Mike and Tim chat with Andrew “Scar” Van Timmeren from Blue Force Technologies to hear about their experience in the defense tech sector and how they are trying to punch above their weight class—by building an unmanned fighter jet drone. ---- Links * Sign up for our amazing newsletter https://www.themerge.co * Support us on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/the_merge * Blue Force Technologies https://blueforcetech.com/  * Scar’s LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewvt/ ---- Follow us on... * Instagram https://www.instagram.com/merge_newsletter * Facebook https://www.facebook.com/themergenews * Twitter https://twitter.com/MergeNewsletter * LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/themerge * Website https://www.themerge.co ---- Show Notes (01:05) intro (03:03) Scar intro (05:52) BFT (13:01) spicy take on digital engineering (15:28) BFT's SBIR experience (24:56) funding gaps (25:47) valley of death (34:47) end user vs. customer are not the same (36:18) Fury (37:35) practice squads (43:27) mission-specific vs multi-role engineering (46:30) autonomy and atrophy (48:28) speed of business vs govt (50:10) the ask – security and over-classification (52:03) Mike's spicy take (52:55) outro