by Vannevar Labs
In the Arena is a podcast about building products that matter for America’s future. Hosted by Vannevar CEO Brett Granberg and Hayley Menser, the series goes inside the fight to modernize U.S. defense and outcompete authoritarian adversaries. From product bets and mission wins to the people and principles behind them, In the Arena is a blueprint for builders on the frontlines of strategic competition.
Language
🇺🇲
Publishing Since
8/20/2025
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September 30, 2025
<p>Reasoning agents have quietly crossed a threshold. In just the past few months, models gained the ability to choose and chain tools, turning them from text summarizers into systems that can actually reason, act, and adapt. For defense missions, that shift is enormous.</p><p>Vannevar CEO Brett Granberg explains why the o1 –> o3 leap changed everything, how a task that once required 40 analysts a month now runs in 20 minutes, and why agents are more than “chatbots with tools.”</p><p>We cover:</p><ul><li>Why tool use is the real step-change</li><li>Concrete defense use cases</li><li>The playbook for building with agents: model-agnostic, tool-first, and mission-driven</li><li>How tech-enabled services could upend billions in prime contracts</li><li>The unsolved problems: model evaluation, UX, and hallucinations</li><li>What an “agent-native” team looks like, and how to build one</li></ul><p><br><strong>Outline</strong></p><ul><li><strong>00:00</strong> The inflection point</li><li><strong>00:36</strong> What are reasoning agents?</li><li><strong>03:38</strong> Why now?</li><li><strong>04:46</strong> New missions unlocked</li><li><strong>05:45</strong> Vannevar case study</li><li><strong>09:17</strong> The last 20% problem</li><li><strong>12:18</strong> Ship fast, don’t break infra</li><li><strong>16:18</strong> The agent product playbook</li><li><strong>20:13</strong> Agents x sensing grid</li><li><strong>23:23</strong> Be model-agnostic or lose</li><li><strong>26:19</strong> 3x Better, not 10% better</li><li><strong>28:24</strong> Impact on tech-enabled services</li><li><strong>32:18</strong> Paths forward for startups</li><li><strong>34:05</strong> What’s real today</li><li><strong>36:10</strong> Picking models that win</li><li><strong>38:22</strong> Unsolved challenges</li><li><strong>39:15</strong> Hiring an agent-native team</li></ul>
September 24, 2025
<p>Vannevar CEO Brett Granberg walks through his founder journey, from the first days to a $1.5B valuation. We cover his lessons learned and key decisions he made along the way: why Vannevar is not dual-use, how to think about defense TAM, why you should reference-check your investors, and building credibility in the early days. Finally, Brett explains what shifts once you do raise venture capital – how incentives and expectations change, and why managing founder psychology and energy becomes part of the job if you want to build something durable.</p><p>Highlights</p><p>-- The $16K bill that triggered the leap<br>-- Why defense-only > dual-use for actually shipping value<br>-- How to talk TAM in defense (and how not to)<br>-- Building credibility from zero with “part-time hooks”<br>-- Reference-checking your investors<br>-- Founder psychology and burnout, from survival mode to scale</p><p>🔗 Careers at Vannevar: https://vannevarlabs.com/careers/</p><p>Outline<br>00:00 The very beginning<br>01:08 Deciding to drop out of school<br>02:24 Making the leap <br>03:23 The early co-founder partnership<br>05:46 Product development before customers <br>07:26 Fundraising then vs. now<br>09:39 The dual use trap (and why we avoided it) <br>12:33 How to think about defense TAM <br>15:47 Recurring revenue in defense<br>18:03 Screening investors <br>20:26 Building credibility as an unknown quantity <br>22:13 Biggest surprises about being a founder<br>24:08 Mindset shifts from zero to $1.5B</p>
September 17, 2025
<p>Vannevar CEO Brett Granberg explains the ideology behind one of our core operating principles: “Leave your ego at the door." Brett breaks down the difference between confidence and ego, and why “nice guys don’t close big deals” is lazy thinking that hurts mission outcomes.</p><p>We get practical: how to hire high-agency people, how to spot toxic ego in interviews, when a strong personality becomes net-negative for the team, why learning rate is Brett’s personal success metric, and how to give high-conviction builders room to run without letting them steamroll the org. Brett also shares the operating principles that took Vannevar from 50 to 250+, the cross-functional model that 10x’s outcomes, and which roles he thinks are the hardest to hire.</p><p>We discuss:</p><ul><li>Confidence vs. ego (and why ego is often a lack of self-confidence)</li><li>The “net output” test for keeping or moving on from a hire</li><li>Red flags in interviews</li><li>How to structure teams for high-conviction bets without chaos</li><li>Scaling culture around specific outcomes as opposed to generic values</li></ul><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZ0k7ZUnDHM" title="Click here to watch a video of this episode.">Click here to watch a video of this episode.</a><br> <br><strong>Outline</strong><br>00:00 What ego means in high performance teams<br>00:25 Self-confidence vs. ego<br>01:56 The line between confidence and toxicity<br>04:37 Screening for ego in interviews<br>09:20 Do founders need ego to succeed?<br>11:07 Managing your own ego as a leader<br>14:59 Can you coach out unhealthy ego?<br>16:52 High agency leadership without steamrolling<br>19:14 Vannevar's interview process<br>21:59 Profile of first five hires<br>24:29 Hiring mistakes and lessons<br>26:31 Core operating principles<br>28:44 Scaling culture from 50 to 250+ people<br>33:25 Most difficult roles to hire for</p>
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In the Arena is a podcast about building products that matter for America’s future. Hosted by Vannevar CEO Brett Granberg and Hayley Menser, the series goes inside the fight to modernize U.S. defense and outcompete authoritarian adversaries.
From product bets and mission wins to the people and principles behind them, In the Arena is a blueprint for builders on the frontlines of strategic competition.
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