What we're going to talk about, I think, is going to be very active to a lot of people here in the room, especially people building in a lot of the most critical industries that are both vital to solving these historically intractable problems as well as allowing us to control our own destiny and protecting our sovereignty. And before we go into sort of policy and some of the details about what your role is, I think you know you have a very interesting background and I think we just want to touch on that for a second because you were CTO in the first Trump administration, then Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, then you were back in the private sector and now OSTP Director in Trump 2.0. And so I think most people in Washington have probably seen only one side of this. So can you just talk a little bit about how that multidisciplinary background gives you a little bit of an edge and maybe what's different now than it was in 2017?
Yeah, I think when I first joined the Trump administration in January of 2017, the dynamic between Washington and Silicon Valley was remarkably different than it is today. And if we go back and think of what it looked like during the 2016 election and how many people from Silicon Valley and broadly from California were supportive of the president, it was pretty limited. And for us to go into that environment and try to drive a technology agenda without having as much backing and support from the valley was an interesting experience. I think what's changed a lot since then has obviously been the changing dynamics and interests of Silicon Valley in sort of these pro-American technology endeavors. And I think we've seen how important it is for the United States to be able to reshore critical industries to create the right types of technologies that can support our warfighters.
There's so many things that so many of you are building and so many of you are investing in that are so critical to our national economic security that I think that's probably the biggest change. I think the other thing that's really noticeable is technology as a policy domain has moved up from sort of a tier-two issue to a very clear and obvious tier-one issue. When the president signed the first-ever executive order on artificial intelligence in 2019, that was not something that made front-page news. That was not something that people talked about. It was something that we were excited about in our office, but it didn't break through as much as it does today, obviously. And now, it is the front-page story every day in every newspaper in the country.
And maybe just to back up for a second, can you just talk a little about when you're at the DoD you sort of had this intersection of research and actual deployment? What surprised you about how hard it was to actually sort of translate from a breakthrough to like actual fielded capability?
That's a good question. I think the way that tech policy is typically done at the White House, you sort of channel the policy directives of the president and coordinate them across the agencies. So it's a lot more about essentially directing agencies to do things. Now, the actual on-the-ground work of investing in the right things, procuring the right things, like running large-scale research projects, those are all done at the agency level. And I think that was something that's very markedly different than the type of work you do at the White House. And I think at the DoD, I realized that—and this is something that probably is obvious to all of us—it is one of the largest organizations in the entire world, and trying to change that and sort of resteer that ship is really, really hard.
And more importantly, and something that we're making a lot of progress in this administration on, is how are we able to open the aperture of the types of people that can be involved into the DoD? And there's been a lot of efforts with organizations—many of you know things like the Defense Innovation Unit and things like AFWERX and all these programs that exist. But the actual step going forward of being able to not only bring those companies into the fold, but also taking them from just being small-scale projects and the ones that ultimately turn into programs of record continues to be a big challenge. But I will say Secretary Hegseth and the team are very, very committed to bringing in these new types of technologies into the Pentagon. I think there's been a number of trips even the secretary has made out here to the West Coast. So I think we're making big progress.
So just on OSTP, there's probably a lot of people here who aren't familiar with some of the details. Can you just talk a little bit about what OSTP does and how you interact with the agencies and turn ideas into actually formulating policy?
Totally. In most governments around the world, you typically have a ministry of technology or science or an agency that does science and technology. The US government is actually very different. We spread out all of our tech and science work across all of our agencies. So the National Science Foundation invests in basic research. The Commerce Department has an agency called NIST which does standards. You have the Department of Energy which runs all of our national labs, things like Los Alamos, where nuclear weapons are designed and created. So OSTP essentially is an office in the White House which serves as the coordinator for all of science and tech for the government.
And take for example an issue that we've been very passionate about for many years, which is commercial drones. So let's say you want to make it easier to have commercial drone deliveries in the United States. You'd think that you just change one rule and suddenly that happens. But the reality is it's something that requires multiple agencies to come together to a table and somehow sort through a solution. So the FAA has to promulgate certain rules to allow those types of flights to happen. But then Department of Homeland Security has to be at the table to make sure that law enforcement has the right authorities so they can shoot down drones when they do things that are illegal. You have to have the Department of War there and the Department of Energy there in case any of these drones fly over military installations or some of our nuclear facilities. How is that going to be accounted for? So, a problem that many people think is as simple as just go to the aviation regulator and solve it is one that requires cross-agency coordination. And that's something that we do where we try to bring everyone together, set a path forward, and move ahead.
And are there any other examples of things that maybe to us look pretty easy and seamless, but actually are really difficult with the job?
I think enough people are so frustrated with their government services that they probably believe that everything in government is painful and hard to do. There is a lot of bureaucracy, and President Trump is deeply committed to hacking away at that and being able to deliver services to everyday Americans as quickly and easily as possible. And I think it's possible. We have Joe Gebbia and the team at the National Design Studio, for example. I don't know if you guys have seen their work at Trumprx.com or some of the other sites. These are truly transformational changes to the way that we interact with citizens, and it's something that the greatest minds from Silicon Valley are coming into government, doing tours of duty, and making a real difference.
In this room, we have operators, we have investors, a lot of people building, a lot of people building in these important industries. As you said earlier, we're sort of at this point where we've kind of moved past Silicon Valley trying to build on its own to the next phase was sort of Silicon Valley and DC talking about potentially collaborating, and then we actually had events where people got together, and now we're at this point where there's real work. What advice would you give to people building now as to sort of how to truly engage with the government? What actually works?
Yeah, the reality is we have an administration that is extraordinarily interested in bringing the greatest technologies into government to drive change. We want the best people through things like the Tech Force, which many of you have seen, to sort of recruit Americans in. And each of our agencies are really laser-focused on trying to make sure that they're delivering their services in the best possible way. And what we've realized very quickly is that the biggest driver and the reason why that change will happen is because of technology. So, anyone out there that believes that they have a tech service that could be helpful to the way that an agency is delivering its mission, there will be an open door, and I think there will be people who listen and want to have you part of it.
And maybe just to dive in a little more, you know, you're a startup, you've got under 20 employees and you're building something and you have no relationships in DC. What's the best way to get ramped up there?
I think if you're small and you're venture-backed, there's strong communities among sort of the venture capital community that have tie-ins to a lot of these agencies. So, I would say probably the easiest and maybe the first call you could make is look at your cap table, see if there's someone who you think has other folks in their portfolio which has done business with the government, and maybe reach out there. The main broad points, there's something called the General Services Administration, called GSA, and they're the ones that oftentimes bring technology, particularly software, into sort of a centralized hub-and-spoke model where once you're approved by GSA you can kind of sell across the whole government. They have lots of onboarding opportunities for young companies. But if you are interested, I don't think it's actually particularly hard to make the right connections to get there.
Is there anything that the private sector is doing, whether it's startups or more established companies, that makes your job harder?
I think it's always sometimes part of growing a business is hyping and overpromising and showing a very bright future of what your technology can ultimately deliver. At the end of the day, the way that the procurement rules are written for the federal government, we want to be in a position where we can buy things that are sort of highly defensible to the American taxpayer and ones that we very confidently can make that decision. So to the extent that we can have sort of very clear understanding of what the technology is and how it's going to impact the mission, I think is kind of where we ultimately want to be.
So, let's talk for a second about space and your role there on the National Space Council. Can you talk a little bit—we've had a few companies present over the last two days. Can you talk a little bit about priorities there and sort of where you see the next five years going?
Yeah, space is a big priority for the administration, a huge opportunity. Jared Isaacman was confirmed as our NASA administrator in December of last year. The president signed an executive order in December as well, kind of laying out our national space policy and essentially laying out a vision for the next year of things we have to work on. So the key milestones and the key highlights are we're going to have man back on the moon by '28. We're going to start having the first pieces of a lunar base up on the moon by 2030. The next big thing is about having nuclear power in space. We believe this is a critical first step in allowing humans to explore beyond just the Earth and the moon. And a big part on the national security side is how we can optimize our space assets to achieve the Golden Dome objectives of the president.
And back to what I was talking about, whether it's drones or anything else, this is truly whole-of-government. NASA has its sort of discovery mission and the general exploration that it does, and sort of civil nuclear. The Commerce Department is very responsible for the business side of commercial space launch and how you can update sort of commercial space launch rules. And then obviously the Space Force and the larger DoD, as well as the intelligence community that has lots of its own satellite assets. So it's a big initiative, and we're excited to get rolling.
