The Pentagon Wants to Give Defense Startups a Chance

Beck is in many ways an ideal candidate to address such concerns. A US Navy reservist who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, he’s also a former Apple Inc. executive. He says he found the feedback from investors humbling—while also agreeing with their assessment of the US Department of Defense. “We would end up with fantastic prototypes that had some demand from the department,” he says, “but they couldn’t make it to the next level of scale we need for strategic impact and that they need for the return on investment.”