The Dangerous Mess at a Defense Tech Startup
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 27 December 2022
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Founded in 2019, Rebellion Defense emerged as a darling of the defense startup industry, backed by powerful Pentagon insiders and high-profile investors like former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. But now, three years later, the company is beginning to look less like Apple and more like Theranos, according to a recent story in Vox.
Lawfare managing editor Tyler McBrien sat down with Vox senior foreign policy writer Jonathan Guyer to discuss his reporting on Rebellion Defense. They talked about the thorny ethical questions of artificial intelligence on the battlefield, the unholy alliance of Silicon Valley and the Pentagon, and why one former Rebellion Defense employee likened the company to a “Fyre Festival led by Jar Jar Binks.”
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair |
| 0:07.2 | podcast become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:14.7 | That's patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:18.2 | Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair |
| 0:25.6 | no bull and the aftermath. |
| 0:33.8 | I pushed rebellion to answer those questions. |
| 0:36.2 | Former employees said they felt icky because would they sell to ice to do, you know, immigration |
| 0:43.3 | enforcement that many have criticized? |
| 0:45.5 | Would they sell to a Saudi Arabia, which obviously has been responsible for just the wanton |
| 0:50.3 | targeting of its citizens? |
| 0:52.9 | It goes to companies like the NSO group, the Israeli spyware maker, no one wants to get |
| 1:01.1 | that kind of press. |
| 1:03.0 | When you have companies, the growth markets are friends of the United States and that |
| 1:08.3 | has historically been a little difficult for investors. |
| 1:12.6 | I think that's an interesting question because should defense in this sense be privatized |
| 1:19.0 | and made to be profitable or is it about the best possible technologies? |
| 1:23.7 | And where is the intersection there? |
| 1:25.4 | And I think there is an intersection and I'm not investing or a technologist, but I think |
| 1:31.8 | these ethical questions need to be answered by all of these companies. |
| 1:36.4 | I'm Tyler McBrion, managing editor of LawFair and this is the LawFair podcast, December 27, |
| 1:42.4 | 2022. |
| 1:44.3 | Founded in 2019, rebellion defense emerged as a darling of the defense startup industry. |
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