In this episode of Building the Base, Hondo Geurts and Lauren Bedula sit down with Zach Beecher, Partner at Scout Ventures, who brings a unique perspective from serving as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq to now leading dual-use technology investments on the front lines of defense innovation. Drawing from his combat experience witnessing "innovation at the speed of battle" during the liberation of Mosul from ISIS, his transition through venture capital in London, and his current role backing breakthrough defense technologies, Beecher discusses the urgent need to bridge Silicon Valley innovation with national security imperatives. He shares his insights on why "innovation at the speed of bureaucracy looks a lot different than innovation at the speed of battle," explains how venture capital can serve as a "player coach" for defense entrepreneurs, and argues that America must grow the industrial base through addition rather than subtraction by incentivizing collaboration between traditional primes and non-traditional startups.

Five key takeaways from today's episode:

1. Combat experience reveals innovation potential, as Beecher describes how deploying to Iraq in 2017 exposed him to soldiers thinking on their feet to solve dynamic battlefield challenges, from integrating off-the-shelf drones for Iraqi forces to creating software solutions for logistics, showing him that "innovation at the speed of battle" could be transformative if scaled properly.
2. The dual-use investment landscape has dramatically evolved, Beecher notes, from being called a "warmonger" on a panel just two years ago for suggesting quantum companies focus on national security applications, to today's environment where "the capital ladder" from early stage through scaled production is "fully formed in a way that it's never been before."
3. Contracts are the only validation that matters, Beecher emphasizes, because "contracts signify demand and contracts ultimately indicate what the government has identified as a priority," warning that without real customer validation through actual purchases, even well-funded startups risk "building a bridge to nowhere."
4. Success requires mastering four core pillars, Beecher explains entrepreneurs must understand the problems they're solving, the people responsible for solving them, the processes required to navigate solutions, and how their products integrate across all three, with companies like Tern AI demonstrating this by addressing alternative navigation needs for both military operations and commercial autonomous vehicles.
5. Collaboration beats competition in defense innovation, as Beecher advocates for "leading through addition rather than subtraction," pointing to examples like NASA's commercial orbital program that sparked competition between traditional primes and companies like SpaceX, ultimately transforming entire industries through incentivized partnership rather than zero-sum thinking.