The Defense Tech Startup YC Kicked Out of a Meeting is Now Arming America | E2280

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Today’s show:

The US military is running low on missiles, but now, Firehawk Aerospace is using 3D-printed solid rocket propellant to cut production costs in half and 5x U.S. output.

Plus: PhD researcher Maruchi Kim just built camera-equipped earbuds that perform on par with Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses and could be the next wearable AI platform hiding in plain sight.

Guests

Will Edwards: https://x.com/williewockets

Firehawk Aerospace: https://firehawkdefense.com/

Maruchi Kim: https://x.com/maruchikim

VueBuds project: https://vuebuds.cs.washington.edu/

Related Links

This Week in AI: https://www.thisweekinai.ai/

“Ghost Murmur: The Heartbeat-Tracking Tech That Has Experts Questioning the Laws of Physics”: https://www.military.com/feature/2026/04/18/ghost-murmur-heartbeat-tracking-tech-has-experts-questioning-laws-of-physics.html

Neurometric: https://www.neurometric.ai/

Meta Ray-Bans: https://www.meta.com/ai-glasses/

Hanwha Defense USA: https://www.hanwhadefenseusa.com/

Raytheon: https://www.rtx.com/

Pilatus PC-24 corporate jet: https://www.pilatus-aircraft.com/en/pc-24

PlaneSense: https://www.planesense.com/

Slopes app: https://slopesapp.com/

Speechify: https://speechify.com/

Electronic Frontier Foundation: https://www.eff.org/

Timestamps:

0:00 Are all these layoffs really AI's fault?

8:51 Why laid off people should start their own companies

9:27 Northwest Registered Agent - Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity — Learn more at https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twist

13:18 Plaud: If your work depends on conversations — interviews, meetings, calls — you need a Plaud NotePin. You can check it out at https://Plaud.ai/twist and use code TWIST for 10% off!

15:25 Will Edwards of Firehawk joins the show

15:46 What are Solid Rocket Motors (SRMs)?

20:06 Render: Find out why 5 million developers are already using the all-in-one cloud platform, Render. Go to https://render.com/twist and apply for the Render Startup Program to get $500-$100,000 in free credits, depending on your stage and backers.

23:10 Who are Firehawk's customers?

24:25 Reimagining and reinventing the US military

28:35 How do missiles fit into the military's operations?

29:34 Agree - Stop chasing invoices at https://agree.com and tell them Jason sent you to get 50% off for life!

31:01 What's next on the roadmap for Firehawk?

31:49 How to make propellant (with easy to find ingredients)

33:13 A cheaper way to fly private

38:03 Ro.co: Ro's insurance checker will let you know if your coverage includes GLP-1s for FREE. Go to https://Ro.co/Twist for your free insurance check.

40:48 Maruchi Kim of Vuebuds joins the show!

44:35 Why are VueBuds better than meta glasses?

46:23 The biggest VueBud use cases

48:09 Jason wants to use VueBuds on the slopes

55:38 Jason's advice for angel investors: never underestimate anyone!

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