Emil Michael

I can attest that @travisk “never left.” The fire always burns hot with him. Main difference now is that no one cares what the bystanders/ankle-biters have to say. Optimism always beats cynicism. Someone might wanna do a wellness check on Bluesky :)

Atoms. atoms.co/vision

When @travisk was fundraising Uber's round that valued it at $70B, he ran four rooms simultaneously out of their New York office for an entire week, each booked in 90-minute slots across 12-hour days: "This is how we'd fundraise: we had four rooms in our New York office booked for a week with an hour-and-a-half slot on each. So for 12 hours in a day, four rooms going in parallel." "I'm in the $250M-and-over club, that's one room. Then there are these other rooms, down to the fourth room, which is like $25M checks. There's a guy who works for a guy, who works for a guy, who works for me who's doing that room." "But we're oversubscribed. So we started putting multiple investors in the same room. We were like, 'We're just out of slots dude. Let's go.'" "The storytelling we did, anybody on my team could tell that story and make it happen. And that was a big part. It was the story... then there is making it scalable so that there are 10 different people in a company that can pitch it at any given time. And that’s when you take it all the way."

It's official - Owen West is the newest Director of the Defense Innovation Unit. The ceremonial handover took place earlier today at Fort Benning, Georgia. "DIU's core mission is to deliver high-tech lethality our military wants, handing off projects that have been accelerated, improved and cheapened. We are not in the business of keeping quality science projects on life support without 4-star equivalent sponsorship," he said, adding that DIU will "invest where speed, scale, and lethality intersect." Read his first full statement as Director here: lnkd.in/e5QyHeHA

U.S. Central Command has announced the first combat use of Low-cost Unmanned Combat Attack System (LUCAS) one way attack drones from Task Force Scorpion Strike in the attack on Iran today. Task Force Scorpion Strike was formed within CENTCOM last December with the assistance of the Rapid Employment Joint Task Force. At the announcement in December, CENTCOM stated that one squadron was active at an undisclosed location within the CENTCOM area of responsibility. The LUCAS is based on the Iranian Shahed one way attack drone.

Touched down at @BlueOrigin for the next stop on the Arsenal of Freedom Tour. The new space age will be defined by American dominance in innovation. As @SecWar made clear, this is about total orbital supremacy.

Embrace American industry. Embrace the penguin. 🇺🇸

We will have the high ground. Always. We will NEVER surrender the skies—we are ushering in the era of AMERICAN DRONE DOMINANCE. 🇺🇸

TODAY WAS HISTORIC. @SECWAR @ELONMUSK

The Arsenal of Freedom Tour 2026 CONTINUES. Next stop: Texas.

Today, the @DoWCTO and @USWREMichael unveiled critical measures to protect @DeptofWar-funded research. This is a decisive step to counter malign foreign influence, prevent IP theft, and preserve the research and technological dominance of the U.S. military. New Protective Measures: 🧵(1/9): Entities identified as "Chinese Military Companies" or those with a documented history of patent or IP theft will be prohibited from receiving DoW research funding.

You can’t “seize the means of production” when the means of production are human ingenuity and hard work. All you can do is stamp them out.

And even more coming in 2026…

After blindly funding the Left for years, Silicon Valley is finally realizing what time it is. Dinner time. And they’re on the menu.

This dude has done far more useful journalism than any of the winners of the 2024 @pulitzercenter prizes.

Great work by @nickshirleyy!

The @DoWCTO today announced the first round of FY26 APFIT awards, surpassing $1B awarded to small businesses nationwide. These awards accelerate mature technologies from development to fielding, delivering lethal capabilities to our warfighters.

Why good? @AOC don’t we want to become ai leader of the world?

> Your country is calling. Do you want to join the AI revolution? (Y/N) techforce.gov @USTechForce

Join an elite group of technologists to transform the federal government through modern software development. Go to TechForce.gov to apply today