Brandon Tseng

Um, what Heron systems, a shield AI company ended up doing was we ended up winning, uh, the alpha dog fight where we defeated every single AI pilot, um, in these, this dog fighting, uh, competition, like a, it was like a ladder, right?

Like you beat them, you move on, uh, a playoff bracket.

Um, and then the, the winner, we got to go up against, um, a, uh,

you know, an actual fighter pilot in simulation, you know, a fighter weapons school pilot, a top gun.

And I want to say we won 5-0 in that competition, right?

And so what that did is basically say like, hey, you know, and DARPA did that to basically say like, look, this is why we should invest in this capability, this technology.

And it wasn't to say, hey, let's build autonomous F-16s.

But as we build this next generation of uncrewed fighter jets, a lot of people call them collaborative combat aircraft.

We can actually have an AI pilot and an autonomy stack that is running these aircraft.

Unfortunately, I don't just because it's like, it's like, I think it's really cool.

Again, I don't.

It doesn't, the thing that I just, it's when there's like mission impact, that's what is like truly does it for me.

And I don't say that as like a talking point, but it's like, like truly like when the products do something, that's what like, I really care about.

I, yes, like the innovation is cool.

The capabilities are cool.

I'm very proud of the team, but like,

Unfortunately, you see a lot of companies in the military space that were just innovating for the sake of innovation versus actually building a capability that's going to make a difference on the battlefield.

And so that's what I care about.

I don't do enough reflection.

I don't do enough.