欧洲防务主权始于工厂：Stark 的 Uwe Horstmann 与 Johannes Schaback

我认为，最终形成的是欧洲的一种共识：欧洲需要为自己的防务承担更多责任。这当然是美国反复告诉我们的，他们说得对。欧洲必须挺身而出，必须具备自卫能力，因为这是我们继续和平生活的方式。这就是威慑，对吧？

I think what came together is obviously an understanding in Europe that Europe needs to take more responsibility for its own defense. That is of course something that the US have told us repeatedly and they're right. Europe has to step up and needs to be able to defend itself because that is our way of continuing to live in peace. It's deterrence, right?

我和我的搭档 Luciana 在这里与 Uwe 和 Johannes 在一起，他们是 Stark 的联合创始人，这是一家服务于欧洲防务界的新兴主承包商。先生们，感谢你们接受采访。

My partner Luciana and I are here with Uwe and Johannes, the co-founders of Stark, a neo-prime serving the European defense community. Gentlemen, thank you for joining us.

非常感谢邀请我们。

Thank you so much for having us.

谢谢。好的，我们开始吧。你们在成立公司后 18 个月内就获得了数十亿美元的合同，我认为这在防务行业是闻所未闻的。你们做对了什么？这是怎么发生的？

Thank you. All right, to get things started. You guys landed billions of dollars of contracts within 18 months of starting the company, which I believe is unheard of in the defense business. What did you do right? How did that happen?

显然，这是我们喜欢宣称的巨大成功，但这也可能是一个让我们所有人都乐观的时刻，因为除了我们公司内部构建的东西之外，还发生了一些变化，我认为欧洲正在朝着正确的方向前进。具体来说，我认为我们做了四件事。我们让创新真正贴近战场，真正与使用系统的部队和士兵融为一体。然后，得益于红杉资本和其他投资方，我们以风险投资为先，这基本上意味着我们自己资助创新和产品开发。我们不依赖政府的研发支出。我们专注于设计产品，使其真正可用且可大规模部署，因此超越了纯粹的创新用例，一直到系统的认证、验证和安全性，真正为北约部队所用。第四，我们从一开始就明确考虑工业规模化来设计产品。我们如何确保这些不仅仅是少数精良的系统摆放在某个地方，而是如何确保工厂成为武器的一部分，生产就是威慑。

So obviously this is something that we like to claim as a big success, but it's also probably a moment that is just optimistic for all of us because something has changed beyond just what we built in our company and we're moving in the right direction I think in Europe. What we did specifically I think is four things. We did innovation really close to the battlefield, so really being integrated with units and soldiers who actually use the systems. Then be venture first thanks to Sequoia and others, which basically means we fund the innovation, the product development ourselves. We don't rely on some government R&D spending. We focus on designing the products in a way that they become really usable and mass deployable, so beyond pure innovation use cases all the way to certification, validation, safety of the system, so really usable for NATO forces. And then number four, we designed the products clearly thinking industrial scaling from the get-go. How can we make sure that those are not only a few exquisite systems that stand around somewhere, but how can we make sure that factory is part of the weapon, production is deterrence.

现在，让我就第一点提问，贴近战场，我猜大多数军事单位不会让几个随便的人进入他们的单位并了解他们的需求。那么，你们是如何在公司成立初期就获得进入战场的机会的？

Now, let me ask you on point number one, close to the battlefield, I'm guessing that most military units would not let a couple of random guys trip into their units and understand their needs. Like how How is it that you gained access to the battlefield so early in the life of the company?

我们通过在乌克兰的大量存在来做到这一点。所以我们在乌克兰有一个大团队，我们相当广泛地融入那些部队。我们也与欧洲部队合作。所以可以说，越来越多的形式使得这成为可能。因此你可以与士兵联系。你可以和他们一起出现。你可以去战场，以及测试场、训练场。这就是你获得最佳反馈的地方。那对我们来说是最重要的输入。资金，我们可以获得，你知道，我感谢红杉资本和其他人。但我们真正需要的是客户的输入，这不一定是买家，对吧？买家可能是某个高级官员，但客户往往是作战战术层面上相对简单的士兵。我们需要他们的输入。这对我们来说比什么都重要。

We do that with a large presence in Ukraine. So we have a large team in Ukraine and we integrate in those units quite extensively. We also do work with the European forces. So there are more and more formats, I would say, where that thing is enabled. So you can connect with the soldiers. You can show up with them. You can go to the battle ground. And well, like the testing grounds, the training grounds. And that's where you get the best feedback. That is the most important input for us. The capital, we can get, you know, I get thanks to Sequoia and other people. But what we really need is that input of the customer, which is not necessarily the buyer, right? The buyer is probably some high-level official, but the customer often time is a relatively simple soldier on an operational tactical level. We need their input. That's more important to us than anything else.

那么，为了让大家了解你们的工作，你们从那些客户那里听到了什么，作为回应，你们现在给了他们什么产品？

Well, and just to level set on what you guys do, what is it you heard from those customers and what's the product that you've now given them in response?

我们在任何时候可能运行 10 到 15 个不同的项目，几乎像一个风险投资式的创新组合。目前的一个是，你可能会称之为打击无人机。它实际上是一种弹药，但它是一种非常依赖软件和人工智能的武器系统。与其他武器系统相比，它相对便宜。我们在可用性方面得到了很多很好的反馈。我们才刚刚开始理解，例如，对于应该操作那些无人蜂群的士兵来说，这对他们的心理负荷有什么影响？这究竟是如何运作的？盒子应该怎么制作？应该是木头还是塑料？我们如何在 small 屏幕上可视化蜂群，以便士兵可以操作它？

So we at any point of time we probably run 10 to 15 different programs, almost like a venture-like innovation portfolio. The one at the moment is a, you would probably call it a strike drone. It's actually a munition, but it's like a weapon system that is very much software and AI driven. It's relatively inexpensive compared to what other weapon systems are out there. And we got a lot of great feedback on the usability. There is we only begin to understand what does it do to the mental load of a soldier, for example, who is supposed to operate those unmanned swarms? How exactly does that work? How should the box be created? Should it be wood? Should it be plastics? How do we visualize a swarm on a small screen so that the soldier can operate it?

早些时候你有一个关于野外箱子的塑料与木头的有趣轶事。你能分享那个轶事吗？因为我认为它真的说明了实验室和现场之间的区别。

Earlier you had this interesting anecdote about plastic versus wood on the boxes that go out in the field. Can you share that anecdote cuz I think that really illustrates kind of the difference between the lab and the field?

百分之千，因为就像你经常有那些关于产品应该怎样的好主意，你在白板上想出了这个主意，然后你把它放在用户面前，士兵们在战场上使用它，无论是在真实战斗中还是在训练和模拟中，有时情况非常非常不同。例如，我们带着这个漂亮的塑料盒子出现，它很轻便，士兵们看着它说：“我们拿这个做什么？你为什么不给我们木头，因为木头至少我们可以放进火里，在冬天保暖。”而我没想到这一点。

1,000% because like you often have those great ideas how this product should be and you came up with the idea on a whiteboard and then you put it in front of the users, the soldiers using it in the field either in real battle or in trainings and simulations and sometimes it's very very different. So, for example, we show up with this beautiful plastic box that is light to carry and the soldiers look at it like, "What do we do with this? Why don't you give us wood because wood at least we can put in the fire and it keeps us warm in the winter." And I didn't think about that.

有很多这样的轶事。反馈非常有价值。所以，传统上你会说，产品开发和采购中最重要的士兵是将军们，他们告诉你大预算在哪里，你应该做这个那个。而我们总是喜欢说，士官、士兵，那些实际使用这些系统的人，对我们来说可能更重要，因为在这种真正的创业精神中，你想接近客户。你想为那个客户开发。对我们来说，客户是的，是买家，但也是用户，而在军事情况下，这些不是同一个人。例如，我们才刚刚开始理解，如果你考虑一下你现在控制的无人机蜂群，你究竟如何操作？比如，你有鼠标吗？你有键盘吗？你有触摸板吗？所有这些如何运作？当你戴手套时如何运作？哪些点击可以？哪里需要非常精确？所有这些东西。心理负荷是什么？我可以同时处理多少信息？我们才刚刚开始理解。如果你对待士兵，他们习惯于工业界只是出现并把东西扔给他们说：“这里，这是最好的东西。如果你有问题，那是因为你不理解它。”你真的需要改变这一点。你需要把他们当作你的客户。他们能给你的最有价值的东西是他们的时间和反馈。

And there's many anecdotes like that. The feedback is so valuable. So, traditionally you would say most important soldiers in the product development and the procurement are the generals who tell you that's where the big budgets are and you should do this and that. And what we always like to say is the staff sergeants, the enlisted personnel who then actually use those systems are maybe even more important to us because in that kind of true startup spirit you want to be close to the customer. You want to develop for that customer. The customer for us yes, it's the buyer, but it's also the user and those are not the same people in the military situation. And we're just beginning, for example, to understand if you think about a drone swarm that you are now controlling, how exactly do you do that? Like, do you have a mouse? Do you have a keyboard? Do you have a touchpad? How does all of that work? How does it work when you wear gloves? What clicks are okay? Where do you need to be really precise? All those things. What is the mental load? How much information can I process at the same time? We're only beginning to understand. And if you treat soldiers, they are used to industry just showing up and dumping stuff on them and saying like, "Here, this is the best thing. If you have issues with it, it's because you didn't understand it." You really need to change that around. You need to treat them as your customer. The most valuable thing they can give to you is their time and their feedback.

有时我们出现，他们会说：“你知道吗？这简直是垃圾。”但你可以通过说“告诉我们具体哪里垃圾”来真正赢得信任。然后我们明天或后天会再次出现。我们创建一个新版本，明天就会好一点。这很有帮助。让我为这家公司感到最自豪的一些事情是，我们赢得了社区中许多人的心，人们说：“你知道吗？那些人，他们以正确的视角接近我们。他们有以士兵为中心的观点，他们真的想打造对我们有用的产品。”对创业者来说这很明显。可能坐在这里的每个人都会说：“是的，我们要为客户打造产品。客户需要满意。净推荐值。留存率和 NRR、ARR 增长。”对我们来说，这转化为倾听士兵。与他们一起打造，为他们打造。希望在采购方面也能有好的结果。

And sometimes we show up and they say, "You know what? This is absolute shit." But you can really win trust by saying, "Tell us how exactly it was shit." And we'll show up again tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. We create a new version and we'll be a little bit less shit tomorrow. And that goes a long way. And some of the things that make me the proudest of this company is we gained a lot of minds and hearts in the community by people saying, "You know what? Those guys, they approach us from the right perspective. They have a soldier-centric view and they really want to build a product that's good for us." It's quite obvious for startup people. Probably everybody who sits here says, "Yeah, we want to build for the customer. The customer needs to be happy. Net promoter score. Retention and NRR, ARR growth." And for us the translation to that is listen to the soldiers. Build with them, build for them. And hopefully good things will happen on the procurement side as well.

我们能退一步吗？你提到目前欧洲有一个有利的时机来建立国防公司。而且 Uwe，你和我认识很久了。我们最初在欧洲做风险投资。你在其他人之前就看到了国防领域的机会。可以说，早在显而易见之前你就在投资国防了。而且你本人也有军事背景。你能先告诉我们一点，在欧洲是什么因素汇聚在一起，以及为什么今天有机会建立新的 NeoPrime？

Can we take a step back? You mentioned that there is a favorable moment in Europe right now for building defense companies. And Uwe, you and I have known each other for a long time. We started as venture capitalists in Europe. And you saw the opportunity in defense before other people. You were investing in defense way before it was obvious, I would say. And you also have a background in the military yourself. Can you tell us a little bit firstly about what came together in Europe and why there is this opportunity to build the new NeoPrime today?

我认为汇聚在一起的是，欧洲显然认识到欧洲需要为自己的防务承担更多责任。这当然是美国反复告诉我们的。他们是对的。欧洲必须挺身而出，需要能够自卫，因为这是我们继续和平生活的方式。这是威慑，对吧？我们现在可能明白，世界不幸可能不像理想中那样默认和平，但需要被保卫。我们唯一安全的方式就是威慑潜在的攻击者。所以这种认识真的在人们心中具体化了。与此同时，人们也明白战场上正在发生一些事情。新技术涌现。它是软件驱动、AI 驱动的。生产成本相对较低。规模小。这两点结合在一起，我们高度赞扬德国和其他政府，他们也明白，如果情况如此，我们应该采购那些我们能力缺乏或有差距的解决方案。我们还必须改变采购流程，因为采购无人机不像采购战列舰。就是不同。所以这确实结合在了一起，这也可能是我们的起点，与公司的成立相吻合，说：“好吧，现在我们需要投入。”这将是一个时刻，几年后我们可能会问自己：“在那段时间我们做了什么？”对我来说，你提到了我的经历，事情真的从两大流派汇聚在一起：对军事和安全、国际关系等的兴趣。然后是技术部分。所以对我来说，这是一个非常清晰的时刻，说好吧，我需要介入。

I think what came together is obviously an understanding in Europe that Europe needs to take more responsibility for its own defense. That is of course something that the US have told us repeatedly. And they're right. Europe has to step up and needs to be able to defend itself because that is our way of continuing to live in peace. It's deterrence, right? We probably understand now that the world is unfortunately probably not as default peaceful as it ideally would be, but it needs to be defended. And the only way we can be safe is by deterring a potential attacker. So that understanding has really materialized in people's minds. And it came together with a point where people also understand something's happening on the battlefield. New technologies emerge. It's software-driven, AI-driven. It's relatively inexpensive to produce. It is small-scale. And those two points came together and we give a lot of credit to the Germans and other governments who also understood, well, if that's the case, we should procure those solutions where the capabilities that we have are lacking or there is a gap. And we also need to change the process of how we procure because you don't procure a drone like you procure a battleship. It's just different. So that did come together and that was also probably the starting point for us, coinciding with the founding of companies saying, "Okay, now we need to lean in." This is going to be one of those moments where in a few years we'll probably ask ourselves, "What did we do during that time?" And for me, you mentioned my biography, things really came together from two big streams: an interest in military and security, international relations, things like that. And then the technology part. So it was quite a clear moment for me to say, okay, I need to step in.

你认为采购流程的变化是可持续的，还是你认为这对欧洲、德国和其他欧洲国家来说只是一个暂时的时刻？

Do you think that the procurement process changes are sustainable or do you think this is a moment in time for Europe, for Germany and other European countries?

我认为它们是可持续的。欧洲这样的变化不会因为有一个魅力型领袖说“我们需要改变。这就是方法，跟我来。这是一个伟大的叙事”而发生。欧洲不是这样运作的。欧洲的运作基于，好吧，我想我们现在不得不做了。现实正在显现。积极的一面是，希望变化更持久，因为它们基于实际的结构性根本变化，现在我们处于一个新世界。这给了我希望，我们改变了采购流程，从数年缩短到数月，这包括认证，这是我们工作的很大一部分。这在某种程度上是一个非常无聊的话题，但它非常重要。我认为这些变化会持续下去，因为从乌克兰-俄罗斯战争中真正的学习可能不是无人机或不无人机。而是关于创新生态系统。那才是真正的神奇武器。我们总是喜欢在网上读有什么新武器系统，有多厉害？这并不重要。关键是我们西方如何建立自己，以便我们能够持续在国防领域创新，用我们已经谈到的所有不同要素：来自战斗士兵的输入。有人才方面，比如我们最聪明的人应该愿意在国防领域工作。有资本方面等等。我认为这会持续下去。我对此相当乐观。

I think they are sustainable. Changes like that in Europe they don't happen because there is a charismatic leader who says, "We need to change. This is the way, follow me. Here's a great narrative." That's not how Europe works. Europe works based on, well, I guess we kind of have to do it now. It's reality kicking in. And the positive side of that would be hopefully changes are more lasting because they are based on actual structural fundamental changes and now we are in a new world. And that's what gives me hope that we change the procurement processes that took years to months and that includes the certification which is a big part of what we do. It's a very boring topic in a way but it's very important. I think those changes are there to last because the real learning from the Ukraine-Russia war is probably not drones or no drones. It is about an innovation ecosystem. That is the actual wonder weapon. We always like to read on the internet like what new weapon system, how awesome is it? It doesn't really matter. The whole point is how do we as Western set up ourselves so that we can continuously innovate in defense with all the different ingredients we've already talked about: the input from fighting soldiers. There's a talent aspect of it, like our smartest minds should be willing to work in defense. There's a capital aspect to it and all that stuff. And I think that is there to last. I'm quite hopeful about it.

作为一家成立两年的公司，向国防机构销售，你们有什么优势是那些向同一客户销售的 70 年老公司可能没有的？

What advantages do you have as a 2-year-old company selling into the defense apparatus that a 70-year-old company selling into the same customer might not have?

在那个领域，那个细分市场，廉价的、AI 驱动的、可大规模扩展的系统，我们的攻击无人机浮现在脑海中，但还有，例如，无人艇等等。我们有创业公司的 DNA。我们像在创业公司里那样构建原型。而且我们从一开始就为大规模制造而构建。这不是国防通常做的事情。当我们走进我们的工厂时，我们希望——就在几天前，我遇到一些运营专家，他们看着我们说：“哦，这大约和洗衣机一样复杂。”我不知道他们是否尝试安装过那些，但这正是我想达到的位置。就像，如果我告诉你：“嘿，今天我们每月生产 1,000 台洗衣机。我们需要扩大到每月 10,000 台，或者每年一百万台。”你会说：“好吧，这不容易，但总有办法做到。”所以，这就是你想达到的位置。而老牌主承包商不一定擅长这个。他们非常擅长建造那些精致的、非常重要的、非常昂贵的系统。我认为他们仍然会扮演重要角色。但那个行业有一部分是关于快速创新、持续开发、贴近客户、理解客户，然后为大规模可扩展性而构建，我认为我们在这方面有很好的优势。

In that field, that segment of the market, the inexpensive, the AI-driven, the mass-scalable systems, our strike drones come to mind, but also, for example, unmanned boats and things like that. We have a startup DNA. We build the prototypes like you would prototype in a startup pretty much. And we built them from the get-go to be mass manufacturing items. Which is not something that defense typically does. And when we walk into our factories, we want— Just a few days ago, I had some operational experts, and they looked at us and they're like, "Oh, this is about as complex as a washing machine." And I don't know if they tried to install those, but it is exactly where I want to be. Like, if I tell you, "Hey, today we're building 1,000 washing machines a month. We need to scale this to 10,000 a month, or to a million a year." You would say, "Okay, it's not easy, but it's doable somehow." So, that's where you want to be. And the established primes are not necessarily great at that. They're really good at building those exquisite, very important, very expensive systems. And I think they still will play a big role. But there's a part of that industry where it's about rapid innovation, ongoing development, close to the customer, understanding the customer, and then building for mass scalability, where I think we have a pretty good edge.

Johannes，你能谈谈产品工程组织吗？还有，就像 Uwe 说的，你们如何在贴近客户的地方实现快速创新？这通常不是我们会联想到向国防领域销售的硬件公司的事情。所以请谈谈这个组织，也谈谈你们如何快速行动。

Johannes, can you say a word about the product engineering organization? And as Uwe was saying, how do you execute on rapid innovation close to the customer? It's not the thing we typically associate with hardware companies selling into defense. So say a bit about the organization and a bit about how you move fast.

从最核心的意义上说，Shield 是一家工程公司。这就是我们所做的一切。我们组织公司的方式，是建立能够非常自主地行动和构建的项目。就像 Uwe 之前说的，我们几乎像一家风险投资基金那样组织和运营公司，在初创公司内部建立小型初创团队。加入 Shield 的工程师很快会发现自己进入一个“家族”——它是一个非常自主的项目，以高度跨职能的方式朝着项目的使命努力。它可以是全自主的海上系统、全自主的海军或空中系统、打击无人机、电子战，也可以是软件。

At its very core, Shield is an engineering company. It's everything we do. And so the way we organized the company is by building programs that can act and build very autonomously. As Uwe said earlier, we're organizing the company almost and running it almost like a venture fund where we're building small startups in the startup. Engineers who join Shield find themselves very quickly in a family — it's a program that is very autonomous and works in a very cross-functional sense towards the mission of the program. That can be fully autonomous maritime systems, fully autonomous naval or aerial systems, strike drones, electronic warfare, or it can be in software.

这些不同项目下面是否有一个平台层，还是说它是怎么运作的？

Is there a platform layer underneath these different programs, or how's that work?

正是如此。项目服务于外部客户，然后有一个我们称为“能力团队”的平台层，他们构建能力来增强我们正在创建的生态系统。例如，GNSS 拒止环境下的导航、物体分类、目标再识别、通信链路，以及我们如何进行飞行控制。有些组件我们会作为复利价值带回系统家族、带回项目中。所以作为工程师，你要么可以在平台上工作，帮助整个系统家族，要么可以更以客户为中心，在前线系统上工作。

Exactly. The programs serve external customers, and then there is a platform layer that we call capability teams, and they build capabilities that augment the ecosystem that we're creating. For example, GNSS-denied navigation, object classification, target re-identification, communication links, how we go about flight control. There are certain pieces that we then bring back as compounding value into the family of systems, into the programs. So as an engineer, you can either work on the platform and help the entire family of systems, or you can be rather customer-centric and work on the front-line system.

你们今天最引以为傲的能力是什么？

Which capabilities are you most proud of today?

我们非常自豪的是，我们在命中目标方面非常、非常精准。这是我们极其擅长的事情。

We're extremely proud about being very, very accurate at hitting targets. That's what we're extremely good at.

这需要什么？

What does that take?

我们采取了一种高度集成的方法，把硬件和软件系统紧密集成在一起。仅仅构建一个硬件系统是好的，但仅仅构建一个独立的软件栈来应对仿真，比如，是不够的。要实现对坦克或以 60 公里/小时速度移动的目标进行亚米级精度的打击，需要微调，并在算力、算力预算和内存分配方面把设置和参数化都做到完美，系统才能完成它的使命。这就是我们非常、非常自豪并实现的事情。

It took us a very integrated approach to bringing hardware and software systems tightly integrated together. Just building a hardware system is good, but just building a separate isolated software stack that would be able to cope with the simulation, for example, is not enough. But the actual sub-meter precision for striking a tank or a moving target that moves at a speed of 60 km/h requires fine-tuning and getting the settings and the parameterization in terms of compute, in terms of compute budget, and memory allocation all perfectly well done for the system to fulfill its purpose. And that is what we're very, very proud of and that we accomplished.

你们大约一年前有过一个时刻，当时你们在做一个实验，实验没有完全达到目标。它是实验，所以实验不总是能达到目标，但据报道，关于它如何失败引起了很大的喧哗。而你们大概有 4 周左右的时间来扭转局面，并进行了更多——通过了更难的测试。你能谈谈经历那一切是什么感觉吗？团队是如何团结起来完成任务的？也许可以谈谈你们当时试图做什么的细节？

And you guys had a moment a year ago-ish where there's an experiment you were running and the experiment didn't quite hit the mark. And it's an experiment, so experiments don't always hit the mark, but it was reported that there was big hubbub about how it failed. And you had what, 4 weeks or something to turn it around and conducted even more — hit pass an even harder test. Can you just say a word about how did it feel to go through that? How did the team rally to get the job done? Maybe the details on what was it you were trying to do?

那是 Stark 的一个锻造时刻。Stark 在很多方面是浴火而生的，但那是特别的一刻。先把背景说清楚，我们的一个系统 Virtus 做了一次重大升级，涉及硬件和软件。每个工程师都知道，如果有更新，就会有回归——重心偏了，或者因为相机的开口角度变了，你必须重新训练一些边缘感知模型。事情就是这样。然而，德国联邦国防军请我们参加一个非常重要的实验。所以我们不能说不。于是我们带着一个我们知道未达到我们雄心水平的系统去了，但同时我们也认为差距没那么大。所以我们没能充分测试。这是第一点。第二点是我们测试的环境对当时的配置并不理想。但媒体全都在报道这件事。他们知道他们想让我们进入行动、给我们施压。所以那在他们心里其实没那么糟。然而，媒体抓住了这件事，大肆报道。

That was a forging moment for Stark. Stark in many regards was born out of fire, but that was a particular moment. Just to get the context right, we had a major upgrade in one of our systems, the Virtus system, that was hardware as well as software. And as every engineer knows, if you have an update, you have a regression — the center of gravity is off, or since the opening angle of the camera changed, you have to retrain some of your edge perception model. That's just how it is. However, the Bundeswehr, the German army, asked us to participate in a very important experiment. And so we couldn't say no. So we went there with a system that we knew was not at our ambition level, but at the same time we also thought that the step wasn't so big. And so we weren't able to fully test. That's number one. Number two is also that we tested that in an environment that was not ideal for the setup that we had at this time. But the media was all about it. They knew that they wanted to bring us towards the action to stress us out. And so that was in their mind actually not that bad. However, media caught this up and went all about it.

所以我们做的本质上是一次全员动员会议。我们说：“好了各位，这是公司的成败时刻。真正的工程卓越将在这里显现。Stark 工程界最优秀的人才必须聚集在一起。”我们订了一家三星级温泉酒店——目的只是靠近我们当时可以使用的射击场。那其实是十一月。天气极其寒冷。所以我们三班倒、全天候工作。飞行测试团队出去收集数据，然后把数据传回来。我们搭了几个集装箱。我们启动了移动发电机。我们基本上从 DIY 商店非常、非常快地采购，建立基地，以获得收集数据所需的基础设施。所以当飞行测试团队在飞行时——天气极其寒冷——软件工程师拿到数据，继续优化全栈、飞行测试以及感知。同时一些硬件工程师也帮助改进执行机构并调校系统。所以实际上只用了两周时间，我们就达到了完美的命中精度。

So what we did is essentially we did an all-hands-on-deck meeting. We said, “Okay everybody, this is a make-or-break moment for the company. This is where true engineering excellence will show. So the best minds of the engineering community at Stark have to come together.” We booked a three-star spa hotel — for the purpose of just being close to the shooting range where we had access at the time. It was in November actually. It was extremely cold. And so we worked three shifts around the clock. While the flight test team went out and collected data, they were sending that back. We had several containers set up. We had mobile generators starting. We basically bought from DIY stores very, very quickly to set up base in order to have the necessary infrastructure to collect data. And so as the flight test team was flying — it was extremely cold — the software engineers took that data and continued to work optimizing the full stack, flight test as well as perception. At the same time some of the hardware engineers also helped improve the actuation and tuned the system out. And so in the course of actually only two weeks, we were getting to a hit accuracy that was perfect.

但有一个时刻，因为我们一直打不中。我们说过，只有连续三次精准命中，我们才会离开这个地方。到那时，我们射击的坦克已经完全被打穿了。我们已经在那上面浪费了很多系统，它们可不便宜，对吧？但那是明确的——不问问题，钱不重要，我们必须达到精度。所以我们全天候工作，每班 20 小时。当飞行测试团队回来时，硬件工程师回来修复了一些系统。由于我们飞行和射击太多，我们基本上不得不把我们自己系统的一些残骸拼凑回去，以便再打几发之类的。所以那是现场发生的一个重要工作流。

But there was this moment because we wouldn't hit. We said that we will only leave this place if we had three consecutive spot-on strikes. By then the tanks that we shot at were totally perforated. We already wasted a lot of systems on that and they're not exactly cheap, right? But that was clear — no questions asked, money doesn't matter, we have to get to the precision. And so we worked all 20-hour shifts. When the flight test team came back, the hardware engineers came back, repaired some of the systems. Since we were flying and shooting so much, we had to basically scrap some of the debris that we had from our own systems, put it back together in order to have a few more shots and stuff like that. And so that was one important stream that happened on site.

与此同时，仿真团队帮助我们进一步改进了飞行动力学建模，所以当时我们已经在使用 AI 系统来训练飞行动力学建模，以提高仿真的准确性，从而让我们的 AI 模型能在仿真中更好地训练。最终这两条工作流汇合在一起，事实上不到 4 周，只用了 2 周。有那么一刻我们意识到，好了，就是这样。从那时起，我们一直都能成功。我们一直都能成功。

At the same time, the simulation team helped us further improve the flight dynamic modeling, so we were employing AI systems at that time already to train flight dynamics modeling in order to improve the accuracy of the simulation so that our AI models can be trained within a simulation better. And so all these two work streams then came together in the end and after 2 weeks, as a matter of fact, it was less than 4 weeks. There was this one moment where we realized, okay, that's it. And from there on, we've always hit. We've always hit.

Johannes，如果你今天要创办一家软件公司，人才库在哪里非常清楚。但如果你要创办一家国防公司，情况就不那么明确了。请跟我们讲讲你是如何找到最优秀的人才的，以及你会去哪里寻找。

Johannes, if you're building a software company today, it's very clear where the talent pools are. If you're building a defense company, it's not as clear. Tell us a little bit about how you find the best people and where you look.

我们在传统行业寻找人才，也在大学里找。我们关注初创公司，也关注政府机构。我们到处寻找，因为必须汇聚的人才来自四面八方。我们需要如此广泛职能的人才，无论是非常资深的还是非常初级的，我们都必须把最优秀的大脑聚集在一起。所以，如果是一家现有的老牌主承包商，通常带来非常非常有价值的知识，但与此同时，初创公司的心态也极其重要，同等重要。

We look for talent in the classic industry, but also at universities. We're looking at startups. We're also looking at governmental institutions. We look everywhere because the talent that has to come together has to come from everywhere. It's such a breadth of functions that we need that if it's very senior or very junior, we have to bring all the greatest minds together. And so, if it's an existing established prime that usually comes with knowledge that is very, very valuable, but at the same time, the startup mindset is extremely and equally important.

那么，他们来自不同的领域和不同的文化。你们如何将这一切整合在一起，使其协同工作，尤其是当你们扩张得如此之快的时候？

So, they're coming from different domains and different cultures. How do you stitch all that together and get it to work cohesively, particularly as you guys scale so quickly?

项目团队为外部世界构建产品，他们是跨职能的。在每个职能内部，都有职能负责人，在电气工程、机械工程以及各个职能之间带来凝聚力和一致性。因此，他们在跨职能团队内建立实践社区。这就是我们分享知识、最佳实践的方式，也包括工具决策、AI 方法、AI 工作流、技能——非常重要——以及整个公司的 MCP。

So, the programs build products for the outside world, and they're cross-functional. Within each function, there are function heads that bring cohesiveness and consistency across electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and the various functions. And so, they build communities of practice within the cross-functional teams. And so, that's how we share knowledge, best practices, but also tooling decisions, AI approaches, AI workflows, skills, very important, MCPs across the company.

科技和创业社区确实在发生某种文化转变。几年前，人们进入国防领域是不可想象的。那不是你会做的事。而这种情况真的在改变。

There's definitely something of a cultural shift in the tech and startup community. A few years ago, it would have been unimaginable for people to go into defense. It was not something you would do. And that's really changing.

我们在整个欧洲观察到，基本上所有国家的人们都明白这是代际挑战。这是代际任务。是时候挺身而出了。我们看到以前与国防毫无接触的人说，你知道，也许这适合我。对他们来说，像我们这样的人，特别是 Stark，可以成为一个好的第一接触点，对吧？因为我们既是一家国防公司，也是一家高增长的科技公司。所以我们了解两个世界，对于那些第一次真正想把自己的技术技能或通用技能应用到国防领域的人，因为他们认为，是的，这就是我想贡献的，我们是非常好的第一个家，因为我们理解双方。如果你想在 Shield AI 工作，你不需要之前在国防领域工作过。

So, we observe all over Europe, in all the countries, basically, people understand this is a generational challenge. This is a generational task. It's time to step up for it. And we see people who have no touchpoints with defense before saying, you know, maybe this is something for me. And for them, people like us, with Stark specifically, can be like a good first touchpoint, right? Because we are as much a defense company as we are a high-growth tech company. So, we understand both worlds, and for people who for the first time really want to apply their technical skills or their general skills into defense because they think, yeah, this is what I want to contribute for, we're very good first home because we understand both sides. You don't need to have worked in defense if you want to work at Shield AI.

你能带我们走一遍，以说明技术本身吗？一次打击。从发射到打击。发生了什么？比如所有不同的系统是什么？输入和输出是什么？你能带我们走一遍吗？

Could you walk us through as a way to illustrate the technology itself? A single strike. From launch to strike. What's happening? Like what are all the different systems? What are the inputs and outputs? Like can you walk us through that?

当然。我只是在想从哪里开始，因为如果我从后勤层面开始，那才是关键。所以你不是仅仅因为打击就赢得战争，但一切都要导向打击。所以从那里倒推，它总是从后勤开始。我们刚刚听说了木箱很重要。所以如何拆卸和重新组装系统极其重要。如何运输？它能承受冲击和振动吗？如果通过空运或海运，能承受压力吗？所以系统必须承受各种不同的影响和环境条件，直到——在某些情况下，它实际上有比如 10 年的保质期，直到它真正部署到前线，然后系统被组装或放在弹射器上。然后发生的是，我们所有系统的作战概念是，操作员准备意图。所以系统总是实施并遵循意图。把它想象成一个任务。意图被建模为比如禁飞区或杀伤区或构成任务的某些元素。所以当系统起飞时，它自动自主地找到自己的路，避开禁飞区，避开防空设施，并飞行，如果它与蜂群结合，蜂群之间通信它们看到的东西，所以它们在蜂群成员之间共享态势感知。

For sure. I'm just wondering where to start because if I was to start at the logistics level, that's what matters. So you don't win wars just because you strike, but it leads everything to the strike. And so working backwards from that, it always starts with the logistics. And so we just heard about the wooden boxes that are important. And so how do you disassemble and reassemble a system is extremely important. And how do you transport it? Can it withstand the shocks and vibrations, the pressure if it's transported by air or over the sea? So there's various different effects, environmental conditions that a system has to withstand until and in some cases it actually had a shelf life of say 10 years until it actually gets deployed to the front line where the system is then assembled or put on a catapult. And so and then what happens is the concept of operations for all our systems is that an operator prepares the intent. So the system always implements and follows the intent. Think of it as a mission. And so the intent is modeled as say no fly zones or a kill zone or certain elements that comprise the mission. And so when the system then takes off, it automatically and autonomously finds its way evading no fly zones, evading anti-air installations and flies its way if it's in the combination with a swarm communicating across the swarm what they see so they share situational awareness across the swarm across the members.

这只在蜂群全是 Stark 产品时才有效吗，还是可以跨不同产品通信？

Would that work only if the swarm is all Stark products or can it work is there some communication that works across different

对此非常开放。我们极其开放。我可能还会谈到模块化。但先把那说完，然后你知道系统到达杀伤区开始寻找目标，然后取决于客户如何实施人在回路，要么系统完全自主地寻找并摧毁目标，要么如果有人在回路元素，就等待确认，由操作员确认，最终完成任务。

Very open to that. We are extremely open. I will going to speak probably about modularity as well. But just to finish that off and then you know the system arrives at the kill zone starts looking for the system and then depending on how the customers implement human in the loop either the system fully autonomously seeks and destroys the target or if there is a human in the loop element waits for a confirmation by it so by the operator and ultimately fulfills its mission.

所以听起来有大量高速非常精确的计算机视觉

And so it sounds like there is a lot of high speed very precise computer vision

正确。

Correct.

是在设备上处理的。

uh that is processing on the device.

正确。所以设备单元需要完全自主。这需要感知，感知被输入到推理引擎，以根据环境、感知和条件采取行动，从而完成任务，所以可以说有一个更高阶的走廊。

Correct. So the devices the units need to be fully autonomous. That requires perception that this perception is fed into a reasoning engine this to act upon the environmental the perception and the conditions in order to fulfill a mission so there is a higher order corridor you may say.

需要使用你自己的 ASIC 来实现吗，还是

need to use your own ASICs to make that work or

嗯，我们确实从供应商那里购买各种不同的组件来实现这一点。所以有一个新近性的因素，因为我们总是了解到有新的目标类型，乌克兰战争每天都在变化，所以系统中内置了大量的模块化和灵活性。所以是的，我们购买大量可大批量采购的组件，比如红外相机或光电相机，将它们作为传感器融合在一起，以便系统获得态势感知，从而自主行动。

Um so we do buy various different components from suppliers in order to make that work. So there is a element of recency as we always learn there is new target types the war in Ukraine is changing daily so there is a lot of modularity and flexibility built into the systems and so yeah we're buying a lot of components that are procurable in large quantities such as infrared cameras or electro-optical cameras bring them together as sensor fuse them in order to get a situational awareness onto the system in order to act autonomously.

你们如何考虑哪里需要垂直整合，哪里想要利用现有的生态系统或供应链？

How do you guys think about where you need to be vertically integrated and where you want to leverage the ecosystem or the supply chain that's already in place?

我们的指导原则是如何解决客户的问题，而产出的可扩展性是一个重大的客户问题。

The governing principle us is how do we solve the customer issue and the scalability of output is a big customer issue.

所以这将是我关于垂直整合的第一个问题。垂直整合的一个有力论据是：我们能否通过它来解决可扩展性问题？这是一股拉力。还有另一股力量，方向完全相反，那就是：如果我们把这些系统卖给其他国家，而他们能接入自己的供应商，这对我们非常有帮助，因为我们希望将这些系统的生产扎根于采购国。所以这是一种持续的平衡。第一，原则：我们能否解决 Scaling（规模扩张）问题？第二：我们如何接入不同的供应商，让一切更具韧性？

So that would be my first question towards vertical integration. A strong argument for vertical integration is: can we solve the scalability issue through that? That's one force kind of pulling on that. There's another force which goes exactly the opposite way, which is: it's so helpful for us if we sell those systems to other countries, if they can plug in their own suppliers, basically, because we want to root the production of those systems in the countries in which they're being procured. So that's kind of the ongoing balance, I would say. Number one, principle: can we solve the scaling issue? Number two: how can we plug in different suppliers to make everything more resilient?

你多次谈到你们的攻击无人机产品。你的理念是：作为一家单一产品公司，但在这个产品上做到世界最好，还是从第一天起就做多产品？

You've talked a lot about your strike drone product. What's your philosophy around being a single product company but being the best in the world at that one product versus being multi-product since day one?

我们关注的是能力缺口在哪里。这些缺口基本上是由军方自己描述的，比如“嘿，我们这里有一个能力缺口”。我们在这些缺口被分析和表述的过程中密切观察，然后我们审视它们并思考：我们能成为好的供应商吗？我们能提供——我们有权为此提供解决方案吗？市场上是否已有解决方案？这是我们思考产品组合时做的第一项练习。这很快也会让你走向多产品，因为在我们所做的事情中，我们看不到丰富的供应。所以这几乎像是一种使命。我们必须尝试。当然，我们始终要权衡多个项目的复杂性和注意力分散，但我认为我们最初的反应会是：存在一个能力缺口。它在演变。我们试图为那个缺口的定义做出贡献。然后我们可能总会问自己：我们能帮忙吗？我们能做贡献吗？因为很多东西——在技术层面、在对作战概念的理解层面——可以从空中领域转移到海上领域。正如 Johannes 提到的：有意图规划、任务规划。资产是在飞还是在游，并不重要。在拒止环境中有导航，那里有干扰——这在海上领域和空中领域都会发生。有目标检测、识别——同样如此。甚至还有一些瞄准，比如我正锁定一个目标。所以有很多东西我们可以跨领域使用，我们称之为领域，或者如果你愿意，也可以叫维度。

So we look towards where those capability gaps are. Those are basically self-described by militaries, like, hey, we have a capability gap here. And we observe them quite closely while they're being analyzed and formulated, and then we look at them and we think: can we be a good supplier? Can we provide—do we have a right to offer a solution for this? And is there one in the market? And that's kind of the first exercise that we do when thinking about the product portfolio. That pretty quickly also gets you to multi-product because we don't see an abundance of offerings in the things that we do. So it's almost like a mandate. We have to try. We of course always have to counter-balance against the complexity and loss of focus of multiple programs, but I think our first initial reaction would be: there is a capability gap. It is evolving. We try to contribute to the definition of that gap. And then we probably will always ask ourselves: can we help? Can we contribute? Because multiple things—on the technological side, on the understanding of the concept of operations side—can be taken, for example, from the aerial domain to the maritime domain. What Johannes mentioned: there is intent planning, mission planning. That doesn't matter if the asset is flying or swimming. There is navigation in denied environments, where there's jamming—both happen in the maritime domain and the aerial domain. There is object detection, recognition—again, the same. There's even some targeting, where I'm homing in on a target. So there's a lot of things that we can use across domains, as we call them, or dimensions, if you will.

我们能谈一个表面上可能听起来无聊，但对你们这样的公司来说却是成败攸关的话题吗？那就是制造。你们如何从零做到真正的规模化制造？

Can we talk about a topic that may sound boring on the surface, but it's really make or break for a company like you, which is manufacturing? How do you go from zero to manufacturing at real scale?

当我们启动一个项目时，有两个目标。我们优化上市时间，其次，我们优化生产就绪度。这两个目标常常部分冲突，因为如果你只优化上市时间，你可能会相对较快地得到一个可以展示和演示的产品，但然后它很难制造。例如，一级方程式赛车——你只造一辆。你很快就能准备好，但你几乎从不大量生产它们。所以，从工程角度来看，这必须发生：我们在可制造性上左移。这极其重要，因为否则你会积累一笔债务，以后必须修复。而这真的只是开始，因为在你决定购买哪些组件的那一刻，供应链韧性在早期决策过程中也扮演着巨大角色。因此，我们可能并不总是购买——用洗衣机来类比——最伟大、最领先的摄像头，而是购买那些非常非常好、处于前四分位、但实际上可以大量采购的组件。

There are two goals when we start a program. We optimize for time to market, and second, we optimize for production readiness. And they are often partially competing, because if you're optimizing only time to market, then you may end up relatively quickly with a product that you can show and demonstrate, but then it's very difficult to manufacture it. For example, a Formula 1 car—you only build one. You're very quick in order to be ready, but you hardly ever produce them in large quantities. And so, from an engineering perspective, this has to happen: we shift left on manufacturability. That's extremely important, because otherwise, you accrue a debt that you have to fix later on. And that's really just the beginning, because the moment you decide on which components you buy, supply chain resilience plays a massive role in the decision-making process early on as well. And so, we may not always buy—to use the washing machine analogy—the greatest and most leading-edge camera, for example, but we buy those that are very, very good, top quartile, but actually procurable in large numbers.

国防领域的人经常谈论本地供应链。这在欧洲现实吗，还是你们也必须考虑中国或其他国家？

People in defense talk a lot about local supply chains. Is that realistic in Europe, or do you have to look at, say, China or other countries as well?

我认为这是现实的。对于某些相当简单的组件来说，这确实是现实的，就像第一步：哦对，这里我们可以多元化，我们可以从不同的供应商甚至不同的国家采购。传统智慧会说，从底线利润的角度看，这好吗？但从韧性的角度看，这可能是好的。如果你的整个业务都具有韧性，那就更是如此。我会说，仍然有一些组件，我们整个西方世界都依赖，例如中国的供应，等等。我们当然试图解决这个问题，并且大幅减少了依赖。我认为当前的系统几乎不再依赖了。但也有一些事情，我认为我们作为一个行业，所有人都必须团结起来，与政治或军方一起，制定这些事情的策略，比如需要原材料化学品、成分，这可能超出一家公司的范围。这可能需要更多的工业协调努力。

I think it is realistic. It is realistic specifically for certain components where it is fairly simple, and, you know, kind of like the first step: oh yeah, here we can diversify, and we can source from different suppliers, and even from different countries. And conventional wisdom would be, well, is that good from a bottom-line profitability perspective? But it's probably good from a resilience perspective. And even more so if your whole business is resilient. There are still certain components, I would say, where we have dependencies as the Western world entirely on, for example, Chinese supply, and so on and so forth. We try, of course, to work on that, and we reduce it dramatically. I think the current systems have hardly any reliance anymore. But there are also things where I think we as an industry, all of us have to come together, and together with politics or militaries, in figuring out what are the strategies on those things, where raw chemicals, ingredients are needed that maybe go beyond the scope of just one company. It's probably more of an industrial coordination effort that's needed.

说到供应链，我想问你一个非常不同的部分，那就是 AI。战争未来的一部分不仅是从精致系统转向可消耗系统，也是从人类做一切转向更自主的系统。我们坐在这里，正值 Hugging Face 被黑客攻击之后，可以说这些智能体文明冲出了沙箱并造成了破坏。所以我很好奇：鉴于系统的力量以及你们产品中固有的危险，你们如何看待 AI 失控或某种程度上不按预期工作的可能性？

Speaking of supply chain, I want to ask you about a very different part of your supply chain, which is AI. And part of the future of warfare is not just this move from exquisite systems to attritable systems, it's also the move from humans doing everything to more autonomous systems. And we're kind of sitting here in the wake of the Hugging Face hack where these civilizations of agents, so to speak, broke out of their sandbox and wreaked havoc. And so, I guess I'm curious: given the power of the system and the inherent dangers in the product that you guys have, how do you think about the possibility of AI going rogue or somehow not working exactly the way that it's supposed to?

Stark 从一开始就实施了北约的负责任使用 AI 原则。这意味着我们审计自己的系统，不仅由人类审计，还由保护层审计，这些保护层将 AI 限制在一个走廊内，以实施操作员的意图。这就是治理 Stark 整个自主栈的东西，在每个系统上，也在任务的每个阶段。所以，这些是硬编码的约束，取决于系统所在的位置——例如，如果它飞越某个居民区，它可能不会武装，作为一个例子。

Stark has, since the beginning, implemented NATO's principle of responsible use of AI. And that entails that we are auditing our own systems, not only by humans, but also by safeguard layers that safeguard the AI in a corridor to be restricted to implement the operator's intent. That is what governs the entire autonomy stack at Stark, at every system. And also at every stage of the mission. And so, those are hard-coded constraints that, depending on where the system is—for example, if it's flying over a particular inhabited area, it may not arm, as one example.

因此，有一些安全防护措施和 IEC 61508 标准，以及我们从自动驾驶领域借鉴的几项经验，这些都已经融入我们的自主系统中。

And so, there are certain safeguards and IEC 61508 and several things we borrowed from autonomous driving that we have learned and that also found its way into our autonomous systems.

更广泛地说，我知道自主性贯穿于产品和产品运营的方方面面。你能大致描述一下，当我们谈论自主系统时，它意味着什么吗？比如，AI 究竟在产品的哪个环节或运营中体现？

More generally, I know that autonomy is kind of interwoven throughout the product and the operations of the product. Can you kind of sketch out, like when we talk about autonomous systems, what does it mean? Like where does the AI actually show up in the product or in the operations of the product?

它体现在产品的每一个部分，也体现在任务的每一个环节。因此，每当需要做出决策时，无论是关于系统感知到什么、系统如何与环境互动，还是系统实际起飞前在地面上的任务规划。这是一个非常重要的方面，因为任务规划过去非常繁琐和漫长。

It shows up in every bit of the product, also in every part of the mission. And so, whenever there is a decision to be made, be it on what the system perceives, how the system interacts with its environment, also how the mission is planned on the ground before the system actually takes off. That's a very important aspect because, you know, mission planning is or used to be in the past very cumbersome and long.

是的，实际上我们能谈谈这个吗？AI 是如何进行任务规划的？有什么好的例子吗？

Yeah, actually can we talk about that? What like how does AI plan in plan a mission planning? What's a good example?

想象有一个目标来袭，非常实际的例子，操作员手头有三个系统可用。那么首先要做的决策是：我用多少个系统来应对这个目标？应对这个威胁最具成本效益的方式是什么？这就是第一个要做的决策。一旦做出权衡，在我们的案例中，地面控制系统 Minerva 会优化任务规划，以最准确、最具成本效益的方式应对这个威胁。

It's Imagine that there is a target coming in, very hands-on example, and that the operator has three systems at his or her disposal. And then the first decision to be made is how many systems do I shoot at this target? What's the most cost-effective way of addressing this threat? And so that's the first decision to be made. And then once that trade-off has been made, in our case the ground control system called Minerva optimizes the mission planning in order to address this threat accurately and most cost-effectively.

你看到了市场空白，于是进军打击无人机、海上无人机和其他产品。为什么现有的主要承包商，传统的主要承包商，没有同样想明白这一点？

You saw a gap in the markets and you went for strike drones, maritime drones, and other products. Why haven't existing primes, traditional primes, figured this out as well?

我认为他们在一定程度上做到了。有时多，有时少。有些公司倾向于这样做，而有些公司，包括一些与我们交流过的，说这根本不是我们的基因。我们不是那种制造廉价系统的组织。我们是一家专注于市场不同端的公司，有些公司正在尝试。我们欢迎这一点。我认为我们现在需要做的核心想法之一是启动一个竞争过程。我们想与那些人和他们的系统竞争，共同进步，对吧？我的意思是，归根结底我们都在同一个团队。所以有些在尝试，有些不太尝试，但我们欢迎各种竞争。

I think they do to a certain degree. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Some of them kind of leaned into this and some of them including some that speak to us say like that's just not our DNA. We're not an organization that builds cheap systems. We are a company that is focusing on different end of the market and some are trying. We welcome that. I think like one of the core ideas of what we need to do now is to start a competitive process. We want to compete against those people and their systems and jointly we'll get better, right? I mean, at the end of the day we're all on the same team. So some are trying, some are not so much, but we welcome all kinds of competition.

可以说他们比你有更多的资本。你如何看待这一点？

Arguably they have more capital than you. How do you think about that?

既是也不是。如果你看看，也许一个有趣的事实是，如果你只看我们未来 12、24、36 个月打算投入多少资本，总额大概是 6 亿欧元左右，远超过 5 亿美元，可能更多。这些都将投入研发和产品、生产能力建设。当你把它与欧洲大型主要承包商的研发支出规模相比，如果减去所有政府资助的研发支出，只看那些公司实际的核心研发支出，我们并不差太多。所以，这并不自动是好事。我们想保持灵活。我们想专注于我们的市场细分，但我们想做出有意义的贡献。我之前说的理解客户、精确打造客户想要的东西、从上士那里获得反馈，需要不同的培训、与他们迭代。这就是我们打算做的，我认为我们处于有利位置，有创业精神，现在手握资本，希望能建立西方防务架构的真正支柱。

Yes and no. If you look at and that's maybe an interesting fact, if you just look at how much capital we intend to invest over the next 12, 24, 36 months, it's a sum of probably something like 600 million euros, significantly more than half a billion dollars, potentially much more. That's all going to go into research and development and products, production capability built up. And when you just compare it to the orders of magnitude of spending, R&D spending of the big European primes, and if you subtract all the R&D spending that is government-funded, but the actual core R&D spending that those companies do, we're not way off. So, that's not automatically a good thing. We want to stay nimble. We want to focus on our segment of the market, but we want to do meaningful contribution. What I said earlier about understanding the customer, building exactly what the customer wants, getting that feedback from the staff sergeant, it needs to be different, training, iterating with them. That's what we intend to do, and I think we're in a good position, with a startup spirit, and now with the capital in our hands to hopefully build a real pillar of the Western defense architecture.

你提到了筹集的资本。你在两年内做了很多事。你还从零发展到 700 人。这是混乱吗？你如何应对这一切？

You mentioned the capital you raised. You have done a lot in 2 years. You also went from zero to 700 people in 2 years. Is it chaos? How do you handle all of it?

首先，公司的蓝图必须非常清晰。我们之前谈过这一点。第二，是的，增长总是伴随着权衡，有时需要做出艰难的决定。然而，这是一个非常可管理的过程。我们正在改进对人才的待遇，增长总是如此。总的来说，我们觉得蓝图运作得很好，但我们也必须清楚，我们正在帮助解决的问题是当下的。所以我们必须快速。我们必须现在取得进展。所以慢不是选项。因此，将这 700 人（不全是工程师，但大多数是工程师）分配到极其重要和有价值的项目上是关键。这就是我们着手要做的。我们到达终点了吗？当然没有。然而，我们非常决心在这些项目上取得成功。

So, first and foremost, the blueprints of the company need to be crystal clear. We spoke about that earlier. Number two is yes, growth always comes at the trade-off that there are sometimes hard decisions to be made. However, that is a process that is very manageable. We are improving towards our talent, growth is always. Generally, we feel that the blueprint works very well, but we also need to be clear that the problem that we're helping to solve is now. And so we have to be fast. We have to make a dent now. And so being slow is not an option. And so allocating these 700, not all engineers, but the majority are engineers to extremely important and valuable programs is key. And so on, this is what we set out to do. Are we at the end of the journey? Of course not. However, we're very determined to succeed in these programs.

你现在正在尝试解决一个非常困难的问题吗？路线图上有什么你还没弄明白的吗？

Is there a very hard problem you're trying to solve right now? Is there something but what's on the road map that you haven't figured out yet?

我们在乌克兰总是看到系统飞行得更快。这是我们正在跨越的，我们也在大量进入。我们看到算力变得更易获取。我们正在大量思考如何以安全的方式进一步推动系统上的 AI，但赋予它更多能力来处理，例如可调整以应对海上目标以及可能空中目标，而不仅仅是地面。我们正在进入多个领域，还有电磁空间。由于软件定义无线电和可负担的算力，电磁空间的传感器成本得以降低，正在发生大规模颠覆。这非常有趣。

So what we always see in Ukraine is that systems are flying faster. That is something that we are leapfrogging that we're going into as well a lot. We see that compute becomes more accessible. We're thinking a lot around how we can be further drive AI on the systems in a safe manner, but give it more capabilities to deal with to it be for example adjustable to targets that are on the naval side as well as maybe in the air, not only on the ground. There's various areas we're going into, but also in the electromagnetic space. There is a massive disruption happening thanks to software defined radios and affordable compute that allows to bring down costs for sensors of the electromagnetic space. That's extremely interesting.

我真的很感兴趣解决下一个大问题，对我来说就像是合同设计。因为我认为我们构建这些合同的方式有很大的威慑可能性。因为我们可以卖出数百、数千或可能数万、数十万个系统，这是一回事。但真正有趣的是，我们能否与政府、我们以及可能其他人达成一种合同设计，已经为我们需要的大规模扩张和 Scaling 做好了一切准备，如果有一天我们面临热战冲突。因为那将非常有趣。突然间，我们可能更多地像云合同那样思考，你知道，有激增等等。因为如果我们做到这一点，那可能就是真正威慑的来源。这不是关于这里或那里一个产品的个别能力。

I'm really interested in solving the next big thing for which for me is kind of like the contractual design. Because I think there's a big deterrence possibility in the way we structure those contracts. Because it's one thing that we sell hundreds or thousands or potentially tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of those systems. But what's really interesting is can we come to a contractual design between the government and us and potentially others actually, that already kind of like has everything in place for the massive search and scaling that we need if there's ever a hot conflict for us. Because that would be very interesting. All of a sudden we maybe think about this more in terms of like cloud contracts, you know, with surges and so on and so forth. Because if we get that done, that is probably where the real deterrence comes from. It's not about the individual capabilities of one product here or there.

那会是什么样子？所以，大概会有一些库存，但然后他们预付制造能力，这样一旦情况升温，你就能迅速启动。

What would that look like? So, there's some stockpile presumably, but then they pre-pay for manufacturing capacities and you can just spin up in the event something gets hot.

我是说，供应链是个大问题。系统的存储是个大问题。谁更新那些系统也是个大问题。你知道，如果你现在看一架无人机，电机大概能用 3 年，但软件可能应该每周用新的训练数据更新，等等。那么，我们如何构建所有这些？这对我来说非常有趣。因为我认为这是创造真正威慑的一种方式。

I mean, there's a big question about the supply chain. There's a big question about storage of systems. There's a big question about who updates those systems. You know, it's probably if you look at a drone at the moment, probably, you know, the motors, they're good for 3 years, but a software probably should be updated every week with new training data and so on and so forth. So, how do we structure all of that? That's something that's very interesting to me. Because that's one way how you can create real deterrence, I think.

西方世界有人搞明白这个了吗？

Has anyone in the Western world figured this out?

我不认为一定有人搞明白了。没有蓝图。我们在采购和产品开发中所做的一切也是如此。没有成百上千的人做过这件事，然后他们现在可以直接教我们。我认为我们都在共同学习。顺便说一句，这跨越了双方。比如政府方面、军事方面、工业方面。我确实认为有一种乐观精神，就是好吧，我们需要弄清楚一些事情，因为我们还没有正确的工具集。但本着这种精神，我认为我们需要共同解决。我不认为有人有完美的剧本。事情是这样的。就照这个复制。我们还没有。但这让整个事情如此令人兴奋。它处于技术可能性的前沿。这非常明显是在那些战斗中生存所必需的。把这两件事结合起来，就像是让我们能够做出真正的贡献，继续和平地生活。

I don't think so necessarily. There's not a blueprint. The same goes for all things that we do in procurement and in all things we do in product development. There's not like hundreds of people who have done this and now they can just teach us. I think we all learn together. And that by the way kind of crosses both sides. Like with the on the government side, on the military side, on the industrial side. I do think there is like an optimistic spirit of okay, we need to figure out a few things because we don't have the right tool set just yet. But in that spirit, I think we need to solve it together. I don't think somebody has the perfect playbook. Here's how it's done. Just copy this. We don't have that yet. But it makes the whole thing so exciting. It's at the forefront of what's technologically possible. It is very clearly what's required to be able to survive in those battles. And bringing those two things together is kind of like allowing us to make a real contribution to kind of like continue to live in peace.

公司的使命是什么？

What is the mission of the company?

使命很明确，我们希望成为欧洲和西方防务架构的绝对支柱之一。这意味着，是的，我们希望成为一家规模可观的公司，专门提供我们谈到的那些能力。但我们也希望帮助协调一个真正的创新生态系统。我们希望成为他人的良好合作者。我们希望与大型公司、小型公司、同行、所有人合作。因为我们认为公司的这一使命与我们所有的使命紧密相连。对我来说，非常重要的是要强调，我们希望成为支柱，当然，我们希望成为主导支柱，但这不是一个单靠一家公司就能实现的使命。

The mission is quite clearly we want to be one of the absolute pillars of our European and Western defense architecture. And that means yes, we want to be a sizeable company that specifically delivers the capabilities that we talked about. But we also want to help orchestrate a real innovation ecosystem. We want to be a good collaborator with other people. We want to work with the large ones, the small ones, our peers, with everybody. Because we think about the one mission for the company is very closely linked to all of our mission. That's very important for me to stress that we want to be a pillar of the, you know, we want to be a dominating pillar, of course, but it's not a mission that can be achieved by one single company alone.

那么，如果你们实现了使命，5 年或 10 年后我们坐在这里，Stark 会是什么样子？欧洲会是什么样子？世界会是什么样子？

Well, and if you do achieve the mission and we're sitting here 5 or 10 years from now, what does Stark look like? What does Europe look like? What does the world look like?

我认为欧洲将再次成为美国更好的伙伴，你知道，希望会有跨大西洋合作的新篇章。欧洲是一个有帮助的、强大的、有原则的盟友，彼此之间以及对美国和其他世界伙伴都是如此。希望我们生活在更和平的时代，回到几年前的世界的样子，希望我们已经缓和了世界上的一些战争和局势，而其他局势从未爆发。

I think Europe will become a better partner for the US again, you know, there will be hopefully a new chapter of transatlantic cooperation. Europe is a helpful, strong, you know, principled ally to among each other and towards the US and other partners in the world. And we live hopefully in more peaceful times where we go back to how the world was a few years ago and hopefully we have de-escalated some of the wars and situations out the world and others have never flared up.

太棒了。Uwe、Johannes，感谢你们的参与。

Amazing. Uwe, Johannes, thank you for joining us.

非常感谢。

Thank you so much.

谢谢。

Thank you.