In this episode of the Mission Matters podcast, Akhil and I speak with Brian Raymond, the CEO of Unstructured, a startup building the future of data tooling for generative AI, transforming unstructured data into structured data that can be used by AI models.
This is outstanding. Brian gets right at the heart of the matter: it’s a lot less about the tech tip of the iceberg, and much more about the rest of the dirty ice below the waterline—all of the enabling infrastructure. Without which, the DoD and rest of the government will fail to move beyond boutique, pilot projects that will never scale.
The entire conversation underscores what we were saying from day one in the JAIC, based on our Maven lessons learned and what we were seeing & hearing from the tech industry and private sector: the goal for OSD CDAO (and Service equivalents) should be centralized enablers and guidance, decentralized experimentation and execution. Despite what some people still believe, centralization is not always a four-letter word!
No government Department or Agency, with the possible exception of DOE, can possible bring to the table the hyperscale capabilities that are part & parcel of the world’s biggest commercial tech companies. CDAO can serve as the broker, the enabler, the contracting & acquisition orchestrator, the T&E experts, red-teamers, and the overall AI maestro for the Services and combatant commands. But to do all that, they need the appropriate resources—funding & talent more than anything else.
Thank you so much for taking the time to listen and share your views! We’ve definitely seen firsthand with our portfolio companies how big a difference having mature AI infrastructure (structured data, easy access to AI models, access to AI HW, etc) can make in getting these capabilities to end users who really benefit from this technology. Hopefully DoD can continue to push AI maturity through the organization in order to enable DoD to reap the benefits from this kind of tech
This is outstanding. Brian gets right at the heart of the matter: it’s a lot less about the tech tip of the iceberg, and much more about the rest of the dirty ice below the waterline—all of the enabling infrastructure. Without which, the DoD and rest of the government will fail to move beyond boutique, pilot projects that will never scale.
The entire conversation underscores what we were saying from day one in the JAIC, based on our Maven lessons learned and what we were seeing & hearing from the tech industry and private sector: the goal for OSD CDAO (and Service equivalents) should be centralized enablers and guidance, decentralized experimentation and execution. Despite what some people still believe, centralization is not always a four-letter word!
No government Department or Agency, with the possible exception of DOE, can possible bring to the table the hyperscale capabilities that are part & parcel of the world’s biggest commercial tech companies. CDAO can serve as the broker, the enabler, the contracting & acquisition orchestrator, the T&E experts, red-teamers, and the overall AI maestro for the Services and combatant commands. But to do all that, they need the appropriate resources—funding & talent more than anything else.
Thank you so much for taking the time to listen and share your views! We’ve definitely seen firsthand with our portfolio companies how big a difference having mature AI infrastructure (structured data, easy access to AI models, access to AI HW, etc) can make in getting these capabilities to end users who really benefit from this technology. Hopefully DoD can continue to push AI maturity through the organization in order to enable DoD to reap the benefits from this kind of tech