Keep pulling the thread on Shyam Sankar.
The US Department of Defense has undergone more significant change in the last year than in the previous 19 years.
The United States will not have the luxury of mobilizing its industrial base only after an adversary attacks first in a future great power conflict, unlike its experience in World War II.
The percentage of US spending on major weapon systems that went to defense-specialist companies increased from 6% in 1989 to 86% currently.
Following the end of the Cold War and a meeting known as "The Last Supper," the number of US prime defense contractors was reduced from 51 to five through consolidation.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) underwent more technological modernization in the four months following the October 7th attacks than in the preceding 10 years, driven by the expertise of mobilized reservists from the tech industry.
SaaS products that provide "beta" (making a company more similar to others) will struggle due to AI, while platforms that enable "alpha" (expressing a company's unique competitive advantage) will gain a significant advantage.
In the AI technology stack, long-term value and defensibility will accrue primarily at the semiconductor (chips) layer and the AI infrastructure (ontology) layer.
China now conducts 50% of all global clinical trials, a significant shift from when companies like WuXi AppTec were viewed merely as low-cost contract research organizations.
The biggest risk facing the United States is internal decline due to a lack of national will and focus, rather than external threats from adversaries like China.
The Lend-Lease program allowed the US to build and retool factories for 18 months prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, enabling the country to be at full-rate war material production when it officially entered World War II.
The consolidation of the US defense industry after the Cold War bred conformity and led to the financialization of defense contractors, shifting their focus from growth to metrics like dividends and buybacks.
When Palantir was founded, the only formal entry point for new technology companies into the US defense and intelligence sector was through In-Q-Tel.