What happens when America spends billions building the next generation of weapons—but soldiers can build some of them themselves?
This week, Garrett Smith and Dave Caudle are joined by Vince “Osh” Olshove, an Air Force and Space Force veteran whose career has taken him from JSOC and intelligence operations to defense venture capital and now the operator side of defense tech at Reveal.
The conversation starts with reports that Iran captured an Anduril Dive-LD autonomous underwater vehicle in the Strait of Hormuz. What does it mean to accept that America's latest defense tech can always fall into enemy hands—and potentially be reverse engineered?
From there, Osh brings an investor's perspective to the defense-tech boom and the enormous amount of capital flowing into advanced manufacturing, autonomous systems and battlefield software. The crew digs into Hadrian's push to rebuild American manufacturing, Neros Technologies' $250 million raise and its Archer drone platform, and SMAC Technologies' work in decentralized mission command and battle management. They also get into the investors fueling the defense-tech boom, including Sequoia, Founders Fund, Lux Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and Shield Capital.
But behind all that money is a harder question: can these companies actually scale fast enough to matter?
Plus: Space Force culture, rose-gold weapons, Rip Its, military retention and the enduring value of shared suffering.
It's Goat Rodeo.
Chapters
00:00 Cold open
00:09 Rip Its are back
01:45 5,000 sailors and Marines hit Thailand
04:38 Welcome to Goat Rodeo & meet Osh
05:33 Iran captures an American autonomous underwater vehicle
08:00 What does “attritable” really mean?
10:36 Vince “Osh” Olshove joins the Rodeo
11:09 20 years in the Air Force & Space Force
13:34 From uniform to defense venture capital
14:17 What defense investors actually look for
17:23 Inside the defense VC ecosystem
18:35 Advanced manufacturing & the next industrial opportunity
19:14 Is defense tech really venture-backable?
22:23 Hadrian's billion-dollar manufacturing bet
23:17 Neros & the race to mass-produce drones
26:03 Is investing in drone startups “insane”?
27:23 Soldiers are already building their own drones
28:19 Will drone building become a soldier-level task?
28:44 Software cores, modular hardware & expeditionary manufacturing
30:29 SMAC Technologies & battlefield software
32:56 Can special operations technology scale across the force?
33:50 Revisiting America's magazine depth
36:52 America needs cheaper missiles—and thousands of them
37:55 Does crisis create the innovation America needs?
40:18 A warning or an actual munitions crisis?
41:05 The hidden human cost of prolonged conflict
42:35 The “silver lining” of getting real-world reps
45:19 Logistics when the supply chain breaks
46:37 Iran, deterrence & lessons from the current conflict
48:09 Bullfrog: AI-powered counter-UAS at scale
49:27 Turning an M240 into a drone killer
50:14 The rose-gold counter-UAS system
51:28 Inside Space Force culture
54:41 Space Force's Battlestar Galactica uniforms
55:28 Why Space Force has to compete for talent
57:03 The enduring military value of shared suffering
57:54 Closing the Rodeo
Connect with Goat Rodeo
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Our Podcast
National security, defense tech, and geopolitics; serious topics, but that doesn't mean we have to be boring about it. The Goat Rodeo Podcast brings you military veterans turned defense insiders, breaking down the biggest stories shaping the future of warfare.
Expect sharp insights, unfiltered debates, and the occasional defense industry hot take, because let's be honest, this space can be a total goat rodeo.
Listen on other platforms: https://linktr.ee/GoatRodeoPodcast
