Vibhav Altekar

Co-founder & CTO, Saronic

Search every verified Vibhav Altekar interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Vibhav Altekar, co-founder and CTO of Saronic, recently appeared in a podcast interview alongside his three co-founders, discussing the company's growth and technology. Saronic, an autonomous maritime company founded in 2022, has raised approximately $2.6 billion at a $9.25 billion valuation. In the interview, Altekar described the company's vessels as capable of accelerations exceeding 20 gs, which he contrasted with commercial boats designed around human tolerance of 4 to 6 gs, noting that such speeds would be dangerous for human operators. He also stated that the technology being developed has an impact on real operations and expressed interest in meeting Apache helicopter pilots. Altekar also commented on defense procurement reform, expressing support for recent administrative efforts to enforce accountability and streamline decision-making. He criticized past practices where legislative language led to reports with no follow-through and argued that individual contracting officers should not be able to block aligned program decisions. Additionally, he discussed excitement about open-source AI, saying it would democratize tooling and resources, while acknowledging the competitive environments it creates are "scary, but cool." He emphasized that Saronic's work would provide more capabilities faster and save taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars by reducing costs.