The OG Defense Check, with Ross Fubini (Managing Partner of XYZ VC) - Valley of Depth | Lyssna här

On this week's episode of Valley of Depth, we sit down with Ross Fubini, Managing Partner at XYZ Venture Capital, for a conversation about what it actually means to be early in a market nobody believed in.

Ross wrote the first check into Anduril in 2016, alongside Founders Fund, before defense tech was a category, before the term sheet wars, and before the word "primes" became a punchline on X. He did it because he'd spent years inside the Palantir network and understood something others couldn't see from the outside: that the company was an unparalleled crucible for entrepreneurial talent, churning out founders who knew how to sell technology to the hardest customer in the world. XYZ has since backed 40+ Palantir alumni across 130+ companies, and the firm now sits at over $1.5B under management.

We cover:

Why Ross knew Anduril would win from day one and why he still underestimated how big it would get
The Palantir thesis: what he saw in that network in 2017 that everyone else missed
How the defense tech landscape has gone from "nobody will return your calls" to drunk pirates chasing cash
Where the market is overcrowded and where there’s significant whitespace
How to invest in the SpaceX ecosystem without getting eaten by it
What good board work actually looks like when a company is in trouble
His case for why the best venture insight is almost always about a market shifting not just a great team

• Chapters •

00:00 – Episode Trailer
00:46 – From engineer to investor
04:49 – What Ross saw in Palantir before anyone else was talking about them
06:43 – The founding story and pitch of XYZ
09:42 – How Ross's engineering background informs his investing
14:01 – The market moving around technology
16:14 – What Ross thought would be the outcome of his Anduril investment
17:40 – The truth in the assumption of the US government being a reliable customer in defense tech
23:54 – Anduril vs. other defense tech firms
26:48 – Sectors that Ross is hesitant on
28:35 – Capabilities on Ross's radar
30:02 – SpaceX IPO
33:26 – Investing in an industry with a dominant player
36:19 – How much is Ross focusing on space vs. everything else?
38:42 – Hardest moment Ross has had with a founder
42:10 – How the VC community has evolved since Ross's time at Netscape
44:41 – What does Ross do for fun?

• Show notes •

XYZ’s’ website — https://www.xyz.vc/
Ross’s’ socials — https://x.com/fubini
Mo's socials — https://x.com/itsmoislam
Payload’s socials — https://x.com/payloadspace / https://www.linkedin.com/company/payloadspace
Ignition’s socials — https://x.com/ignitionnuclear / https://www.linkedin.com/company/ignition-nuclear/
Tectonic’s socials — https://x.com/tectonicdefense / https://www.linkedin.com/company/tectonicdefense/
Valley of Depth archive — Listen: https://pod.payloadspace.com/

• About us •

Valley of Depth is a podcast about the technologies that matter — and the people building them. Brought to you by Arkaea Media, the team behind Payload (space), Ignition (nuclear energy), Decoding Bio (biotech) and Tectonic (defense tech), this show goes beyond headlines and hype. We talk to founders, investors, government officials, and military leaders shaping the future of national security and deep tech. From breakthrough science to strategic policy, we dive into the high-stakes decisions behind the world’s hardest technologies.

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