Silicon Valley has been trying to shake defense hiring for years. With Trump, they have a willing audience

• As Silicon Valley and Washington combine tiesTechnology leaders offered advice on how the government can innovate better and faster. The founders and investors of the Startups of Defense Technology said that the Pentagon should reduce lead times and increase their levels of risk tolerance for new weapons.

After years of trying to join the United States Government’s notorious defense sector, Silicon Valley finally has his opportunity.

A cultivation of New defense startups From the valley he goes to Washington at a time when the Pentagon is eager for the new technology. Many leading figures of technology supported The re -election of President Donald Trump, cementing a new deposit Among an industry that had previously been known to support the Democrats.

A recent conference in the country’s capital highlighted the new Close the ties between technology and government. The Hill and Valley Forum had the Delegates of Defense Technology Companies such as Palantir Alex Karp and SensorBrian Schimpf, rubbing his shoulders with government officials such as the Minister of National Security Mike Waltz, as well as members of the Senate Armed Services Committee such as Joni Ernst (R-IAA), Mike Rounds (Rs.d.) and Jack Reed (Dr.i.).

In the context of U.S. geopolitical rivalry with deepening China, the demands of technological leaders for the Government to take A page of his playbook found a welcome audience.

The White House is “absolutely dedicated to reforming the way technology acquires” in order to modernize the North -American Army, said Waltz, one day before leaving his role as a national security advisor.

Trump signed several Executive orders This would rationalize how the Department of Defense acquires new defense systems. Technological defense startups had long maintained that current methods were unable to compete with the existing military contractors who considered lower products, but deeper relationships in the Pentagon.

Executive orders are “after things that always seem to cost too much, to deliver -too much and it takes too long,” Waltz told the audience during a titled panel The arsenal reimaginated: Design the DOD for the 21st Century battlefield. “We can fill this auditorium with pieces of reform of defense and acquisition, but you have a president and you have a team of leadership that are gas, without brakes and sometimes we help them to direct them.”

At the center of the conversations was the inclination of the Pentagon for tender processes and long and long tender projects, and a reverse culture of the risk that DOD made it difficult to risk experimental technology.

“There is a fundamental reality that innovation is disorderly and chaotic,” said Shyam Sankar, Palantir technology manager.

On Friday, the White House presented a 2026 federal budget which included 1.01 million dollars In financing for DOD. Defense Technology Startups Find out in a strange position of being frustrated with the DOD operations, which they consider to be the stodicas and anti-Meritocratic and, at the same time, by choosing their business. Now, given the close relationship of Silicon Valley with the Trump administration, it seems to have found political allies for the reforms he is looking for.

“You’re still shooting up”

But even when DOD opens its hiring process for technology and startup companies, they will still face a difficult market, according to Karp de Palantir.

“You’re still shooting up but shooting up and shooting as Mount Everest while dropping grenades to you is a different story,” Karp said, whose company successfully successfully sued the United States Army In 2016 to block it for tender for a government contract. This move is widely considered open The Pentagon doors to Silicon Valley.

Anduril’s Schimpf suggested that the Pentagon had to make great orders with defense startups. “If you buy things, capital will flow in defense,” he said. “Buy things on a scale that matter, move the needle and create opportunities on board.”

Without the guarantees of great contracts, Anduril has just “written” by developing new versions of products such as air missiles in the air that a buyer will never find, Schimpf added. “I don’t think in 20 years no one buys any air-air missile we did, because they have already committed” to buy someone else, he said.

Emil Michael, Trump’s candidate for the defense and engineering defense uncECrecretary, believes that the Pentagon could rely less in custom -made defense systems and more open to existing commercial products when looking for new technologies to buy. “We don’t need things that are always tailor -made,” he said.

Michael, who is not yet confirmed by his role in the Pentagon, said that DOD could also benefit from looking at opportunities to save time, not just money. “Time savings is not something that is inherent in the DOD (which is) business model on risk reduction to their smallest possible component at the expense of moving as quickly as possible.”

Fails quickly, Fails often

In debates on the development of new technologies, conversation often went to one of the Mantres of Silicon Valley: it fails quickly, often fails. The idea, which is a basis of technological culture, is that the numerous failed iterations of a product do not care so much while the final version works.

“Failure does not matter. It is the magnitude of the success that matters,” said Vinod Khosla risk capitalist, when he was asked how to make the Government more comfortable with risk taking.

Sankar de Palantir suggested to increase competition among the Department of Defense employees to create, so they would have a “incentive to overcome the bureaucrat two doors on the aisle”. He believes that the DOD is a monopstonia that stifled innovation as the only buyer of market defense systems.

Instead, Sankar proposed to have various program managers in charge of monitoring the same project, with the contract that came to the best result. “They would wake up every day like the Hypercompeting Americans trying to kill each other,” he said. “There would be an incentive like” Yes, let’s go faster. We do -better. “

Conference speakers said that ongoing geopolitical tensions and AI Weapon Race with China have only added more urgently to the topic.

“And when you are in a AI race when each innovation could lead to tens of billions, if not hundreds of billions, value creation by value, and think of value creation as best defense, shield, more deterrence, every minute you lose is expensive,” said Michael.

This story originally presented to Fortune.com

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