Booz Allen CEO: Defense tech has a "three-timeframe problem"
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Horacio Rozanski posts up at the Booz Allen Hamilton offices in Bethesda, Maryland. Photo: Colin Demarest/Axios
The biggest challenge the defense industry faces, according to Booz Allen Hamilton CEO Horacio Rozanski, sounds a lot like the science problem turned novel turned Netflix series.
- "In physics, there's this thing called the three-body problem, right?" he told Axios in an interview.
- "We have a three-timeframe problem, which is that, at the same time, we're investing in the technologies of the Cold War, the technologies of today and the technologies of the future."
Why he matters: Rozanski has seen it all at Booz Allen. He started with the company — one of the world's largest defense contractors — in 1991 as a summer intern.
Q: When you hear "future of defense," what comes to mind?
A: Speed. I'm obsessed with speed. The pace at which the world is changing, the pace at which our adversaries are changing — we need to be faster than them.
- We need to be able to operate inside their decision cycle. We need to be able to operate inside their development cycle. We can't assume that we know what the world is going to look like 30 years from now. But we have to get there faster.
Q: When will wars be waged solely by robots?
A: This is not the answer I would like to give, but the answer is now. If you think through the warfighting domains, in cyberspace, we're essentially almost at computer-to-computer conflict. Then you go to space with all the debris and the congestion and everything out there, autonomy is around the corner, and as it becomes a contested domain, same thing. Then you start to think about underwater and all these other domains.
- I wish I could say never. That would be a better answer.
Q: What region of the world should we be watching? Why?
A: Space. I think what's happening in orbit is going to affect the entire world.
Q: How many emails do you get a day, and how do you deal with them?
A: An infinite number. We run a triage operation, essentially.
- We prioritize with a long tail that, honestly, I never get to.
Q: What's your secret to a successful overnight flight?
A: Because of my lifetime as a management consultant, I have a Pavlovian response to airplane smell. I sit on a plane and I fall asleep, and I wake up either at touchdown or after.
- But the secret is: If I don't fall asleep, avoid alcohol.
Q: What's a piece of gear or tech you can't go without?
A: I am completely addicted to the Apple ecosystem. I think I own everything they make. Not every model of everything they make, to be clear, but I own everything they make, including an Apple Vision Pro.
Q: What advice would you give your younger self?
A: My career took off when I stopped worrying about my career and started worrying about learning stuff.
- That's why I'm reading about quantum physics.
