The Merge

The Pentagon wants thousands of autonomous systems. The question is who builds them and how fast.
Joey Arora sits down with Paul Lwin, Co-Founder and CEO of Havoc, to talk about collaborative autonomy and why the path to mass runs through software, not shipyards.
Havoc builds autonomy software that turns commercial platforms into autonomous systems across sea, air, and land. Founded in January 2024, the company has integrated on more than 200 vessels without owning a single shipyard.
Paul's take is direct. Don't reinvent the boat. Partner with the people who already build thousands of them.
Topics include:
• Collaborative autonomy and human-on-the-loop control
• Software-defined hardware and the 90/10 split
• The CSBC Taiwan partnership and in-country production
• Operating without persistent comms
• Two acquisitions before the company's third birthday
• The Rhode Island maritime innovation cluster
• Moving from prototype to production contracts
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• Support us on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/the_merge
• Havoc homepage https://www.havocai.com/
• Paul LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-lwin/
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It started with an email to 300 fighter pilots.
 
Joey Arora turns the tables on Mike "Pako" Benitez to get the full origin story of The Merge.
 
Mike spent 25 years on active duty between the Marine Corps and Air Force, flew the F-15E Strike Eagle, and graduated from the Air Force Weapons School. During COVID in 2020, he saw the defense world had nothing like the newsletters the startup world lived on. So he built one.
 
Six years later, The Merge runs three days a week, with a premium tier and a podcast.
 
Topics include:
• Writing op-eds on active duty
• Marine Corps enlisted to Air Force weapons systems officer
• The first newsletter in November 2020
• How Save Rounds and On the Radar were born
• The three audiences Mike writes for
• Merge Premium and the Thursday deep dive
• From newsletter survey to podcast
 
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Links
Sign up for the newsletter! https://www.themerge.co/
Support us on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/the_merge
Mike LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-benitez/
Joey LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/joeyarora/
 
 
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Website https://www.themerge.co/
 
Chapters
00:39 intro
01:37 getting into writing
02:45 a newsletter for defense
03:26 the first email
04:12 fun as the driver
04:48 how "on the radar" started
05:37 Mike's military career
06:21 Marine Corps to Strike Eagle
07:26 why it's called The Merge
08:35 editorial philosophy
09:33 the birth of Save Rounds
10:04 the three audiences
12:23 Merge Premium
14:51 the sixth anniversary
15:27 why the podcast exists
16:45 what's next
17:32 outro
 
#defensetech #podcast #military #newsletter #originstory #airforce #marinecorps #nationalsecurity #defenseindustry #f15e #strikeeagle #veteranfounders #militarytechnology

Buying a fighter jet is the cheap part.
Mike sits down with Jim Becker, President and CEO of Perfect Point EDM, to talk about the biggest line in any defense program: keeping the fleet flying.
Perfect Point builds the E-Drill, which uses electro discharge machining (EDM) to pull aircraft fasteners. Founded in 2005, it turned a lab curiosity into a fielded tool that removes a rivet in about 30 seconds instead of 10 minutes, with no debris and almost no rework.
Jim's take is blunt. The aircraft modernized, the maintenance tooling did not, and the industry keeps papering over it by leaning on a shrinking pool of skilled mechanics.
Topics include:
Operations and maintenance as the biggest cost in a program

Electro discharge machining applied to fastener removal

Cutting a 10 minute rivet job down to 30 seconds

Eliminating foreign object debris and rework on titanium airframes

Why maintenance tooling never modernized

Winning over risk-averse engineers with the material science case

The shrinking pool of skilled aircraft mechanics

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Links
Sign up for the newsletter! https://www.themerge.co/

Support us on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/the_merge

Perfect Point EDM homepage https://www.ppedm.com/

Perfect Point EDM LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/perfect-point-edm/

Jim LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jim-becker-48449790/

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Website https://www.themerge.co/

Chapters
00:00
00:28 intro
02:06 the MRO space
02:53 the founding story
04:38 from the Marine Corps to Boeing
06:10 framing the rivet problem
07:01 tooling stuck in the 60s
07:43 titanium and steel fasteners
08:54 no FOD, no mess
09:46 the three step process
10:27 four to five times faster
10:49 killing the rework
11:52 problems everybody just accepts
13:49 the miracle-worker culture
14:55 the aging workforce
16:49 winning over the engineers
17:32 the launch that fell flat
20:21 SBIRs and the valley of death
21:39 fall in love with the problem
22:09 conventional wisdom that's wrong
24:47 making do with less
26:03 go talk to the mechanics
28:29 the stance he'll defend
30:12 where to learn more
31:03 outro

Test is where new military hardware goes to wait.
Mike sits down with Jenn Wilson, Head of Federal at Nominal, to talk about test and evaluation, the least glamorous gate between a program and the warfighter.
Nominal builds test data infrastructure for hardware. Founded in 2022 by Anduril, Palantir, and Lockheed Martin alumni, it reached a $1 billion valuation in March.
Jenn’s take is that acceleration comes from optimizing what you test for. Cutting test points is the wrong lever.
Topics include:
Test and evaluation as a mission enabler

High rate, multimodal test data

Real-time telemetry and closing the test loop

DARPA CIPHER Forge and digital twins

Closing the sim to real gap

The F-35 crowdsourced flight data program

Knowledge parity between primes and government testers

Links
Sign up for the newsletter! https://www.themerge.co/

Support us on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/the_merge

Nominal homepage https://nominal.io/

Nominal careers https://nominal.io/careers

Nominal LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/nominal-inc/

Jenn LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-t-wilson

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Website https://www.themerge.co/

Chapters: 
00:00
00:32 intro
01:47 why this, why now
02:32 test is not sexy
03:47 test as an afterthought
05:40 more data, less insight
07:18 where the name comes from
07:54 the founding story
10:43 Mike is a user
11:16 streaming telemetry in real time
13:14 design of experiments
15:17 the Fid Labs acquisition
16:31 DARPA CIPHER Forge
19:35 closing the sim to real gap
20:21 the commercial side
23:31 lessons from Ukraine
25:00 F-35 crowdsourced flight data
27:15 fleet bugs found in days
29:07 combined test force
31:50 experimental operations unit
32:34 speeding up test
33:09 the pilot taking fire
34:21 knowledge parity with the primes
35:18 a billion dollar valuation
36:03 hiring at Nominal
#defensetech #podcast #military #testandevaluation #flighttest #digitaltwins #darpa #f35 #autonomy #nationalsecurity #airforce #dualuse #militarytechnology

How do systems operate when GPS disappears?
Mike sits down with Kara Kramer, Vice President ofRaptor Sales at Vantor (formerly Maxar Intelligence), to discuss one of the most important challenges facing modern autonomous systems: operating when GPS is jammed, spoofed, or completely unavailable.

We discuss vision-based navigation (VBN), 3D geospatialintelligence, and why resilient autonomy depends on more than just the drone itself. From electronic warfare to contested operations, this conversation examines how software and spatial intelligence are enabling unmanned operations, and Vantor’s unique approach.
This isn’t just about navigation—coordinate generation and targeting elements are equally important.
Topics include:
• Vision-based navigation
• 3D geospatial intelligence
• Targeting without GPS

BONUS: Kara also shares her professional journey and how she got into the defense industry!

Whether you're building autonomous systems, working indefense technology, or simply interested in where drone technology is headed, this episode provides an inside look at one of the fastest-moving areas in aerospace.
TOGETHER WITH VANTOR.

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• Vantor home page
• Vantor Raptor product page
• Raptor inquiries
• Vantor on LinkedIn   
• Kara Kramer on LinkedIn   
 
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00:00
00:01:11 intro
00:01:54 Vantor history
00:03:26 Raptor origins
00:03:59 Vantor backstory
00:05:39 The SpaceX of VBN
00:06:32 Raptor VBN
00:10:11 issues with GPS
00:12:44 pre-GPS terrain nav
00:13:46 the Hub
00:15:20 no hardware?
00:17:57 how it all works
00:20:47 geo-registered coordinates
00:26:27 Kara's journey in defense
00:28:24 Vantor in Drone Dominance
00:35:19 Vantor partnerships
00:39:02 contrarian takes
00:40:37 fast cheap good triangle
00:42:01 final thoughts
 
#defensetech #dronetechnology #autonomy #gps #jamming #electronicwarfare #uas #drones #militarytechnology #geospatial #navigation #navigation #pnt #isr #aerospace #defenseinnovation #nationalsecurity #intelligence #intel #military