Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Fortune
December 10, 2007
Pg. 49
What happens when engineering talent meets extreme gunsmithing. Welcome to the new line of defense, Silicon Valley--style.
By Jeffrey M. O'Brien
It's 0900 hours on Veterans Day in Fayetteville, N.C., a pistol shot from the Fort Bragg military base. Ten minutes ago a 25-year-old self-taught engineer named Adam Gettings pulled into the Waffle House parking lot, lifted the hatch of his black SUV, and unveiled what could very well be the future of urban warfare: a toylike but gun-wielding robot designed to replace human soldiers on the battlefield. It's two feet tall, travels ten miles an hour, and spins on a dime. Remote-controlled over an encrypted frequency that jams nearby radios and cellphones, it'll blow a ten-inch hole through a steel door with deadly accuracy from 400 meters.
Now Gettings is sitting calmly on the other side of a plate of fried eggs and sliced tomatoes, talking about how his company, Robotex, has teamed up with a wild-eyed Tennessee shotgun designer to rethink the development strategy for military technology. "The idea that you can use investor money rather than [government] research money that's a new thing," says Gettings, who's in town for SpecOps, a war-fighter technology conference. Military contractors typically get the funding to build, test, and sell new weapons systems from federal agencies. It can take forever. Robotex, based in Palo Alto, is financed by angel investors and went from idea to product in six months. "This is the new defense, Silicon Valley--style," says Gettings. "You build only what's necessary, iterate quickly, and keep the price low."
And the next step is the toughest. "It's a *****, let me tell you," he says of trying to sell innovative concepts into an entrenched government procurement system. But he has a plan. First, the entire armory will go on display in Blackwater's lobby. That should get some attention. If not, he's counting on a public outcry. "If moms and dads around the country find out this system is available while their sons are off sopping up bullets in Iraq, they're going to tear the White House down," he says. "This will take the soldiers out of harm's way."
December 10, 2007
Pg. 49
What happens when engineering talent meets extreme gunsmithing. Welcome to the new line of defense, Silicon Valley--style.
By Jeffrey M. O'Brien
It's 0900 hours on Veterans Day in Fayetteville, N.C., a pistol shot from the Fort Bragg military base. Ten minutes ago a 25-year-old self-taught engineer named Adam Gettings pulled into the Waffle House parking lot, lifted the hatch of his black SUV, and unveiled what could very well be the future of urban warfare: a toylike but gun-wielding robot designed to replace human soldiers on the battlefield. It's two feet tall, travels ten miles an hour, and spins on a dime. Remote-controlled over an encrypted frequency that jams nearby radios and cellphones, it'll blow a ten-inch hole through a steel door with deadly accuracy from 400 meters.
Now Gettings is sitting calmly on the other side of a plate of fried eggs and sliced tomatoes, talking about how his company, Robotex, has teamed up with a wild-eyed Tennessee shotgun designer to rethink the development strategy for military technology. "The idea that you can use investor money rather than [government] research money that's a new thing," says Gettings, who's in town for SpecOps, a war-fighter technology conference. Military contractors typically get the funding to build, test, and sell new weapons systems from federal agencies. It can take forever. Robotex, based in Palo Alto, is financed by angel investors and went from idea to product in six months. "This is the new defense, Silicon Valley--style," says Gettings. "You build only what's necessary, iterate quickly, and keep the price low."
And the next step is the toughest. "It's a *****, let me tell you," he says of trying to sell innovative concepts into an entrenched government procurement system. But he has a plan. First, the entire armory will go on display in Blackwater's lobby. That should get some attention. If not, he's counting on a public outcry. "If moms and dads around the country find out this system is available while their sons are off sopping up bullets in Iraq, they're going to tear the White House down," he says. "This will take the soldiers out of harm's way."
