For more than a decade, the United States has been dependent on foreign technology and has lacked a domestic drone component ecosystem. This financing would allow us to build the components necessary for a thriving, sovereign dual-use drone industry and help to secure our nation's industrial future. We at @PDW_ai are so honored to serve this important mission. 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

Love this quote: “When we come to understand that the only approval that matters in life is our own, we realize we have the power to inoculate ourselves from all external scorn and ridicule." @mhiggins - Burn the Boat

Elon on Speed “I always tell the teams: compress the timeline. Take a 10 year plan and try to do it in 6 months. You’ll probably fail, but you’ll be so far ahead of everyone else that it doesn’t matter. Most companies move at a glacial pace. We try to move at the speed of light.”

Russia killed seven people in Kyiv today. Moving around the city has turned into a deadly game of hiding from drones. You drive, walk, go to work and suddenly you’re running for cover. I know this won’t be heard, but I want to leave it here anyway.

Russia uses rape and sexual violence as weapons of war. Russian soldiers, police and FSB officers have sexually abused 892 Ukrainian civilians and POWs since February 2022. The youngest was 4 years old — Kyiv Post. 1/

Kuleba: Russia does not need to attack the Baltics first. War can start in any EU country without Russian troops crossing a border. War has moved into the air. To break NATO and the EU from within, Moscow can send drones into Germany. Then Europe will ask Ukraine for help. 1/

$5 BILLION in new U.S. Drone Investment 💵 “We’re no longer going to be dependent on foreign tech.” - @BrendanCarrFCC

People thought Mark Zuckerberg was crazy when Meta paid Alexandr Wang $5 billion to be Meta’s Chief AI Officer. At the time, the price looked outrageous. Fast-forward to today: Meta’s new AI products developed under Wang’s leadership have added roughly $200 billion in market value. Suddenly, paying billions to secure world-class talent doesn’t look quite so crazy. That’s how great entrepreneurs think. The question isn’t:” How much does this person cost?”The question is: “How much value can this person create?” If someone can help you create $10 billion in value, paying them $1 billion can be an absolute bargain. And the same principle applies if you are an employee. If you want to earn a higher salary, don’t just ask, “How can I get paid more?” Ask yourself: “ How can I create so much more value for the company that they would be happy to pay me more?” If you want to be paid $1 million a year, start thinking about how you can develop the skills, capabilities, relationships and judgment to create $10 million or more value for your company. Don’t focus only on increasing your income. Focus on increasing your value. When the value you create grows dramatically, your earning power will naturally grow with it.

Russia is preparing drone attacks on Spain, France or Italy, El Mundo. The CIA warned European governments that Russia may launch Gerbera drones from merchant ships in the Mediterranean. 1/

🚩🚩🚩 It appears rogue OpenAI agents, without OpenAI's knowledge, tried to break into a crypto exchange. 1) THEY'RE STILL OUT THERE: "This traffic extends as recently as 9/16, suggesting agents may still be exploiting these services." 2) THEY TRIED TO HIDE THEIR ACTIVITY: The agents created their own email inboxes to sign up for outside services, including an account that would let them keep their activity out of public view. 3) The same agents also tried to hack even more targets, including the University of New Mexico 4) Like most of the other rogue swarms, OpenAI has either covered this up, or didn't know. 5) The independent investigators say "we are likely looking at only a partial subset of the activity that the agents engaged in" 6) The researchers call this the first known case of an AI agent choosing on its own to try to break into a government website. 7) While trying to get a single photograph, an AI agent sent a university library a request built to trick its database into handing over user passwords.

Australia has been hacked. 'And today, I spoke with the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, to express Australia's extreme concern about this incident. And I also expressed my disappointment that it took the company way too long to inform the government what had occurred, and the nature of the way that that notification occurred as well was unacceptable.'

At PDW, our people are united by a shared mission and a commitment to showing up for one another when it matters. Last week, PDW’s John Reinhardt rappelled 160 feet down the Regions Center in downtown Huntsville for Over The Edge, raising money for the Kids to Love Foundation in honor of his son, Jax. The funds will support children in foster care through job training, trauma counseling, and other essential services. We’re grateful to everyone who rallied behind John and helped him surpass his fundraising goal in support of local children in need.

FPV drones owning the battlefield.... the end of an era, FPV drones owning the battlefield was always going to be a short-term situation. The reason is straightforward: armored vehicles moving forward now carry enough electrical power and mounting space to field automated, optically guided kinetic anti-drone systems directly on the vehicle. These systems can be cued by early warning, so vehicles and their automated defenses know where incoming FPV drones are before they arrive. The drones themselves can be tracked optically and acoustically, picked up by the sound of their engines and motors, and with enough of these systems fielded, Third Corps has effectively mastered how to clear the sky of FPV drones in the area it's operating in, specifically the ground north of Lyman. The reason so few FPV drones are being encountered in that area comes down to a deliberate, layered air defense concept. A .50 caliber machine gun has an effective range of roughly a thousand meters, which means each air defense gun protects a radius of about two thousand meters around itself. These systems can be vehicle-mounted, trailer-mounted, or pallet-mounted, simply dropped off at the front and daisy-chained together. With four, six, or twelve of them working in concert, they move forward one piece at a time, like pieces on a chessboard, always keeping overlapping fire and mutual support between systems. Combined with electronic warfare vehicles and other anti-drone systems moving forward alongside them, this is exactly what has let Third Corps advance into a large area while encountering relatively few FPV drones, whether radio-guided or fiber-optic guided. We always knew this was coming. When large formations move forward with heavy vehicle density, combining kinetic anti-drone systems with electronic warfare sweeps the FPVs from the sky, and that's exactly what's being seen now. We saw an earlier version of this at the Battle of Kursk, where wide-spectrum jamming alone worked well for the first couple of days, until fiber-optic drones showed up and jamming alone stopped being enough. What's happening now is the second phase of that same evolution: jammers combined with kinetic air defense actually sweeping the skies clear of FPVs, rather than jamming alone trying to hold the line. FPV drones will always have a place on the battlefield going forward, but they've always been fragile, and as long as they can be seen, they can be dealt with. What's re-emerging now, as a direct result of clearing the skies, is conventional tube artillery, finally able to do what it does best at long range again, without nearly as much fear of the FPV threat hanging over it.

One very positive, unintended byproduct of agentic commerce is that any terrible customer service experience that requires you to wage a war of attrition to receive recompense can now be outsourced. To an agent that never gets tired, never gets frustrated, never minds that the crappy airline is experiencing unusual call volume, and isn’t phased by time differences. Language barrier? No such thing. All those recurring revenue business model that make it impossible to cancel are now doomed.

I personally don’t understand how anyone is willing to give over access to their accounts to any of these agents at this point without way more security assurances. It’s crazy. I see no advantage of being a first mover consumer. How much of your data are you willing to forfeit just to get a reservation at Carbone? Trust your instincts. The agent may be your muse, but it is not your friend.

I honored the memory of the victims in New York at the site of the horrific terrorist attack that took place 25 years ago. A tragedy that had a profound impact on everyone around the world. Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the terrorists’ attack. They were citizens of 90 countries, and our people were among them as well. A vile and horrific terrorist attack that claimed the lives of innocent people. And we will never accept such vileness from terrorists. We will always remember those who fight terror and those who have fallen victim to it. May all those who lost their lives rest in peace.

immi protein ramen is now in ~500 Walmart locations nationwide! Walmart is the largest physical retailer in the world and is one of the final bosses of retail. Over the past few years, we met multiple leaders at Walmart HQ in Bentonville to do product tastings and share our vision of where immi is headed. Walmart execs and buyers gave us ruthless feedback and helped us iterate towards our most delicious recipe yet that they’re excited to share with millions of their weekly Walmart shoppers. This is a huge milestone for our small team and we’re so grateful for everyone who has supported us and helped us get here.