OPINION — I lately had a dialog with senior intelligence group leaders about their want to construct stronger partnerships with private-sector expertise corporations—the so-called “Silicon Valley” ecosystem. They had been asking for recommendation on learn how to have interaction, construct relationships, and in the end set up strategic partnerships.
However the corporations they had been most fascinated about? They had been largely consumer-facing platforms. Progressive, sure—however not mission-aligned. That dialog highlighted a broader, extra elementary hole I’ve been excited about for a very long time: Why are there no U.S. offensive cyber unicorns?
We definitely have protection contractors who do cyber work—on web site, on contract, embedded with the federal government. And we now have standout cybersecurity corporations like CrowdStrike, Mandiant, and Dragos targeted on detection, response, and resilience. However the place are the startups constructing offensive cyber instruments and platforms? The place’s the VC-backed innovation mannequin we’ve seen in drones, hypersonics, and house?
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Corporations like Anduril and SpaceX have confirmed that Silicon Valley-style innovation—product-focused, capital-efficient, fast-moving—can thrive within the nationwide safety house. So why hasn’t that strategy been utilized to offensive cyber? Sure, there are authorized and secrecy constraints. However those self same constraints haven’t stopped business corporations from constructing weapons techniques or extremely categorized ISR platforms.
Check out the NatSec100 – a curated record of high protection and nationwide safety startups. You’ll discover corporations engaged on AI, autonomy, sensing, and cybersecurity. However not a single one targeted on offensive cyber. Why not?
Shouldn’t we wish the perfect minds at CrowdStrike or Mandiant to spin off and construct next-generation offensive platforms? Shouldn’t the DOD and IC be seeding these concepts and constructing an ecosystem that encourages this sort of innovation?
I imagine we should always.
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