February 13, 2025 • 47 mins
On this weeks SOFREP episode we have a whole lot of drones. Ryan Gury is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Performance Drone Works (PDW), a U.S.-based innovator in unmanned aerial systems. With over a decade of experience as an inventor, entrepreneur, and drone expert, Gury has been a driving force in the small drone industry. In 2015, he co-founded the Drone Racing League (DRL), establishing it as the world's leading professional drone racing property for elite pilots. As Chief Technology Officer at DRL, he spearheaded the design, engineering, and production of custom-built racing drones and developed groundbreaking radio technology to counteract jamming and interference. The technological innovations under Gury's leadership attracted significant interest from the Department of Defense and the broader defense community, leading to the establishment of PDW in 2018 to meet the specialized needs of military and government agencies. Gury holds ten patents for pioneering drone technologies and has been recognized with two Guinness World Records: fastest battery-operated remote-controlled quadcopter and longest endurance for electric-powered quadcopter.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Food for us.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough. You're
listening to Software Radio, Special Operations, Military Nails and straight
Talk with the guys in the community.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Another awesome episode of soft Rep Radio. That's right. Today,
I'm going to tell you about our merch store. That's right.
We have soft Rep dot Com Forwards Last Merch and
that's where you can get all the latest for twenty
twenty five branded items. The merch, you know, designing shirts
and coming up with ideas never gets old. It's super
fun and we love putting them out there for you.
(01:01):
If you have an idea that you'd like to see,
send it to us as soft Rep and we'll see
if we can incorporate it into the merch. Second, our
book Club, So the guys behind the scenes, the Special
Operation guys, they're out there picking these books curating our
book club. And that's soft rep dot Com Forward Slash
Book hyphen Club. If you already go there, thank you.
(01:22):
If you're new to the show, it's soft Rep dot
Com Forward Slash Book hyphen Club. Now, boil Boy, where
do I start? Okay? Do I start? Zalm miuram. Everything's
so fast right now? Okay, we're talking drones today and
you already know that because you saw the link when
you clicked on today's episode. So without further ado, I
(01:43):
would like to introduce the man who is CTO I
guess right for the Drone World League, also probably CEO
of PDW, which is he's going to explain. We're going
to expound on pdw's and how he's crossed over from
from just growing up eating at the breakfast table to
(02:03):
what he's doing today. So welcome to the show. Ryan Gurry, welcome.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Hey, thank you.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
What's up dude? What was your breakfast before school?
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Cream?
Speaker 3 (02:14):
A wheat cream a wheat Yeah, I had a hot
cocoa and toast. My mom always seemed to have that
the bus would come. I don't always have a hot
cocoa and some toasted dip.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
Yeah, yeah, you know, it's just how it is, just
how it is now now, uh you know you let's
talk about this being like, you know, really like a
military style podcast.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Soft rep dot com stands it stands for Special Operation
Forces report, right, So if you're on the ground and
they go to like infantry guys like hey, give us
a situational report a sit REP. Well to soft guys,
they go give us a soft soft rep. And so
that's where the name came from. You're working with this
like these guys in your company as I was reading
about it, who come from that background? What is it
(03:00):
that drives you to hiring military personnel first? For PDW?
Can I ask you that? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (03:07):
So I think essentially, you know, we're developing products for
soft forces, right, So I got a little feedback in
my headphones. I think that's gonna be fine. So with
any product, you know, generally you are super close to
the end user, right. So I spent my life developing
(03:29):
you know, software and hardware for generally different audiences, and
that's better at you know, it's a long story, but
I was in the Drune Racing League and it was
a TV show for families and kids, and we were
doing stuff that wasn't done before to allow you to
have you know, a drone race on live television in
(03:51):
ESPN and NBC. And we ended up getting the opportunity
to train some special forces on the side, and you know,
started slowly developing products for the military. You know, it's
important to be as close as you can with the users.
So throughout that process, we've been hiring you know, special
forces to be an executive physicians in our company. So
(04:14):
our CTO is, you know, from Development Group. My chief
revenue officer, same thing. Our head of Advanced Missions is
from Delta Group. And as we grow and develop products,
you know, what better way to get close to the
earth is by hiring experts, right, So that's our secret sauce.
(04:34):
We'll continue to do that into the future. I think
we're mostly veterans, more than fifty percent in our company,
and you know that's the best way to get ahead
and to understand the futures that are important by being
as close to your end user.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
So I love that, and I just want to say that,
you know, we really focus a lot on how the
transition happens from military to civilian life, but you're coming
from the other opposite direction of kind of bringing them
into your organization.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Correct, Yeah, totally. And I'm a civilian, right, so as
true as they come. And you know, I've seen band
of brothers. I understand, you know, you know, we're pretty
patriotic family growing up. But I spent thirty years in
front of a computer chair and I've had none of
the sacrifices that these guys have had are gone through. Right,
So it's the exact opposite coming into civilian and developing
(05:30):
you know, basically combat systems.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Right.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
It's been a lot of learning about the culture, about
you know, how things are done, tactics. It's it's fun
to nerd out on as a civilian and I get
to work with like really really cool people. You know.
It's also like a cheat, like these people are highly
(05:57):
capable and you know, uh, very able to operate in
a business, so you know, special forces almost like stealing
people from Audi week.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
It's pretty sweet, right, And and an Olympic athlete body too,
like you know, they're like, I'm super smart and a fit.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Yeah, getting in a debate, which we do all the
time is like super intimidating with these with these folks.
But you know, it's been an awesome experience, very humble
to be where I am and to be working with
people like this, and you know, internally, you know, we're
building stuff to you know, to help them and tools
and assets to make their jobs easier. Right, So it's
(06:42):
it's an extraordinary position to be in and I have
just the best job in the world.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Really do it sounds like it now now if if
you were to you know, go back and just you know,
let's let's let's just go back a little bit, all right.
I just kind of jumped the gun. I wanted to
talk about how you like a speed record, you know,
and you have this this world Guinness record from twenty seventeen,
and I wanted to talk about like all the patents
(07:07):
that you have put out there towards this this profession
and this lifestyle that you're in. You know, with all
of these different types of quad copters and like multiple
antennas on top of a device that can you know,
pull in mobile signal, you have, you have these patents,
so you're you're you're behind the chair matters because you're
(07:28):
gonna help these guys move forward, you see.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Yeah, I think like essentially, like you know, I got
into drones because I was a gearhead, right, Like I
love you know, cars and motorcycles, and I follow racing sports.
And you know what led me into drones was just
(07:53):
the power of what they can do, right and as
it translates into Ukraine today, that same power as being
you to eliminate enemy forces. Right. So when I first
saw drones, I was like, oh, shit, there's this three
D high performance robotic doesn't have an airfoil, you know,
just rips around the air and uses you know, basically
(08:14):
iPhone sensors and to get to get it around right,
and radios. So I was initially attracted just because I
knew the performance angle was there, and all the things
that we did in Drone Racing League were built around
extending that performance where that be you know, radio systems
or batteries or motors or props and things like that.
Like it's the same stuff in cars, right, Like you
(08:35):
figure out you know, either Tesla's got different dynamics than
you know, an ice engine, right, internal combustion engine, right,
but it's the same tweaking that goes into that, you know,
to extend you know, how fast it can go and
how it can be corners. Right. So when I got
into drones, it was a clean slate. Nothing was being done.
(08:56):
There was a lot of amateurs like myself in the space,
and you know, speed records and endurance records and you
know what you could do with batteries and radios. All
that was left, you know, was just you know, left
out for people like myself to go out and conquer right.
So when we got in a drone racing league, you know,
the idea was to put on a fantasy sport, right
that mimiced the stuff that we all saw in the eighties, right,
(09:19):
so transformers or you know, tron and all that cool stuff. Right.
We were essentially telling the audience you're going to see
that when you tune in the ESPN. So that meant
we had to have radios that would push drones many
miles you know, through stadiums, or we had to have
you know, radio systems that would mitigate interference or jamming.
We'd have drones that could never fall from the sky
(09:39):
that you had to rebuild really quickly.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
And you know, we.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Would destroy five hundred plus of those of every event.
We just have a huge pile of dead drones. And
you know, we started pushing the limits of what you
could do. You know, fast forward a few years. I
end up in a weird field in North New York,
you know, with Dylan Ham who was standing up you know,
(10:04):
the drone department at Development Group and going into combat
with or you know, going in emissions with you know,
small organic assets. And we quickly saw that he was
doing the same thing that we were doing pushing the
limits of drones batteries, you know, how you can carry
way for a long period of time. And that's kind
(10:25):
of when this thesis started that you know, maybe there
was a bigger you know mission out there for us
to accomplish.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Yeah, I know, that's awesome. And somebody who's an average
user of a LiPo battery, you know, a lithium poly
or a lipoly battery or even lithium ion batteries, you know,
it's like, where do you get such robust battery systems
that don't get too cold, you know, from being an
out Like just because even on your like you know,
(10:53):
held action cameras, I go ride six times on the
slopes and my battery is apped, right, so let alone.
You know, you're let's say you're flying at ten thousand
feet right and you're doing a drop like you know
for a firefighter. Okay, you gotta drop a bunch of equipment.
Those those are all this is all battery operated, right.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Yeah, But it's like a battery is one of the
ingredients your stater, uh, your your motor, your prop, the weight,
your configuration of your drone. Like there's all these like
little tiny ingredients that go into stuff, you know, but
like now you know, we're developing you know, real deal
combat systems so that it's got to perform in the cold,
at high altitudes, it has to perform you know, anywhere
(11:33):
in the world in the desert, and you know those
requirements come from you know, veterans in the space and
all the stuff we learned at d r L is
super applicable, you know to developing small drones that are
high performance, you know, and drones combat systems and stuff
like that.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
That's that's gnarly. See. The reason why I have a battery,
uh you know usage is we run airsoft war games here, yeah,
Salt Lake, and so we're constantly putting in all these
different types of libo batteries and whatnot and see them
just kind of sometimes combust on their own if if
they drop or you know, they can just like you know,
hit the hit the dirt, and and it's just like,
where's this perfect battery. But if you're right, it does
(12:14):
take like a formula of what you're talking about to
make a function.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
There is no perfect batteries. And actually one of the
airsoft battery makers, I forget the name of his, run
by a guy named Trent. He was doing some of
the most you know, innovative work in batteries and battery
cells and finding the best ones to fit the demand.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Right.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
It's it's just some cells are made for high efficiency,
some cells are made for high discharge. And early in
the days, Airsoft was one of the sectors in you know,
the electric you know, power system game that was pushed
in the limits, right, Drones are another one. We look
for high discharge, we look for you know, not generally
(12:55):
cycle count, but you know, stuff that can perform. And
there's different cells that do different things. And you know,
some some line up flashlights, Airsoft and drones, right or
Tesla batteries or you know, totally different right right, right.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
No, and that just it's just it's just I just
I don't know why I'm so upsessed with batteries with
drones right now. But I got guys that come in
They're like, I have a charger at home, I fly drones.
And I'm like, oh yeah, this is almost a you know,
symbiotic relationship here with a lot of that stuff. And
so you know, we also have guys that want to
bring drones out into the war game, right, And so
let's talk about that and we're like, well, how do
we take it down? Can we shoot it? And they're
(13:35):
like no, well we can't pull recon with it then,
but you can take photos and you can videotape us.
But if you're gonna bring it out to try to
launch it and like get you know, the advantage on us,
how do we counter that? Right? So let's bring that
to the situation today. How do we counter that? Like, say,
I'm walking down the street here in Sandy, Utah, address
one two three America Lane, and I just have a
(13:57):
drone coming at me? How do I counter that? Uh?
What's your thoughts on something like that going into that world?
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Yeah, the counter drone industry is massive and it's a
it's a very dynamic and changing place. Right at the
front lines today, they're just using optical fiber right. There
is no stemming, there's no stopping it. And I think
that's what's going to happen. You know, we talk about
doctrine and the evolution of what's happening, but you know,
we look at small drones as one of those important
(14:23):
pillars of doctrine as things move forward in the same
way that you know, uh, gunpowder, aircraft characters, mvgs. It's
just a game changing application. And what you really have
is a three D combat system, right, So like forever
small arms and artillery, you have these trajectories you're javelin.
(14:46):
You know, you still have to have line of sight,
but you know, small drones you can hide and hit things,
you know, many miles away and have time on target
to really understand what you're looking at and choose, you know,
when to engage. It's a you know, in twenty four
months we went from the Ukrainian first strike of a
small drone now to the most used combat system at
(15:07):
the edge of the front line. And you know, there's
a lot changing very quickly. Our business has grown substantially,
and you know, we believe that the future of small
drones is really important that America elite, and you know
that's our mission.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Yeah, I could agree with having the grip on that situation,
you know, especially we got to counter it, right. We
have to be on the forefront and have the insight
and the dev guys and the Delta d boy guys
and all those saying this is what we need on
the front lines right now, you know, in back rooms,
getting that stuff built. You know. I remember watching a
(15:47):
YouTube clip where it just showed like somebody hand taped
like a pistol to their drone. Yeah, you know, and
at that time, I think it just kind of made
everybody realize like as he shot at the drone, flew back,
you know, but he recorrected it.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Yeah, I mean we're at the very beginnings of this, right,
And yes, I think essentially drones to two things. One,
it offers scale, right, so they're very inexpensive. We look
at them as ammunition and you know, in the same
way as small arms. You can give everybody one of them.
And I think what that does is it supplements the
need for strategic assets, and it supplements supplements the need
(16:27):
for air sport. Right where you at the front a
single unit and call in, you know, your own strike.
You can call in your own ISR, and you can
scale that to anybody who wants one, right, because they're
just so inexpensive, right, So it's it's it's both the
scale but also the capabilities of these things happening at once,
(16:49):
and you know, a lot's can of change because of it.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
That'd be so cool for it was integrated in the
helmet Okay, let's just say that its let's say yeah,
it lands into the helmet, okay, and it's it's I
can still protect you. So it's in you. And then
you're like okay, all right, and then you're like it's
like off you. Off it goes and does this thing
and then it just comes back to you and just
lands right back into you and your helmet has the situation.
(17:13):
I'm just making this up right now. Hey yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Mean it's a mix between like what we thought was coming,
but also like the tried and true, like you know,
the fiber optics has kind of been kind of funny
because that's now probably going to be a standard, but
like seven miles of fiber optics to make sure that
you can't get jammed and no one can stop that.
I think things are going to continue to evolve into
(17:36):
two directions. One, you know, future stuff that we also
come in, but also like the tried and true bulletproof,
you know, combat systems that are made not to fail,
and the lowest common deniymen denominator is the things that
will work, right bro.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
It's like it's like in Call of Duty, Black Ops
two or Black Ops thirty, World at War where you
go into the conference building and you have to listen
to the conference as a wasp. Okay, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Yeah, we're still a little bit of waste for that.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Just track me on this, right. And then the little
wasps just flying around The guys in the game were
swatting at it, like this bug won't leave me alone
around me You're like flying in their face and you know,
listening to the conversations and a little stinger.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Yeah maybe maybe you know, but I don't know what
you can do with that now. But like just the
energy density to transmit radios, right, Like you can't do
that with a wasp, right, So like it depends. Yeah,
you'll see, we'll see where things go. Like the Black
Hornet by prox Nova. Prox Nova, that's pretty sweet. They're
doing a good job with that nano sized rig. But yeah,
I mean I think things are going to evolve into
(18:38):
you know, practicality along with you know, future give abilities
at the same time.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Like the tactical to practical like the Capri Sun or
Tang you know, made for space but in our lunch box, right,
you know what I'm saying. It's like, okay, cool, thanks mom,
Mgain for the tang and the hot cocoa the.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Same way like Aka's bench sheet metal or AR is
like super easy to take down and build up the
same attributes you have to employ into you know, modern robotics, right,
So you have to be really practical where you can
be and then push on the limits, you know, where
you're able to.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
A super functional third grade learning level device.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Yes, yes, essentially right.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Yes, that everybody can pretty much operate. Yes, because I'm
going to pretty much assume everybody has a third grade
reading level across the board wherever I go. Okay, we'll
go on. You got to make it simple, right and
really just likes that, right, buy it now, push the button,
send it to my house, three clicks, get it done. Yes,
so it should be just so you know, like I said,
(19:39):
just lands in your head helmet.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
That's still a little expansive, right, but yes, maybe one day.
I mean, like I think a lot of that is
like we battle a lot of hype and hyperbole what
is possible, right, and have to counter that with practicality.
So you know, whether it's AI or autonomy that you know,
people will talk about a conferences and how things are
(20:03):
actually implemented at scale and how you can actually get
things done. It's always a balancing act, right, so we
have to be really careful that the systems that we
give to war fighters are systems that they can use
and they can rely on.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Right, Right, I've seen terminators, dude, I know, I've seen
you know, like these films with robots, you know, Buck
Rogers and you know, going all the way back like
till today. You know, it's just you know, I mean
you've seen these.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Two, right, yeah, of course.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
See so you know that John Connor is going to
come back soon, Okay, I mean I'm gonna I'm.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Pretty much an optimist. I believe in utopia and not dystopia.
I think that.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
I love that. It's just important that you know, our
guys have the best gear and they can go and
do what they do and that's our job, right and
we leave the rest up to them in the State Department.
And I think I have a lot of faith in that. Right.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
That's good. That's good. Yeah. So do you guys do
anything with you know, the Drone League still? Are you
still like full on like or is this PDW your new.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
He's been on its own for about seven years. We
did the Drone League for about three years, and then
we took the entire engineering team and moved them to
Alabama and then, you know, there wasn't much left to
do by the time we got things uplemented at the
Drone League. Uh, it felt like all the adventure was
in this arena I see, and you know.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
It has been.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
It's crazy. The people who I get to work with
and the lives that they've you know, they've lived are
completely different than what I've lived. And you know, we're
we're basically getting to rewrite, you know, a military doctrine.
I'm not you know, if you look at all the
famous you know, war scenes in American movies that civilians
(21:50):
like me understand, from Captain Winners and Bandon Brothers with
the artillery guns. She was saving Private Ryan on the
beach with the cliff to zero thirty. All those things
change with small drones, right, and it's not the same tactics,
And we get to be a small part of it.
We get to help, you know, work with soft forces
to really understand what the future looks like. It's super
(22:12):
fun and exciting, and we get to work with the
coolest people in the world, right it's really cool.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
I mean, I've gone to large scale wargames and it
was at George Air Force Base in California with Lion Clause.
That's the name of the event, Operation Lion Clause, And
some of those out there listening may remember that we'd
go house to house. So it's an old military base,
it's decommissioned back in the day, and we just fight
urban warfare street to street, house to house over like
a square mile. It's pretty intense. But right next to
(22:41):
it at George Air Force Base is its runway and
what they use it for is logistics like ups or
FedEx or shipping, and also like drone training. So here
we are house to house wargames, kicking indoors, and then
all of a sudden, you just look up, you hear
this and it goes and it's just quiet, and it's
like a big, huge, like drone flying over us, and
(23:04):
we're like, oh, they're locking onto us while we're doing
war games, like they're training on us, knowing that this
is happening, and they're flying the drone all around us
and it's just you hear, it just buzzes and then
it just goes quiet. You just hear this like wind
howling over its wings as the magnet effect takes its toll.
You know what I'm saying. You're like, dude, that would
(23:25):
totally smoke me.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Well, yeah, but I think like drones have the ability
to operate in a tactical nature too. Like my chief
revenue officer, Chuck, he was a preacher for Development Group
and he's been you know, I think one day we'll
get to work on an indoor drone. Right, it's not
currently in our roadmap this year, but you know something
that is really small that helps you clear rooms and
(23:49):
it is something that you can rely on and is
tactical in nature, that would be super helpful. And you
could see that, you know in Israel with tunnels, or
you know, in any area where drones have to work
in a small space. But that use case is super
super important. And Chuck builds them all day. He's got
like ten of these little tiny rigs and he just
(24:10):
talks about how much of a game changer that will
be when we can implement it. Well, you know, to
help him do his job, or.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Little drones you just turn around the corner, You're like clear, Also,
there's just a little drone in your face, like with
like lights laughing at you. I don't even know.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Yeah, someday, yeah, I mean that'd be a better way
to it's a clear room. I'm not sure just today,
but yeah, it's coming right.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
Have you seen the movie Batteries Not Included.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
No? No, there's a lot of suits out there with
drones stuff in and I'm like, okay.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
You should probably see Batteries Not Included. Okay, it's an
eighties movie. It's pretty wholesome. Yeah, it's pretty wholesome.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Yeah, I'm not saying it's anything bad. No, it's called
Batteries Not Included. And anybody out there that's here, we
say that and you're thinking, yeah, Rad, tell him about
Batteries Not Included?
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Yeah, yeah, small drones have you know, they get a
lot of cynical play on them, and there's a little
bit of dystopia built into it. Right, But when you
get to work with our guys each day and day out, no,
you know this is going into their hands, right, it's
oh yeah, it takes shape over time.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Yeah, I see. And uh, what's so cute about Batteries
Not Included and drones is that they're like spaceships that
if it was a trailer, and this is the eighties,
it would be these little spaceships fly to Earth unknowingly
have intelligence and eyeballs and heat. Yeah, batteries not included.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Gosh, all right, I guess I'll have to watch this.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's pretty good. And uh, you know,
it's all around the same time Police Academy was coming
out and Cocoon and like all those types of movies.
The Short Circuit, Johnny five is alive. Hello, Yes, I
remember all those no Disassemble.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Yes, you're in my uh you uh yeah, that's the
fling where the movies where I was growing up.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Yes, yeah, that's what's me too. Ber I can't stop.
I can't. I was born in the nineteen hundreds with
the big wheel was invented. You know what I'm saying.
The dukes of hazard actually is what I Yeah, that's funny.
Oh bro so drones. You come from Drone League? And
(26:22):
did you have a degree when you like did all this?
Do you have a degree? Did you go to college?
Or are you just a super genius guy? No?
Speaker 1 (26:30):
I mean I'm just a you know, I just ever
since I was a kid, I had a computer and
just kind of hacker.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
I came into drones by doing software and then hardware
and then just always kind of been a gearhead. A
lot of the guys who I work with to are
the same way, the self taught or they just learned
on Oh no aol.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
Right, you've got mail. Yeah, my business, it's the same way.
It's the same way.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Solving and testing and seeing what works and what doesn't.
We're really fast iterators. Uh. We made practical decisions. We
listened to the end user quite a bit. And you know,
we're all generally meat eaters. We understand you know, firearms
and combat systems, and you know, love to study doctrine
(27:19):
and things like that. So I'm trying to say, is
you know, and cholesterol.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Let's put that out there. Cholesterol. You gotta understand cholesterol too.
Come on, now, let's go. We're gonna get that out there.
I'm on a Let's talk about status. Let's talk about
zoom stat and let's talk about that for a second. Okay,
let's talk about constipation. Let's talk about how.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
I'm good with it. I never had any.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
She's on that, no, are you? I'm on a five
milligram nightly?
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Okay, probably thing. My numbers are good though.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
Now. I just got back from my dietician this morning.
She's like, you're doing everything that I think I would
tell you to do, you know, working out, eating good,
cutting out all of the fried foods, which is hard
bro right. Yes, Holy cow, I just stumbled onto this
thing between us. But I'm trying to normalize talking about
men's health women's health. Make it a normal conversation. People
(28:10):
should not be so like, oh, hip a hippa hippa. No, man,
I got I got plaque in my widow maker.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Yeah, you get the calcium check. I got that too.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
I'm forty seven. And they're like, we're going to start
you on a statin at a younger age than we
usually do. And I was like, too, let's roll with it, dude.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Yeah yeah, hey man, you gotta.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Live well, right, yeah, Like, Well'm lod.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Of excited about for this phase of America. I'm really
proud of, you know, some of the things that happened
over the last few years in terms of you know,
ar capabally produced innovative stuff.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Right.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
So yeah, right now there's a company called Dji, yeah
of course, you know, and and China is just you know,
the best at the hardware game. Right. Their ability to machine, produce, fabricate, industrialize,
and very quickly iterate on hardware is extremely reflective I
think in the ev car game right, with like the
(29:05):
by d s, the x pangs and the Neo's, also
with the drones and if you open up a Dji drone,
it is fantastic. They are very very good at what
they do. The way they do their sensors, the way
they do their you know, their board, the board connectors,
they're they're operating at Apple levels, right. And you know,
(29:26):
people on my side who are doing robotics right have
to delve into hardware scale machining, making sure that's all
American made, and you know, there's still a lot of
work to be done to really get them up to speed.
On the other side, though, we have you know, groups
like Nvidia and Opening Eye and Dropic and Apple just
(29:47):
you know, reaching you know this and leading the world, right.
And I think there's a really exciting time for American
industrial right where people like us are figuring out how
to make you know, these uh these component stateside, how
to scale them well, how to make them cheap, right,
And I think a lot of you know, the sentiment
(30:09):
in America is really excited to really build that out right.
So I get to share in a lot of you know,
great experiences. One working on new combat systems with SAW
forces and you know, sharing executive physicians in our company
with them. I get to work on you know the
American industrial uh, you know, re energy, re energation. I
(30:29):
don't even think that's a word, but like, you know,
bringing back American hardware, scaling and making sure that.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
We're re integrating it. Yeah dude, yeah, integration. Yeah, really
cool arena to play in, right it is. Let me
ask you if you're the troop in the trench and
there's drones go on both sides, Okay, how does he
know who's just who's what's the troops in the trench?
What's his guidelines to think like, oh, that's my outbound
(30:54):
or that's an inbound you know, I mean, like how's
he going to not shoot down the outbound that needs
to go?
Speaker 1 (30:59):
Well, there's just the there's just a lot of new
TTPs that are gonna.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Come, righttp oh tatle training programs Yeah yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
And you know there's gonna you know, there's different styles
of training and you know we integrate now with different
exercises with the army and special forces. It's just going
to evolve, right, And just like any new combat system
or any new you know, big change in doctrine where
that be gunpowder, aircraft carriers, nuclear weapons, mvgs. Right, you know,
(31:29):
it's it's just gonna evolve, right. And it's awesome too.
Work in my field right now with the defense, you know,
giant that's that's changing and trying to support us, right,
and I think our side has done really well to
something that's just you know, grown immensely in the last
(31:53):
twenty four months in you know, the I mean European War,
and I think everyone's a little bit reactive, but you know,
the Ukrainians and the Russians are using very unsafe, unsecure
methods to getting war done right. They're they're showing i
think some of the tactics and you know, the progress
(32:15):
of what small drums can do, but you know they're
not safe to handle. It's the wild West. There's no standards,
and what we get, you know, what we can do
is from that crucible really pick out the best things
that are working and implement you know, you know, higher
security higher safety and greater performance rights.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
Yeah, for the side that is using your stuff, it's like, hey, here,
it's a little bit more you know, third grade, get
it done, point it this way, versus like it's a
Maltov cocktail. That's yeah, that's like, you know, it's like, okay,
I think this will work. I've seen save with Private
Ryan sticky bombs yeah right, yeah, yeah, yeah, he's like,
(33:00):
here's this. It's it's like a drone. It sticks. The
one guy just blew him apart though, before you even
got it stuck.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Yeah, And I mean, and that's happening in Ukraine and Russia.
You know that they're using you know, uh, three D
printed shape charges, right, and there's there's no safety arming device.
And you know, we we watch it every day, right,
like it's it's just a proving ground for what can
work and whatnot sure. And I get to you know,
(33:30):
we all in our group, We get to have these
guys who have a ridiculous combat experience, you know, translate
what's meaningful and what's not. And I think we wouldn't
be live without our soft forces, I mean our company, right,
like we would we would be stuck in the mud.
And I think I think it's it's kind of interesting,
(33:52):
Like you'll see companies out there being like, yes, you know,
we hire veterans. My instinct was just to make them executives.
So like my chief technology officer, you know, he didn't
he learned everything, you know from development group, my chief
revenue officer with all the requirements and everything that he's gleaning,
(34:13):
you know the same thing. Like these aren't people who
went to MIT, but my god, there's so much greater. Yeah,
and there's so much more effective. And I think that's
like a little secret, like.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
You well, they could bet they could be any of
these things. See these guys that go spec ops, you know.
I mean even my own dad to his horn, he
was a Green Beret. My father special Forces, always master's degree,
working on a doctorate before he passed away. I mean,
just like always thinking, you know, and always educating and
just being a better version of himself. And that's just
(34:46):
what these guys do. They have like a whiteboard that
has like five years planned on it and they just
like sit there and it is unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Our biggest joke is making fun of Dylan's He's gonna
hear just laughing his schedule, the way that he gets
things done, the way he organizes, the way that he
handles process efficiency. He's the best operator I've ever worked with.
And you know, when I first met him, he was
just making up his own stuff at the edge, right,
and now he leads our entire technology team, our engineering team,
(35:20):
our mechanical team, or electrical team, our radio team, and
from the Yeah, you know he's a sniper. It's awesome,
you know. So it's it's just we're just in a
very fortunate position and you know, in terms of health,
I just want to hang on as long as I
can so I can keep doing this right, And it's
(35:41):
it's a very cool opportunity.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
Yeah, I think so. And I guess that's really just
kind of like, are you after any clients? Do you
have something that you is there somebody out there that
would reach out to you, or are you really just
very compliant, you know, like just USA. Uh, that's your
structure is the uh.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Customers customers now are soft forces. Uh. You know, we
just got a big program of record for the army.
It's around the medium range reconnaissance which is basically in
Ukraine they call that the mothership, but just a big
ass quad copter that can carry heavy payload for a
long periods of time, so we can drop mortars, we
(36:21):
can you know, deliver assets. It's fully tactical and meets
all the requirements uh for Soft and Army, and we're
really excited to work on that. We're working on different
vehicles that are smaller and yeah, I mean that's that's
our main customers, making sure that Soft an Army are
happy and you know we uh can you know, help
(36:45):
with their mission, right, And we look at the entire
space as you know up and coming. So drones that
can do one ways that are really inexpensive that costs
as much as you know a round of ammunition, uh
or or your drones that are made for a thousand
hours the right, that are made to get through electronic
warfare and can eye on target really far away or
(37:07):
do a stag bite laser. But all of this is
made to come out of a single unit, right, So
they're all built from rucksacks, are smaller, and they're made
to be organic and quick, and you know, they're made
to be tactical so you can deploy that, you know
in a contested environment.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
Yeah, exactly like I've seen some images of marines US
Marines like kind of sling shotting. I know that's old school, huh.
You don't want to set up a stuntshot, you want
to just set it out. But that was like it's
like starlight night vision versus gen white phosphor. You know,
we we have to evolve, right, you probably know what
I'm talking about, right, And then they'd be the ones
(37:45):
where they like they put it together. Even the guy
narrating it, you know, he's like, clip a wing in,
clip the wing in, throw it.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Yeah. Yeah, we got to make sure that the guys
can do it from you know, cover right. And it's
fun because that's that's tactical, right, And that's pushing the
limits on what you can do. It's making sure you
can have an asset that can be thrown around, right,
and design in a way that can you know, handle
mud and rain and also be deployed quickly. Right. So
it's pushing the limits on on small robotic design. What
(38:15):
we do is very different from the drones that you
can buy at Best Buy.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
Right.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
The thicknesses of our walls, how hard it is, you know,
how many powers we put on it before we give
to the customer. Like it's a much more robust, robotic system,
uh than just your typical DJI. And that's that's really
fun too.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
I wonder if you can modify a copter to hover
with a sound system to like run like a rave
on a beach.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
Oh yeah, I mean credence clear revival, Right, you can
just run that over right.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
Yeah, it's just like just causan. Yeah. Yeah, i mean
just taking it outside the space. You know, I'm just
trying to think outside the box with this. I know
it has its purpose and wow, so much you can
do and and uh you know, and it's and it's
it's not involving a human life per se, you know,
flying inside of the machine, where like you have these
guys that have back paramortars that can like you know,
(39:07):
get up with a parachute and then they're hauling stuff
to the top of a mountain for like electrical companies
and you know even for you know, doing jobs that
are high altitude. And now you can just take like
you said, like the mother ship quad copter probably and
just zip and right on up with what you need.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
Does democratize support, right, Yeah, you can you can do
what you need yourself, right, which is really cool.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
Yeah, I mean, wow, you could be your own crew
chief the whole thing. You can chase after it as
it's crashing into the water.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Like no, I mean it's just starting. Like we see
the future where they're you know, carrying small arms, carrying supplies,
you know, so it's it's gonna go quick. And you
know again, like our job is to make sure the
US has the mess ship.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
And I've talked to other companies on here, and some
of them don't arm their stuff, right, so I'm a
little hesitant to bring that up. But like you said,
small arms and for soft forces, these guys are using
these four combative missions.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
We make weapons, that's what we do. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
What kind of hell fire missiles? Like what do we fire?
Speaker 1 (40:12):
That's a big asset, right, but like yeah maybe one
day okay, yeah, essentially, like if your asset can't be lethal, what's.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
The point I see, Well, yeah, some want to probably
have like the item out there and then maybe somebody
does something with it.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
No, I mean you got to do it all at once.
Like if that's you can't just strap a sidewinder onto
a quad after, right, you can integrate that bake it together,
do your targeting systems. It's all. You can't buy it
javelin without a warhead.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
That's kind of what you're you were explaining they were
doing over there, you know, like they're kind of putting
these ad hoc systems together.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
To we deeply bake our stuff that you know, it's
it's easy to purchase into use, right, But yeah, I
mean we're developing combat systems actually, you know, so we
have to make sure it does a really great job
at that. And you know, we play as an active
role as possible doing sure that it is as capable
as you can.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Get, like submarine detecting.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Yeah, you know, right now, you know, we're doing you know,
consumable right where you have a small drone that that
that you know can hit antipersonnel or armor, and we
also have a mothership that launches those small assets. And
then our mothership can also drop mortars and and uh
you know, heavier munitions as well. Right, So that's the
(41:27):
space we plane. It's very similar to what you see
on the Eastern Front with Ukraine and Russia. But as
that evolves, you know, our assets will be doing small arms,
you know, laser target designation, they'll be doing you know,
heavier arms, right, that's.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
All to come. Oh yeah, oh yeah, mapping, Oh yeah,
you know.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
I mean like but in terms of like people who
have like these dual use drones and like, oh yeah,
we sell it best buy. But then we also work right,
you know, like you can't have a camera drone. It's
not why would you have a camera drone if it
can also carry a weapon, right, So like you have
to do everything right. No one is going to have
just a camera drones taking pictures. It should be able
(42:07):
to be lethal as well. I see we're you know,
so like I think that we're very much defense first.
Our customers are you know, war Wick fighters, and yes,
we're making products for them to use to be effective,
right right. We're never going to make a drawn that
just is a camera drawne.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
I got you. Yeah, I know, nothing that can follow
me on the mountain that I'm snowboarding. Nothing yet right now?
I want that.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
Yeah, that's the difference between right.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
I got you, I got you, yeah, And and and
about four slits in the front grille, I got you,
But no, that's I just wanted to be clear with
what we're talking about here, you know, And I know,
I laugh about things and and chuckle, and you're really developing,
you know, weapons for war and for defense and for
the special operation forces community. And you know, I just
(42:55):
wanted to hear that from you. So thank you for
explaining that, you know, to my to my listener and viewer.
For sure, that's exactly it, you know, so and and
and again, are you ever is there a place that
a listener could you know, submit a resume to you guys?
Are you guys always open to someone who's like, hey,
you know you sound just like where I belong.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
We have like twenty thirty job openings right now. It's
all LinkedIn on our website. Our you know, entire go
to market team is betteran based. I think the entire
group is most of our company culturally, you know, that's
that's what we that's our that's our chee could right.
So w dot a I is where you can find
our website. There's there's career session on there also on LinkedIn.
(43:43):
I think we just posted ten ten job offerings yesterday.
You know, we're based in Huntsville, Alabama.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
M Yeah, no, that's great. I just want my listener
out there who's just saying hey, how do I transition
to hey, oh this is great. You know, maybe they've
been brought up in the field as an MS in
the army or already and they're getting out of computer
sciences or whatever they want to call cyber security, whatever
they want to you know, that's what you're after. You're like, hey,
(44:10):
hit me up right.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
No, I mean there's a huge amount of drop repardings,
especially for veterans.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
Right. You guys stalk food in the breakroom for everybody
to eat.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
Yeah, like everybody's drinking celsius.
Speaker 3 (44:25):
Now I gotta drink my water. I almost just spit.
We try to stalk our pantry at our shops for
our guys to like pick at whatever they that's in there.
You know, like, hey, I know, here's your benefits package.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
Because they think I have low test.
Speaker 3 (44:40):
I buy peanuts and almonds.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Yeah, I'm such I don't want to say, but I like,
I'm so not worthy that.
Speaker 3 (44:52):
I stopped drinking caffeine. Dude, it's real. It's like, oh,
I don't need hepatitis sea on the liver. Try to
clear up my cholesterol. Bro, You've been really cool to
talk to, all right, and I know you're super busy
and and and I love that you came on the
show and and you really did well. You presented yourself well,
(45:13):
and I think that this has been a really entertaining
uh time, and and right, and I know that I'm
going to let you get back to your normal business
day because you got a lot of things going on,
as we talked about prior to this. But Ryan Gurry
with PDW dot AI. You can check out his information
on LinkedIn as well if you feel like you want
to maybe send your resume or have somebody that might
(45:36):
take a look at it and maybe give them some
feedback if they do send it, say hey, we're looking
for somebody that has these qualifications. And then you know,
just remember there's people out there trying to help the
special operations community for the US and this is one
of them right here. And you know, tactical to practical,
practical to tactical, it all kind of blends in together
(45:59):
at the end of the day. So good good job
on getting yourself where you're at today, right and plus
taking your statins Okay, I just want to say.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Yeah, appreciate it. I'll keep taking them.
Speaker 3 (46:10):
Yes, me too, me too, all right, And to my
listener out there who is like, do I need to
take a statin? Go talk to your doctor, bro, Just
go talk to your doctor. Say I'd like to know
what a statin is. Okay, go look it up. Go ahead,
hit it up and make it normal, all right, and
be kind to somebody out there because it's contagious and
unless you got to really drop a drone on him,
and that's probably gonna suck. So all right, so on
(46:35):
behalf of soft Rep and the family here and Brandon
Webb and Ryan Gurry my man over here, the CEO
and the world's record holder for the fastest drone at
one hundred meters at two hundred plus kilometers. Second show
super Fast. I just want to say thanks for tuning in,
welcome to twenty twenty five, and let's just have a
great year. And I say peace, thank you.
Speaker 2 (47:14):
You've been listening to self red Lady
Food for us.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough. You're
listening to Software Radio, Special Operations, Military Nails and straight
Talk with the guys in the community.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Another awesome episode of soft Rep Radio. That's right. Today,
I'm going to tell you about our merch store. That's right.
We have soft Rep dot Com Forwards Last Merch and
that's where you can get all the latest for twenty
twenty five branded items. The merch, you know, designing shirts
and coming up with ideas never gets old. It's super
fun and we love putting them out there for you.
(01:01):
If you have an idea that you'd like to see,
send it to us as soft Rep and we'll see
if we can incorporate it into the merch. Second, our
book Club, So the guys behind the scenes, the Special
Operation guys, they're out there picking these books curating our
book club. And that's soft rep dot Com Forward Slash
Book hyphen Club. If you already go there, thank you.
(01:22):
If you're new to the show, it's soft Rep dot
Com Forward Slash Book hyphen Club. Now, boil Boy, where
do I start? Okay? Do I start? Zalm miuram. Everything's
so fast right now? Okay, we're talking drones today and
you already know that because you saw the link when
you clicked on today's episode. So without further ado, I
(01:43):
would like to introduce the man who is CTO I
guess right for the Drone World League, also probably CEO
of PDW, which is he's going to explain. We're going
to expound on pdw's and how he's crossed over from
from just growing up eating at the breakfast table to
(02:03):
what he's doing today. So welcome to the show. Ryan Gurry, welcome.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Hey, thank you.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
What's up dude? What was your breakfast before school?
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Cream?
Speaker 3 (02:14):
A wheat cream a wheat Yeah, I had a hot
cocoa and toast. My mom always seemed to have that
the bus would come. I don't always have a hot
cocoa and some toasted dip.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
Yeah, yeah, you know, it's just how it is, just
how it is now now, uh you know you let's
talk about this being like, you know, really like a
military style podcast.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Soft rep dot com stands it stands for Special Operation
Forces report, right, So if you're on the ground and
they go to like infantry guys like hey, give us
a situational report a sit REP. Well to soft guys,
they go give us a soft soft rep. And so
that's where the name came from. You're working with this
like these guys in your company as I was reading
about it, who come from that background? What is it
(03:00):
that drives you to hiring military personnel first? For PDW?
Can I ask you that? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (03:07):
So I think essentially, you know, we're developing products for
soft forces, right, So I got a little feedback in
my headphones. I think that's gonna be fine. So with
any product, you know, generally you are super close to
the end user, right. So I spent my life developing
(03:29):
you know, software and hardware for generally different audiences, and
that's better at you know, it's a long story, but
I was in the Drune Racing League and it was
a TV show for families and kids, and we were
doing stuff that wasn't done before to allow you to
have you know, a drone race on live television in
(03:51):
ESPN and NBC. And we ended up getting the opportunity
to train some special forces on the side, and you know,
started slowly developing products for the military. You know, it's
important to be as close as you can with the users.
So throughout that process, we've been hiring you know, special
forces to be an executive physicians in our company. So
(04:14):
our CTO is, you know, from Development Group. My chief
revenue officer, same thing. Our head of Advanced Missions is
from Delta Group. And as we grow and develop products,
you know, what better way to get close to the
earth is by hiring experts, right, So that's our secret sauce.
(04:34):
We'll continue to do that into the future. I think
we're mostly veterans, more than fifty percent in our company,
and you know that's the best way to get ahead
and to understand the futures that are important by being
as close to your end user.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
So I love that, and I just want to say that,
you know, we really focus a lot on how the
transition happens from military to civilian life, but you're coming
from the other opposite direction of kind of bringing them
into your organization.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Correct, Yeah, totally. And I'm a civilian, right, so as
true as they come. And you know, I've seen band
of brothers. I understand, you know, you know, we're pretty
patriotic family growing up. But I spent thirty years in
front of a computer chair and I've had none of
the sacrifices that these guys have had are gone through. Right,
So it's the exact opposite coming into civilian and developing
(05:30):
you know, basically combat systems.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Right.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
It's been a lot of learning about the culture, about
you know, how things are done, tactics. It's it's fun
to nerd out on as a civilian and I get
to work with like really really cool people. You know.
It's also like a cheat, like these people are highly
(05:57):
capable and you know, uh, very able to operate in
a business, so you know, special forces almost like stealing
people from Audi week.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
It's pretty sweet, right, And and an Olympic athlete body too,
like you know, they're like, I'm super smart and a fit.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Yeah, getting in a debate, which we do all the
time is like super intimidating with these with these folks.
But you know, it's been an awesome experience, very humble
to be where I am and to be working with
people like this, and you know, internally, you know, we're
building stuff to you know, to help them and tools
and assets to make their jobs easier. Right, So it's
(06:42):
it's an extraordinary position to be in and I have
just the best job in the world.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Really do it sounds like it now now if if
you were to you know, go back and just you know,
let's let's let's just go back a little bit, all right.
I just kind of jumped the gun. I wanted to
talk about how you like a speed record, you know,
and you have this this world Guinness record from twenty seventeen,
and I wanted to talk about like all the patents
(07:07):
that you have put out there towards this this profession
and this lifestyle that you're in. You know, with all
of these different types of quad copters and like multiple
antennas on top of a device that can you know,
pull in mobile signal, you have, you have these patents,
so you're you're you're behind the chair matters because you're
(07:28):
gonna help these guys move forward, you see.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Yeah, I think like essentially, like you know, I got
into drones because I was a gearhead, right, Like I
love you know, cars and motorcycles, and I follow racing sports.
And you know what led me into drones was just
(07:53):
the power of what they can do, right and as
it translates into Ukraine today, that same power as being
you to eliminate enemy forces. Right. So when I first
saw drones, I was like, oh, shit, there's this three
D high performance robotic doesn't have an airfoil, you know,
just rips around the air and uses you know, basically
(08:14):
iPhone sensors and to get to get it around right,
and radios. So I was initially attracted just because I
knew the performance angle was there, and all the things
that we did in Drone Racing League were built around
extending that performance where that be you know, radio systems
or batteries or motors or props and things like that.
Like it's the same stuff in cars, right, Like you
(08:35):
figure out you know, either Tesla's got different dynamics than
you know, an ice engine, right, internal combustion engine, right,
but it's the same tweaking that goes into that, you know,
to extend you know, how fast it can go and
how it can be corners. Right. So when I got
into drones, it was a clean slate. Nothing was being done.
(08:56):
There was a lot of amateurs like myself in the space,
and you know, speed records and endurance records and you
know what you could do with batteries and radios. All
that was left, you know, was just you know, left
out for people like myself to go out and conquer right.
So when we got in a drone racing league, you know,
the idea was to put on a fantasy sport, right
that mimiced the stuff that we all saw in the eighties, right,
(09:19):
so transformers or you know, tron and all that cool stuff. Right.
We were essentially telling the audience you're going to see
that when you tune in the ESPN. So that meant
we had to have radios that would push drones many
miles you know, through stadiums, or we had to have
you know, radio systems that would mitigate interference or jamming.
We'd have drones that could never fall from the sky
(09:39):
that you had to rebuild really quickly.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
And you know, we.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Would destroy five hundred plus of those of every event.
We just have a huge pile of dead drones. And
you know, we started pushing the limits of what you
could do. You know, fast forward a few years. I
end up in a weird field in North New York,
you know, with Dylan Ham who was standing up you know,
(10:04):
the drone department at Development Group and going into combat
with or you know, going in emissions with you know,
small organic assets. And we quickly saw that he was
doing the same thing that we were doing pushing the
limits of drones batteries, you know, how you can carry
way for a long period of time. And that's kind
(10:25):
of when this thesis started that you know, maybe there
was a bigger you know mission out there for us
to accomplish.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Yeah, I know, that's awesome. And somebody who's an average
user of a LiPo battery, you know, a lithium poly
or a lipoly battery or even lithium ion batteries, you know,
it's like, where do you get such robust battery systems
that don't get too cold, you know, from being an
out Like just because even on your like you know,
(10:53):
held action cameras, I go ride six times on the
slopes and my battery is apped, right, so let alone.
You know, you're let's say you're flying at ten thousand
feet right and you're doing a drop like you know
for a firefighter. Okay, you gotta drop a bunch of equipment.
Those those are all this is all battery operated, right.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Yeah, But it's like a battery is one of the
ingredients your stater, uh, your your motor, your prop, the weight,
your configuration of your drone. Like there's all these like
little tiny ingredients that go into stuff, you know, but
like now you know, we're developing you know, real deal
combat systems so that it's got to perform in the cold,
at high altitudes, it has to perform you know, anywhere
(11:33):
in the world in the desert, and you know those
requirements come from you know, veterans in the space and
all the stuff we learned at d r L is
super applicable, you know to developing small drones that are
high performance, you know, and drones combat systems and stuff
like that.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
That's that's gnarly. See. The reason why I have a battery,
uh you know usage is we run airsoft war games here, yeah,
Salt Lake, and so we're constantly putting in all these
different types of libo batteries and whatnot and see them
just kind of sometimes combust on their own if if
they drop or you know, they can just like you know,
hit the hit the dirt, and and it's just like,
where's this perfect battery. But if you're right, it does
(12:14):
take like a formula of what you're talking about to
make a function.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
There is no perfect batteries. And actually one of the
airsoft battery makers, I forget the name of his, run
by a guy named Trent. He was doing some of
the most you know, innovative work in batteries and battery
cells and finding the best ones to fit the demand.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Right.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
It's it's just some cells are made for high efficiency,
some cells are made for high discharge. And early in
the days, Airsoft was one of the sectors in you know,
the electric you know, power system game that was pushed
in the limits, right, Drones are another one. We look
for high discharge, we look for you know, not generally
(12:55):
cycle count, but you know, stuff that can perform. And
there's different cells that do different things. And you know,
some some line up flashlights, Airsoft and drones, right or
Tesla batteries or you know, totally different right right, right.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
No, and that just it's just it's just I just
I don't know why I'm so upsessed with batteries with
drones right now. But I got guys that come in
They're like, I have a charger at home, I fly drones.
And I'm like, oh yeah, this is almost a you know,
symbiotic relationship here with a lot of that stuff. And
so you know, we also have guys that want to
bring drones out into the war game, right, And so
let's talk about that and we're like, well, how do
we take it down? Can we shoot it? And they're
(13:35):
like no, well we can't pull recon with it then,
but you can take photos and you can videotape us.
But if you're gonna bring it out to try to
launch it and like get you know, the advantage on us,
how do we counter that? Right? So let's bring that
to the situation today. How do we counter that? Like, say,
I'm walking down the street here in Sandy, Utah, address
one two three America Lane, and I just have a
(13:57):
drone coming at me? How do I counter that? Uh?
What's your thoughts on something like that going into that world?
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Yeah, the counter drone industry is massive and it's a
it's a very dynamic and changing place. Right at the
front lines today, they're just using optical fiber right. There
is no stemming, there's no stopping it. And I think
that's what's going to happen. You know, we talk about
doctrine and the evolution of what's happening, but you know,
we look at small drones as one of those important
(14:23):
pillars of doctrine as things move forward in the same
way that you know, uh, gunpowder, aircraft characters, mvgs. It's
just a game changing application. And what you really have
is a three D combat system, right, So like forever
small arms and artillery, you have these trajectories you're javelin.
(14:46):
You know, you still have to have line of sight,
but you know, small drones you can hide and hit things,
you know, many miles away and have time on target
to really understand what you're looking at and choose, you know,
when to engage. It's a you know, in twenty four
months we went from the Ukrainian first strike of a
small drone now to the most used combat system at
(15:07):
the edge of the front line. And you know, there's
a lot changing very quickly. Our business has grown substantially,
and you know, we believe that the future of small
drones is really important that America elite, and you know
that's our mission.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Yeah, I could agree with having the grip on that situation,
you know, especially we got to counter it, right. We
have to be on the forefront and have the insight
and the dev guys and the Delta d boy guys
and all those saying this is what we need on
the front lines right now, you know, in back rooms,
getting that stuff built. You know. I remember watching a
(15:47):
YouTube clip where it just showed like somebody hand taped
like a pistol to their drone. Yeah, you know, and
at that time, I think it just kind of made
everybody realize like as he shot at the drone, flew back,
you know, but he recorrected it.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Yeah, I mean we're at the very beginnings of this, right,
And yes, I think essentially drones to two things. One,
it offers scale, right, so they're very inexpensive. We look
at them as ammunition and you know, in the same
way as small arms. You can give everybody one of them.
And I think what that does is it supplements the
need for strategic assets, and it supplements supplements the need
(16:27):
for air sport. Right where you at the front a
single unit and call in, you know, your own strike.
You can call in your own ISR, and you can
scale that to anybody who wants one, right, because they're
just so inexpensive, right, So it's it's it's both the
scale but also the capabilities of these things happening at once,
(16:49):
and you know, a lot's can of change because of it.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
That'd be so cool for it was integrated in the
helmet Okay, let's just say that its let's say yeah,
it lands into the helmet, okay, and it's it's I
can still protect you. So it's in you. And then
you're like okay, all right, and then you're like it's
like off you. Off it goes and does this thing
and then it just comes back to you and just
lands right back into you and your helmet has the situation.
(17:13):
I'm just making this up right now. Hey yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Mean it's a mix between like what we thought was coming,
but also like the tried and true, like you know,
the fiber optics has kind of been kind of funny
because that's now probably going to be a standard, but
like seven miles of fiber optics to make sure that
you can't get jammed and no one can stop that.
I think things are going to continue to evolve into
(17:36):
two directions. One, you know, future stuff that we also
come in, but also like the tried and true bulletproof,
you know, combat systems that are made not to fail,
and the lowest common deniymen denominator is the things that
will work, right bro.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
It's like it's like in Call of Duty, Black Ops
two or Black Ops thirty, World at War where you
go into the conference building and you have to listen
to the conference as a wasp. Okay, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Yeah, we're still a little bit of waste for that.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Just track me on this, right. And then the little
wasps just flying around The guys in the game were
swatting at it, like this bug won't leave me alone
around me You're like flying in their face and you know,
listening to the conversations and a little stinger.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Yeah maybe maybe you know, but I don't know what
you can do with that now. But like just the
energy density to transmit radios, right, Like you can't do
that with a wasp, right, So like it depends. Yeah,
you'll see, we'll see where things go. Like the Black
Hornet by prox Nova. Prox Nova, that's pretty sweet. They're
doing a good job with that nano sized rig. But yeah,
I mean I think things are going to evolve into
(18:38):
you know, practicality along with you know, future give abilities
at the same time.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Like the tactical to practical like the Capri Sun or
Tang you know, made for space but in our lunch box, right,
you know what I'm saying. It's like, okay, cool, thanks mom,
Mgain for the tang and the hot cocoa the.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Same way like Aka's bench sheet metal or AR is
like super easy to take down and build up the
same attributes you have to employ into you know, modern robotics, right,
So you have to be really practical where you can
be and then push on the limits, you know, where
you're able to.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
A super functional third grade learning level device.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Yes, yes, essentially right.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Yes, that everybody can pretty much operate. Yes, because I'm
going to pretty much assume everybody has a third grade
reading level across the board wherever I go. Okay, we'll
go on. You got to make it simple, right and
really just likes that, right, buy it now, push the button,
send it to my house, three clicks, get it done. Yes,
so it should be just so you know, like I said,
(19:39):
just lands in your head helmet.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
That's still a little expansive, right, but yes, maybe one day.
I mean, like I think a lot of that is
like we battle a lot of hype and hyperbole what
is possible, right, and have to counter that with practicality.
So you know, whether it's AI or autonomy that you know,
people will talk about a conferences and how things are
(20:03):
actually implemented at scale and how you can actually get
things done. It's always a balancing act, right, so we
have to be really careful that the systems that we
give to war fighters are systems that they can use
and they can rely on.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Right, Right, I've seen terminators, dude, I know, I've seen
you know, like these films with robots, you know, Buck
Rogers and you know, going all the way back like
till today. You know, it's just you know, I mean
you've seen these.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Two, right, yeah, of course.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
See so you know that John Connor is going to
come back soon, Okay, I mean I'm gonna I'm.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Pretty much an optimist. I believe in utopia and not dystopia.
I think that.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
I love that. It's just important that you know, our
guys have the best gear and they can go and
do what they do and that's our job, right and
we leave the rest up to them in the State Department.
And I think I have a lot of faith in that. Right.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
That's good. That's good. Yeah. So do you guys do
anything with you know, the Drone League still? Are you
still like full on like or is this PDW your new.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
He's been on its own for about seven years. We
did the Drone League for about three years, and then
we took the entire engineering team and moved them to
Alabama and then, you know, there wasn't much left to
do by the time we got things uplemented at the
Drone League. Uh, it felt like all the adventure was
in this arena I see, and you know.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
It has been.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
It's crazy. The people who I get to work with
and the lives that they've you know, they've lived are
completely different than what I've lived. And you know, we're
we're basically getting to rewrite, you know, a military doctrine.
I'm not you know, if you look at all the
famous you know, war scenes in American movies that civilians
(21:50):
like me understand, from Captain Winners and Bandon Brothers with
the artillery guns. She was saving Private Ryan on the
beach with the cliff to zero thirty. All those things
change with small drones, right, and it's not the same tactics,
And we get to be a small part of it.
We get to help, you know, work with soft forces
to really understand what the future looks like. It's super
(22:12):
fun and exciting, and we get to work with the
coolest people in the world, right it's really cool.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
I mean, I've gone to large scale wargames and it
was at George Air Force Base in California with Lion Clause.
That's the name of the event, Operation Lion Clause, And
some of those out there listening may remember that we'd
go house to house. So it's an old military base,
it's decommissioned back in the day, and we just fight
urban warfare street to street, house to house over like
a square mile. It's pretty intense. But right next to
(22:41):
it at George Air Force Base is its runway and
what they use it for is logistics like ups or
FedEx or shipping, and also like drone training. So here
we are house to house wargames, kicking indoors, and then
all of a sudden, you just look up, you hear
this and it goes and it's just quiet, and it's
like a big, huge, like drone flying over us, and
(23:04):
we're like, oh, they're locking onto us while we're doing
war games, like they're training on us, knowing that this
is happening, and they're flying the drone all around us
and it's just you hear, it just buzzes and then
it just goes quiet. You just hear this like wind
howling over its wings as the magnet effect takes its toll.
You know what I'm saying. You're like, dude, that would
(23:25):
totally smoke me.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Well, yeah, but I think like drones have the ability
to operate in a tactical nature too. Like my chief
revenue officer, Chuck, he was a preacher for Development Group
and he's been you know, I think one day we'll
get to work on an indoor drone. Right, it's not
currently in our roadmap this year, but you know something
that is really small that helps you clear rooms and
(23:49):
it is something that you can rely on and is
tactical in nature, that would be super helpful. And you
could see that, you know in Israel with tunnels, or
you know, in any area where drones have to work
in a small space. But that use case is super
super important. And Chuck builds them all day. He's got
like ten of these little tiny rigs and he just
(24:10):
talks about how much of a game changer that will
be when we can implement it. Well, you know, to
help him do his job, or.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Little drones you just turn around the corner, You're like clear, Also,
there's just a little drone in your face, like with
like lights laughing at you. I don't even know.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Yeah, someday, yeah, I mean that'd be a better way
to it's a clear room. I'm not sure just today,
but yeah, it's coming right.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
Have you seen the movie Batteries Not Included.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
No? No, there's a lot of suits out there with
drones stuff in and I'm like, okay.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
You should probably see Batteries Not Included. Okay, it's an
eighties movie. It's pretty wholesome. Yeah, it's pretty wholesome.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Yeah, I'm not saying it's anything bad. No, it's called
Batteries Not Included. And anybody out there that's here, we
say that and you're thinking, yeah, Rad, tell him about
Batteries Not Included?
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Yeah, yeah, small drones have you know, they get a
lot of cynical play on them, and there's a little
bit of dystopia built into it. Right, But when you
get to work with our guys each day and day out, no,
you know this is going into their hands, right, it's
oh yeah, it takes shape over time.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Yeah, I see. And uh, what's so cute about Batteries
Not Included and drones is that they're like spaceships that
if it was a trailer, and this is the eighties,
it would be these little spaceships fly to Earth unknowingly
have intelligence and eyeballs and heat. Yeah, batteries not included.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Gosh, all right, I guess I'll have to watch this.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's pretty good. And uh, you know,
it's all around the same time Police Academy was coming
out and Cocoon and like all those types of movies.
The Short Circuit, Johnny five is alive. Hello, Yes, I
remember all those no Disassemble.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Yes, you're in my uh you uh yeah, that's the
fling where the movies where I was growing up.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Yes, yeah, that's what's me too. Ber I can't stop.
I can't. I was born in the nineteen hundreds with
the big wheel was invented. You know what I'm saying.
The dukes of hazard actually is what I Yeah, that's funny.
Oh bro so drones. You come from Drone League? And
(26:22):
did you have a degree when you like did all this?
Do you have a degree? Did you go to college?
Or are you just a super genius guy? No?
Speaker 1 (26:30):
I mean I'm just a you know, I just ever
since I was a kid, I had a computer and
just kind of hacker.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
I came into drones by doing software and then hardware
and then just always kind of been a gearhead. A
lot of the guys who I work with to are
the same way, the self taught or they just learned
on Oh no aol.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
Right, you've got mail. Yeah, my business, it's the same way.
It's the same way.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Solving and testing and seeing what works and what doesn't.
We're really fast iterators. Uh. We made practical decisions. We
listened to the end user quite a bit. And you know,
we're all generally meat eaters. We understand you know, firearms
and combat systems, and you know, love to study doctrine
(27:19):
and things like that. So I'm trying to say, is
you know, and cholesterol.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Let's put that out there. Cholesterol. You gotta understand cholesterol too.
Come on, now, let's go. We're gonna get that out there.
I'm on a Let's talk about status. Let's talk about
zoom stat and let's talk about that for a second. Okay,
let's talk about constipation. Let's talk about how.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
I'm good with it. I never had any.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
She's on that, no, are you? I'm on a five
milligram nightly?
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Okay, probably thing. My numbers are good though.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
Now. I just got back from my dietician this morning.
She's like, you're doing everything that I think I would
tell you to do, you know, working out, eating good,
cutting out all of the fried foods, which is hard
bro right. Yes, Holy cow, I just stumbled onto this
thing between us. But I'm trying to normalize talking about
men's health women's health. Make it a normal conversation. People
(28:10):
should not be so like, oh, hip a hippa hippa. No, man,
I got I got plaque in my widow maker.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Yeah, you get the calcium check. I got that too.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
I'm forty seven. And they're like, we're going to start
you on a statin at a younger age than we
usually do. And I was like, too, let's roll with it, dude.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Yeah yeah, hey man, you gotta.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Live well, right, yeah, Like, Well'm lod.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Of excited about for this phase of America. I'm really
proud of, you know, some of the things that happened
over the last few years in terms of you know,
ar capabally produced innovative stuff.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Right.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
So yeah, right now there's a company called Dji, yeah
of course, you know, and and China is just you know,
the best at the hardware game. Right. Their ability to machine, produce, fabricate, industrialize,
and very quickly iterate on hardware is extremely reflective I
think in the ev car game right, with like the
(29:05):
by d s, the x pangs and the Neo's, also
with the drones and if you open up a Dji drone,
it is fantastic. They are very very good at what
they do. The way they do their sensors, the way
they do their you know, their board, the board connectors,
they're they're operating at Apple levels, right. And you know,
(29:26):
people on my side who are doing robotics right have
to delve into hardware scale machining, making sure that's all
American made, and you know, there's still a lot of
work to be done to really get them up to speed.
On the other side, though, we have you know, groups
like Nvidia and Opening Eye and Dropic and Apple just
(29:47):
you know, reaching you know this and leading the world, right.
And I think there's a really exciting time for American
industrial right where people like us are figuring out how
to make you know, these uh these component stateside, how
to scale them well, how to make them cheap, right,
And I think a lot of you know, the sentiment
(30:09):
in America is really excited to really build that out right.
So I get to share in a lot of you know,
great experiences. One working on new combat systems with SAW
forces and you know, sharing executive physicians in our company
with them. I get to work on you know the
American industrial uh, you know, re energy, re energation. I
(30:29):
don't even think that's a word, but like, you know,
bringing back American hardware, scaling and making sure that.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
We're re integrating it. Yeah dude, yeah, integration. Yeah, really
cool arena to play in, right it is. Let me
ask you if you're the troop in the trench and
there's drones go on both sides, Okay, how does he
know who's just who's what's the troops in the trench?
What's his guidelines to think like, oh, that's my outbound
(30:54):
or that's an inbound you know, I mean, like how's
he going to not shoot down the outbound that needs
to go?
Speaker 1 (30:59):
Well, there's just the there's just a lot of new
TTPs that are gonna.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Come, righttp oh tatle training programs Yeah yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
And you know there's gonna you know, there's different styles
of training and you know we integrate now with different
exercises with the army and special forces. It's just going
to evolve, right, And just like any new combat system
or any new you know, big change in doctrine where
that be gunpowder, aircraft carriers, nuclear weapons, mvgs. Right, you know,
(31:29):
it's it's just gonna evolve, right. And it's awesome too.
Work in my field right now with the defense, you know,
giant that's that's changing and trying to support us, right,
and I think our side has done really well to
something that's just you know, grown immensely in the last
(31:53):
twenty four months in you know, the I mean European War,
and I think everyone's a little bit reactive, but you know,
the Ukrainians and the Russians are using very unsafe, unsecure
methods to getting war done right. They're they're showing i
think some of the tactics and you know, the progress
(32:15):
of what small drums can do, but you know they're
not safe to handle. It's the wild West. There's no standards,
and what we get, you know, what we can do
is from that crucible really pick out the best things
that are working and implement you know, you know, higher
security higher safety and greater performance rights.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
Yeah, for the side that is using your stuff, it's like, hey, here,
it's a little bit more you know, third grade, get
it done, point it this way, versus like it's a
Maltov cocktail. That's yeah, that's like, you know, it's like, okay,
I think this will work. I've seen save with Private
Ryan sticky bombs yeah right, yeah, yeah, yeah, he's like,
(33:00):
here's this. It's it's like a drone. It sticks. The
one guy just blew him apart though, before you even
got it stuck.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Yeah, And I mean, and that's happening in Ukraine and Russia.
You know that they're using you know, uh, three D
printed shape charges, right, and there's there's no safety arming device.
And you know, we we watch it every day, right,
like it's it's just a proving ground for what can
work and whatnot sure. And I get to you know,
(33:30):
we all in our group, We get to have these
guys who have a ridiculous combat experience, you know, translate
what's meaningful and what's not. And I think we wouldn't
be live without our soft forces, I mean our company, right,
like we would we would be stuck in the mud.
And I think I think it's it's kind of interesting,
(33:52):
Like you'll see companies out there being like, yes, you know,
we hire veterans. My instinct was just to make them executives.
So like my chief technology officer, you know, he didn't
he learned everything, you know from development group, my chief
revenue officer with all the requirements and everything that he's gleaning,
(34:13):
you know the same thing. Like these aren't people who
went to MIT, but my god, there's so much greater. Yeah,
and there's so much more effective. And I think that's
like a little secret, like.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
You well, they could bet they could be any of
these things. See these guys that go spec ops, you know.
I mean even my own dad to his horn, he
was a Green Beret. My father special Forces, always master's degree,
working on a doctorate before he passed away. I mean,
just like always thinking, you know, and always educating and
just being a better version of himself. And that's just
(34:46):
what these guys do. They have like a whiteboard that
has like five years planned on it and they just
like sit there and it is unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Our biggest joke is making fun of Dylan's He's gonna
hear just laughing his schedule, the way that he gets
things done, the way he organizes, the way that he
handles process efficiency. He's the best operator I've ever worked with.
And you know, when I first met him, he was
just making up his own stuff at the edge, right,
and now he leads our entire technology team, our engineering team,
(35:20):
our mechanical team, or electrical team, our radio team, and
from the Yeah, you know he's a sniper. It's awesome,
you know. So it's it's just we're just in a
very fortunate position and you know, in terms of health,
I just want to hang on as long as I
can so I can keep doing this right, And it's
(35:41):
it's a very cool opportunity.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
Yeah, I think so. And I guess that's really just
kind of like, are you after any clients? Do you
have something that you is there somebody out there that
would reach out to you, or are you really just
very compliant, you know, like just USA. Uh, that's your
structure is the uh.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Customers customers now are soft forces. Uh. You know, we
just got a big program of record for the army.
It's around the medium range reconnaissance which is basically in
Ukraine they call that the mothership, but just a big
ass quad copter that can carry heavy payload for a
long periods of time, so we can drop mortars, we
(36:21):
can you know, deliver assets. It's fully tactical and meets
all the requirements uh for Soft and Army, and we're
really excited to work on that. We're working on different
vehicles that are smaller and yeah, I mean that's that's
our main customers, making sure that Soft an Army are
happy and you know we uh can you know, help
(36:45):
with their mission, right, And we look at the entire
space as you know up and coming. So drones that
can do one ways that are really inexpensive that costs
as much as you know a round of ammunition, uh
or or your drones that are made for a thousand
hours the right, that are made to get through electronic
warfare and can eye on target really far away or
(37:07):
do a stag bite laser. But all of this is
made to come out of a single unit, right, So
they're all built from rucksacks, are smaller, and they're made
to be organic and quick, and you know, they're made
to be tactical so you can deploy that, you know
in a contested environment.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
Yeah, exactly like I've seen some images of marines US
Marines like kind of sling shotting. I know that's old school, huh.
You don't want to set up a stuntshot, you want
to just set it out. But that was like it's
like starlight night vision versus gen white phosphor. You know,
we we have to evolve, right, you probably know what
I'm talking about, right, And then they'd be the ones
(37:45):
where they like they put it together. Even the guy
narrating it, you know, he's like, clip a wing in,
clip the wing in, throw it.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Yeah. Yeah, we got to make sure that the guys
can do it from you know, cover right. And it's
fun because that's that's tactical, right, And that's pushing the
limits on what you can do. It's making sure you
can have an asset that can be thrown around, right,
and design in a way that can you know, handle
mud and rain and also be deployed quickly. Right. So
it's pushing the limits on on small robotic design. What
(38:15):
we do is very different from the drones that you
can buy at Best Buy.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
Right.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
The thicknesses of our walls, how hard it is, you know,
how many powers we put on it before we give
to the customer. Like it's a much more robust, robotic system,
uh than just your typical DJI. And that's that's really
fun too.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
I wonder if you can modify a copter to hover
with a sound system to like run like a rave
on a beach.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
Oh yeah, I mean credence clear revival, Right, you can
just run that over right.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
Yeah, it's just like just causan. Yeah. Yeah, i mean
just taking it outside the space. You know, I'm just
trying to think outside the box with this. I know
it has its purpose and wow, so much you can
do and and uh you know, and it's and it's
it's not involving a human life per se, you know,
flying inside of the machine, where like you have these
guys that have back paramortars that can like you know,
(39:07):
get up with a parachute and then they're hauling stuff
to the top of a mountain for like electrical companies
and you know even for you know, doing jobs that
are high altitude. And now you can just take like
you said, like the mother ship quad copter probably and
just zip and right on up with what you need.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
Does democratize support, right, Yeah, you can you can do
what you need yourself, right, which is really cool.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
Yeah, I mean, wow, you could be your own crew
chief the whole thing. You can chase after it as
it's crashing into the water.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Like no, I mean it's just starting. Like we see
the future where they're you know, carrying small arms, carrying supplies,
you know, so it's it's gonna go quick. And you
know again, like our job is to make sure the
US has the mess ship.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
And I've talked to other companies on here, and some
of them don't arm their stuff, right, so I'm a
little hesitant to bring that up. But like you said,
small arms and for soft forces, these guys are using
these four combative missions.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
We make weapons, that's what we do. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
What kind of hell fire missiles? Like what do we fire?
Speaker 1 (40:12):
That's a big asset, right, but like yeah maybe one
day okay, yeah, essentially, like if your asset can't be lethal, what's.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
The point I see, Well, yeah, some want to probably
have like the item out there and then maybe somebody
does something with it.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
No, I mean you got to do it all at once.
Like if that's you can't just strap a sidewinder onto
a quad after, right, you can integrate that bake it together,
do your targeting systems. It's all. You can't buy it
javelin without a warhead.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
That's kind of what you're you were explaining they were
doing over there, you know, like they're kind of putting
these ad hoc systems together.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
To we deeply bake our stuff that you know, it's
it's easy to purchase into use, right, But yeah, I
mean we're developing combat systems actually, you know, so we
have to make sure it does a really great job
at that. And you know, we play as an active
role as possible doing sure that it is as capable
as you can.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Get, like submarine detecting.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Yeah, you know, right now, you know, we're doing you know,
consumable right where you have a small drone that that
that you know can hit antipersonnel or armor, and we
also have a mothership that launches those small assets. And
then our mothership can also drop mortars and and uh
you know, heavier munitions as well. Right, So that's the
(41:27):
space we plane. It's very similar to what you see
on the Eastern Front with Ukraine and Russia. But as
that evolves, you know, our assets will be doing small arms,
you know, laser target designation, they'll be doing you know,
heavier arms, right, that's.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
All to come. Oh yeah, oh yeah, mapping, Oh yeah,
you know.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
I mean like but in terms of like people who
have like these dual use drones and like, oh yeah,
we sell it best buy. But then we also work right,
you know, like you can't have a camera drone. It's
not why would you have a camera drone if it
can also carry a weapon, right, So like you have
to do everything right. No one is going to have
just a camera drones taking pictures. It should be able
(42:07):
to be lethal as well. I see we're you know,
so like I think that we're very much defense first.
Our customers are you know, war Wick fighters, and yes,
we're making products for them to use to be effective,
right right. We're never going to make a drawn that
just is a camera drawne.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
I got you. Yeah, I know, nothing that can follow
me on the mountain that I'm snowboarding. Nothing yet right now?
I want that.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
Yeah, that's the difference between right.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
I got you, I got you, yeah, And and and
about four slits in the front grille, I got you,
But no, that's I just wanted to be clear with
what we're talking about here, you know, And I know,
I laugh about things and and chuckle, and you're really developing,
you know, weapons for war and for defense and for
the special operation forces community. And you know, I just
(42:55):
wanted to hear that from you. So thank you for
explaining that, you know, to my to my listener and viewer.
For sure, that's exactly it, you know, so and and
and again, are you ever is there a place that
a listener could you know, submit a resume to you guys?
Are you guys always open to someone who's like, hey,
you know you sound just like where I belong.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
We have like twenty thirty job openings right now. It's
all LinkedIn on our website. Our you know, entire go
to market team is betteran based. I think the entire
group is most of our company culturally, you know, that's
that's what we that's our that's our chee could right.
So w dot a I is where you can find
our website. There's there's career session on there also on LinkedIn.
(43:43):
I think we just posted ten ten job offerings yesterday.
You know, we're based in Huntsville, Alabama.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
M Yeah, no, that's great. I just want my listener
out there who's just saying hey, how do I transition
to hey, oh this is great. You know, maybe they've
been brought up in the field as an MS in
the army or already and they're getting out of computer
sciences or whatever they want to call cyber security, whatever
they want to you know, that's what you're after. You're like, hey,
(44:10):
hit me up right.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
No, I mean there's a huge amount of drop repardings,
especially for veterans.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
Right. You guys stalk food in the breakroom for everybody
to eat.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
Yeah, like everybody's drinking celsius.
Speaker 3 (44:25):
Now I gotta drink my water. I almost just spit.
We try to stalk our pantry at our shops for
our guys to like pick at whatever they that's in there.
You know, like, hey, I know, here's your benefits package.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
Because they think I have low test.
Speaker 3 (44:40):
I buy peanuts and almonds.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Yeah, I'm such I don't want to say, but I like,
I'm so not worthy that.
Speaker 3 (44:52):
I stopped drinking caffeine. Dude, it's real. It's like, oh,
I don't need hepatitis sea on the liver. Try to
clear up my cholesterol. Bro, You've been really cool to
talk to, all right, and I know you're super busy
and and and I love that you came on the
show and and you really did well. You presented yourself well,
(45:13):
and I think that this has been a really entertaining
uh time, and and right, and I know that I'm
going to let you get back to your normal business
day because you got a lot of things going on,
as we talked about prior to this. But Ryan Gurry
with PDW dot AI. You can check out his information
on LinkedIn as well if you feel like you want
to maybe send your resume or have somebody that might
(45:36):
take a look at it and maybe give them some
feedback if they do send it, say hey, we're looking
for somebody that has these qualifications. And then you know,
just remember there's people out there trying to help the
special operations community for the US and this is one
of them right here. And you know, tactical to practical,
practical to tactical, it all kind of blends in together
(45:59):
at the end of the day. So good good job
on getting yourself where you're at today, right and plus
taking your statins Okay, I just want to say.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Yeah, appreciate it. I'll keep taking them.
Speaker 3 (46:10):
Yes, me too, me too, all right, And to my
listener out there who is like, do I need to
take a statin? Go talk to your doctor, bro, Just
go talk to your doctor. Say I'd like to know
what a statin is. Okay, go look it up. Go ahead,
hit it up and make it normal, all right, and
be kind to somebody out there because it's contagious and
unless you got to really drop a drone on him,
and that's probably gonna suck. So all right, so on
(46:35):
behalf of soft Rep and the family here and Brandon
Webb and Ryan Gurry my man over here, the CEO
and the world's record holder for the fastest drone at
one hundred meters at two hundred plus kilometers. Second show
super Fast. I just want to say thanks for tuning in,
welcome to twenty twenty five, and let's just have a
great year. And I say peace, thank you.
Speaker 2 (47:14):
You've been listening to self red Lady
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!