# DARPA breakthroughs need a company to reach warfighters

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/darpa-breakthroughs-need-a-company-to-reach-warfighters/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Byron Boots](https://realalpha.app/people/byron-boots/) · Byron Boots is cofounder and CEO of Overland AI; professor at the University of Washington.
- Host: [Shawn Ryan](https://realalpha.app/people/shawn-ryan/) · Host, The Shawn Ryan Show
- Show: The Shawn Ryan Show
- Episode: [Byron Boots - 5 People Could Control an Army of 500 Autonomous Vehicles | SRS #336](https://realalpha.app/v/_gGLTmJJjGA/), Sep 3, 2026
- Moment: 50:15 to 58:06 of the episode (8 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/darpa-breakthroughs-need-a-company-to-reach-warfighters/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/_gGLTmJJjGA/?t=3015

## Takeaways

1. DARPA programs can end before a capability reaches troops.
2. Overland licensed university-developed technology to build on it.
3. VC funding helped turn research code into a reliable product.

## About this segment

DARPA funds breakthroughs, but only about 4% reach warfighters. Byron Boots explains how Overland licensed university research and turned it into a commercial product.

From “Byron Boots - 5 People Could Control an Army of 500 Autonomous Vehicles | SRS #336”, Sep 3, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/_gGLTmJJjGA/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[50:19](https://realalpha.app/v/_gGLTmJJjGA/?t=3019) Yeah, like, this is a really good question, actually, because the way that DARPA normally works, you know, they have these programs where they're trying to develop new technology. In this case, develop ground vehicle autonomy for the U.S. military, so for our soldiers and Marines. But often in a DARPA program, even if the program is very successful, like ours was how do you actually take that technology and then get it into the hands of the warfighter like how do you actually do that um it's a good question and very few people succeed so the this is known as like transition transitioning like a new capability that's developed from DARPA to the actual warfighter is something like four percent of technologies ever actually get transitioned. So just because you succeed in developing a new capability doesn't mean that the

[51:17](https://realalpha.app/v/_gGLTmJJjGA/?t=3077) warfighter gets that capability. This is actually why we created Overland AI. We were like in this program and we had this new capability and we were just like, this is incredible. We can drive extremely fast off road. We can do it in a variety of different types of vehicles. We have the thing that DARPA wanted us to produce, like we actually did it. Now how can the warfighter benefit? And so we felt that the most promising way of making that transition was to spin off a company that...

[52:00](https://realalpha.app/v/_gGLTmJJjGA/?t=3120) We then take the capability that we developed as part of this DARPA program, commercialize it, so turn it into a robust, reliable, commercial autonomy stack, and then sell that back to the Army and Marine Corps so that they could use it on their programs, so on their vehicles, and so that war fighting units could start to work with this technology and start to integrate it into tactics. So that's why we created Overland AI.

[52:32](https://realalpha.app/v/_gGLTmJJjGA/?t=3152) Like, we thought the Army, like, this is just going to disappear if we don't do this. So why would they fund the... Did they fund the research? Yeah, so DARPA funded all of this, like, to develop the capability, but just because DARPA... Then they just shelf it? So then what has to happen is, like, the Army and the Marine Corps or whoever, like, one of the services, has to then put up money to be able to then, like, buy and transition that technology.

[53:05](https://realalpha.app/v/_gGLTmJJjGA/?t=3185) From DARPA or from you? Yeah. So the way that DARPA works is that these DARPA programs are generally four years long. They have a time limit. And that's part of the point. It gives you a very focused window in time to just do whatever it takes to try to develop this new technology. But at the end of those four years, that program is over and you have to find someone who is then going to support the continuation of that technology, you know, to move it into warfighting units, right?

[53:41](https://realalpha.app/v/_gGLTmJJjGA/?t=3221) So, like, you've created it. Now someone has to continue to, like, transfer it, to get it onto military vehicles, to push it into units. And that's where a lot of these programs die because you create the technology, but you can't, that no one picks it up like when it's over. I would think there would be, so this is, I mean, what would you call this? Like an incubator? Like you get picked to get funding to be an incubator and then DARPA doesn't even, they don't own the actual.

[54:16](https://realalpha.app/v/_gGLTmJJjGA/?t=3256) Well, they do. They own the IP. Do you also own the IP? Yeah, so the way that this works is like when, so DARPA pays for the development of, you know, this core technology. In this case, I'm running a lab at the University of Washington. So they pay the University of Washington to develop the IP. When they do that, that IP belongs to both DARPA and the University of Washington, right? Because, you know, DARPA pays for a university to develop it.

[54:50](https://realalpha.app/v/_gGLTmJJjGA/?t=3290) You know, both parties essentially own that IP. But once you have that IP, in this case, it is like raw technology, right? Like it is research grade code that can demonstrate this capability that will allow a vehicle to drive fast, but it's not going to be reliable in the same way that, you know, like a Waymo is where you have a whole team of engineers that is making production quality code. So they own that, like they own the like basic capability and they own that IP, but that then has to be taken and turned into essentially a commercial, production-ready piece of software.

[55:44](https://realalpha.app/v/_gGLTmJJjGA/?t=3344) It's almost like a rough draft. I would think there would be... But then someone has to kind of pay for that transition. And that's often, again, where these programs end up having problems, where you develop a new technology, but then who... adopts it who actually transitions it to the to the warfighter are these classified i mean i would just are these classified i would think there would be venture capital firms galore just surrounding these projects well yeah yeah so so sometimes yes right for only four percent make it to the warfighter that's 96 percent of projects like oh yeah let me yeah so so but but in some sense that's actually what happened here right because we said okay like we're gonna take this IP, we license it, right? So that IP is licensed to Overland AI. We created this company to

[56:36](https://realalpha.app/v/_gGLTmJJjGA/?t=3396) essentially take that IP and then turn it into a commercial autonomy stack that, you know, is reliable and we keep building on it, we keep improving it, and then we can transition that back to the warfighters. So Overland AI got its start by focusing on the software portion of this, right? Take these good ideas that were developed during DARPA, you know, we licensed that IP at Overland, we build on top of it, we turned it into a commercial autonomy stack, and now we have this software that you can put onto a vehicle to make that vehicle autonomous. And we had worked with, you know, different types of vehicles. We discussed like the side-by-side or like, you know, the big Textron M5 that we can make autonomous. You know, we really wanted to develop software which would work on any vehicle that the military had.

[57:31](https://realalpha.app/v/_gGLTmJJjGA/?t=3451) And so Overland was stood up to do that. And to your point about VCs, we're a VC-backed company, right? So they're essentially making that bet that you're saying, it's like, okay, we can step in, provide additional funding to turn this into a mature product that can then be transitioned over to the warfighter. But now you're in defense tech territory, right? where you now have to fight all of these battles to go from this good core idea or good core IP