He Dropped Out of MIT at 19 to Build America's Drone Arsenal. It's Working | StrictlyVC LA 2026

Founding and Vision of the Company

• Ethan started a company called Mach Industries at the age of 16, in 2020, and later dropped out of MIT to build it, with the goal of helping the West define the era of unmanned systems and create a continual offset against China's dominant industrial scale 10s.
• The company's focus is on unmanned systems, which are expected to be incredibly important for the future of warfare, and Ethan believes that America's ability to build, manufacture, and adopt these systems quickly will be crucial for Western sovereignty 2m6s.
• Ethan's interest in unmanned systems and military affairs was influenced by his family members who are in the military, and he became concerned about the rise of China and the impending great power conflict around 2017-2018, which led him to shift his focus from neuroscience to this area 4m30s.
• Ethan's early prototypes included fixed-wing unmanned systems, balloons, and hydrogen weaponry, and he used his job as an auto tech and a business he started to fund his prototyping efforts, eventually getting research dollars from Lincoln Lab and others while at MIT 6m20s.
• Ethan's goal is to help the US achieve an asymmetry against China's dominant industrial scale, not by out-manufacturing them, but by leveraging America's strengths in creativity and productization to deploy unmanned systems and gain a first-mover advantage 8m40s.

Company Overview and Mission

• Mock is an engineering company that aims to solve the most important problems for humanity, with a current focus on ensuring the West has secured sovereignty in the era of unmanned warfare, and the company has been running full-time for about 3 years now 2m6s.
• The company has a structure that starts at the vehicle level, where it generates about half of its revenue, and has six different platforms, including a vertical takeoff long-range strike aircraft, a long-range anti-ship missile, and a surface-to-air missile 4m42s.
• The company is also pushing down the stack into the component supply chain layer, which is the bottleneck to scale, and is currently very broken in the US due to the lack of a supply chain and the use of cost-plus contracting 6m15s.

Recent Projects and Contracts

• The use of cost-plus contracting has created perverse incentives, particularly at the supply chain level, where companies are incentivized to prioritize profits over efficiency and innovation 8m45s.
• China has been able to scale up its component supply chain by supplying components to both sides of the Ukraine war, highlighting the need for the US to build its own supply chain 9m30s.
• The company recently won a contract with the Navy to start work on a 40-ft wingspan long-range logistics and strike aircraft, which will help to get other systems into the fight 5m30s.

Product Development and Manufacturing

• The company has been working on various projects, including building jet engines, with two engines built last year, and has recently made an acquisition of a solid rocket motor and warhead company, with the goal of scaling their research efforts 10s.
• The company's revenue is expected to be partially driven by its B2B element, which includes making radar and other products, with the goal of earning the right to write good software by shipping excellent hardware 2m6s.
• The acquired rocket company, Xwater, was purchased for $50 million in cash and stock, and was a strategic move to gain access to their research and expertise in areas that are difficult to break into due to deep IP or regulation 4m42s.
• The company's supply chain is complex, with hundreds of vendors, and build-buy decisions are made at both component and company levels, with a focus on buying components from outside the defense industry where possible, such as electro-optical cameras and batteries 6m15s.

Operational Progress and Strategic Goals

• The company has six different programs going on, including the Viper, and is working to prioritize and bring them into production, with the understanding that defense is a complex industry that requires a different approach than other fields, such as space launch 10m10s.
• The company has made significant progress, with all but one of its programs having flown, and is working to continue to develop and scale its products and software 12m20s.
• The company has manufactured around a thousand aircraft in the last 12 months, which include big drones with fixed wings, and they also make their own jet engines and SRMs 10s.
• The goal is to bring three products into rate manufacturing this year, with hundreds of units being produced per month, and a new factory will be announced soon to increase production to hundreds of thousands of units per month 42s.

Revenue Streams and Government Contracts

• Several products will be operationally deployed by the end of the year, but currently, none are operational, and the company has won 13 contracts with the government to date 2m6s.
• The government is the ultimate customer for some of the company's products, and half of their revenue comes from supplying other companies, with three main types of defense contracts: design, testing, and rate manufacture 2m6s.
• The company has raised around half a billion dollars at a valuation of 1.8 billion dollars, which provides a long runway for their current projects, but they will continue to take ambitious bets and expand their scope 4m30s.

Company Philosophy and Market Positioning

• The company's approach is to ship a wide range of excellent products that the warfighter needs, and they feel a responsibility to do so, which is a key factor in their decision-making process 6m40s.
• The company is differentiated from other defense tech startups like Saronic and Shield, which take a more concentrated approach, and they believe their approach is the right way to go because it allows them to provide a wide range of products to meet the warfighter's needs 8m10s.
• The company is working on building a product that could improve safety for warfighters and sovereignty for the West, and they need to prioritize their efforts to deliver it to an excellent standard, with the goal of adding more projects to their portfolio in the future 10s.

Challenges and Future Hurdles

• The biggest hurdle for the company changes every 6 months, and they have already overcome initial engineering challenges, then distribution, and are now focusing on scale manufacturing, which will be their main challenge for the next 6-12 months 2m6s.
• The company is currently working on a 40-ft vehicle that can take off vertically and fly over 1,000 miles with a 1,000-lb payload, which is a significant aerospace engineering challenge, especially compared to existing eVTOL companies that can only fly 100-200 miles with a similar payload 4m42s.
• The mission set for this vehicle is to provide a way to move mass around and get weapons into the fight, as current military assets are less survivable due to hypersonics and drones, and this aircraft can land in a small area, fuel up, and hop again, making it ideal for forward deployment 6m15s.
• The company was asked to bid on this project, and they are now working on refining the government requirements, with the goal of having a production version of the vehicle in a year, which will require overcoming significant engineering challenges, but the team is confident in their ability to rise to the challenge 10m10s.

Product Timelines and Geopolitical Context

• The goal is to have a project ready on a meaningful timeline for the broader geopolitical situation, which is likely to be around 2 years, with timelines largely dependent on government requirements 10s.
• A partnership has been formed with a company called Whisper, which has interesting technologies such as an electric ducted fan and a jet foil that allows for massive improvements in aircraft design, and the partnership is based on the idea that company building is positive sum 42s.

Industry Competition and Market Strategy

• The aircraft being developed will look similar to Lilium, but with a very different application of technology, and Whisper's technologies unlock new possibilities for aerospace 1m6s.
• Many companies, including Anduril, are bidding on government contracts, but the goal is not to win against other companies, as the US needs to increase production to counter China's manufacturing capabilities 2m6s.
• The company's approach is bottom-up, starting with the hardware stack, which is different from Anduril's top-down approach, and this difference is expected to result in distinct revenue streams and products 3m10s.
• The company believes that the market is positive sum, and that multiple companies, including Anduril and Shield, can coexist and thrive, as the Pentagon aims to avoid monopolies and promote competition 4m20s.

Long-Term Vision and Expansion

• The company's facility, revenue lines, and long-term ambitions are distinct from those of Anduril, and the company is focused on finding a unique business model that can coexist with other companies in the industry 5m30s.
• The company is an engineering company first and plans to expand beyond defense in the future, with the goal of doing things differently in the defense sector as well 10s.

Government Insights and Contracting Practices

• The government has learned that having a monopoly in the military complex is not ideal and instead values the ability to rapidly switch between vendors, with a focus on separating hardware and software to allow for more flexibility 42s.
• The government has also learned that cost-plus contracting is not effective when buying from companies, and it is better to leave room for engineers to solve the mission by defining the mission and letting them come up with potential solutions 2m6s.

Industry Figures and Company Attitudes

• There is a mention of Palmer Luckey, with the implication that he has not commented on the company, and the attitude towards him is one of positivity and focus on securing sovereignty for the West 4m30s.

Leadership and Company Culture

• The importance of having mentors and cultivating relationships with investors who can provide honest feedback is emphasized, as well as the value of input from day-to-day workers who can provide good data and help avoid the echo chamber effect 8m40s.
• The company's approach to leadership and decision-making involves fighting hard for diverse inputs and perspectives, with the goal of making informed decisions and avoiding the pitfalls of an echo chamber 10m20s.
• The company holds regular question-and-answer sessions where the whole company gathers in a room with microphones to ask questions, and this approach is preferred over anonymous forms as it helps people develop their voice and encourages open discussion 10s.
• The goal of these sessions is to create an environment where people feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and opinions, even if they are aggressive or critical, and to foster a culture of transparency and openness within the company 42s.
• It's essential for a company to have a central vision and a leader who can guide the direction of the company, while also allowing for intense discussion and debate among team members to ensure that everyone's voice is heard 2m6s.

Leadership Philosophy and Strategic Thinking

• The CEO believes that making bad bets is not necessarily a bad mark on a leader, but rather an inevitable part of the decision-making process, and that the key is to have a good batting average and to set up the company to survive those bets 2m6s.
• The CEO tries to allocate 4 or 5 hours a day to think and strategize about the future of the company and the world, and to "war game" different scenarios with team members, which is essential for projecting out the future of humanity and building technology that can help fortify it 2m6s.
• The CEO values the importance of getting out of the "microscope mode" and taking a step back to look at the bigger picture, as this allows for more effective decision-making and strategic planning 2m6s.