The US Navy Is More Aggressively Telling Startups, 'We Want You' (techcrunch.com) 14
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: While Silicon Valley executives like those from Palantir, Meta, and OpenAI are grabbing headlines for trading their Brunello Cucinelli vests for Army Reserve uniforms, a quieter transformation has been underway in the U.S. Navy. How so? Well, the Navy's chief technology officer, Justin Fanelli, says he has spent the last two and a half years cutting through the red tape and shrinking the protracted procurement cycles that once made working with the military a nightmare for startups. The efforts represent a less visible but potentially more meaningful remaking that aims to see the government move faster and be smarter about where it's committing dollars.
"We're more open for business and partnerships than we've ever been before," Fanelli told TechCrunch in a recent episode of StrictlyVC Download. "We're humble and listening more than before, and we recognize that if an organization shows us how we can do business differently, we want that to be a partnership." Right now, many of these partnerships are being facilitated through what Fanelli calls the Navy's innovation adoption kit, a series of frameworks and tools that aim to bridge the so-called Valley of Death, where promising tech dies on its path from prototype to production. "Your granddaddy's government had a spaghetti chart for how to get in," Fanelli said. "Now it's a funnel, and we are saying, if you can show that you have outsized outcomes, then we want to designate you as an enterprise service."
In one recent case, the Navy went from a Request for Proposal (RFP) to pilot deployment in under six months with Via, an eight-year-old, Somerville, Massachusetts-based cybersecurity startup that helps big organizations protect sensitive data and digital identities through, in part, decentralization, meaning the data isn't stored in one central spot that can be hacked. (Another of Via's clients is the U.S. Air Force.) The Navy's new approach operates on what Fanelli calls a "horizon" model, borrowed and adapted from McKinsey's innovation framework. Companies move through three phases: evaluation, structured piloting, and scaling to enterprise services. The key difference from traditional government contracting, Fanelli says, is that the Navy now leads with problems rather than predetermined solutions. "Instead of specifying, 'Hey, we'd like this problem solved in a way that we've always had it,' we just say, 'We have a problem, who wants to solve this, and how will you solve it?'" Fanelli said.
"We're more open for business and partnerships than we've ever been before," Fanelli told TechCrunch in a recent episode of StrictlyVC Download. "We're humble and listening more than before, and we recognize that if an organization shows us how we can do business differently, we want that to be a partnership." Right now, many of these partnerships are being facilitated through what Fanelli calls the Navy's innovation adoption kit, a series of frameworks and tools that aim to bridge the so-called Valley of Death, where promising tech dies on its path from prototype to production. "Your granddaddy's government had a spaghetti chart for how to get in," Fanelli said. "Now it's a funnel, and we are saying, if you can show that you have outsized outcomes, then we want to designate you as an enterprise service."
In one recent case, the Navy went from a Request for Proposal (RFP) to pilot deployment in under six months with Via, an eight-year-old, Somerville, Massachusetts-based cybersecurity startup that helps big organizations protect sensitive data and digital identities through, in part, decentralization, meaning the data isn't stored in one central spot that can be hacked. (Another of Via's clients is the U.S. Air Force.) The Navy's new approach operates on what Fanelli calls a "horizon" model, borrowed and adapted from McKinsey's innovation framework. Companies move through three phases: evaluation, structured piloting, and scaling to enterprise services. The key difference from traditional government contracting, Fanelli says, is that the Navy now leads with problems rather than predetermined solutions. "Instead of specifying, 'Hey, we'd like this problem solved in a way that we've always had it,' we just say, 'We have a problem, who wants to solve this, and how will you solve it?'" Fanelli said.
Whoa there, guys. (Score:2)
A) I'm flattered but I must decline.
B) This seems like quite a reversal from the days of don't-ask-don't-tell.
Re: (Score:2)
HA! This is the branch that brought us Seamen, the Rear Admiral and the Poop Deck. They write their own jokes.
Re: (Score:2)
In the Navy,
startups sail the seven seas...
Programmatics did not go away (Score:5, Insightful)
The real problem with military contracting is that you sell something in as an ONS purchase (operational needs statement) and it offers you next to nothing in terms of what will happen next time. The whole process repeats. This is like someone paying for a software license out of the petty cash fund. If you want to make a small amount of money on a one time only basis, this can work.
If you want to sell something to the "whole Army" or any other service, you get it into a program of record. But programs of record are line item funded by Congress, and have to pass operational tests. The tests are expensive and take forever. Then you have other companies and by extension, associated Beltway Bandit lobbying firms attacking your pot of funds. This amounts to a PhD type being paid to nitpick your program, attacking its viability on a purely scholarly basis. Their objective is to convince people in Congress to cut off your funding in favor of another firm.
I've been involved with programs every step of the way, including sitting in the aforementioned PhD's offices somewhere in Fairfax County, VA, being plied for information to attack particular programs, while being paid by my own company.
An example of one program that hasn't gone anywhere in 7 years, despite vigorous service advocacy, consider IVAS [wikipedia.org].
I feel for this guy but nothing is going to fix that system.
Re: (Score:2)
All of the above stuff is very insightful.
And a question: Will these startups allow enough Government Purpose Rights to allow the military to repair the commercial product, in the field, and long after the product is no longer sold? And do you really want to have to load 'this week's new version' in aircraft or missiles?
Re: (Score:2)
Probably not either.
The usual way this is done is via a CRADA [acqnotes.com]. No company with a private use technology is going to sign a CRADA. They have to give up too much, and it facilitates espionage by competitors. So you end up with shit technology via that route, at a low TRL (technical readiness level), which wastes everyone's time.
In terms of support, most companies want to provide it themselves. I worked for MSFT, and we were trying to sell Azure Stacks into the Army for use in command posts (TOCs). We wante
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No company with a private use technology is going to sign a CRADA. They have to give up too much, and it facilitates espionage by competitors.
Right. The Navy can just visit our retail outlet and wait in line with the rest of our customers at the cash register. You wanted a special MIL-SPEC version pained olive drab? Take it back to the base and paint it yourself. Of course, this is how the Navy ends up with ovens they can't repair. [slashdot.org]
In terms of support, most companies want to provide it themselves.
See 'ovens' above. The DoD doesn't want to incur the risk of civilian techs wandering around their facilities. Or the overhead of doing the clearance paperwork unless it's a pretty big contract. The DoD aren't the only
Re: (Score:2)
The use of Active Directory in TOCs always bothered me. That's a single source product of failure. And a lot of it made no sense. I asked, "What's next, the CAC-enabled rifle? You put your CAC card into the butt of the gun, and if it can't talk to the Bn AD server, it won't shoot?"
wait... what? (Score:2)
Re:"8 year old startup" what? (Score:2)
In the Gov't time ... goes ... slower ... er. [youtube.com]
Carbon neutral synthsized jet fuels (Score:1)
The US Navy seeking new technologies got me wondering how their development of carbon neutral synthesized jet fuels was going. A web search tells me news came out today on that: https://thedefensepost.com/202... [thedefensepost.com]
The US Navy is getting more aircraft authorized to use a 50/50 mix of the standard fuel and their new synthesized fuel. That's progress. If this works for them then we should expect this to spread to the other military branches, then to commercial use. The cost to produce is higher than petroleum