What is American Dynamism?
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american dynamic. The term coined by asic inc. General partner Catherine boil just two years ago when SHE enabled of IT, founded the firms american dynamism investing practice.

But since then, the term has truly taken on a life of its own. To some, it's a community of builders. To others is a spirit grounded in innovation. And some others might even call IT a movement.

In the words of Katherine herself, american dynamic is not a sector IT doesn't fit neily into one vertical or photos IT is a philosophy that encompasses nearly every aspect of american life and leadership. SHE goes on to say that the american dynamism practice investment founders and companies that support the national interest. So that's more than just A O space in defense.

It's also public safety, education, housing supply chain, industrial and manufacturing. And last month, A C D E held its second annual american dynamism summit in the heart of washington, D C. Hundreds of policymakers, founders and founders showed up not only to celebrate our national interest, but also to have the hard conversations around what you will really take to continue building for america.

And while we can't wait to share some of these exclusive conversations with you soon, first, we wanted to share this completion of ten voices coming together to share what american dynamism means to them. They also discussed what critical technologies they're watching along the way, and of course, what might send in the way of the next decade of dynastic. As a reminder, the content here is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, business, tax or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any asic senci fund.

Please note that asic sene in a zophernes may also maintain investments in the companies discussed in this park. For more details, including a link to our investments, please see a sixteen year outcome slash disclosure. Alright, first lets meet some of these founders building across space, education, public safety, energy and more.

My name is we're all to do. And co founder and C. E, O of ardan. Ardan allows police and fired departments to send drones directly to nine one calls anywhere in their city in ninety .

seconds or last when he is in statement that CEO and coffee drug apex effect is a spacecraft manufacturer company. So we built them and called the satellite bus, which is the core set of components that are required for any human made object to Operate and function in space.

And why is smit founder in CEO, ado smith, Austin s, on emission? To combat americas skulker shortage, we've build technology to help expand more forced productivity for employers in great meaningful opportunities to flourish for a new generation of dollars.

I'm dug brand, our C. E, O and cofounder of rated radio, is a nuclear started developing technology to mass produce nuclear reactors in a factory, fifty units a year that can be deployed anywhere in the world and serve as resilience and back up power or prime power.

I'm Christian and the sea and cofounder water school. We help individuals start home based childcare progress.

My name is Michelle and i'm the co father and C, E, O of arc. Ark makes high performance electric water craft, and our mission is to electrify everything on the water.

We will introduce a few more voices from here, but let's kick things off with the ultimate question. What is american adamistic and IT .

means american dynasties about optimism.

American danish is about realizing america's best asset, which is our ability to develop new breakthrough .

technologies, american diagnosis, being unapologetically proud of what we are capable of doing in america.

But for some, there is also a personal side to the fuel behind american dynamicism. Here is rahul from .

araim american .

dynamism. I think prime means a lot of things to a lot different people. I come from an immigrant family, so I have bothered. My mother came here right before I was born from india, with the idea that they are going to build a Better life in amErica than they could anywhere else. They came with little to no money and grew up in a harbor city in the los Angeles area. And originally my government took up versions, learn how to get, and then they went in the business together and build the business, and then eventually asked a bit of a property portfolio to able to provide me and my family and a great life. And to me, american dynamism is enabling anyone who wants to come to amErica to know, do something just like that, to solve problems in their communities and be rewarded equally for low problem.

Now here is my slaw. Mike is A U. S.

Navy veteran of eight years, and he is the founder of shift dot org and previous cofounder of trip swap, which is now I don t me. Here's mistake on american dynastic. I think .

there's so much power and narratives. It's one of these new narratives that really taken the nation by a storm. And I think that IT speaks directly to a whole new group of founders and folks that want to build for america, want to sentient, protect western values, want to see liberal democracies thrive, and really speaks, recall to them and says, hey, we need you.

We need people that have subject matter expertise and health care and education and defense. And so I think that's been this powerful driver for there are new group of founders and maybe they didn't think of themselves as some kind of build the next grade technology start up. But also and I think this is probably one of the most amazing trends to witness in real time as you've got all these really accomplished named brand second and third time bounders. And there is a chance to be really mission driven and get on something that matters and feel like you're part of something that's bigger themself.

But it's not just founders embracing american dynastic. Here is dug back is the director of the defense innovation unit within the department of defense. And here's his stake on american dynamic.

What I think about most is us taking the incredible lessons of what built the silicon valley that I kind of grow up in professionally. This collaboration between the public sector, the private sector, both the founders and the founders, which was always part of the icon valley and academy at the very cutting edge of the, brought those things together against the true in period of national security. First, during the role war two, and then during the cold war, that coming together of americans from all those different disciplines is what built silicon valley in the first place and create this unbelievable asset that leaves the technology for the whole world. And american dynamic now is about harney, that same, that same energy, bringing IT together now against the incredible chAllenges that we continue to face, the chAllenges to the international system upon which we all rely, and coming together across, again, the public sector, private sector and academia with our allies and partners in order to support and defend that international system with the next iteration of american dynamism at the speed and scale that's required to meet those future chAllenges and to do IT our way, that american way.

not the way of our adversary.

Look, there's clearly a lot of excitement around american dynastic, but what are the most inspiring examples from these builders who were closest to the meddle in cinema from APEC space?

They're too many to count. But what I would say is specifically within the space industry, the best exact is seeing this new organization that only emerged several years ago called the space development agency, is part of the united states space force.

They have spent over ten billion dollars in the last couple years on spacecraft acquisitions, building a new proliferating war fighter sweet of satellite in space that gives the word fighter or communication capabilities, observation capabilities, and so much more, seeing the united states push forward technology, push around standard acquisition processes, to be able to launch dozens and eventually hundreds, and eventually thousands of these satellite in the orbit to build the us. Is own conStellation is incredible. And I love seeing all that omentum. I love seeing both the established defense industrial base providing the spacecraft, but also neural companies playing in their fault tag.

Burner now works on nuclear energy, but that wasn't always the case.

I spent two thousand years at basics, so I always go back home. I think a great example is the starling satellites, over five thousand deployed the last five years. I think communications and energy are the two things that human will keep inventing over over again that really leads to new errors of technology development.

And while mitch now works on electric boats, the majority of his founding team also comes from space acx.

I think the shining example of this is space x and what they have been able to accomplish in terms of reducing the cost of getting one pound of material into space by using reusable rockets, and doing that by rethinking the chAllenge of getting to space from first principles. And we try to do the same thing at art. A lot of our team comes from space sex. And we are definitely focused on how do we bring the marine industry, which is decades kind of behind in terms of technology, into the moderna using batteries and electric power training and all of the modern advances in automotive industry.

But SpaceX was not the only company setting the example. My law of shift tot org on paleness role in our defense ecosystem.

the defense innovation ecosystem in getting the actual best technology to the warfighter, hasn't really been ready for prime to scale up until right now, one of the leading drivers in sort of paving the way for hundreds of new companies. And you can look at many these companies today and traced some of the origins back to paltered. They did something that cut against the grain that wasn't investible by a bunch of pcs back in two thousand. Three and many the founders have the next wave of great fenced technology. Companies have roots and origin stories and pentium.

You certainly see that with some of the peak are building, Andrew, right now and that sort of the next wave, I think you see this opportunity starting to open up where and I think one of the reasons why defense feels like an investible category, partially certain driven by current events, this actually looks like a whole new sector that has traditionally been dominated by slow moving in combat with incentives to essentially drive up the cost with really low margin services. Now this is opportunity to essentially translate all these areas of super low margin services into high margin software. Delivered a lower cost to the tax pair .

now in the last few decades, VISA how exponentials like mars law, decreasing launch costs and unlock and biological sequencing have resulted in a flu of technologies. But today we're also seeing many other expansion al technologies inflected. So let's see where technologies, this group things, will play the biggest role defining the next decade of dynastic to sit the stage. We've got none. Modern donny nund, by the way, I was the first average chief technology officer at the cii, and here's what technologies he's paying .

attention to. Having had a twenty five year career in emerging tech and in startups, the idea of bringing that energy and focus from startups to government, military and intelligence work is the new concept of american dynamism. We track eleven to fifteen different emerging tech areas of the agency.

And what's exciting about IT is every single one of those areas is absolutely red hot with new innovation, new startups and companies. And I feel it's going to have a huge impact on what we do, a national security. And just by definition and emerging tech means, they're going to be surprises and advances that come out of nowhere.

They're going to surprise us. I think each of them is at a different level of maturity. And so things like AI or biotech, I think, are ones that are probably going to surprises the most in the short term.

But there's exciting something happening everywhere. Fusion, space nuclear. I think all eleven or fifteen of these areas, I think we're doing incredible work in all of them. Look forward, all the exciting .

things coming out of them now to inc.

IT really comes down to the combination of different technologies. It's not just about how do we onshore more manufacturing to the us. It's not just about how are we using design for manufacturing principles to build these case copt at scale. And it's not just about the software that we're doing to ensure that all the different companies are interrupted. IT really is the combination of all three others and bring those together is what lets companies like apex actually Operate the present scale that we're trying to achieve.

We're also seeing really important inflections in energy. And likely dr. 点 r。 Katherine hf. Spent time with us breaking down what share seeing there .

the assistance secretary for nuclear energy and the united states department of energy, which means I oversee our nations research and development programs around civil nuclear power. I think we're seeing a lot of companies take part business models and project strategies and remove them in a more annual modern way to build. Uh, no technology like nuclear power in cooler and quicker.

I think meeting the moment is gonna take some real creativity. And we're seeing that in advancing actors that involve all kinds of saw, medal, gashes, cool and and fuels that are dissolved in those liquids or made of tiny, tiny try structural zed tropic coated particles. Those innovations are not really changed the Operations and make their power going forward.

Doctor half was not the only one with energy top mind batteries.

And generally speaking, electric power trains.

Understanding how you like to create Operates.

ensuring we're not reliant on other countries for energy.

Unsurprisingly, another big topic was artificial intelligence. Here's Christine, my slaw and our whole to do A I S.

but A I is capable, I really think that really, really prepared for IT. There's a lot of fear around A I, but I think that it's pretty Normal for folks to be afraid of emerging technologies. But you know, on the other side of that fear, there's personally a lot of excitement. What we're going to be able to do with computers just gonna really revolutionize the way we all live in.

The way I think of that is just a really important that we're constantly educating our leaders, educating people who are living in our different districts on the power of technology, the power ai, and helping folks see the positive sides of IT, helping qual a lot of the fear that exists there. The clearest U. I C is a combination of video and A I. And using video and AI to understand what's going on in our classrooms, understand what sort of early inventions children need, understand what sort of coaching providers could benefit from, and using technology to capture that information and then also provide those suggestions later on.

Yeah, I think guess a lot of people to talk about A I I certainly feel strongly about that as well, particularly on a data three or dealing with like our own educational chAllenges home and very much feeling like that. There's parts of not just in my family, but bad spots of amErica where little kids are going to left bind. And so to think about the world where every kid can have their own private tuder who's endlessly ly patient and endlessly kind and wants to help them get up to speed, that's one of those things that you feel like great to cost of a breakthrough, a real meaningful like step function, like step forward.

I think we're also on an interesting time from a technology standpoint where a lot of the solutions to solve for defense or public safety or energy, anything is important to american household are starting to come from share threats.

Will that A I or below cost of computer, the ability for company is similar to interview more quickly and iterate more quickly, I can see is one thing where I feel like, oh, the next ten years, it's just going to be about defects. I think that we're in a position where are the underlying capabilities of being able to focus on things that important to america. We're going to low for many focuses to be able .

to go equally as for many other technologies that I say beyond A I is mapping back to what's happening in the defense industry right now is you have a environment is dominated by five really bigger combat. The essentially you know eighty cents on every dollar the acquisition budget is going to go to one of these five crimes.

And there is this entire set of capabilities that a company like an android or ear or Shelly I like they're onna, need to be able to deliver these capabilities to really reach the breath scale that is required to be a prime contractor for the S S. Department defense. So that creates this also opportunity where there's actually not one hundred, but maybe a thousand companies to be started in these nnc h technical focus areas that, you know, maybe they aren't venture scale or venture sized tam, at least today to the naked eyes, we look at them right now.

But there are hundreds of over a thousand of these really small areas of capability, the ability to sense underneath the ground, the ability to provide power to obscure basis over the world, to be to communicate underwater. And there's a lot of these either technologies and capabilities that have been delivered essentially just a much, much higher cost and takes actually solve a real problem for a military and user that served in the navy for a little while. I was in like a fairly technical career, and I think that one thing that changed from the military and user perspectives, st, I hated the software that we use of that consumer grade IT took on average. We literally time this at our unit forty minutes to start a computer and send one email. And so that just as an example of i'm pretty excited for like quantum to be here and sort of the next wave of ai really excited to see some of these really basic kind of stupid problems to be solved by some of the technologies that are coming into the space.

What's a great reminder, even though artificial intelligence is top of mind, there are still so many simple problems across the country just waiting to be solved. And that wasn't IT. Throughout our conversations on the ground in dc, we heard about so many other important opportunities, including the intersection of software and hardware advance .

three .

actors to be at the edge.

automated factories.

And of course, our supply here as mutually.

we are dependent on the supply chain that we have for the boats that we were producing. I get very excited about the classic companies coming up that help us make our manufacturing more efficient, help reduce the cost of the batteries that were putting into our boats, help advance the frontier in terms of what electric motors are capable of.

I get very excited about all of these opportunities upstream of where we're at right now, where you can improve our supply chain, you can improve our costs, you can make what we're doing increasingly possible and compelling from the customer. Italians, there are tremendous number of opportunities. Just wait for the right father.

And despite so much opportunity, unfortunately, none of this is a given. American dynamism is far from guaranteed. Here are some of the chAllenges that this critical group sees along the road ahead. Back to magine E. N.

There are no shortcuts in the type of work that we're doing. You can't just from a very first design, build something that is performing an electric and low cost and compete. There are no shortcuts to do that on the very first trip.

The reality is you need to assemble an incredible team. You need to motivate that team with ecpa ing mission. And then you need to actually put in the work over the next years to go develop the core technology that enables what IT is you're trying to go to.

IT took SpaceX many years to accomplish what they were doing. IT has taken us several years to get to the you know, the product that we have in the market today. And I expect for the whole class of american dynamism companies, there are no shortcuts. This is hard work. IT takes sweat equity in order to be able to accomplish what we want to accomplish and is still motivating .

than the last space is really hard, right? When you put an asset up into spaces, usually a one way trip, you're not able to go there, fix IT to really has to be right the first time. And coupling that perfection with the idea we want to move faster, be more agile and take risk is something that is always very, very difficult. So specifically with american datum m in the space industry seeing that risk portion, that risk tolerance shift, not necessarily away from traditional risk of central space, into this new space world, that the combination of the two and the meeting in the minds can be .

really critical. But also why IT Smith doctor have refuse to do. And my slaw reminds us of how important is to keep an eye on the right time horizon.

Some of the biggest chAllenges to the future of american data ism is our own creative, but what we believe is possible and allowing things that are more short term or more divisive to block s from doing things that are hard and ambitious and important is the biggest internal chAllenge we need to overcome.

I think, especially in the context, nuclear power access to patient capital as we look towards big campo projects that last for a hundred years, like nuclear power plants, that access to patient capital is critical to give a runway to those really important investment. Tes, I going to change the future range.

Well, I think in the next decade, of course, capital is a chAllenge right now, IT feels like trending in the right direction to be able to focus on innovating within an amErica politics. This might be Better of the spicy take, but that's a chAllenge. The winds of where the american consumer wants to focus their money or where the enterprise wanted to focus their money, attempts to change potentially outcomes.

Reason who wins the presidential action, or what the sentiment is going into the mid term tends to affect that household feeling of not just how you feel insight about being patriotic intrinsically, but how willing you are to go around your neighborhood and be proud to be american that day. And I think that we're in a position where that can be influx potentially depending on some of these outcomes in when there is a situation where is in flex. I think that kind of puts the breaks know it's butterfly effect that affect american dynamism investing, where if people aren't proud to solve problems through the country and beer, we got there both about solving these problems and go recruit for those problems to get money for those problems that I think that can make a pretty impact. And I can't say that i've ever felt that there's stability there.

Another chAllenge, are you with I but certainly nuclear and other technologies as well as uninformed regulation or premature regulation, where you have to wonder that where are some of our policymakers getting their advice from? How do they understand what good looks like? Technology is so much more fluid today.

So IT is really hard to stay in simple terms. It's really hard for folks who aren't living and brilliant, obsessed by IT. Just stop fast. Things are moving. There are things are possible today that weren't even possible six months ago. And so how do you stay current? That's a big Johnson, and we're going to try to figure out we have to fight out or come up.

Now that brings us right to our calls to action. Every single one of these founders is busy at work on their mission, but there are also endless other missions just waiting to be pursued. So here is their culture action for fellow americans. First up, Chris bit.

how do we bring all american citizens along for the ride? With the advent of A I, with more adoption of technology, think there is a good amount of fear around that. The first to have less access to this technology are not involved in the creation of the technology. Our shareholders in the creation of the technology. And I think it's gonna really important for us to really be thoughtful around how do we continued to support amErica and especially those need from a medical standpoint or from a like a social standpoint or from an economic standpoint and continue to think about solutions that really equipped everyone.

Here's why is smith.

Right now across the united states, there are over one million openings in builder economy jobs. This, in construction of the twelve percent of G, D, P, is driven by, in fact, ing really the industrial backbone of our nation. The same time, there's one of fifteen million people who language and often low income, low technical unscored.

And so that matching problem is one the technology can play with the role and helping solve. In order to feel those rules, we need to create opportunities for people to be mobile and in ways for existing workers to be more productive. It's very important that we invest in opportunities for people to learn, to grow, to evolve, not just as children, but as adults, because that's a create DNA ism in an economy and the labor market to tackle the big .

chAllenges of the future.

X la, if you have experience in education, if you have experiences and defense, if you have experience and health care, there's never been a Better time to start a company that attacks those problems directly. Like that subject matter expertise.

It's aren't is not something that you can read in a book or listen to a podcast or come to a couple of events that's yours in finding the right folks to partner up on and make your vision and that conversely, for the folks who maybe there are successful second and third time founder and education, their health care defense, it's really important to you and you're going to take your a plus technology game and go try to transform and industry that mean a huge deal to america. Begin is not something you can listen to a podcast about military that's talking about their jobs. You have to go in there and actually be with them and embed with them. The military, you're specifically and the technology community that have so much to offer to each other MIT.

There's a lot of attention going to. The software are industry and the software is of services companies out there. They get a lot adventure of funding.

But I think increasingly, you're same as trend back to the physical world that software is only as good as the chips that they're running on or the software enables les self driving capabilities in a car. The software enables you to go drive down your cost of manufacturing. And I get really excited, as somebody that spent a lot of my career as a software engineer on this interplay between software and harvard.

And I really throw out a call to action here for people in the software world to consider a role that ties them to the physical. It's extremely motivating. You are exposed to a diverse group of engineers that span not just software, but also partner and manufacturing. And it's a mission that you can really get behind that, find that cause that you really care about and .

finally refuse to do. I've been working .

in public seventy for over ten years, both as a police software and firefighter or parameter, and also working on companies in the space. And what I would hope for is that we can all figure out what IT is that we share in common in terms of what we want from public safety, and that we can follow love with the problem, which is we just want to keep our community safe, and that we can decide to disagree on a solution.

But we're OK with investing time and effort and money into finding solutions. I could potentially keep our community safer with the idea that that's always gonna a Better outcome. But if we didn't do that, there are plenty of problems in america, just like there are other countries.

And I think that one of things amaze america, unique, is that people come from other countries to come to amErica to solve some of those problems, because the solution for those problems will benefit that individual or those teams of families more than if they were to solve them elsewhere. We built reverses to like that. And of course, there are things that we can solve domestically for people who are born the other states that does not have to be just immigrant families.

And I would urge everyone here to be proud of the fact that you can be an entrepreneur here. You can work on solving these problems. And when you have that rare Operator to be able to solve a problem that directly impacts your community in a positive way, impacts the people that you work with, the people that live with in a positive way, you are going to find that the reward can be often greater than just the resources you get from solving the problem. You will be proud to go to work every day. It'll be easier to recruit people to join you in your admission, and you'll feel out filled at the end of the day.

right? That is over now. I hope you're leaving this as the gist, thinking about all the possibilities of what we can build together in america. And like I said, we will be back very soon with some incredible episodes directly from our asic. Cy american dynamism summit featured policymakers from the CIA D, O, D and department of energy, in addition to several founders, paving the way every single day. Well, see you then.