S8 Ep682: 3. Josh Rogin reports on the Hill and Valley Forum, where Silicon Valley tech leaders and Washington officials discuss defense modernization. They address bureaucratic hurdles and China’s manufacturing lead in critical technologies. (3)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 2 April 2026
⏱️ 11 minutes
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Summary
3. Josh Rogin reports on the Hill and Valley Forum, where Silicon Valley tech leaders and Washington officials discuss defense modernization. They address bureaucratic hurdles and China’s manufacturing lead in critical technologies. (3)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm John Bachelor. Josh Rogan of the Washington Post joins writing about an event that I can only imagine |
| 0:22.8 | the scale of it. It is an annual event called the Hill and Valley Forum. Josh tells me it was |
| 0:28.9 | held most recently in downtown Washington at the Mellon Auditorium presentation. It was the big names |
| 0:36.0 | in tech and members of Congress and also the Defense |
| 0:40.1 | Department looking in, both present and past, asking the question, how can America compete, |
| 0:47.0 | given that we have the technology, the Silicon Valley, the AI, and we have the Defense Department, |
| 0:52.6 | but they do not speak the same language. What is to be done? |
| 0:56.8 | My understanding of this year's topic. Josh, a very good evening to you. The Silicon Valley |
| 1:02.4 | entrepreneurs and the Washington leadership, both Democratic, Republican, and professional. |
| 1:09.0 | Did they evidence frustration? I couldn't tell from your write-up because |
| 1:13.3 | you're very careful about their themes, but I didn't know the mood of the moment. Good evening to you. |
| 1:19.8 | Well, good evening, John. Well, you know, when the founders of this Hill and Valley Forum began |
| 1:24.3 | their project about five years ago, they couldn't have imagined that here we would be in twenty twenty six and they would have the most tech friendly you know administration |
| 1:33.7 | of modern history i mean we've got a national security uh political leadership that all comes from the |
| 1:40.2 | tech world including the vice president including the deputy secretary of defense, |
| 1:45.4 | and on down the line. And because there are so many connections between the VC world and |
| 1:51.7 | the Trump family and the Trump administration, and they're taking this approach of just sort of |
| 1:57.8 | doing things, doing business a different way, this has opened up a trillion |
| 2:01.5 | dollar opportunity and the defense budgets are going up and Silicon Valley firms are |
| 2:07.5 | lining up to feed at the troth. And, you know, that's a huge change from just a few years |
| 2:14.5 | ago when companies like Google or Apple or Facebook were very much |
| 2:21.8 | against doing business with the Defense Department for a number of reasons. They did it. Some of them |
... |
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