Trae (Trey) Stephens

We want to build the institutional knowledge to be able to turn quickly to produce the things that have demand and to do it in a single space so that we're not over-specializing those spaces for single systems.

I mean, everything we build should at least be a few times less expensive than the alternative.

Would you say it's better than what we've been using?

Well, I mean, part of this is like a question around how exquisite you're building it.

Like, are you building something that's like a Frankenstein that has to do everything well?

I'm sure you've heard stories about the F-35, which is like when you're building a joint strike fighter that you're going out to every one of the services and you're saying, Marine Corps, what do you need?

Air Force, what do you need?

Navy, what do you need?

And then you're building...

that aircraft that meets the needs of all those services, well, you end up with a $300 million airplane.

Norm Augustine, the former CEO of Lockheed Martin, sort of tongue-in-cheek said, I think it was 2050 was his market, he said, in 2050, the entire defense budget will buy exactly one airplane.

Like, that's basically the track that we're on.

We're on this track that we're building these overly complicated things.

Yeah, they're actually pretty awesome.

Like, the capabilities of the F-35, pretty awesome.

Capabilities of the B-21, these are pretty awesome.

The question is, could you build something that solves a problem for 10x lower cost that doesn't require a 30-year development program and, you know...

thousands of man hours to build a single unit.

I think the answer to that is clearly yes.

So in some cases, it'll be like, you know, over the horizon, totally new technology that changes, you know, a con op.