In this episode I have the great honor of welcoming Andrii Hrytseniuk, who was CEO of Brave1, Ukraine's government defense tech cluster, when we recorded this conversation. We talk about how Brave1 grew out of the Army of Drones project and replaced slow, classical defense procurement with a model built for speed: six laws changed, more than 1,000 projects funded and new products certified for the front line in roughly two weeks. Andrii explains why the army doesn't really want the tank, why cheap, niche air defense beats expensive missiles, and how an unmanned front line can make up for the lack of people. An air alert even goes off in the middle of the recording. As someone who runs a defense tech investment firm myself, I think there are a lot of lessons here for Europe, because as Andrii puts it, the peaceful period is over.

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All opinions expressed are my own or those of my guests and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Swedish Armed Forces, the Swedish Air Force, or the Kingdom of Sweden.

0:00 Intro

0:37 What is Brave1?

2:33 From civilian tech to Army of Drones

5:07 Changing laws, culture and time to market

11:59 The playbook: building a Brave1 before war comes

15:12 Grants and a 60% success rate

23:39 Testing, certification and matchmaking

30:26 Cheap air defense vs. expensive missiles

33:19 The unmanned front line

37:23 Stop buying "perfect" products

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