Deterrence CEO warns lack of scientific innovation threatens defense
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Innovation in the physical sciences goes underappreciated in some national security circles, according to Dhruva Rajendra, the founder and chief executive of Deterrence.
- "In our world, a lot of chemistry we use is like half a century old or more," he told Axios in an interview. "I think at some point that will catch up with us."
Why he matters: The company "builds robots that make explosives," in Rajendra's own words. Energetics are a critical component of war.
- The team recently secured $10.1 million in seed funding, as Axios first reported.
Q: When you hear "future of defense," what comes to mind?
A: Historically, deterrence was about who had the biggest stockpile of munitions, basically, or the biggest stockpile of stuff. Now, deterrence is much more about who has the most capacity to make stuff.
- When you look at something like Ukraine — you're basically getting a new product release almost every one to two weeks over there. The future is the capacity to mass manufacture and iterate quickly.
Q: When will wars be waged solely by robots?
A: I don't think they will ever be solely by robots. But I think that sometime in the next 20-30 years they'll be mostly done by robots.
Q: What's the biggest challenge the defense industry faces at the moment? What can be done to alleviate it?
A: One of the challenges when technology is moving fast is just understanding timelines. If I could make a magic thing for the Defense Department, it'd be a time machine.
- Oftentimes, a lot of the debates and stuff like that you see is because some people are focused on what is the biggest problem for the warfighter this week, basically. Then other people are trying to think ahead, 10-15 years or five years ahead.
Q: What time do you wake up? What does the morning routine look like?
A: I try to be a morning person. So I try to wake up at like 5 a.m. or something like that. I try to get a quick workout in and power through Outlook before hopping into kids and then get to the office and start working.
Q: What are you currently reading, or what's a book you'd recommend?
A: One book I did read recently is "The Fish that Ate the Whale."
- The other book is a paperback, "The East India Company: The World's Most Powerful Corporation."
Q: What advice would you give your younger self?
A: These things take a lot longer than you think.
- The reality is, if you're going to do something cool, it's going to probably take a decade-plus.
