Just Thoughts #52: VC Supercycles, and platform creating founders.
Converging worlds of defense technology, digital freedom, and cryptographic integrity, drawing insights from personal networks, social media, AI research & leading podcasts
Welcome, reader! The first rule of Just Thoughts is, “Why should I think that way?”
Welcome readers! I’ve been running around my network, looking for answers to content creation needs. Demoing capabilities, using inputs to construct different types of content, and simply catching up while doing so.
Additionally, I’m refining my pitch to “Canva for long-format content,” a focus I’ve been pursuing for two years now, both with and without the use of AI. I’m happy to say, my pitches don’t end up in “what’s this?” They end up in “I need this” or “I don’t need this.”
Chatting with now long-time friend Lars Lydersen, whom I went on a live with before, I asked, “How are possible future L&Ps going to know about your brilliance if you’re not creating content?”. To which he said, “Very Good question”.
In this edition of Just Thoughts, Lars shares what keeps him up at night. The content is created with Storycrafter.io’s content engine. I conclude with another reflection on consumed content, specifically Lex’s interview with Telegram founder Pavel Durov.
I had to include this as Lars has a PhD in quantum cryptography and was part of the team that hacked the unhackable quantum computer, in contrast to how Pavel avidly speaks about the cryptography technology that Telegram has built.
Headlines in this edition:
I See the Defense Tech Supercycle. I Worry About What It Crowds Out
Addressing the challenge
A Founder Escaping Governments
The Audio Overview for your convenience.
I See the Defense Tech Supercycle. I Worry About What It Crowds Out.
I don’t sleep that well these days. The world feels less stable, and my corner of it, early-stage investing, is shifting fast. I’m writing this because I want to be honest about what I’m seeing and clearer about how I think we should respond.
From my line of work, the shift toward defense tech is enormous. A few years ago, most funds wouldn’t touch it. Today, generalist firms are revising their mandates to include it, and new funds are forming around it from the outset. That doesn’t happen by accident. Geopolitics, procurement reforms, and capital markets have converged to make large-scale defense investment possible. Founders see pathways to revenue. LPs see uncorrelated returns. Policymakers see urgent needs. On a narrow timeline, a lot of that makes sense.
But when I zoom out, I can’t escape the tradeoff. As a species, we only have so much bandwidth. Every engineer, researcher, operator, and dollar we devote to keeping people safe from each other is a resource not applied to feeding them, healing them, educating them, or decarbonizing their world. I’m not denying the need for security; I’m asking us to be deliberate about the opportunity cost.
I sometimes think about the Cold War. There was enormous employment in intelligence, missile systems, and nuclear deterrence. Portions of that were necessary to keep the world from tearing itself apart. And yet the most enduring prosperity came from the spillovers we chose to cultivate: semiconductors, networking, space, logistics. The lesson isn’t to romanticize militarization; it’s to be surgical about converting wartime urgency into long-term, compounding civilian benefit.
Addressing the challenge
First, I start with the data I can see. Mandates are changing. Dual-use is now a standard descriptor on pitch decks, not a disclaimer. Procurement times are compressing in some categories. New primes are emerging at the seed and Series A stages. The pipeline is real. That’s the factual backdrop, not hype, not hand-waving.
Second, I map the time horizons. Some defense investments are inherently short-term risk management: sensors, EW, munition manufacturing, hardened comms. They can be vital and still be net drains on long-run human flourishing if we don’t channel their capabilities into civilian systems over time. Others are naturally compounding: autonomy that reduces logistics accidents, satellite networks that expand climate monitoring, and cybersecurity that defaults to protecting hospitals and schools. I’m biased toward the latter and cautious with the former unless there is a credible path to a peace-time dividend.
Third, I diligently ask different questions. Beyond TAM, CAC, and gross margins, I want to know:
Does this technology reduce tail risks for civilians, or does it primarily escalate capabilities between adversaries?
Are there apparent civilian spillovers within five to seven years, not merely theoretical future pivots?
What governance is built in: export controls, misuse safeguards, red-team processes, kill switches?
If it succeeds, does it leave us more resilient in non-military domains, such as food, energy, health, and information integrity?
What off-ramps exist? Can this company serve as a logistics platform, a climate data service, and a protector of critical infrastructure in the event of geopolitical shifts?
Fourth, I try to allocate attention, mine and our portfolio’s, like a steward, not a trend-chaser. It’s tempting to ride the supercycle. It’s harder to hold space for founders tackling the slow, compounding problems: water systems, grid stability, biosecurity, epidemic response, soil health, education quality, and financial inclusion. Those don’t always benefit from urgency, but they define the baseline of human flourishing. When we outsource our imagination to the crisis of the day, we mortgage that baseline.
If you’re a founder building in defense, here’s my ask: design for the peace dividend now. Show how your autonomy stack reduces waste in civilian logistics. Demonstrate how your space domain awareness improves disaster response and crop planning. Prove your cyber tooling can harden municipal networks and hospital systems by default. Build with safeguards, and be explicit about where you won’t sell. It will make you more fundable, more durable, and more aligned with the world most of us want to live in.
If you’re an investor, I’d challenge you to rebalance your criteria. It’s not either/or. You can underwrite deterrence while prioritizing technologies that compound outside the battlespace. Set portfolio guardrails: establish a percentage for long-term civilian resilience, require dual-use to be more than a slide, commit to governance, and include misuse mitigation as part of your value creation plan. Bring LPs into that conversation. Most of them care about outcomes beyond IRR; they’re just waiting for you to articulate the framework.
And if you’re in policy or procurement, continue to focus on clarity and speed where they save lives, but pair them with clear targets for minimizing civilian spillovers and ensuring interoperability, and fund open standards. Incentivize dual-use pathways. Require reporting on non-military applications as part of contract performance. When you do, you pull the entire ecosystem toward stewardship.
I’m not naive. The world is tense. Some of this spending is essential. But essential isn’t the same as sufficient, and urgency is not a strategy. The job, as I see it, is to make sure today’s necessary investments don’t trap us in tomorrow’s permanent mobilization. The real victory is a safer world that is also better fed, healthier, more educated, and more sustainable, because we chose to compound the right capabilities.
I still don’t sleep that well. But I sleep better on the days when I’ve backed a team that moves us toward that future. If this resonates, whether you’re building, funding, or shaping policy, reach out. Let’s put our limited bandwidth where it stretches human flourishing the farthest, for the longest.
On this note, I am also pleased to see that our local scene is embracing this trend and is organizing a “Intro to Defense & Dual Use” event this coming week.
A Founder Escaping Governments
This week also featured another edition of Just Thoughts, covering the latest books on entrepreneurship for the local startup scene here in Finland. Among other remarks, I note that the most prominent entrepreneurial names of our time are those who build or acquire communication platforms, such as Elon Musk.
Just Thoughts #51: The Book's, The Hype, and What We Missed Along the Way
Welcome, reader! The first rule of Just Thoughts is, “Why should I think that way?”
The Russian equivalent is Pavel Durov, founder of Telegram, who has 1 billion users worldwide. Listening to the podcast, I couldn’t help but think we’ve found the guy in this chart.
Hyper competitive, extremely intelligent. However, I couldn’t help but also think that maybe this wasn't actually him; maybe Lex had recorded him for two weeks and was discussing with Pavel’s AI twin. After all, he’s the only tech CEO governments have detained for user behavior on the platform he owns, and in the face of this threat, he’s doing a few things brilliantly;
He does not mention the Russian government as a threat, even if it’s highly likely they're the ones after him.
He does not disclose his biological children; instead, he says there are hundreds because he’s a sperm donor (removing attention towards offspring as a means of blackmail)
Makes himself untouchable by saying he has nothing to lose and does not fear death. Killing him would make him a martyr at this point.
Although he has apparently visited Finland to do some lake swimming, showing true Finnish sisu, there are a few areas he could improve.
1) A man without vices who is not a religious leader sparks distrust. Even Barack Obama admits to smoking weed, Pavel, it’s ok to live a little, and it will make you more likable.
2) No matter how much you discuss privacy, your open-source advocacy, and pro-on-chain mentality, Telegram is not, by default, end-to-end encrypted, and the core encryption technology is not open-sourced. Simply ignoring that Signal & Moxi existing shows the hyper competitiveness. You can double-check the facts on this Perplexity search, but Lex was being intentionally biased by not mentioning this.
3) Countries banned Telegram for being the messaging platform driving political discourse, that’s influence, that’s power. There is also no doubt that Telegram is an innovator, with a proven track record of engineering mastery, and a pioneer in many features. However, in Asia, governments are being toppled, and elections are held with the help of Discord. Again, a failure to recognize competition.
On that topic, all hail the Straw Hat Pirate flag, and the fact that history class will have to include an explanation of the anime series “One Piece” to explain why the series' protagonist's pirate flag is used as a symbol of revolution across the Asian Pacific.
Finally, unrelated, but a fact that needs updating based on this interview: Pavel confirms there are 40 employees at Telegram.
You need to update your AI leaderboard to reflect Telegram having 40 employees, not 30.
Until next time, keep thinking and keep questioning! Upcoming content will feature interviews with five operators & founders to provide a holistic view of GTM. Subscribe not to miss an edition of Just Publication!
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It's interesting how you contrast Lars's quantum cryptography insights with Durovs claims; could you elaborate on the practical implications of 'hacking the unhackable' for everyday secure platforme?