In this episode, we sit down with Brett Granberg, co-founder and CEO of Vannevar Labs, a defense technology company developing advanced software and hardware systems for the U.S. national security community. With a background at In-Q-Tel and McKinsey, Brett shares his path from the corporate world to building one of the most successful emerging defense startups in recent years.
We dive into how Vannevar is bridging the gap between Silicon Valley engineering and national security missions, starting with data collection from adversary nations and scaling to $80M+ in revenue. Brett shares lessons from their earliest failed product attempts, why speed is the key advantage for startups over defense primes, and how they think about non-kinetic warfare, generative AI, and building a multi-product roadmap for the future of U.S. defense.
If you’ve ever wondered what building a defense tech company from scratch really takes, how DOD’s acquisition ecosystem actually works, or what distinguishes Vannevar from Palantir and Anduril, this episode is for you.
Key Takeaways
Vannevar’s mission is to fill collection gaps in U.S. intelligence by building sensors and software that detect adversary activity in hard-to-access domains
The company operates on a “sense, decide, act” model—collecting novel data, transforming it into insights, and driving operational outcomes
Vannevar’s flagship product, Decrypt, started as Arabic OCR but pivoted to open-source Mandarin military data after early customer feedback
The team discovered early that features don’t matter if you’re solving a problem no one cares about—traction is the true signal
DOD doesn’t buy features—they buy complete, integrated mission systems. Minimizing integration work is critical to adoption
To win in defense, companies must self-fund product development, iterate faster than government teams, and own IP to avoid cost-plus traps
Active data collection is what sets Vannevar apart from Palantir, whose early value was organizing and exploiting existing data.
Selling to DOD involves mapping funding flows, using OTA contracts, and leveraging unpaid pilots to demonstrate value
Generative AI is most useful for multi-step agent-based search across complex datasets. Vannevar uses LLMs for summarization and recall, not just chat
Brett stresses building new product bets from direct contact with users—every successful product came from sitting with operators, not brainstorming in a room
—
Brought to you by:
Startups and corporate innovation teams routinely waste months building core user authentication and authorization flows into their products. PropelAuth has automated all the most important pieces of the user management lifecycle. Instantly set up waitlists, magic links, social login, user impersonation, user management, Role-Based-Access-Control, SAML integrations for enterprise, team management and much more. With PropelAuth, each of these challenges takes just a few lines of code instead months of development and integration time. And with thoughtful control over design and skinning, it’s easy to keep your product fully on-brand. Get a generous free starter pack that scales through 1,000 Monthly Active Users or mention EMERGENT25 to receive 25% off for the first 6 months for more mature products. Get back to building you actual product and let PropelAuth handle your user management needs. Visit www.propelauth.com to learn more.
This episode is brought to you by FlyKitt “F-L-Y-K-I-T-T”, the first full solution to jet lag. This might seem hard to believe, but I’ve flown from Los Angeles to Tokyo and back with virtually no jet lag using FlyKitt. Based on research with Navy SEALs and fighter pilots, the FlyKitt team discovered that long flights cause inflammation in addition to disrupting your circadian rhythm, and they figured out how to solve both these challenges using a customized program for when to eat, sleep, and use their patented supplements and blue light blocking glasses. It’s simple to follow and you don’t have to change anything before your travel day. With FlyKitt, more than 90% of people can sleep well in Europe, Asia, or anywhere else in the world on night 1. Visit flykitt.com, and use coupon code FLYWITHEMERGENT to get 15% off FlyKitt.
Chaser is a task management solution completely embedded in Slack. When teammates have requests of each other, it's no longer necessary to involve a project manager add the issues to a task tracker and remember to follow up. Right from within any Slack channel or message, with a few simple keystrokes, you can identify a message as a task for another person, or yourself, and Chaser automatically tracks it and reminds the assignee of the work to be completed until it's done. We started using Chaser at First Principles to create stronger clarity on those important, but less formal tasks that must happen to get from start to finish on a project, but that often don't arise until the middle of a discussion. We now spend less time context switching out of Slack and following up with each other, and balls are no longer dropping. Plus there is great transparency into who owes what to the team for success. Get a 14 day free trial at www.trychaser.com and use the code FP50 to get 50% off your first 3 months.
—
In this episode, we cover:
Introduction (00:00:42)
Vannevar Labs’ founding thesis and approach to building defense technology (00:04:41)
The intelligence collection gap and how Vannevar closes it (00:06:46)
Non-kinetic warfare and its rising strategic importance (00:08:45)
Why the U.S. government needs vendors to move faster than primes (00:13:11)
Brett’s path from McKinsey to In-Q-Tel and founding Vannevar at Stanford (00:16:42)
Early product failures and the pivot that led to Decrypt (00:22:09)
Crossing the classified divide with forward-deployed engineers (00:35:01)
Scaling from a $15K pilot to over $80M in revenue (00:39:28)
Securing DIU contracts and funding through unfunded requirements (00:43:13)
Integrating LLM agents to enhance search and product usability (01:02:25)
Where to find Brett and Vannevar Labs (01:08:13)
—
You can connect with Brett Granberg through the following platforms:
Website: https://www.vannevarlabs.com/
—
You can connect with Adam through the following platforms:
Substack: https://www.emergentproduct.com
Website: www.firstprinciples.la
—
Where to find Emergent Newsletter and Podcast:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5TMMwU5zoSlX5Ex1A4vl9D
Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/emergent-building-the-future/id1746963428
Website: https://www.emergentproduct.com
—
For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast or becoming a guest, email adam@firstprinciples.la.
—
Get full access of the Emergent’s Newsletter at www.emergentproduct.com/subscribe.
Share this post