Ethan Thornton: The Future of Warfare

About this episode

Arjun Khemani interviews Ethan Thornton about the future of warfare and the innovations at Mach Industries.

My conversation with Ethan Thornton, founder of Mach Industries . Topics we discuss are well captured by the timestamps below. Watch on YouTube or X . Listen on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or any other podcast platform. Follow me on X for updates on future episodes. Click here to support my work. Timestamps 0:00 - Intro 1:07 - Why Mach needs to exist 3:16 - Early experiments 5:07 - Dropping out of MIT 8:36 - Raising $85 million at 19 years old 11:20 - Decentralized vertical supply chains 13:54 - The most important domain of the next century 15:55 - Betting on hydrogen 18:11 - Overview of Viper and Glide 21:06 - Building feedback loops across teams 25:29 - Facing regulatory hurdles 28:19 - Knowing when to be risk tolerant 29:54 - Time until China invades Taiwan 31:45 - The future of warfare 42:29 - Takeaways from the (unmanned) war in Ukraine 48:23 - Biggest influences on Ethan’s life 49:37 - Mach’s long-term plan Follow me on X . Follow Ethan on X . This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.arjunkhemani.com

People in this episode

Host: Arjun Khemani

Guest: Ethan Thornton

Topics covered

• future of warfare
• entrepreneurship
• technology
• supply chains
• regulatory challenges
• defense industry

Keywords

• future of warfare
• Ethan Thornton
• Mach Industries
• supply chains
• hydrogen
• Ukraine
• entrepreneurship

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Mach Industries, MIT

Places: China, Taiwan

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