The New Ground Truth, with Dan Smoot (CEO of Vantor)

Geospatial intelligence has become operational. One thing we learned early on in the Ukraine conflict is how important this type of data is. Ukrainians didn't have some of this foundational capability—they had to use it from partner nations that could support them. By giving them these capabilities, it helped them stave off their adversary. Space is that next frontier, and there's a reason for that. People are looking at Golden Dome and concerned about things because they understand that space-based and spaceborne capabilities to deliver this ground truth are absolutely important and critical assets for great defense. The world recognized that companies like Vantor can bring these capabilities to countries who don't have that foundational capability, and we're seeing this on the international marketplace. They're realizing they've got gaps in capabilities and trying to build a national constellation is hard. You can rely on commercial companies that have this exquisite capability and relate it to ground truth so they can actually solve multiple missions.

My pleasure. I'm glad to be here.

Well, firstly it was my foray into space, so it was quite an exciting call to say the least. When I broke it down, I come from a PE background and knew that they wanted a strong operator to come into the company. Clearly there were some challenges with some satellites on the ground that they wanted to get launched because we had capacity challenges and products associated with it. But as I came into the company, that was actually one of the operational capabilities that was just like, let's get this done and move the company forward. What was really exciting actually was the mission and the focus this company and the employees have on serving their customers' needs. There's such devotion to that cause, it became really exciting for me. I went from really coming into the operational construct of turning this company around—that was already kind of a darling in the industry and the largest and well respected—to really understanding that the foundation of this company was grounded on some cultural beliefs that are incredibly strong and still today the passion and heart and soul of the company. So it's one thing for Advent to give me the call, it's another thing to really understand what a special company this is.

Yeah, I think everybody's always fascinated with space. That's one of the things I can hit you right away. But what was really interesting, if you look at my background—infrastructure, data, application business, efficiencies, running call centers and SaaS businesses—and if you look at what Vantor, or Maxar at the time, was trying to do: how do you actually take advanced capabilities that you're building on orbit? If you really think about it, it's a hardware business producing data that you need to turn into—incredible moat, by the way—foundational data that you're turning into very resilient products. You're transforming a company that was selling imagery into a company selling software solutions and strategic solutions to an industry. That is something I was very comfortable with and something I've done multiple times in my career. Also driving scale—how do you actually scale out this company? It was very well established but really needed some operational rigor to get it to where it needed to go. Coming into it, that was the part I was very comfortable with. Learning the science around the space side was actually really exciting because it is very unique and space is very hard. But also the uniqueness of Vantor is we have probably the most exquisite capabilities on orbit, giving us one of the strongest foundational data capabilities in the industry. And how you build products off that—building Raptor, building Sentry, modernizing our sovereign capabilities inside of our international customers—became really critical. Ironically, that's stuff I've done from a terrestrial perspective in the past, and bringing that from a space perspective became very natural.

Yeah, this was a discussion that happened early on with the board as we were getting our constellation up onto orbit. We have the capacity and we're starting to develop really strong intelligence capabilities on the ground. If you really think about it, we're driving not just what we've been driving from an imagery and exquisite imagery on orbit perspective, but the foundational data and the ability to execute these applications on the ground—really space to ground. That became the narrative around what Maxar was becoming. When you think about space-based intelligence and driving these applications, you really need to differentiate yourself in the marketplace. There were a lot of pixel providers, a lot of space providers or sensors, but it was really the culmination of everything we were doing, and I think the market was really not adopting to the fact that these new capabilities were being delivered. So one of the first things we had to do is get that brand recognition of what we have become, why people were entrusting us from an operational perspective based on this data to make critical decisions to support their enterprise business or more importantly the warfighter. We had to shift the eyes a little bit, and that was a debate we had at the company. The second thing is we had a manufacturing business called Maxar Space that was doing more communication-type satellites, and that was really not the core of what we were anymore. We wanted to carve that business off, so we made this choice: let's look at a brand that really represents who we are today, and then of course a brand for that space business. We went through a lot of branding work. We actually told our employee base months before we actually rebranded to get them bought into it. Yes, there was that 'oh my god, we're Maxar' moment. Then we reminded the employee base that they went through that with DigitalGlobe to Maxar when MDA bought them. So there was this resolution of 'oh my god, it did make an impact in the industry.' We actually told customers early on, specific customers, and surprisingly our customer base was like, 'Yep, we get it.' We've really had no pushback from our customer base because they understood the transition we were going for. They understood the sell-off of the manufacturing business. So customer acceptance made that transition a lot easier. Yes, we knew we were moving from a brand that had great brand recognition, but we were going to be stuck. If you think about the financial markets and the future equity brand power of the company, you want to move it forward and not get stuck in legacy. The employee base has adopted it incredibly well. Are there people who still have that pride in Maxar? There always are. We still have to continue brand growth and clarification moving forward, but it's becoming more and more mainstream to who we are as a company.

Yeah, we're definitely well recognized by the U.S. government and international governments. The majority of our business is really supporting the defense and intel community. But we still do a tremendous amount of critical enterprise work. The largest mappers in the world are using our capabilities. It's really taking that space-based data and driving value to our customers. It is really that ground control, that ground capability that we're delivering now to all of our key customers. We built this on one of the most incredible foundations of data over the last 25 years that anybody has in the industry—both on 2D and 3D. We have the largest 3D base map of anybody in the world. The products and capabilities you can build off that are amazing. Everything from delivering autonomous warfighting capabilities to a drone by helping in GPS-denied territories using that landscape—incredibly important for 3D—or from a Sentry perspective, delivering AI capabilities for insights, giving a lot more around sight and object detection at speed so the analyst spends more time solving problems for the warfighter than just looking through pixels. That's a major transition we've done. But it's also about the ground controls—building the sovereign capabilities through our Tensor Globe to have everything from strategically planning your constellation, to tasking your information to meet needs, to having an archive of multi-sensor and shared data. What I think is really incredibly important is actually the fusion of data now, because it's not just about our data—it's also fusing other sensor data. So it's that ground control and delivering solutions to all of our customers that has become more compelling. We built this foundation of doing business with the U.S. government both on the high side, low side, and being an unclass environment value to them. But we're also building these incredible sovereign capabilities for our international community. The international community has moved from open cloud environments to really focusing on sovereign data protection. We're the only company that can actually drive AI insights into air-gapped environments that customers are looking for now. So it's truly space-borne capabilities all the way through data distribution to our customers in protected environments. That is really the envelope of what our customers are looking for today as they move forward.

You know, it's interesting. I actually think we've solved one of the biggest problems first, which is—if you think about the exquisite nature of our Vantage-class satellite that we're going to be building, built on the backbone of the 30-centimeter capabilities that we built into the industry—you're probably aware those are not cheap investments. The cost of getting into that market is quite heavy. And it's still the primary requested capability in the industry. If you think about targeting, geo-registration, or being able to really look at the exquisite nature of that data to support the warfighter, you're really looking at our exquisite class of capabilities. Yes, that new constellation will be able to revisit 15 times a day. But our customers are also requesting, 'Hey, we want to deal with latency. We want to deal with challenges.' Even in our exquisite class, we've been able to get latency down sub-10 minutes in some recent testing. That is amazing to do inside the marketplace. But they're also looking for how do we actually drive more revisits and more capabilities. We're not chasing our competition in regards to lower-cost satellites. We're looking at things like mesh networks, connectivity across our satellites so we can reduce latency further and get higher revisit. Use our exquisite capabilities to actually use geo-accuracy and make that next generation of capabilities even more accurate and valuable to the industry. We see our ability to move into that marketplace to be much more effective at using that revisit to help our products like Sentry and others that customers are looking for, to drive more ground-based data that's even more accurate. We've solved the big hard problem, and now it's going to allow us to accelerate and use other capabilities to complement that. I think our competition is still trying to figure out how to compete against the bigger problem, and I think that's a major inherent value that we have.

Very different. Yes. The Vantage class is like our traditional class—that is a true investment, what we're doing. If you think about it, 20 centimeters, the revisit range it can do, point collects greater than we've ever done before, area coverage greater than we've ever done before. The aperture size of that device is pretty significant to be able to do that, and so the technology is a much greater expense. If you look at the Pulse class, one of the values our team brings is we really understand the physics of the optics. We've seen that we can do those optics at a much better cost-effectiveness to get multiples on site. Because if you want to have this true mesh network, you have to have the connectivity following around the Earth at all times. You have this mesh connectivity, of course connecting in some ground stations, and it's just a cost difference in regards to that bus structure that you'd have that optical mesh tied to. So yes, it's a much less expensive investment per satellite, but if you look at the overall mesh network, it starts to rationalize the same kind of investment that you're doing on an exquisite.

First off, it's been fantastic. Very, very patient.

Absolutely. They have their plans. They have their investment. If you think about it, any shareholder to a company wants to have a good financial outcome. From a company perspective, they're very typical private equity that has an operational play that they run, but they've given a lot of latitude in regards to the innovation and the creativity of this company. If you saw recently, we were named in the top 10 of Times Innovation, and that's because they've given us a lot of latitude to go and develop new capabilities like we're doing with Raptor, which was recognized, and Sentry and Tensor Globe. At the same time, they've got the resources to help us really do a lot of things like how we do financial planning or look at our equity-debt structures and getting us prepared for what could be next as a company. I'm actually very impressed with the resources and the expertise that they bring to the table to help us all the time. From the get-go, they have been maniacally focused on helping us get the constellation—the new constellation was on the ground—and now we're really thinking about what is the innovation and investments of the future to continue to strengthen the company. How do we use our equity, because we are becoming much stronger financially? How do we use that equity as a value play to bring on more capabilities to the company? They're very active in supporting those ideas. Sometimes they're really active in supporting those ideas, which we actually appreciate. They're like any shareholder—they're going to work with us on what the best outcome is. That could be a public offering, it could be an acquisition, and those are all the things that we're working through today.

Sometimes.

Yeah, it's growing, which is very exciting for us. If you think about it, we've been doing business with the U.S. Army for some time in a program called One World Terrain, really looking at our 3D data and how you apply that to mission planning or training simulation for the warfighter. It's a program that's been very successful, and that's really talking about the power of our ground-based data, that foundational 3D data, and how you actually apply it to real-life scenarios and simulations. The reason it's incredibly powerful is when you think about the warfighter—they have to be incredibly accurate about what they're doing. When you have the geo-accuracy capabilities that we have, it's really powerful for how they can use those tools. You can't just use made-up data—it has to be very accurate, very spot-on for them to have mission success. Where Anduril came into play was they've done a phenomenal job with their VR technology. I actually got to demonstrate it at our sales kickoff this year. It was fascinating to see how our 3D data is applied into their VR capabilities, and you're actually seeing building elevations and all the different things. It truly gives that virtual feel for the warfighter. They brought that technology with our One World Terrain virtual technology, and we applied it together. It was a great match, and I think that was the first time we really saw how we can work with them on many of their solutions they're bringing to market, and how our data sets and capabilities actually complement a lot of what they're doing from a hardware perspective. This was the first entree, and the U.S. government seems to be very pleased with the program at this point. I think it's demonstrating truly that virtual training that is going to help the warfighter in the end. How do we continue to expand that relationship are things we're working on with them now. They're an exciting company, and I think we're excited about the new innovation paths we're going with—it maps to a lot of the disruption and innovation changes that they're driving across the world right now.

About a year ago. Yes.

Yeah, I think that sounds accurate. What's really exciting about—yes, EOCL has been a long-standing foundational capability for the government. We are a huge portion, the majority portion, of their foundational mapping that we do for the U.S. government, which is still a critical application. If you think about navigating ships, any kind of movement on the ground—maps today are really important, especially as you're making decisions that could impact how your defense and intel communities work. But it's also important for—people forget that's one part of the business, but we have a lot of civil services. A lot of local and state services use it. We're used extensively in first responder issues like when we have floods, and that's how the information is shared. People don't realize that the EOCL contract produces a tremendous amount of data that is shared amongst a huge community, including an international community, supporting our allies. So as you can imagine in today's world, this is really important. We're seeing how geospatial is actually the foundation of how we look at intelligence around the warfighter. What we're really excited about with the next iteration is how do we, one, get more exquisite, more coverage, but more importantly, how do we drive automation to support the analysts. It's still very physically demanding about how they actually apply these things. We're working with the government on how do you actually drive AI, how do you drive solutions that could actually drive more automation and decision-making. This is a cultural change in the government. This is why I'm actually kind of excited about the work that Feinberg is doing in regards to acquisition reform. But acquisition reform without cultural change is going to be one of the biggest gaps that we're going to see with the U.S. government moving forward. They've got to trust the data. They have to trust how we're actually stitching this stuff together and bringing these advanced capabilities together. I think you'll see the next iteration of relationships and contracts really start to focus on the blend of, yes, the foundational capabilities that we bring—because data is data, objects are objects—but how do we drive more automation and efficiency into the government by using these contracts to bring new capabilities. There is a lot of push right now about what does that next innovation capability play, and that's where commercial just makes a huge difference because we are actually moving a lot faster than they can move, and just need to apply that into some of these new ways that they consume product.

Yeah, I think—first off, obviously without crossing any lines—thank you. First off, let's step back and understand what we learned about these environments. Geospatial intelligence has been used for everything from target assessment to post-damage assessment, and it has become operational. I think that's one thing we learned early on in the Ukraine conflict—how important this type of data is. Ukrainians didn't have some of this foundational capability. They had to use it from partner nations that could support them. By giving them these capabilities, it helped them stave off their adversary, and it continues to do that. But the other things we've learned is how the warfighter is fighting today. And this is actually resonating back into even the most recent conflict—autonomous capabilities are becoming the foundation for war. What did we learn? We learned that GPS-denied is a concern. So we had to come up with solutions that help the autonomous vehicles be able to fly without being disrupted and complete their missions. And you do that by using geospatial data—use that 3D data like we're doing with our Raptor product. But more importantly, we're also realizing how important it is to get information into the hands of the actual warfighter.

War fighter at speed. So, how do you actually get it from collection to deal with that latency and get it into the war fighter in a couple hours versus what used to be a couple days? That is life-changing for them. And so, I think what the world recognized is companies like Vantor can actually bring these capabilities to countries who don't have that foundational capability. And we're seeing this on the international marketplace. This is why we're seeing the international market grow is they're realizing they've got these gaps in capabilities and trying to go build a national constellation is hard. And so you can actually rely on the commercial companies that have this exquisite capability that we have and then deliver this ground truth that we need to deliver and so they can actually solve multiple missions.

Parlay that straight into what we're seeing in the Iran conflict. We've got a lot of customers of ours who are in that region and they are building out their capabilities and relying on commercial to be able to have that same ground truth to be able to make the same decisions and they're learning how warfare is today. And actually I believe that they're actually seeing the Ukrainians are helping them. So we're really seeing those important values of the geospatial intelligence, how it actually plays in today's modern warfare and it is a critical linchpin. You probably heard space is that next frontier and there's a reason for that and there's a reason people are looking at Golden Dome and concerned about things is because they understand that space-based and space-born capabilities to be able to deliver this ground truth is absolutely important and critical assets now to have great defense.

You know, we've actually been doing programs for years that launch protections and of course the N&E monitoring that we do. I believe people have seen some of the recent imagery we've been taking of the Chinese capabilities and our capabilities. And so I think that we've actually been building capabilities for some time that support. And if you think about Golden Dome as an architecture, it's actually pulling multiple pieces together. And under Space Force right now on what all the different pieces that need to happen. And so as we make investments, some of our programs will be pulled right to some of those capabilities and then of course we're excited about some of the newer things that they're looking for that we're going to be investing in. And the government is actually, through their Office of Strategic Sourcing, they're looking at ways to invest in companies like that to support Golden Dome and we're hoping to be able to take advantage of that as well to support Space Force's direction.

Yeah, I think the Chinese have been, like the Chinese do, they invest. And that line between commercial and government is a very blended line in their world. And we've been watching them develop capabilities and watching them build a commercial market out to support the industry. It was recent I was asked a question about was I concerned that the Chinese or other countries were supporting Iran. Well, they have alliances between each other. Of course, the countries are going to support each other where they can sell some of these capabilities. And we are starting to see what they are. The Chinese have not been very overt. But we're seeing, based on their imagery and based on some of the market, they are catching up pretty quick. And I think that it just needs to be a continued flag for Western countries, especially the United States, that we need to stay on top of our investments to make sure that we continue to build out that forward-leading capabilities. And that's exactly what we're doing from a Vantor perspective is to make sure that we are always leading from a capability and technology perspective.

We've seen some of their on-orbit capabilities. And we've seen some of the work they try to do with some of their ground truth and some of their ground capabilities. Clearly that's a big lag from what we've seen so far. So we know that they're building satellites. We know that they're building a certain type of image class satellite. What we have not seen is their ability to actually pull that together to really build a space-to-ground and disseminate that information into tactical operations and defense solutions and intel solutions that we've been doing for years and years. My assumption is they're well-funded and they'll continue to develop. But it's hard and I think that's the advantage we've had. We've been doing it for some time and we're advancing capability quickly but never underestimate an adversary.

Yeah. Well, think about it this way. First off, you talk about the digital living twin. That's actually our foundational data and that's a part of it. If you think about our ability to actually revisit the earth and continue to build this exquisite capability, you've got this foundational data in 3D that our customers can build upon. And what the Tensor Globe really is is it's the operational construct about how you can actually build this ground truth on. And so one of the components is pretty compelling. First off you've got our Nexus which is the true aggregation of all the data together. And by the way it's not just ours. It's also other sensor data to really be able to fuse that data to be able to get more intelligence out for the customers. Very few companies are actually looking at a common data set that way. So that's our Nexus program. Forge I talked about a second ago which is really that fusion of the data. That's a new capability. We've been doing that with our 3D. As a matter of fact we're going to be releasing an announcement with a customer in the Middle East where they've got full real-time basically fusion of their data through our Forge product on the Tensor Globe.

Our ability to actually have an insights engine. That's really looking at that data and looking at how do you actually look at multiple pieces of information and deliver true insights about what's happening real-time, to be able to run your story line on top of that which is give the analyst something that they can view and make a decision on. And the last thing is Cortex which is how do you actually do strategic constellation planning? You need to be able to look at all your assets and understand how do I actually do predictive tasking to make sure that I'm actually getting that next piece of information that can help me defend and or make a decision. We're actually seeing by the way the Tensor Globe and these capabilities not just for the defense and intel community. We're actually seeing our enterprise customers take advantage of it because mappers need the same type of capabilities and being able to fuse these data together. They're looking at the advanced 3D capabilities and how to update and have real-time information. So that's where the Tensor Globe really is very powerful is really giving that foundational, true capability that we've wanted on the ground for some time.

It's—we're seeing a lot more as the drone industry continues to mature and evolve. So imagine you've got a lot of companies getting into the industry in regards to really driving autonomous capabilities. Where we've seen effectiveness, of course, is actually in some operational regions as we're seeing customers and/or OEMs start to build out more drone capabilities. We're really seeing them look at all different aspects of our Raptor product. Remember some of our Raptor products are ACE which is how do you actually ground control the drones in your swarms. Our Guide product is actually how do you actually do landscape navigation based on GPS denial on the drone itself. And so there's a wide range of the solutions that we're running with the drone capabilities. And we're just seeing right now we're seeing this major insertion of drone manufacturers and they're looking for how do they actually build these solid state solutions. And so we're starting to see contracts now with each of the providers as they start to license up. We're anticipating there are going to be some large bids for these drone manufacturers. We're seeing them out there. These things aren't bought like one and two. You're seeing that countries and people are going to buy in the tens of thousands. And so they're going to need these licenses to be built in straight into the drone capabilities.

From a heart and mind perspective, our customers are very excited about the fact that they're going to have a solution that really will allow the drones to operate in a very tough environment. And we've seen that operationally how they failed. Some people saw recent articles about the tethering that drones were doing in battle. Literally, these fiber optics that were going hundreds of yards. Being able to learn that actually puts the operator in harm's way. This solution takes the operator out of harm's way because of the fact that they can operate it. We're actually starting to see commercial customers really interested in this because if you think about last mile delivery or areas that require different types of autonomous capabilities, we're seeing that commercial customers are very interested in our Raptor capabilities as well now. So it's really starting to spread through the autonomous world.

Sub-15-minute revisit and sub—that's a lot of capability. I think we're going to have—and I'm not saying Vantor has to provide all of it. I think what you're going to get and what we will have and my aspiration is to have over the next couple years is to build that sub-20 centimeter because I think that is pretty compelling. Remember some of the limitations of getting there has just been really building licensing. And so now we've seen the market free up, we can actually build those capabilities. So I think one you're going to have to get more capability on orbit. The second thing is I think remember the sub-20 centimeter and some of those capabilities really—it's also about dealing with the latency. So you want the revisit but if you can actually have good capabilities on orbit you can actually apply this up to 20 centimeters. But it's also about making sure that everything's being registered to the same accuracy.

So if I'm hitting things over and over again I want to make sure that I'm really accurate in what I'm seeing and doing and then you could fly this up to 20 centimeters. I think that's the first step, right, which is get everything aligned accurately. Get the data fused so you can actually make good decisions. And then over a long period of time it's going to be about capacity. It's not a cheap way to get there but it's exciting because I think we would love to see it. Combination of the two for a while.

Well, the good news about geospatial data even at its best is that we don't know who the person on the ground is. We're not that good. I'd be more worried about there's other capabilities that other government leaders and people think about. But I think that our capabilities really are built on looking at larger objects, larger detections, and things. And so I don't really worry about us from an individual privacy perspective.

We can make out—yeah, but probably just about the make of the car. Yeah.

Yeah. When you say track, you mean just tracking how people are moving?

I think it's also the intelligence that you're applying, right? You've got autonomous or new advanced visual learning models that we're applying. I mean the point about doing object detection is tracking objects and making sure you understand what they're doing. I think you hit on something on your prior question that I think is really important which is also sovereignty—making sure that people do have sovereign protection of their data and they fall under their data protection rights like Europe who have very specific data protection rights. Even in the US there's monitoring and data rights that need to be taken very seriously. But I think that part of the value of what we do is we're actually bringing it from a commercial perspective to really be able to build this foundational data that really is about 3D maps and buildings and changes and tracking objects. I think policymakers will have things they're going to have to deal with, which is how do they continue to protect the rights of people and how they use data.

Some of that data today is real. And so I think that is something that we all take care of. Good news is I think the industry we're in, we're really about how do you actually deal with the landscape of the world.

Well, first off, I agree with you. I think every private equity investor in their head has a number of what they think is a great return. I think people can probably do some of the math and understand that the market is actually pretty favorable right now to space-based companies. And we're excited. We're watching SpaceX carefully about what are the returns and multiples going to be and how are they going to invest. And yes, Planet has gotten very high multiples. One of the first things we're focused on to get that big return is what is the health and the financials of the company. We're growing. We're growing at a great clip. Last year we added a significant number to our AR. Our AR is coming up on a billion dollars. And I think you start to look at the growth against the ARR right now in the marketplace, it's significant against the multiples. And so that's super exciting for us—can we actually outrun the competition? I think so, because the fact that we're much bigger and if we're bigger and growing we're going to have a great multiple return. We're watching the markets very carefully. There is, for space—if you look at just being a software company in today's world especially with AI, there's some deflation going on. You think about Vantor making hardware and collecting data again is incredibly valuable in the marketplace and the markets are showing that from a return perspective.

And so we've got this incredible motive that we're going to continue to build space-based assets and there is a significant reward, there's a huge reward in regards to building sovereign capabilities for nations. You're seeing that with some of the names you just mentioned. And so I think that we're looking at the returns of our international business and that growth and the multiple. Then there's the key one too which is the data moat and that foundational data that we have is such a valuable asset in the markets. And so you apply the growth to this, I think they're going to be very happy with the returns. And like any investor they're going to look at the best path for them—sure, are they considering public? Sure. Are they considering another alternative? Yeah. But I think that they're pretty excited about the fact that since they bought the company the market has really shifted very favorably to space-oriented companies from multiple perspectives.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think about two-thirds.

I think so.

Well, I think first off, I love enthusiasm in the industry and I've been around technology companies for a couple decades now and I've seen lots of enthusiasm about growth. You have to have healthy growth. When you have healthy growth you're going to have healthy returns—that happens in the industry. And right now space-based industry is growing. You're seeing more investment. When we talk about the international marketplaces, you talk about them trying to catch up in the world when the US is telling people they've got to invest in their own capabilities—that's exciting because that fuels that growth. And so this industry is fueling growth.

I also believe that you also need really good business foundation fundamentals because if you're actually giving good margin returns on top of growth as well, you have those foundations, you're going to have even more value in the marketplace. Sure, are we excited by the exuberance in the marketplace? Yeah, you can't plan that way because things change all the time in the markets. But we do think that the space industry right now as a collective whole, watching SpaceX kind of demonstrate that, is a very good investment and how do you actually continue to grow our investment? How do we actually apply our capital to strategic elements for additional growth? Those are all the things we're thinking about. But one thing that you'll find from Vantor, myself, my CFO, is we're really focused on making sure we've got the best business fundamentals you can have to have the greatest return. And we've got growth and we've got good business fundamentals. And I think when the market starts to recognize that or other people, that will dictate a lot of value in the marketplace. So it's an exciting time. It is an exciting time right now.

The question is actually very relevant because I think the government's really looking at how do they actually leverage commercial capabilities. You've heard that from the acquisition reform coming out of Feinberg's office. And so one of the first things we'd always want to focus them on is trusting your commercial providers—that we can actually innovate faster. If you really think about the governments, you talked a lot about agency leads, they talk about leveraging the industry and then of course they modify based on the requirements, but how do you actually accelerate it? So first and foremost it is trust the industry that we can actually accelerate these capabilities faster than the government can and I think that they understand that and I think they're understanding it very quickly.

The second thing is you have to have the cultural change—the cultural change about how you buy capabilities, how do you accelerate capabilities, and how do you trust commercial capabilities to be delivered at a different pace and level. We still have a lot of culture and belief inside of agencies and different groups that it's very rich in the human labor side of the business and then how do you actually drive automation, drive innovation, and leverage commercial. I think we can solve problems at speed. Then the second thing, I'd be really aggressive to sit there and talk about what are the adversaries doing. Because we're learning a lot about autonomous warfare but more importantly we're learning a lot about the importance of geospatial capabilities and the advancements of it and what the adversary is doing and how does US government keep up with that pace. Trusting—it's not just about the sensor data, it's about moving that data through to really give it to the war fighter and making sure the war fighter can make good decisions in a timely fashion to effectively conduct missions. Right now I think that is one of the things that they can really trust commercial to make sure that we are innovating at speed to help their war fighter. And I think that's something that's incredibly compelling for them.

Work. This is fun. No, great question. You know what, my wife and I love to travel. And I think that what's really fascinating about any of these jobs and specifically mine, I get to see a lot of parts of the world. Technically, there are a couple countries that won't let me in there right now, but you know.

You know what, we are all about experiences. We love history. We love being on the ground and learning cultures. And so we recently were in the Middle East prior to the conflict and doing some history there. Love European history, love Asia, a lot of stuff in the Asia Pacific. So we're kind of really about the experience. It's really cool. And then of course we're also very active. We hike, we like to ski—and although Colorado skiing this year was horrible—and then play golf.

Hey, I appreciate it. This is a lot of fun. Thank you for having me today and hopefully we'll talk in the future.