from all corners of the bureaucracy. Dozens of approvals are required to authorize funds. Years pass before the program can proceed, and once it does, plans become locked-in for five, ten, or twenty years into the future. The programming aspect of the budget is the ultimate source of rigidity in acquisition. Hence, the series title Programmed to Fail. This podcast was produced by Eric Lofgren. You can follow me on Twitter @AcqTalk and find more information at https://AcquisitionTalk.com

No time to waste in defense innovation with BMNT's Pete Newell Jan 24, 2023

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I was pleased to have Pete Newell back on the Acquisition Talk podcast to discuss the urgency of getting innovative defense prototypes into the field and working with partner nations. Pete is founder and CEO of BMNT Inc., a global technology advisory firm, co-founder of Hacking 4 Defense, and a retired Army Colonel who ran the Rapid Equipping Force that fielded hundreds of products into Iraq and Afghanistan. 1:05 - The problem with the National Defense Strategy 2:55 - Hacking for Allies program 5:30 - Doing DOTMLPF in six months instead of six years 7:50 - Congress will have to drive change 10:00 - Acquisition risk reduction increases warfighter risk 12:25 - Joint assignments for innovation 14:40 - Ukraine's speed to incorporate new tech 16:30 - Story of heroic tech transition at the REF 23:30 - Turning saboteurs into advocates 28:00 - Program Manager personal networks 32:50 - What to do in 3-5 years to deter China 35:00 - How to fix Defense Innovation Unit 40:00 - Office of Strategic Capital This podcast was produced by Eric Lofgren. You can follow me on Twitter @AcqTalk and find more information at https://AcquisitionTalk.com

NatSec News: Jan 10, 2023 Jan 11, 2023

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Eric Lofgren and Matt MacGregor chat about the week's newsworthy headlines the world of military acquisition. This podcast was produced by Eric Lofgren. You can follow me on Twitter @AcqTalk and find more information at https://AcquisitionTalk.com

The next generation of defense primes with Matt Steckman and Trae Stephens Jan 03, 2023

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Matt Steckman and Trae Stephens joined me on the Acquisition Talk podcast to discuss their approach at Anduril Industries to scaling up in defense. Matt is the Chief Revenue Officer and a former guest of Acquisition Talk, while Trae is Anduril's co-founder and executive chairman, as well as a partner at Founder's Fund. In the episode, we discuss: - How Anduril is becoming a hardware rich company - Reactions as to whether tech-bros are helping in Ukraine - Why software companies have larger margins than defense primes - Whether Anduril will adopt DoD business systems as they scale - How to improve competition through product over white papers This podcast was produced by Eric Lofgren. You can follow me on Twitter @AcqTalk and find more information at https://AcquisitionTalk.com

Event: USD R&E priorities for defense tech with Heidi Shyu Dec 27, 2022

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At the 2022 GMU-DAU annual conference, the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (USD R&E) Heidi Shyu joined us to discuss her priorities, approaches, and challenges. The audio has been republished on the Acquisition Talk podcast for your listening convenience. GMU senior fellow Shay Assad was the special interviewer, the former Director of Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy. 0:50 - Remembering Ash Carter 3:45 - Making an impact in national security 4:30 - Integrating wargaming and physics simulation 6:10 - Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve (RDER) 10:45 - Defining tech transition 15:30 - Creating a SAP umbrella with allies/partners 20:10 - USD R&E collaboration with A&S 23:50 - Budgeting challenges, hurry up and wait 28:30 - Digital engineering for all new ACAT Is 32:20 - Venture capital and the APFIT program 36:20 - R&E's impact on the JROC (requirements) 41:30 - Industry dialogues, 14 priority areas 46:30 - Workforce and Smart Scholar program 49:20 - Impact of continuing resolutions This podcast was produced by Eric Lofgren. You can follow me on Twitter @AcqTalk and find more information at https://AcquisitionTalk.com

NatSec News: Dec. 23, 2022 Dec 23, 2022

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Event: Managing portfolios to bridge DoD's valley of death Dec 19, 2022

Show notes

On Monday, December 12, the Baroni Center for Government Contracting held a webinar to discuss a recent report on how funding flexibility can help bridge the valley of death in defense acquisition. The discussion was republished to the Acquisition Talk podcast for your listening convenience. I was pleased to have insights from three leaders in this space: - James Ruocco, Director of Air Platforms and Weapons, in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Acquisition; - Katie Wheelbarger, Vice President of Global Program Support at Lockheed Martin; and - Elaine McCusker, Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and former Acting Undersecretary of Defense (Comptroller). Tons of great audience questions throughout. The discussion ranged across some key topics including: - How the Department of Defense (DoD) is managing integrated acquisition portfolios to help drive decision making and close capability gaps - Efforts by DoD to close gaps in joint all-domain command and control and quickly target specific instances of interoperability or kill chains such as connecting an F-35 sensor with a HIMARS firing solution - Ideas to create flexible tech insertion lines, mitigate inefficiencies resulting from continuing resolutions, and increase transparency and trust between DoD and Congress This podcast was produced by Eric Lofgren. You can follow me on Twitter @AcqTalk and find more information at https://AcquisitionTalk.com

NatSec News: Dec 7, 2022 Dec 15, 2022

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In the fight: Scaling AI/ML in defense with Colin Carroll Dec 07, 2022

Show notes

I was pleased to have Colin Carroll join me on the Acquisition Talk podcast to discuss the acquisition of machine learning in the Department of Defense. He is the Director of Government Relations at Applied Intuition, a company that enables autonomous vehicles through simulation development and validation. Before that, Colin had a number of positions including Chief Operating Officer at the JAIC, mission Integration Lead for Project Maven, and 10 years of active service in the Marine Corps. 2:30 -Project Maven started with Bob Work and 10 slides 6:30 - Everyone in the Pentagon's in the fight 10:30 - There's not yet an urgency like in 2009 with MRAP 12:30 - How JAIC operations differed from Project Maven 15:00 - DoD autonomy programs often have zero data 17:00 - How to structure AI/ML programs in DoD 19:00 - The Joint Common Foundations is no more 24:40 - Most DoD's data is owned by industry 27:00 - DoD is buying brittle AI/ML models 29:00 - Competing with GOTS software 31:00 - Separating HW acquisition from SW 37:00 - DoD's $2B AI/ML spending estimate likely high 42:00 - We don't win by reforming SBIR 59:20 - The buzzword of JADC2 1:05:16 - The idea behind Title 10 failed 1:09:50 - Force Design 2030 and the future fight 1:20:10 - How to build a defense team at a tech company This podcast was produced by Eric Lofgren. You can follow me on Twitter @AcqTalk and find more information at https://AcquisitionTalk.com

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