E52 – Top Secret Offices

E52 – Top Secret Offices

From The Merge by The Merge

October 25, 2025 · 52 min

About this episode

Sean Blackman discusses the challenges and innovations in accessing classified workspaces for national security.

Nooks co-founder and CEO Sean Blackman spills all thesecrets about what it takes to do classified business with the Pentagon. Nooks is a venture-backed startup founded in 2021 to solve amassive pain point: access to classified offices and networks to perform sensitive national security work. Nooks is attacking the problem in an innovative way called Classified-Infrastructure-as-a-Service (CIaaS), which is a subscription access to a nationwide network of classifiedworkspaces and IT. If you are in the defense industry—or even thinking about it—and there is even a sliver of a chance you will touch classified work, this episode is everything you need to know. Links • Sign up for the newsletter⁠ ! • Support us on ⁠Patreon⁠ ! • Nooks website • Nooks LinkedIn ---- Follow us on... • LinkedIn • Instagram⁠ • ⁠X⁠ • ⁠Facebook⁠ • ⁠Website⁠ ---- 00:00 00:46 intro 01:49 Nooks 02:52 origin story 09:49 name and logo 12:30 locations and spaces 13:30 location and the real value unlock 17:57 COVID 19:20 fractional labs 20:06 fundraising for a weird company 22:01 information disadvantage 23:33 myth of hiring security clearances 30:00 SCIF 34:09 mobile SCIF 39:23 touchpoints and impact 42:13 security…

People in this episode

Guest: Sean Blackman

Topics covered

  • classified business
  • national security
  • defense industry
  • startup innovation
  • classified workspaces
  • technology

Keywords

  • classified
  • national security
  • defense
  • technology
  • startup
  • Pentagon
  • CIaaS
  • Nooks

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Nooks, Pentagon

Places: United States, COVID

More episodes of The Merge

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the The Merge podcast page.