Venture Meets Mission: Public-Private Partnerships to Solve Today’s Problems

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Hello and welcome to the Emerging Tech Horizons podcast. I'm Arun Sarafin, executive director of NDIA's Emerging Technologies Institute. Today's episode is on the national best selling book Venture Meets Mission Ventured. Me's mission argues that if business, government and society come together, rebuild trust and collaborate, we have a generational opportunity to address societal challenges ranging from climate change to disease outbreaks, to education and to national security. The book argues we can develop new mission driven partnerships between government and the private sector, rooted in both democracy and entrepreneurship and driving towards success to dive deeper into the book and those ideas and how those ideas may also shape the future of how DoD, defense industry and the venture community can all work together. Our guest today is Arun Gupta, one of the co authors of Venture Meets Mission. He's the CEO of the nonprofit Noble Reach Foundation. He comes from an extensive private sector VC background. He's also an academic. He's a lecturer and professor at both Stanford and Georgetown and and he's currently active in emerging technologies, entrepreneurship, public policy and the venture finance community. Please join me in welcoming Arun Gupta to today's podcast.

Arun, thank you for having me. It's great to be with you.

So Arun, I tried to do a little bit about your background. Didn't do it justice at all. So can you give us a little bit about your background, how you came to write this book?

Yeah, sure. So first, Arun, look, I grew up in the D.C. area. My father's been in Naval Sea System Command for 45 years, is still working there today. So, you know, government and service has been in our family throughout my childhood and my entire adult life. And I've watched this region really transform as well. Accordingly, I spent my professional career in venture capital, so in the, you know, the entrepreneurial ecosystem and you know, really supporting and collaborating with entrepreneurs that are looking to kind of change the world. And you look and see the optimism that they have in doing that. And the latter half of my time there and starting in 0809 was really looking and leading our investments at the intersection of mission tech and entrepreneurship, where technology was really touching government. This was as a result of being on the Obama tech transition team and collaborating with them. But then also we were at the early days of cybersecurity and looking at dual purpose tech and the velocity. Basically the thesis being that the velocity for adversarial threats were going to way outpace our procurement cycles and there was going to just need to be a dependency on dual purpose technology to support some of this. In addition, we're at the early stages at that point of what was the mobile revolution with the iPhone, what was the cloud revolution, of what was happening then as well. And so I think here we sit 12, 13 years later, and I think all of that's now coming to a head. After that, I started teaching at Georgetown, at Stanford, as I started thinking about what was next and really saw at the intersection there, the students and how they were thinking about mission in a very different way from when I started teaching Pre Covid in 1819 to in 2122, where they'd experienced Covid, where Ukraine was kicking in, climate was becoming more visible and the threat of a real adversary in China was becoming more apparent. And you saw students really become more interested in wanting to do more mission oriented work. And a class I was teaching at Stanford was called Valley Meets Mission, which was trying to talk to these students about not just wanting to use their entrepreneurial talent on Candy Crush 3.0, but how do we use their talent to go solve big problems? And the energy that I saw with those students and when that world was open to them and many of them were sending their banking consulting offers, is really what led to kind of writing the book Venture Meets Mission and talking about it more broadly, because you saw that same optimism and excitement in this next generation of wanting to solve these problems in a meaningful way. While I was writing the book, I joined the board of LMI and that really led to the creation of NobleReach, which is now a foundation that we have with nearly a half a billion dollar endowment. And today we're using that foundation to put to work some of the ideas that we laid out in the book, which is at the core, how do we bring our best tech talent and our best innovation from the academic ecosystem and from the entrepreneurial ecosystem around government problems and create a renewed partnership between entrepreneurs and government to solve big problems.

Yeah. So in a lot of what you say, there might be echoes of the past, current events are inspiring the current generation. Is, is that the kind of thing that we saw during Cold War space race? Is that the kind of thing we saw post 9 11? Is, is this sort of a similar kind of moment in your view?

You know, I think it, it is in some ways. I think it's also a different moment. You know, I think the, the moment that we're seeing right now, obviously, you know, as far as the space race goes, it was laying out a big ambition and having a real adversary out there that we're going after. Right. And in that context, the ability to be able to get our best talent. But again, what's different then is we didn't have a really developed entrepreneurial ecosystem. So the space race was really about government innovating. It wasn't about tapping into that. So I think the transition that we're seeing now is that innovation is no longer vertically, still piped inside of government. Where we had the best tech talent and capital and technology to go solve these problems. Now that's more decentralized. And so I think the world we're in today is a much more developed ecosystem, entrepreneurial ecosystem that requires more coordination, honestly, but has equally more capability around how we can innovate to support these causes. I think, I think that's the main difference that I see today and that's what we try to write about.

So I want to dive into that ecosystem. But first, I'm curious, tell us a little bit more about Noble Reach. Kinds of work you do, the kinds of products you put out, kinds of people you have.

Yeah. So when we look at what we're doing at Noble Reach, again, on the talent side, we are running an intern program and then we're launching this summer our first Scholars program. Our Scholars program is a one year program, two year program of students, top tech students going into government, I think Teach for America. Right. For tech students. We're able to bring them into government for one to two year rotations, but support them while they're there. So it's not only about connecting them to these opportunities, but providing them mentorship and partnerships with private sector partners where they can learn hard skills while they're collaborating in government and then helping them think about what they want to do afterwards. We're modeling this after the Knight Hennessy Fellowship at Stanford, whereby again, we're not only about placing folks inside, but how do we support them while they're in. We think about this, a vignette kind of captures the real essence of what we're trying to get at. I had two Stanford students, both CS majors, both female. One was selected to do Kessel Run, a really prominent project that you know about, and tells her friends she's going to do Kessel Run. And her friends go, why would you do that? Or why would you go to government? We could do all these other things.

And that's being a coder for the Air Force, basically.

Right, right. And the other one was selected to do Teach for America. And our friends go, wow, that's amazing. You're going to serve, you're going to give back, and then you can go do whatever you want and at the core, that's, it's that paradoxical juxtaposition that we're going to, we're trying to get at, which is how do we restore the prestige, respect around service when it goes comes to government, but how do we also make it feel like a career enhancer? Because I think that's been the essence of why Teach for America has and the magic around it for three decades. And we believe right now we're in a time and place where we have the opportunity to create that same kind of excitement. And that's at the core of what we're doing with the Scholars program. We also have a fellows program where we're bringing in what we'll call second career folks into government. These are folks that have spent their first career, 20, 30 years building companies, investing in companies across key domain areas like bio, AI, cyber materials, and are now looking to use those talents to help government commercialize some of that tech. And so we're collaborating with DARPA and NSF actively, whereby our fellows work with their researchers and help them look at connecting them to the entrepreneurial community with entrepreneurs and providing them the scaffolding in that context so that they can then go raise money. We've done about 70 of these in the last two and a half, three years. And you know, those entities have gone and raised over a billion two in capital. And some have even gotten acquired, with the most notable being dive technologies being acquired by Anduril, which was something that our team had worked on.

That's great. And so, you know, back to venture meets mission. Those are exactly the kind of people who then go and do these kinds of projects, establish these new kinds of initiatives, create those innovations at that boundary between the private and public sector. So in the book you talk about the venture meets mission ecosystem. So tell us what that is.

Yeah, so I think, you know, at the highest levels, there's three elements of the ecosystem. There's the academic community and there we're really talking about, if we step back, when I think about the superpowers of our country today even, it's our ability to create talent in our higher ed ecosystem. There's no place else like it in the world. And our ability to innovate and create emerging tech companies like nowhere else in the world. And the evidence for that is everyone from around the world comes here to do both. Right? They can go anywhere they want, but the US is the place that people want to come to. What we are looking to try to do though, and what we, you know, contend in the book Is that over, you know, decades now? You know, we need to modernize the infrastructure of how we connect that great talent and how we create, how we connect that innovation to government. And so that we have the flow of ideas, technology and people going through in a meaningful way, so that we're also staying on the cutting edge. And, and so we define that as being the ecosystem. You know, now, the entrepreneurial ecosystem has different layers to it, right? It's not just the entrepreneurs, it's the venture ecosystems. It's our ability to provide risk capital in a way that really doesn't exist anywhere else in the world at the scale that we have here. And you know, in my mind, Arun, that's the strategic differentiation of this country, right? Is. And it's, it's our entrepreneurial spirit. It's what made us, has made this country great. But now we're contending is like, how do we take that entrepreneurial spirit but connect it more efficiently to government, whereby we can scale to solve the problems that we have today, whether it be national security, climate, healthcare, food. None of those are getting solved by a startup, by themselves. But a collective ecosystem joined with government in a renewed partnership is a way for us to address this.

So when you talk about that ecosystem, it's some element government, it's some element individuals and entrepreneurs and sources of capital and funding, and it's companies as well. And so now when I think about the National Defense Industrial association and the membership there, that ranges from big defense companies, of course, but lots of small companies, a lot of new entrants in areas like software and biotech, universities, all our members. How did those kinds of organizations fit into this ecosystem?

Well, I mean, they're all members of the ecosystem, right? They're all collaborating in a meaningful way. What we're defining in the ecosystem here is how do we pull that together where we're taking some of that top talent and bringing them into government in a more meaningful way. But there's an ecosystem that sits outside of that as well, right? Talent that's not going in and getting exposed to government in a meaningful way. Technologies and venture innovation, that's sitting on the outside, not wanting to collaborate with government. Not because they don't want to, because they just think it'll be too hard, it'll take too much time. The idea here is how do we include more of that into the ecosystem and broaden that tent out in a meaningful way? Look, the folks that are part of NDIA are the ecosystem, right? That is the venture ecosystem. You know, look, even the Big primes, they play an important role, right. There's a level of trust that they have. And, you know, how they engage is equally important, though, with small startups or, you know, emerging tech companies, because we need to have it be a collaborative relationship, not a competitive. Right.

So, you know, this. It's a nice vision that you're laying out there for us. And. But the book talks about, admits that there are challenges in connecting the public and private sector. And one of the ones I found interesting was just the basic difference between what you call their organizing principles. So what are the organizing principles? How should we be thinking about that between the public and private sector?

Yeah, look, I think one of them, you know, is just the risk profile of each. Right. And, you know, I contend in the book, like, if I was measured like government is measured, I'd never, at the vc, I'd never raise another fund. And what I mean by that is, you know, in venture, I can make 10 bets, and, you know, six of them may not work, two of them may be average, and two of them, you know, you know, 2x my fund, and then I'm oversubscribed on my next fund. In government, you know, I make 10 bets, and nine of them may be fine. And if one of them is.

For a hearing, that's exactly right.

And, and we have to acknowledge that because it's gonna, you know, what that does is it, you know, takes. Prohibits folks from wanting to take risk. And if we don't take risk, we don't innovate. And so, you know, we recognize we're not going to change just the culture overnight, but we need to understand, like, what are each ecosystem good at? And then how can we kind of collaborate appropriately? So the folks that can take the risk do take the risk. And, you know, we can, we can move forward now, you know, there's a quote in the book, one of my good friends, Dan Tangolini provided. And Dan said, the way you get over this is like, each agency has an IG Interior point of room. You make a mistake and you drift off the playbook. You can get called to the Hill. And so his point was, we should have two IGs at every agency. And you're like, what? How does that help? And his point was we needed an innovation general, not just inspector general. And the idea being that an innovation general job is to make sure that the agency is innovating fast enough. And if you're not, you could also be dragged in front of the Congressional steering committee. And while that's a, you know, it's not going to happen. It's an interesting thought exercise because that's the missing link.

Yeah.

The same way that you have a risk pressure, you need an incentive at the top as well to push people to innovate. And I think, I think what we're starting to see through leadership and I think also a generational change in mindset is people talking about things not in the binary terms of, you know, on or off, but also in the gray area of like risk management and recognizing that like everything's not going to work. You know, I commend, you know, Secretary Hicks, you know, you know, for talking about it that way. Like I've heard her now speak, you know, at multiple, you know, smaller settings. And you know, it is about risk and it is acknowledging that like everything's not going to be work. Having said that, we're going to take, we're going to make prudent bets and that's how we innovate because we really don't have a choice against our adversaries right now. We need to be innovating.

And if you think about some of the well known defense agencies and activities that are getting a lot of credit for going faster, they do have, they have tailored their own form of risk tolerance. If you think about darpa, high risk reward bets. If you think about the labs, some of these are things that were not built by the traditional military requirements process but were pushed as clever technical innovations with a purpose. Right. You know, with some kind of place to land. And then on the other hand, to your point and to Secretary Hicks's point, there are certainly places where you don't want to take too much risk. It is national security. You can balance and select these things. It's not digital. Right. That's great. I also found, curious that you were talking about not just the risk, but the sort of measurement of success and the measurement, you touched on that with the, you know, the example of the VC versus the government program manager and how many mistakes they're going to make. But what are some other things to think about in terms of how we measure performance and success in the national security context that you think are, you know, are relevant and should be maybe tweaked as we move towards this ecosystem?

Yeah, look, I think one of the, you know, things that many times gets confused or conflated when talking about ventures and startups is that given that these are small companies or smaller companies that are not fully funded, that what the companies need are capital. We start measuring how much capital are we getting into These companies through different grant programs and things of that sort. The truth is what these companies need isn't capital, right? Having been a venture person that was funding these companies, what we wanted them to get were contracts, right? So it's a different sea because contracts allow us to be able to go get capital and more importantly provide a demand signal for what the opportunity can be for this entity. And so, you know, I think if the, you know, the measure of success starts to be the contracts that we start getting out there and then how these technologies are now getting absorbed into programs of record and things of that sort, that would start to change the mindset a bit. Because I think grants by themselves, while good to get started, people conflate that, that being a good demand indicator to be able to go raise private capital. And it really isn't. People are still waiting for the contracts. And so you find a lot of these companies that have been able to get grants, you know, still struggling to raise venture capital, right? And so I think a place that government can really be helpful is how do we start thinking about, like, how do we issue contracts in a meaningful way that start, you know, allowing them the private sector, you know, the second, I think is also looking at how government, you know, focuses on outcomes. You know, what we try to do in the book is, is again, not, we're not trying to. All we're doing is really storytelling of what people are doing today, right? And when we say government, it's not always all of government, but there are parts of government that are doing it right. So you think of again, what we use with SpaceX as an example, right? Here we are as a country in 2010, you know, we're falling behind in our space launch capacity and ability. You know, NASA got, goes out and says, all right, let's start collaborating with the private sector. But in a way where they're putting out outcomes and saying, if someone can solve X, there's a certain amount of capital ready there. And then it's milestone based. And so as people kind of progress through that hurdle, and that's an important story because while it's obvious to your viewership and your membership that SpaceX is a government story, to everyone outside of D.C. they don't realize that government was an integral part in the success of SpaceX. Right? And so an important part is also like two pieces. One, how do we look at that model and go like, huh, we're capable of doing it, right? Like, how do we make that the norm, not the exception, right? You know, we did it with Moderna as well, when we were doing vaccines. But the second piece is, and I think it's an important piece, how do we tell these stories? How do we get these stories out there so that the broader public understands government's roles in these successes? And I think part of what we are hearing as to why the book has resonated with a broad community is that it's a lot about telling positive stories about how government and ventures are collaborating. This isn't about saying one person's not doing this and therefore someone else should be doing that. It's actually about saying, like, actually we are doing a lot of good stuff. We don't talk about it enough. But the question we should be asking ourselves is how do we do more of it? And then how do we scale it in a more meaningful way?

Yeah. And all those examples you gave are examples of private money, public money, new entrants, traditional, sometimes defense contractors helping address that mission. Right. Using their tools, but it somehow all gets aligned with their incentives. And I love the point you also made about the contracts you're. So you're saying it turns out in today's world, those researchy innovation companies, they actually can do their innovation with money from the private sector. What they need is the procurement of the good or service. Government mindset traditionally has been they have to fund the innovation.

That's exactly.

That's. The world has changed that way. And so maybe the government dollar, precious as it is, is better spent creating the market for someone else's innovation and being the buyer innovation. And that's at the core of what.

We'Re getting at is, is the way government, you know, can be using the capital is much like, again, like that we did with SpaceX or Modernos to larger examples, but even at smaller examples, you know, laying out outcomes that you would want to fund or buy or procure, and then let the private sector mobilize the talent, technology and capital to go after it. Right. And if those contracts are meaningful, people will align themselves accordingly. Right. And I think that's where the opportunity is. And again, I'm not trying to say something that we haven't done before in the book. That's what we're trying to outline. It's like we do do this. Like we have the capacity as a country to do this. We do it in terms, you know, when there's a crisis usually and, you know, the best comes out. Right. And so it really is about, like. And look, going across this, you're starting to see this happening in smaller pockets. You know, examples of this kind of excellence becoming the norm. And so again, the essence here was more to put a positive and optimistic spin around this and in talking about this collaboration.

All right, so I want you to spin this one positively for me. There's a section on bespoke needs and standardized solutions. And bespoke can be a pejorative term. On the other hand, bespoke might be militarily unique, the thing that gives me technological advantage on the battlefield or creates technological surprise for the bad guy. Right. Against the bad guy. So, you know, how do I think about what you call bespoke needs and standardized solutions and how people interested in commercial tech and commercial investing fit into that?

Yeah, no, look, I think it's a good question. I think there's multiple layers of answering that. I think one layer is that there's always going to be a need for things that are completely custom. The problem is that we assume that's the case for everything. The first thing that one needs to think about is what really needs to be custom, custom and what really can be, you know, and I don't know, you know, I think we're starting to see that shift take place, right? But, you know, if you, if you rewind, you know, decade before, when we were investing, everything felt like it needed to be custom, right? There was a time when I remember sitting in meetings and there was like, well, there's no way we'll ever use, you know, an iPhone because we need our own custom mobile device, right? And, you know, look, you have to decide what you need to ride the innovation curve on and the cost curve, and what do you really need to be, you know, custom? So that's, that's point one. Point two is I think we're also in a, in a different architectural period where you can decouple, you know, maybe a core foundation can be standardized and you can create a bespoke, whether it be application that is very custom. So does the whole product need to be custom or is there a certain layer of it that needs to be custom? Even that can be very valuable for a private sector partner to be able to engage in then because they're providing the more foundational piece. And then there's a role for folks to be able to really customize that in a meaningful way. And you're starting to see that obviously with not only software, but a real renaissance that's happening now with hardware, right. And software being embedded in that, what needs to be. And so this isn't about mitigating excellence and mitigating Differentiation on the battlefield. Right. But it is also about being able to create a foundational piece whereby we're able to again, ride the innovation and cost curves that only come with broader adoption. Right. And I think that's the opportunity and I think you're seeing that with some of the larger companies that are now emerging, whether it be like a Palantir or an Andrew, a shield AI in collaborating that capacity.

So as you get towards the end of the book, you talk about the virtuous cycle. Tell us what the virtuous cycle is.

Yeah, look, we start the book with a level of optimism around this being a generational opportunity. I've never felt like there's more capital flowing into a market around people, purpose and profit. And I'm not just talking defense, right. I'm thinking national security more broadly. Defense is part of that. But, you know, include climate security, include health security, include economic security. You know, so think what we're doing with ira, think what we're doing with the CHIPS Act. You know, that to me that's broadly all related to national security. Right. But even if you look at defense tech by itself, I think I saw an article over the last couple of weeks that there's been more funding going into defense tech companies in the last two years than have been there for the last eight. Right. And so, you know, it shows that there's greater sense of interest. So the question is then the why now? Like, what's happening now? You know, I think first when you look at these industries that we just outlined, you know, national security, defense tech, cyber, but then also climate tech, space, healthcare, they're going through massive disruption, right? And you know, there's enabling technologies that are doing that. AI being one amongst those that that's a through line, through a lot of that. And as they're going through that disruption, you know, that creates opportunities for new entrants, right? That creates opportunities for new players to come in. What's different today than maybe 10 years ago? We actually have success stories. Look, when I started investing in Cyber Back in 2008, nine people were like, don't touch government because you'll never make money there. Right? You can never drive venture returns in that business today. No one's questioning that, right? You know, you've now got Palantir, you've got Andrew, you've got SpaceX, the most valued company, private company in the world, right? You know, SHIELD AI, you've got, you know, a number of companies that are, you know, not only unicorns, Decacorns that are out There. So why is that important? Right? That's important on two fronts. It's important because when, when my, my previous industry of, you know, venture capital, private equity sees success like that, what do they do? They want to fund more companies in that space because they feel like there's money to be made there, right? And you've seen the cyber successes that have emerged. And so now we're seeing more capital coming into this market, right? As more capital comes into this market and you have these successes, what do you see? You see better talent coming into the market. So that talent comes from different ways. It comes from the successful companies that are, you know, that were early and now those folks, their diaspora, you know, ex Palantir folks, et cetera, now creating new companies. I mean, look at Andrew is a good example, right? I mean, there's a Palantir lineage to that. It's not just happening. You look at SpaceX, now that lineage is starting to create all these new microsat and satellite companies. That's not coincidence, right? And people want to fund people that have been in winners before. But you get better talent in the market, you get better funding happening for those spaces, the ecosystem gets stronger. You start to see better collaboration around academic talent, wanting to go to those ventures. And now those folks knowing the playbook of how to collaborate with government, the ecosystem gets stronger. If the ecosystem gets stronger, you see more successes. And that's what we describe as the virtuous cycle. As you see more successes, more capital's coming in. And look, that's the story of the Valley, when you think about it. You know, if you abstract it out, that's how the Valley is, makes it what it is. And so, you know, look, I think, you know, things can always be better, things can always be faster, things can always move quicker. But my optimism, you know, I think that we try to lay out in the book and close the book out is that I think we're in the very early innings of this, Arun. Right? I'm not saying that the ideas are necessarily new, that this, you know, we didn't think about this ten years ago, but I think if you learn in venture many times, many times, it's not just about the idea, but it's about the timing of those ideas. It's about the external conditions being ready to take advantage of those ideas. And I think we're in that space today. I think we're in a space today where not only the entrepreneurs and the management talent that you can attract in, but I also do palpably feel that There's a different, there's a different undercurrent when you think of the students and how they're thinking about their careers and thinking about mission and purpose early on and where that fits into what they want to do. And so, you know, look, if you're an entrepreneurial venture playing in the space, you have a very differentiated story that's both very exciting, very purposeful, and, you know, one that can be financially rewarding as well. And so that, to me, I think is the big opportunity. And I think why, I think we have a lot of reasons to be optimistic. I know there's a lot of reasons that people are pessimistic. But I'll take the other side of that right now.

And it sounds like, I mean, simplistically, we, you know, you know, people like to join winning teams. We should portray ourselves as a winning team. The other piece you're talking about is the virtuous cycle attracts more capital into innovation for national security, which truthfully, in the end delivers better capability to the operator at a lower cost because the operator's getting what they wanted, maybe better than what they thought they were going to get. And the taxpayer did not have to foot the bill entirely. And so.

Yeah, and look in a good place. No, that's exactly right, Arun. And look at the core here, what you said, and I just want to highlight it, is an important point, is that the private investors are doing the R and D and the capital. Right. Which is different than a services model where you're charging back the government for the R and D that you're doing for them. Right. But we need to create that relationship where they also see what the outcome can be if they're able to have that R and D perform what the government needs in a meaningful way.

So I've got time for maybe one more question. I just want to, I want to ask you, from an NDIA member's perspective, to achieve this virtual cycle to participate in the ecosystem, what's some advice that you would have for defense industry? Big, small, medium sized companies, what should they be thinking about? What should they be doing maybe differently now to participate?

Yeah, you know, look, that question probably has different layers to it. You know, the first, I think, you know, one of my observations in chatting with folks is I think words matter. Right. And what do I mean by that? I think, you know, I'll give you an example. You know, we have an industry that calls themselves government contractors, right. So we have a govcon industry. And someone made this observation about the book, right. To Me, they're like, you know, what's powerful about it is that it's the same kind of stuff, but you're using different words. And the words are mission and venture. You know, putting government contracting puts the focus on the contract. You know, it makes it feel like it's about. It's very transactional as well. That doesn't feel aspirational, you know, whereas the real focus and the real great work that's getting done but not captured in the name is really around the why the mission that those contracts are going are being put in place for. And that, you know, venture implies partnership. It doesn't imply transactional. It implies that we're partners in this. So I think, you know, honestly, also thinking about, like, words to describe what. What is being done that can help inspire more folks to want to participate will. Can be a really small but I think, really meaningful thing around this. I think, second, honestly, storytelling, there are so many great stories, right, of the important work that's being done. It's not getting out there. They're not being shared. That's a role that we're talking about wanting to help amplify in overreach. And, you know, we'd be, you know, ways to, you know, collaborate with you or your members to help collect those stories and then. And then amplify them back out there. It's many times difficult for the person that has a success story to amplify it themselves because it looks like it's self promotional. It's totally fine for, you know, someone else to help amplify that. But we need those stories out there. When I tell those stories on college campuses, right. People get excited about it. Right. They get excited about the why you're doing what you're doing. They don't get excited about the what. Right.

Or the how.

Yeah, or the how. Right. But the why is incredibly inspirational right now, and it taps a real chord. And I know those sound like things like, yeah, whatever, but I think they really matter, right? I think they do deeply matter. And I do think it's a little bit of what we're hearing as we've chatted with folks about why the book has been resonating the way it has been. But those would be two. Look, I think the other for your members, such a diverse membership group, right? Academic, small company, large company, et cetera. But I think if collectively, you know, people started talking about the why more, I think that that that inspires the broader base to want to, you know, want to get more involved, because that's what you want, you want more people involved in the space. Right. And I don't mean as competitors, but I mean as collaborators or recruits coming in. And I think that brings capital as well. Right.

So that's great. And I'd love to figure out how we can help you and the membership hold up good news stories in this space.

Let's definitely take that as a follow up and because we're actively looking at that now and putting together the infrastructure as a not for profit to be able to invest the resources to go do that.

Great. So I'm going to hold up a good news story here. This is, this is the book. It's great. I think the members should take a look at it. How do people get the book?

So you could go two places. I mean, you could go to our website, venturemeatsmission.com and order the book there. Secondly, you can go to Amazon directly in the books available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble or any of the major book distributors online. Also, for more information on what we do with the book, you can go to noblereachfdn.org and get more information on what the talent and innovation programs that we're launching, which we outline in the book.

So that's great. And we'll drop all those links into the text box on the various platforms when we put up the podcast. I want to thank our guest Arun Gupta for joining us today talking about the great book Venture meets mission. I want to also take this opportunity to highlight a couple of things that we're doing at the Emerging technologies Institute. The second annual NDIA Emerging Technologies Conference is going to be held August 7th through 9th at the Washington D.C. convention Center. Maybe Arun will be there. You can meet him. Visit our website for more information. Also visit our website to sign up for our mailing list, register for various Webinars, including our Tech 101 series, other events and short courses and educational offerings. To register for These and other ETI events, please visit www.ndia.org events. Thank you so much for tuning in to this week's episode of Emerging Tech Horizons. If you enjoyed the podcast, don't forget to hit the like button and subscribe to our channel. Stay up to date with all of our latest content. Special thank you to Melanie Yu and Daniel park for producing the podcast. Thanks so much for tuning into Emerging Tech Horizons.

Thank you, Arun, for having me and it was a pleasure chatting with you today.