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Two CTOs from the U.S. military are trying to answer a bold question: can the Army and Navy adopt the mindset, velocity, and iteration of startups? The answer may shape the future of defense.
Key Takeaways
- The Department of Defense is shifting from rigid programs of record to agile, outcome-driven capabilities.
- Technology isn’t the problem—culture and process are. And both are actively being reengineered.
- The Army and Navy CTOs are empowering soldiers and sailors to validate solutions in live conditions.
- Budget cycles and legacy procurement structures are slowly being rewritten to allow startup-style iteration.
- Shared enterprise services, dual-use innovation, and modular capability portfolios are replacing siloed systems.
- The goal is not just 10% better tech—it’s 10x transformations that enable faster, safer, and smarter missions.
Rebuilding the Military’s Tech Stack—From the Inside
- Alex Miller (CTO for the Army’s Chief of Staff) and Justin Finelli (CTO for Navy & Marine Corps) are helping transform two of the largest public institutions in the world.
- Their jobs are part strategy, part engineering, and part education—guiding service members and leadership toward more adaptable, scalable, tech-enabled missions.
- Both agree: this is the best alignment between commercial innovation and defense needs in a generation.
- The bottleneck is no longer interest. Hundreds of startups want to serve national security. The challenge is systems and pathways.
From Black Box to Front Door: Demystifying Military Procurement
- Historically, the DoD was a black box. Startups couldn’t understand how to sell into the military.
- Now, new front doors like DIU, AFWERX, and Army Futures Command are turning black boxes into glass rooms.
- Old rules—Packard Commission, Goldwater-Nichols—are still active, but leaders are cutting through layers of duct tape and bureaucracy.
- Procurement pathways are expanding from decades-long waterfall contracts to modular, software-forward, capability-need-driven models.
Outcome-Driven Experimentation: Field-Testing Innovation
- The Army and Navy are pushing pilot-ready tech directly into the field. If it works under pressure, it scales.
- A drone countermeasure designed for stadium security was deployed within 3 months—not 3 years.
- Naval ships are testing converged edge compute boxes built from commercial hardware, enabling billion-dollar divestments.
- Software-defined solutions are now proving faster ROI and effectiveness than legacy programs of record.
From Program of Record to Portfolio of Possibilities
- Programs of record (PORs) once ruled DoD tech strategy. But they often bred inertia and long-tail inefficiencies.
- Now, services are shifting toward flexible portfolios—modular capabilities grouped by mission relevance, not by legacy program alignment.
- This lets services move faster, fund smarter, and scale what works—without being trapped by outdated architectures.
- “Portfolio” thinking allows reuse, replacement, and remixing—echoing agile and DevOps principles.
Shrinking the “Valley of Death”
- Startups often die in the “valley of death” between R&D and sustained procurement.
- New mechanisms like Accelerating Procurement for Innovative Technology (APFIT) and capability need statements aim to bridge that gap.
- Leaders are prioritizing value over box-checking: “Don’t send us your 20% better tool. Show us 10x impact and data to prove it.”
- Cross-service alignment, shared tech stacks, and outcome metrics are accelerating transition speed.
Leveraging What Works: Lego, Not Monolith
- The new tech philosophy: don’t ask every vendor to do everything. Let each one do what they do best.
- Great at UI? Focus on UI. Great at inference engines? Focus there. Stop forcing full-stack delivery from startups.
- This modular, Lego-brick approach encourages flexibility and lowers risk.
- Replacing 17 siloed mapping tools with one shared service is just one example.
- The Army is using mobile Android devices to deliver C2 to tank commanders. It works—and is cheaper, faster, and soldier-approved.
Speed as a Strategic Variable
- Speed is not a side benefit. It’s the strategic edge.
- Software-defined warfare means delays are deadly. Field-deployable software must move at startup pace.
- One Navy CTO quipped: “I don’t want fewer contracts. I want to win.”
- From edge AI to zero-trust networking, new solutions must deliver measurable performance and reduce legacy drag.
Culture Shift: Measuring Value, Not Just Compliance
- Performance is no longer defined by meeting static requirements—it’s defined by actual battlefield value.
- CTOs are flipping the script: time-to-delivery, field feedback, and mission outcomes are the new KPIs.
- Mission command, traditionally a program mess, is being streamlined by embracing commercial mapping tools.
- The system no longer rewards playing it safe. It rewards moving the needle.
Building a Common Tech Stack—Together
- Shared services and enterprise platforms are enabling cross-branch scale.
- Instead of 75 PEOs building 75 redundant AI solutions, common infrastructure is now a priority.
- Data sharing, mapping layers, and cloud-native C2 must function across services and in joint operations.
- Army and Navy leaders want modular autonomy toolchains—not one solution, but a plug-and-play architecture.
Silicon Valley Meets Fort Bragg
- Founders must understand the warfighter. Move to the edge. Get proximity. Build what solves real pain.
- Dual-use success means commercial viability too. DoD doesn’t want to be your only customer.
- CTOs want to hear from you—if you bring validated outcomes, not just buzzwords.
- “Imagine a safer world and work toward it. But back it with data and field tests.”
The Department of Defense is finally moving like a startup—at least in its best corners. CTOs across services are blowing up outdated processes, field-testing innovation, and scaling what works. The future of military innovation is agile, modular, and outcome-driven—and it’s already arriving.
