The Drone Ultimatum

Brian Taylor is the Founder & CEO of Lux Aeterna, a startup developing the world's first fully reusable satellite for high-tempo, reliable, and flexible timelines in orbit.

Brian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianjtaylor/

Lux Aeterna: https://www.luxaeterna.com/

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Steve on X: https://x.com/StevenSimoni

Steve on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevensimoni

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Our website: https://www.thedroneultimatum.com/Brian joins Steve to discuss why falling launch costs are changing the economics of space and why he believes the next step is moving beyond satellites designed around attrition. He explains Lux Aeterna’s approach to operating fleets of reusable spacecraft and how bringing vehicles back creates new possibilities for rapid iteration, payload delivery, hypersonics, and in-space manufacturing.

They also discuss the role SpaceX played in reshaping the space industry, why Brian believes dual-use space companies should often start with defense customers, and how government R&D funding can help early-stage hardware companies establish flight heritage before expanding commercially.

The conversation moves into Brian’s experience as a solo founder, including how he structures his leadership team, hires experienced aerospace engineers, and thinks about fundraising. Brian also explains why raising money is not the same as winning and why founders should focus on investors who genuinely align with their worldview rather than trying to convince everyone.

They close with lessons from hardware development, live demos, failure investigations, and why Lux Aeterna actively looks for engineers who have already experienced the full lifecycle of putting hardware and software into space.

Read the Global Drone Threat Report (2026): https://dronesec.com/resources/d479e340-f78f-11f0-ab58-9f

Listen to our first podcast with Mike: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2utl1hG9Fc

Mike Monnik, founder and CEO of DroneSec, joins The Drone Ultimatum to explain what his team is seeing across the global drone threat landscape—from fiber-optic FPVs and jet-powered attack drones to maritime systems, humanoid robots, and drone-enabled gray-zone operations.

DroneSec tracks how militaries, terrorist organizations, cartels, and other actors use drones, along with the tactics and countermeasures developing around them. Mike explains why that intelligence matters when a tactic that works today may look completely different a year from now.

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Steve on X: https://x.com/StevenSimoni

Steve on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevensimoni

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Our website: https://www.thedroneultimatum.com/

Bohdan Volyanyuk is the co-founder and COO of Autonomous Cyber, a company building autonomous capabilities for offensive cyber operations.

Bohdan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bohdanvolyanyuk/

Autonomous Cyber: https://www.acyber.com/

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Our website: https://www.thedroneultimatum.com/

Bohdan joins the show to explain how AI is changing the cyber kill chain, from discovering vulnerabilities to weaponizing exploits and conducting operations. He argues that cyber should be treated as a persistent domain of conflict rather than something reserved for a small number of exquisite, highly planned operations.

The conversation also covers the similarities between autonomous cyber and autonomous weapons, the offense-defense cycle in cyberspace, Stuxnet, the challenges of selling cyber capabilities to the Department of Defense, startup fundraising, the current tech investment environment, and how cyber operations could shape a future conflict with China.

Bohdan previously served five years in the U.S. Army infantry, including deployments to Iraq and Syria, before attending MIT, where he met his co-founder and started Autonomous Cyber.

Alex Fink is the President & US CEO of Swarmer (NASDAQ: SWMR), helping drones fly autonomously, without pilots, and work together in large teams.

Alex on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/temuchin43/

Swarmer: https://swarmer.com/

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Steve on X: https://x.com/StevenSimoni

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Our website: https://www.thedroneultimatum.com/

Alex Fink is the President and U.S. CEO of Swarmer, a defense technology company developing software for autonomous drone operations.

Swarmer grew out of Ukraine’s wartime drone ecosystem after Alex’s co-founder identified a basic scaling problem: militaries could build millions of drones, but they could not produce millions of pilots.Alex explains how Swarmer approaches swarming differently from coordinated or leader-follower drone formations.

Instead of choreographing individual aircraft, Swarmer is building software that allows drones to act as independent decision-makers, communicate with one another, allocate tasks, and continue operating when their connection to an operator is degraded or lost.

The conversation covers the rapid expansion of Ukraine’s drone industry, what autonomy means for electronic warfare, and Swarmer’s bet that military robotics will eventually resemble the early PC industry: many competing hardware manufacturers running a smaller number of common software platforms.

Alex also explains why integrating software across different drones remains difficult and why engineers who understand both hardware and software have become a major constraint.Alex and Steve discuss how Ukraine’s wartime acquisition model differs from traditional Western procurement, why combat units can drive product adoption quickly, and what the U.S. and Europe can learn from that model.

They also get into Swarmer’s decision to go public, the challenges of operating a public defense company, and the potential for consolidation across the growing defense technology ecosystem.The episode closes with lessons from the battlefield itself: why fiber-optic drones may be transitional, why militaries are pulling old weapons back into service to address new threats, and why today’s drone and counter-drone systems are unlikely to represent the final form of either technology.

According to Alex, the industry is still in an active arms race where products can become obsolete faster than traditional defense development cycles can produce them.

Russell Smith is the co-founder and CEO of 9 Mothers, a startup building autonomous systems for military use.

Russell on X: https://x.com/rhs?s=20

9 Mothers: https://9mothers.com/

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Russell Smith is the co-founder and CEO of 9 Mothers, an Austin-based defense technology company building counter-drone systems.

After previously building Rainforest QA and going through Y Combinator, Russell moved from enterprise software into defense hardware as the war in Ukraine demonstrated the growing threat posed by small, inexpensive drones.

Russell explains the thinking behind 9 Mothers’ approach: counter-UAS systems that are small, light, inexpensive, and deployable across a much larger number of vehicles and positions.

The conversation covers the company’s acoustic sensing work, its shotgun-based counter-drone system, development of a belt-fed shotgun, and the challenges of building reliable robotic weapon systems.

The discussion also gets into a problem facing the new generation of defense founders: capital. Russell and Steve discuss why defense startups can appear competitive to venture investors even when the Department of Defense is willing to buy from multiple suppliers, why robotics companies cannot simply copy products overnight, and how much growth capital has already been concentrated in a relatively small group of defense companies.

They also examine what battlefield evidence says about counter-UAS technology. Russell and Steve discuss electronic warfare, interceptors, kinetic systems, drone swarms, and why claimed counter-drone capabilities have to be judged against what is actually happening in Ukraine and other active conflicts.

The episode closes with a broader discussion of defense company building—from founder-led marketing and acquisitions to Austin’s growing defense ecosystem, C2 integration, and why Russell believes much of the economic value in defense ultimately remains with the physical systems the government buys rather than the software connecting them.