American Technology Was Born for This Moment

I have stood on two podiums that changed my life: the Olympic medal stand and a Navy SEAL team room. The lesson was the same. Standards win. When you uphold the standard, you earn the right to expect victory. That is true in the pool, on the battlefield, and in the lab.

During my deployments, I saw how the right technology in the right hands could transform missions. But too often our system delivered the opposite: yesterday’s technology tomorrow. Procurement was designed to favor incumbents instead of results. That has to change. Warfighters deserve equipment that works now, not promises for later.

At Harpoon Ventures, we focus on what I call the Freedom Stack: AI and compute to outthink any adversary, energy and materials including advanced nuclear and domestic minerals to power our future at home, robotics and manufacturing to deliver deterrence at scale, and cybersecurity strong enough to keep our systems intact in a fight. These are not theories. They are companies building drones, engines, reactors, and code that operators can use today. Much of this is happening as engineers identify problem sets within the new hard tech leaders like SpaceX and Anduril, creating new founders and leading companies week by week.

Renaming the Department of Defense back to the Department of War may sound cosmetic, but it matters. The mission is not to host seminars; it is to win. Clear words bring clear focus. That clarity should carry into acquisition. Stop rewarding presentations and start rewarding delivered capability.

Ukraine and Russia showed the world how the battlefield has changed. For the price of a consumer drone, an adversary can put a bomb in the sky. That rewrites doctrine, from how infantry moves to how pilots fly in contested airspace. Equipment is starting to catch up, but training has not. Every range and schoolhouse should already be teaching how to fight in unmanned-contested environments.

Winning the AI race is about more than defense. It is about making sure Americans benefit from the prosperity it creates. For decades we exported the American Dream by offshoring jobs. We cannot repeat that mistake. Energy, minerals, fabs, and factories should be built here, staffed by Americans, and supported by allies. Onshoring is not nostalgia. It is national security.

I began my career in a pool, what I call a zero gravity environment. Transitioning to the Teams meant boats on your head and rucks on your back. That shock taught me one lesson: never negotiate with the standard. When standards stay high, technology becomes a force multiplier instead of a crutch.

This requires the opposite of performative technocracy. It is welders next to ML engineers, test flights over the ocean, and a culture that measures success by delivery, not talk. American tech was born for this moment because in places like this the ethos of results still thrives.

America does not need permission to lead. We need clarity, discipline, and the will to choose results over ritual. I have seen what happens when we do: swimmers break records, teams win fights, and founders deliver the tools that keep us safe.

This is our moment. Not for a valley living off its past, but for a nation building its future, one weld, one test, one launch at a time.

Larsen Jensen is a combat-decorated U.S. Navy SEAL veteran, two-time Olympic medalist, and Founder of Harpoon Ventures, a venture capital firm with $300 million AUM backing early-stage technology companies. He is also co-Founder of defense-tech company Vector, equipping U.S. and allied forces with next-generation capabilities. He brings mission-driven leadership to founders building the next generation of innovation.