Christopher Taylor, CEO, Aalyria Technologies

Chris Taylor
Chris Taylor is the CEO of Aalyria Technologies, Inc. – a Google spinout and aerospace tech company. He was also the CEO of Govini, a commercial data and analytics company focused on transforming the business of government through data science. He is the Senior Advisor to the Managing Director of the National Security Innovation Network (NSIN) at the Pentagon. Chris previously founded Novitas Group, a tech startup that used a unique talent-opportunity matching technology platform to aid veterans in their search for meaningful employment in the communities of their choice. He conceived of and convinced The White House and ABC’s Shark Tank to collaborate on the first all-veteran episode – which aired on Veteran’s Day 2014. For his work, he was named one of “HillVets’ 100 of 2014” most influential veterans in America.

As the CEO of a Mission Essential, Chris was named one of, “15 to Watch in 2012” by GovCon Executive magazine for growing the company from $185 million to nearly $800 million in three years. Chris is also an adjunct associate professor of national security studies at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service Security Studies Program, where he teaches the graduate seminar, “The Business of National Security”, and instituted and taught for three years the “Hacking for Defense” seminar. He is also a Lecturer in Management at George Washington University’s School of Business where he also teaches the Hacking for Defense graduate seminar.

Chris spent 14 years in the U.S. Marine Corps as an enlisted infantryman and Force Recon Marine. Twice selected for meritorious promotion, he was the Distinguished Honor Graduate at the NCO Leadership Academy, the Distinguished Leadership Graduate at Amphibious Reconnaissance School, and the Class Commander at Marine Combatant Diver Course 93-40. Chris finished his undergraduate degree at night and left the Marine Corps to attend the College of William & Mary where he earned his MBA in Strategy & Leadership, and received the Dean’s Award for Leadership and Service at graduation. He is also a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School, where he earned a Master of Public Administration degree in Political Economy and International Security and was chosen by his class to lead them into Harvard Yard for graduation. Chris also served as the Director of the Harvard Defense & Security Initiative and as a member of the Defense Leadership Project at the .css-j9qmi7{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;font-weight:700;margin-bottom:1rem;margin-top:2.8rem;width:100%;-webkit-box-pack:start;-ms-flex-pack:start;-webkit-justify-content:start;justify-content:start;padding-left:5rem;}@media only screen and (max-width: 599px){.css-j9qmi7{padding-left:0;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;}}.css-j9qmi7 svg{fill:#27292D;}.css-j9qmi7 .eagfbvw0{-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;color:#27292D;}

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
M and T Bank presents CEOs youshould know by Iheartadia. Let's be Chris
Taylor. He is the CEO forAlaria Technologies, a company that brings together
two technologies originally developed at Alphabet aspart of its wireless connectivity efforts. Before
we talk more about Chris's company,I first asked him to talk a little

(00:21):
bit about himself, where he's from, and his origin story. I grew
up in South Buffalo, New York, steel Town in the early seventies,
a very Irish Catholic neighborhood, stillso very family oriented, community owner,
but also one of those upbringings whereyou left the house at sunrise basically and

(00:45):
you came home when the street lightswere on or unless until your mother called
you home. Lots of exploration asa kid all over the neighborhood. I
went to college. I took myfirst swing at college and realized that I
probably was not ready yet, soI joined the Marine Corps. I spent
fourteen years in the Marine Corps asan enlisted infantryman and force recon marine,

(01:10):
and I loved every single day ofit. While I was in I finished
my undergraduate degree at night and thenleft the Marine Corps after fourteen years to
get my MBA at the College ofWilliam and Mary, not too far from
where we are now, went towork for five for five years after that,

(01:30):
and then went back to grad schoolup at the Harvard Kennedy School to
get my master's in Public administration.Well, thank you for all of that,
and I want to thank you foryour service, especially with us where
you're being interviewed right now in theDMV. We're very appreciative of military I
do like to ask founder, CEOsand leaders about military experience and then being

(01:52):
a civilian and how that transfers overbecause everybody handles at it a lot differently.
But I think what I'm very clearabout is there's a lot of structure
in the military and there and therecan be as you move on to civilian
life. So with that said,all those years, I mean, he
almost did a decade and a halfin the military taking over to being a
civilian. What did you transfer overfrom military life to civilian life that helped

(02:13):
you? Yeah, I think,particularly in the Marine Corps, the notion
that perseverance, hard work and teamworkare the foundation of being what we might
call productive on the battlefield is itis at its core what's necessary to be

(02:35):
successful. And I think you know, I didn't act. I did not
have acts. A very difficult transitionfrom military to the civilian world. I
enjoyed it. I found it interestingto analyze some of the differences between military
life and civilian life. But Iwould say that persistence grit is the most

(02:55):
the most important thing that I learnedin the Marine Corps that has transitioned with
me to business. There's lots ofsmart people with good ideas that never go
anywhere. There's lots of just smartpeople all around. But unless you're willing
to put your back into it andmake whatever vision you have for something a

(03:16):
reality, it's not going to getdone. Things don't happen on their own.
You really really have to push,finagle, dance, you know,
anything that you can do to advanceyour your mission is what you need,
is what you need to do.There's a common thread about what you talked

(03:36):
about with all our CEOs, andthat's being relentless, having a passion for
whatever you're going to do, beingrelentless, and if somebody says no,
you're talking to the wrong person.You move on to the next one.
So I'm glad you shared all that. I did want to talk to you
about your company, and it's justfascinating as we get into it. But
I always like, you know,we spoke about your personal origin story.
But I'm always fascinated, and Iknow our listeners are too, whether they're

(03:58):
CEOs or future your budding CEOs.About having that epiphany, that idea that
there's a hole in the industry.Here, I think I've got a good
idea. I'm going to come upwith it. Here we go, tell
us about that origin story. Yeah, so it's probably going on three years
now. Three and a half yearsago, a friend of mine called me

(04:19):
and said, hey, we're thinkingabout spinning out a couple of technologies from
Google, and we'd like you tobe the CEO. And I said,
out tell me more. So theyexplain the technologies to me, and I
was like, I don't believe you. I learned more over time about it,

(04:39):
and I said, that is somethingthat both the commercial world and the
US government could derive great benefit from. So we tried to get a deal
done. That set of investors sortit was taking a little bit of that
sort of investor. That set ofinvestors walked way, I picked the deal

(05:00):
up and I took it to mydear mentor and boss in a couple of
jobs now, Arthur Patterson, whowas one of the founders of Excel Partners
out in Silicon Valley, and Isaid, hey, I think this is
a thing you want in and canwe start these conversations And we did,
and we spent about sixteen months withGoogle, who they were wonderful look that

(05:26):
we wanted to get. You know, I had wished that we had gotten
the deal done sooner, but itwas a fair deal. We got it
done, and we basically acquired twotechnologies. One is what we call a
temporo spatial software to fine networking architecture. That's a whole bunch of words that
just really means we can connect anythingwired and wireless to each other in all

(05:47):
domains lancey, air and space andbeyond. So that's one of them.
The other one is an atmospheric coherentlight free space optics program, so think
and undersea cable without the cable throughthe air. Got it high speed about

(06:08):
one point six terroor bits per secondthrough the air. For the geeks who
are listening, that's pretty fast.And you can transmit a lot of data
in a short amount of in ashort amount of time. We still remain
partners. We do a lot ofwork with Google Google Google Cloud particularly,
but we're also working with so manyother providers in the industry and it's just

(06:34):
wildly taking off. Okay, let'sdo this. I want to talk about
mission statement and also get a littlebit more into the weeds about capabilities in
the programs that you have and howyou kind of work with clients, and
get into that and explain to ourlisteners what it is. But when I
saw the name of your company,and I'm sure, like a lot of
people, they're fascinated because it's different. There's nothing plain Jane about it.

(06:57):
So what's the origin and explain thename of the company. Well, I
don't want to disappoint anyone, butI made it up on the couch.
My boss, the Arthur Patterson,said the name of the company should begin
with an A. Ok And Isaid why and he said, because you
want it at the top of everylist, And I said okay. So

(07:19):
trying to create a name for areally cool space communications all domain communication company
is hard because everybody's already taken allthe great Greek Roman mythological name. You
can't find one right, and soI was, this is I God God's

(07:40):
truth. I was on the couchwatching the last episode of the Expanse that
show Yes and so when they gothrough the rings, they are going somewhere.
We never say where they were.And I had been going through a
number of different names in my headand I said, I think they're going
to Ilaria and that was it.I wrote it down with two a's to

(08:01):
make my boss twice as happy,and that's what we came up with.
So it stuck. There was lotsof conversation in the company about it.
Some people thought it sounded like acholesterol medication. Some people thought it sounded
like nothing. It's the best namewe could have ever come up with.
It is stuck. People ask youabout it. You just did, and

(08:24):
that makes it stick even more aswell. It's all about curiosity, and
I think you piqued everybody with thename of the company. I should say
too, for the people that areolder and are like me. Back in
the old days, back in theseventies, if you had an A for
a number for a company, thatminute was first in the phone book for
all the older audience what a phonebook is. That's true, and that

(08:46):
is very true. All right.How about mission statement of the company.
What is that? So I'm gonnabe honest, it's begun to evolve one
of the things that we've discovered byputting bringing a leria into existence. By
the way, it should be saidthat when we acquired the technologies, we

(09:07):
acquired the Google technical teams as wellthe original technical teams. They're the finest
software engineers on the planet. Theseare the I cannot say enough about them.
They are phenomenal and do amazing thingsthat I certainly cannot do. I
think when we first started, wehad a narrower view of what we thought

(09:28):
we could do. Now that we'vebeen out in the wilderness for about a
year and a half, at lessthan a year and a half, I
think what we've realized is that thetechnologies can have a far, far more
and wider reaching impact on humanity thanwe ever considered at the beginning, and

(09:48):
that I think that's a good thingfor us. So you know, right
now we want to connect. Wesay that we want to connect everything to
everything else. You're capable. I'llgive you an example. Our technology is
capable today of connecting the Earth tothe Moon today and ultimately it'll be able

(10:09):
to go to Mars. One ofour advisors for the company is doctor Vince
Surf. Vince the godfather of theInternet. He and his partner discovered discovered
t sp IP technology and and andand you know, he wants to create
a solar system connectivity program, likewhy do we stop at Mars? Why

(10:33):
not go further? And so wethink about that every day. How do
we first connect everything here on Earthto everything else? So imagine this,
a satellite that I imagine iHeartRadio usesto transmit to your eight hundred and fifty
stations can now speak to a haltitudeballoon that could now speak to a plane

(10:56):
that can now speak to a groundstation that can now be sent out anywhere
that we needed to be at thehighest speeds ever possible to human stay on
the planet. If we can connectall those things, think about how much
more efficient everything that you need canbe. Think about connecting the next three

(11:18):
billion people on the planet where thereis no native infrastructure type beam or free
space. OP six solution can helpmanage that without having to dig miles and
miles and miles and miles of cable, which is just prohibitively expensive sometimes so.
And then from our government perspective,from a national security perspective, if

(11:39):
I can connect, not I wecan connect everything that we own today and
land sea air and space to everythingelse that we own today in land sea
air and space. It meets specificallythe goal of strategic deterrence because nobody else
can do that. And once othercompetitors can see that we're able to do

(12:03):
that, it could cause us allto take a breath and not decide to
to engage each other as we havefor the last twenty years. Okay,
so I've got a lot of questionsbecause you've said a lot of interesting things,
but I want you to boil itdown a little bit in Layman's terms
for our listeners, there are maybenew to all the technology that you were
talking about. If you do workwith a client, you don't have to

(12:24):
give any names of who you workwith because some of them might be super
secret. But if they're not,you're you're welcome to do that. But
if you're working with a client,exactly how does the company work in your
technology? As you boil it downfor us, sure, so on the
space time side, it's simple.We work on what we ca kubern indies
basis. That means it can fitinto any We're a SaaS company using SAS

(12:50):
techniques. But because the government hasvery different and it's required, has very
different ways in which they store anduse different technologies, we've designed it so
that it can fit in any ofthose storage environments for them. For the

(13:11):
commercial world, we run it ontop right now, it sits on top
of Google Cloud, and you know, with the largest cloud infrastructure on the
planet, much like you, you'reable to get all over the place,
so are we. And then froma type beam perspective, from the laser
perspective, the ability to grow thosenetworks and thicken them where there is no

(13:35):
infrastructure is I mean, man,it changes the world. So that's how
we that's how people buy from us. They can either do it as a
service or buy it as you knowin that case of type being by our
we call them heads optical heads.But I think what the world is moving

(13:58):
to more is X as a serviceas we know, and networking as a
service, optical network as a service. Those things are where people are going
because it just makes everybody's life easierand faster, and if you can come
to a price that everybody is happywith, you've changed everything. The technology

(14:22):
sounds like it's also moving really quickly. In just a minute, I want
to ask you about AI because Ithink that's been coming up a lot lately,
so I want to see if that'sgoing to be integrated in the future
of what you do with your team. You're obviously a global company when it
comes to working with clients. Isit more government based, is it civilian
based, or is it both?And you don't discriminate what kind of clients
do you work with? It's both, we don't discriminate, and right now
it's roughly fifty fifty and by designright because much of what the commercial world

(14:48):
needs or does the government needs,much of what the government experiments with benefits
the commercial world. So we sitin that that nexus, if you will,
between the two. That's that wherewe're able to either translate uh something
into a solution for somebody or theycan share amongst themselves whatever whatever the technology

(15:18):
is or the outcomes of those technologiesthat what they want to Our goal is
to be the digital cartilage for theplanet, so that you can decide how
you want to employ your resources andenter into some other agreement with somebody else
who has an asset that might bevery beneficial to your business or to your
government. And Chris as I listenedto this and once again Layman, but

(15:39):
it sounds like when it comes toradio, television, internet, among other
things, it's going to change everythingdramatically. I think it's good you're going
to with the with the with thecompound annual growth of bandwidth usage across the
planets in the neighborhood of forty percent. Now we need more technologies that can

(16:02):
provide more bandwidth because spectrum is limited, right, at some point spectrum will
be filled, right, Yeah,you know it's not atmospheric free space optics.
Light is not right, and sostarting to integrate light into commercial companies

(16:23):
ways of doing things. I'll giveyou an example. There are ships all
over the world, there are planesflying all over What if we could put
one gig a bit of capacity toevery plane flying on the planet. What
if we could do that so thatyou don't have to go I don't know

(16:45):
if you've been on a plane recentlyand tried to WiFi. Yeah, it's
not the greatest anoledge it's a horribleexperience. Yeah, it's not a great
experience. Ships who are at seatright ships explains they have to be moving
to make money. If you coulddo a conditions based maintenance program whereby you

(17:07):
could send back high speed data froma ship or from an aircraft so that
when it stops at the next placefifteen things can be replaced in two hours,
rather than having some sort of catastrophicbreak in a system where it's laid
up for three months. You makeit more efficient. We get more business

(17:29):
done around the world, the globalcapacity of the account of the global economy
grows, and it's good for everybody. So those are the when we're trying
to think about how we can servethe larger needs of humanity, not just
can I sell an optical head orcan I sell an instance of space time.
We really do believe that we canhave a much larger impact on the

(17:52):
planet. I mentioned earlier, AI. I know what's coming in very quickly
for all of us. A lotof people are still being introduced to it.
Whether they can write your resume,there can do a music log at
a radio station. How will itor will it ever come into play for
what you do as you can imagine. It's a it's a topic of discussion.

(18:15):
I think where it can help usis as we decide, as we
have more assets to join the platform, or more companies or governments use the
platform to manage their own assets,they're going to want to simplify how they
change things regarding their assets. Soif it's a function of just speaking into

(18:40):
the system and having our solver enginemake that happen, that's great. Our
solver engine is is now we're reimagininghow we solve all these very difficult problems.
The next generation solver will be donenot too far away. And as
we think about how AI can makethings simpler for us, it's also about

(19:08):
being able to keep, particularly fornational security things where a human being is
necessary by law, by regulatory statute, et cetera, that that cognitive load
for that person is simple, butwhen they need to be involved, that

(19:33):
helping them change whatever needs to bechanged can make it. We can make
it so in a few seconds.All those things were discovering. But I'm
on the side of I dig AI. We should keep a careful eye on
the speed at which it grows todo what and how it's employed. I

(19:57):
don't think it's I don't think it'stoo far fetched to say that. As
with anything else, without a lotof attention, it could you could have
people start to do things that wejust don't really want them to do.
Yeah, just watch a Terminator movie. Yeah, and then you know the
other thing is too. I readan article just the other day that this

(20:18):
one person who wrote it, andit was an opinion piece of white collar
people better look out because your jobsmight be taken by AM one day.
But I think there's we're still insuch infantile stages of AI that we really
don't know yet, so there's alot of movement. But I'm glad you
addressed him. As we wrap upour conversation and put a bow on everything,
if you were to maybe leave atakeaway with our listeners and as they've

(20:38):
been introduced to your company, maybefor the first time, what would you
want them to know about the company? And that takeaway. I think we're
a great example of what can happenwhen non traditional companies are able to expose
what the work that they've done firstto the US government to help it achieve

(20:59):
its mission of strategic deterrence. Today, if some of some of your listeners
may have heard the term jad Ctwo or c jad C two joined all
domain command of control, and we'vebeen putting lightning bolts on PowerPoint slides for
three decades to demonstrate a connectivity thatheretofore just hasn't existed, not for not

(21:23):
for not because bad people or theydidn't work hard, it just didn't exist
today. The spacetime platform that we'vedesigned is the common control plane for communications
for a real combined jad C twoenvironment. It exists today. So for

(21:45):
people who are listening that are onthe government side, that's great. For
people who are listening on the commercialside. If you've noticed all of these
satellite there's a lot of satellite companiesthat are now merging with each other.
Yes, so they originally were builtaround their own orbital shell, their own
frequency, their own altitudes, everything. Now they're mashing these things together,
and they have to have a wayto be able to use both of those

(22:10):
all of the capabilities, whether they'renative or they acquired, to maximize and
optimize one their efficiency for customers,but two their profits. Right, they
have to. So it's a reallygood time for us to be in existence
because we can help these satellite companiesmake the very best use of all the

(22:30):
assets, and they just spend abunch of money on By the way,
these mergers are not small dollar mergers. Why does that matter? Because it
means that everything that is being deliveredfrom space can be more efficient and more
effective and ultimately cost less because we'remaking it so efficient. So I think
that's really important for people to understandboth sides of both commercial and the government

(22:52):
use or your final thoughts, alsolet me know that you're timing with this
company is impeccable. It really iswhen it comes to all of that.
Man, Listen, Let's be clear. Luck has everything to do with everything.
That's also common thread from a lotof our CEIs yeah, man,
luck too. Much of my lifehas been about just being in the right
place at the right time, notbecause I'm some sort of wizard, which

(23:15):
I am not. But I havingsaid that, I have a bunch of
wizards that I work with. Yeah, they're amazingly talented people, best people
I've ever worked with. So Ithink when you can put all that stuff
together where there's you know, needand you have a technology that can help,
and you can have that conversation thateducational conversation says, we really can

(23:36):
help help them derisk their lives becauseit's important because all change is new and
that freaks people out. You reallycan get to a place that is not
just the next thing, but thenext ten things right, and so we
hope we're moving in that direction.Chris, you and your team have a
great website. It's easy to navigateand there's a lot of education where you
can pick up on there. Butthere's also on the nab Our careers.
I know you have some openings.You're probably looking for the best of the

(23:59):
best. So with that said,what's the website? Yourel that people can
check it out Everybody that wants tocome work for us www. Dot aleria
AA l y r I A dotcom dot com. You don't have to
even want a job, just comevisit the website and check us out.
Chris, I can't tell you howmuch I appreciate your time. I've learned
a lot today and what it wasexplaining to me today in layman's terms,

(24:23):
it's really cool technology and I wishyou nothing but the best. I know
it's still early on in the process, but it looks like a very good
future. Figuring your team. Thankyou so much for joining us on CEOs.
As you know, thank you somuch for having me. I appreciate
it. Our community partner, MANDT Bank supports CEOs, you should know,
as part of their ongoing commitment tobuilding strong communities, and that starts
by backing the businesses within them.As a Bank for communities, M ANDT

(24:47):
believes in dedicating time, talent,and resources to help local businesses thrive because
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