Will Defense Startups Become the New Prime Contractors?

Alex Davis expects new prime contractors for the first time in 100 years, and a defense-tech market that does not look like the old one. Working at Lockheed was not the job people wanted, and starting a company on that scale used to be too large a mountain. He thinks that company can be built now.

Anduril and Shield are the first two he sees starting to look like primes, and he expects more after them. Open models, in his view, can become the next large defense companies. How those groups end up working together is still open, and he calls the opportunity massive. He also says the model companies themselves are becoming defense companies, including work with the Pentagon, and that protecting large companies and their data as AI spreads is a large business whose shape he does not know yet. He is not arguing for one named company.